She pulled out her phone and began to press numbers.
“Who are you calling?” I asked.
Bzzzzz! “Ow!”
She closed the phone. “You weren’t kidding.”
I put my finger in her face. “I hate you.”
“You can’t hate me, honey, ’cause I’m the only one who can help you right now.” She held her hands up with palms facing the ceiling in a gesture that made me homicidal.
“What are you going to do, pull it out?” I spat.
She snorted. “I don’t midwife smartphones. Have you tried pulling it out?”
“Of course I’ve tried pulling it out. I fit my entire fucking fist up there.”
“Whoa—didn’t need to know that. TMI.”
“Oh, and it’s not TMI to tell you that I have an entire smartphone shoved up my hoohaw?”
“Did you, like, go in there and try to use something to pull it out?”
“Like what, salad tongs?”
“Well?” she said, making a face like it was something to consider.
“I have squatted over the toilet, I have reached up with my own hand, I have borne down, I have squirted enough lube inside me to have sex every day for the next five years and not feel a fucking thing. I’ve tried everything, Darla, trust me. You don’t walk around with a smartphone shoved up there and not try everything.”
She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Have you done a kegel?”
I did one involuntarily on the spot. “Yes, why? That’ll just keep it in more, not push it out.”
“No, I just wonder if you could open an app with the right kegels, you know, like, work those muscles and maybe do some Pilates things, and you know, see if you could…”
“Get out.”
She held up her hands. “It’s funny! You’ve gotta admit it’s funny, Amy.”
“I don’t have to admit anything. I have an entire phone in my va-gi-na.”
“Yeah,” she said, suddenly somber. “You do,” she added, pulling her phone out again.
“Don’t you dare buzz me.”
“I’m not gonna buzz you, but I am going to make a phone call that’s going to help you.”
“Who’re you going to call?”
“A doctor.”
“A doctor? I don’t want a…”
“Amy,” she said kindly, putting her hand on my shoulder. “You need to go to the ER.”
“Noooo.” I’d wiggled my way over to the bathroom. If I had a bathtub I could soak and try to get this thing out, but all I had was a shower. I couldn’t go to the ER. It would show up on my insurance forms and my mom would ask me why, and – the horror. I was about to become a Facebook urban legend. “All I wanted was to masturbate and dream about sex with a hot guy,” I cried.
“Isn’t that what we all just want?,” Darla said, philosophically. “Don’t you have any other sex toys, though? Maybe that…”
“I can’t find them. I have this whole collection, but I moved, and without my trusty Rabbit I…”
Her hand went back up. “Okay, again...TMI.”
“You asked!”
“All right, fair enough, I did ask.” She hunched her shoulders up in defense. “So you downloaded an app and used your phone?”
“Yeah.”
“Aaaaannnd… you pushed…”
“Yeah,” I said.
“And then what?”
“I don’t want to say,” I groaned. “I don’t want to say what happened next.”
“What? You wanted some feeling in…”
“Yeah.” I waved my hands away. “Now this is TMI.”
“Well, I kinda have to know.”
“Why do you have to know?”
“You’re right, I don’t have to know,” she admitted. “But you need to go to an ER.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I just can’t.”
“But Amy, you have to.” She flipped her phone open again.
“So who are you calling?” I groaned.
“My aunt.”
“Your aunt?”
“Shush. I know a doctor who’s a gynecologist, and he might be able to help. Give me a minute.” She dialed a few numbers and then waited. “Hey, Josie,” she said. “Yeah, On my way. Running a little late, I had to…I have to….” She looked over at me with a sideways glance. “There’s something I have to take care of. Is Alex on call anywhere right now? Or workin’ a shift at any of the hospitals? Oh, yeah? He is? Yeah, you know which one? All right. Yeah, you think I can give him a call? Phone’s the same? Yep. Okay. Um, it’s, well, it’s nothing you have to worry about. No. No, I don’t have anything that requires antibiotics. No. Yes, they use con-...yes, we are careful all the time. No, I’m not pregnant.”Her shoulders slumped. “I just, I have a friend who needs help with something he can help with. Yes, a friend. No, I’m not using the word ‘friend’ as code.” Darla’s eyes rolled so high in her sockets that she could have changed the light bulb in the light fixture. “All right, fine, thanks. Bye.”
“Your aunt has great faith in you,” I said.
“You have a phone in your vagina. You do not get to make fun of people,” she said back.
She had a point. I shut up while she made another phone call, to this guy, Alex.
“Yeah. Alex? Hey, it’s Darla. Yeah, you workin’? Yeah, I have a friend who has a, um, delicate gynecological issue. No, she’s really a friend, it’s not me. Yes. Do you and Josie telepathically communicate to torment me?”
Her face soured, then lightened up. “Fine. Yes, I am asking you for a favor for my friend. So, could...is there a way to come to your hospital and get her seen in a way that might be kept quiet? Yeah, can you help? All right, what should I do? Okay, text you when we get there? All right. Okay. I’ll owe you. Yeah, I know. I know. I know! Okay, thanks. Thanks, Alex. Bye.”
And just like that, in two conversations, Darla began to fix my giant mess.
“First, honey, we need to get a cab and take you to the hospital where Alex works. He said if we can get there quickly, he’ll meet us at the desk and find a quiet exam room where he can take care of you.”
“Take care of me? Who is Alex?”
“Dr. Alex. He’s a gynecologist, you know. An OB. And he’s your only hope.”
“You say that like he’s Obi Wan Kenobi.”
She snorted. “For you, he is. How else do you think you’re going to pry that piece of metal and glass out of your delicate bits without having anyone know? It’s not like we can call Mike Rowe and have him yank it out with a plumber’s wrench.”
We winced in unison.
“You get my meaning. Alex is my aunt’s boyfriend. He might just be able to keep this all on the down low for you. Isn’t that what you want?”
I considered it. I did a mental inventory: I knew where my insurance card was, I had plenty of cab fare on me, I could call a cab in less than five…call a cab. Jesus. I could NOT call a cab, because Siri was pressed against my cervix, and I didn’t want her to read out transit company options.
This was sooooo not sexy. Dear God, I pleaded. Let me push really hard one more time and let it slide out and I will never, ever use another sex toy for my entire life. Ever. Please.
Amen.
I bore down like a woman giving birth—or like I imagined a woman pushed—and held my breath.
“What are you doing?” Darla asked in alarm, bending down to grab my hand as I squatted and grunted.
“Birthing iOS7,” I sputtered.
“A new version will be an improvement,” she remarked, pulling back.
Nothing. If anything—ouch—the phone lodged even further at a funny angle, shoving against my cervix now in a decidedly unpleasant way. Fuck.
I was being fucked by a phone that I’d used to pleasure myself.
This couldn’t be real.
“Too bad I don’t have a smartphone,” Darla said sadly.
“What do you mean?”
“We could video chat right now. Me and your—”
“Karma’s going to get you for this!” I barked.
The door beckoned, and I couldn’t move. Walking out that door meant acknowledging that this was really happening, that I—Amy—the intelligent girl who was erudite and smart had actually masturbated with a phone and somehow shoved the whole goddamned thing in my twat.
I mean, really.
Seriously? I had done that. I had, all in a frenzy over Sam.
This was alllllll his fault.
Right? If he hadn’t been so open, so warm, and with that mouth on me, I wouldn’t have had the throbbing, wouldn’t have needed more release, wouldn’t have—
Bzzzzzzz. I jumped a foot in the air, landing funny on one foot and making fireworks of pain spark in my visual field as I landed.
What the fuck?
Darla was texting me. “Earth to Amy!”
“WHY ARE YOU TORTURING ME? QUIT TEXTING.”
She cackled, folding her flip phone and shoving it in a back pocket. “Got your attention.”
“You could have said, ‘Excuse me, Amy,’ like any normal human being.”
“My inner sadist can’t help it.” She pointed to the door. “You can’t wait. Alex is only on shift for a short time. We gotta go.”
A whine rose up from my belly, flurried and panicked. “I don’t want to leave. There has to be another way!” One tender step forward and I gasped in shock from how much this hurt. Practical Amy kicked in. This could be causing permanent damage.
Time to admit defeat.
“You have to call the cab,” I told Darla.
“Might be faster to just text Liam and ask him to give us a ride,” she said, reaching for her phone.
“ARE YOU CRAZY?” I shouted.
“OK, no Liam,” she said through pursed lips, eyes shifting left and right as if realizing her error.
I made it to my front door and breathed with little pants of air. It helped with the pain.
“You really sound like a woman on one of those birthing shows,” Darla said brightly, standing a foot away and occasionally putting her hands out to help, then snatching them back as if she were dealing with an unpredictable animal that might bite.
“Stuff a pillow up my shirt and get me a doula.”
“I think I’m your doula, Amy,” she said as I locked the deadbolt from the hallway and lurched down the long corridor to the stairs, cursing every step.
“My smartphone doula?” The stairs were surprisingly easy to manage as long as I visualized my vagina as a field of broken beer bottles.
“You can name the baby Siri.”
“Shut up.”
With wide eyes and a hand over her heart, as if offended, Darla reached slowly for her flip phone, opened it and—
Bzzzzzz.
“Fuck you,” I whispered as I stopped in place and rode it out, eyes watering from overwhelm and humiliation.
We reached the street and a cab magically appeared as if Darla had called it via bat signal. We climbed in, Darla with remarkable dexterity and speed, me like an old lady with a colostomy bag and a bad case of herpes.
