My mother-in-law lent me her vibrator – a sexy piece of #5MinuteFiction

Maybe it’s because the clocks have changed. Maybe it’s because I’m not out at a glamorous soiree. Maybe it’s because I’m a shameless self-promoter (cf). Whatever the reason, I finally organised myself to take part in Leah Peterson‘s Twitter contest #5MinuteFiction. It was hosted today at the lovely web home of JM Frey and I writted some more about Christa and Miles who are rapidly turning into my favourite characters. Oh, and the challenge was to incorporate the writing prompt ‘Decade’.

+++++

It was bad enough, Christa thought, that her mother-in-law had caught her ‘having a moment’ in the bath with a shampoo bottle. She cursed Miles for the tenth time since arriving at the hotel for inviting his mother on vacation. But this? This was something else.

She stared at the pillow, hoping the thing would go away. It was black and gold and about ten inches long. Black plastic was beginning to show through the decayed ridges at the side. It was slightly curved at the tip, like a banana. There was a folded note beneath, on hotel letterhead. The handwriting was spidery and elegant:

“Chrissie, darling, I just couldn’t bear the thought of you using that awful bottle. This is Marvin. He’s served me faithfully for decades. Just give him a wash when you’re done. Pattie Vanderveldt.”

Christa pressed a pillow over her face. She wasn’t sure what was worse – the idea that her mother-in-law would lend out her own much-used vibrator, or that she had critiqued Christa’s masturbation technique. And “Marvin”? Wasn’t that the name of Miles’s first pet dog?

She could just throw it away and deny all knowledge. A maid might have taken it. But that wouldn’t work. Christa could picture the aged Mrs V telling the hotel manager in her loudest voice, “Black and gold and about ten inches and it’s called Marvin. He’s been with the Vanderveldt family for generations and now my daughter-in-law has lost him.” And the guests in the lobby would look at her and wonder where she managed to lose ten inches of fake cock.

‘Marvin’ went in the bottom of the suitcase, next to Miles’s anniversary present, a pair of tin cufflinks. He had got her a tin can opener. Some joke – that was what he thought of her after ten years of marriage. Perhaps Mrs V was on to something.