Dawn Bradford’s phone alarm went off at seven on Thursday morning. She smacked at it and snoozed it.

When it went off again five minutes later, she turned it off and sat up in bed. She slept naked, believing the research that it helped a person embrace a deeper sleep. Also, she thought it was a sexy thing to do. The sheet and blanket slipped off her chest, revealing her nude torso below her disheveled blonde hair. With her eyes closed, she stared at the blankness of the inside of her eyelids. They glowed orange, her blood coloring the slight morning light that seeped through.

She got her robe, slumped to the kitchen, and squinted at the bright, overhead lights that attacked her sleepy eyes with their assault of photons. “Why are the lights so bright?” she asked her housemate, who was sitting at the kitchen table.

“Morning, sunshine,” Maggy Schwartz said in her mild German-Swiss accent between sips of her coffee. She had dark auburn hair; almond-shaped, forest green eyes; and sleek fingers, which wrapped around the mug.

Dawn turned off the overhead lights, and when the kitchen was filled with the soft, cool blue of a still-distant sunrise, she creaked opened her eyes. “Seriously, what’s your deal?”

Maggy laughed. “I just wanted to make sure that you remember what today is. I made coffee—on the counter.”

Dawn shuffled her bare feet over to a half-full French press. She liked coffee, but unlike most others, for her, caffeine wasn’t a medical requirement. “Thanks, what’s the occasion?”

“Don’t you remember?” Maggy said with a great smile, then she bit her bottom lip while she appreciated Dawn’s curves pressing against the thin robe.

“No, I don’t rememb-oh fuck. Ugh, fuck,” she said while fumbling with a mug from the cupboard.

“Yeah, there you go.” Maggy said with a chuckle. She got up and stood beside her sulking friend, then reached an arm around her and squeezed.

Dawn closed her eyes and dropped her head backward, groaning.

“I got you a present to make it better,” Maggy said as she set her head on Dawn’s shoulder.

Dawn groaned louder while dumping the coffee into her mug, but her lips curled into a grin. Her mind was elsewhere, and she almost overfilled her cup.

Maggy sighed with satisfaction and stepped away. A moment later, she called out to Dawn. “Turn around and see.”

“Why me,” Dawn said as she used all her willpower to keep herself from laughing at her own silly misfortune. She turned to see Maggy holding her hands behind her back. “Okay. What is it?”

While Maggy studied Dawn’s face, mentally recording every expression for later recall, she brought her hands in front of her and held them open.

In that moment, Dawn’s eyes opened the widest that they would open all day. In Maggy’s hands was a matte-black, silicone, thick, weighted, flanged, butt plug. Dawn shook her head as she chuckled nervously. “That’s too big.”

“Oh, it’s thinner than a cock, or at least a decent cock. Besides, this one is sooo nice. Feel it.”

Dawn sipped her coffee, which was black, just like her new sex toy. “That looks like one of yours.”

“It’s the same kind, but I didn’t give you mine, if that’s what you’re wondering. Although, if you run them in the dishwasher, they’re perfectly sanitized if you ever wanted to borrow something to complete an outfit.”

It was too early for Dawn to imagine such an unlikely scenario, so she walked past Maggy and sat at the table.

Maggy sat next to her. “Feel it already.”

She took it and turned it over in her hand. “Oh, that’s… Huh.” A pair of stainless-steel balls were sealed inside the plug, and they moved and shook the toy as she turned it. “I’ve never used one that moves.”

Maggy nodded. “It’s a game changer. I’ve seen the one you have many times. I think you’ll really enjoy wearing this one today.”

Dawn lowered her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m going to wear this to work. God, why did I make that bet with you?”

Maggy set her hand on Dawn’s shoulder. “Because, darlin’, you wanted to lose.”

“Shut up, bitch.”

“Only if you shut me up,” she said with a wink. “Now I can tell you’re less than thrilled about wearing a giant toy in your tight little ass all day…”

“Wow, you’re a psychic bitch,” she said, acting tough and sipping her coffee to help maintain her hardened visage.

“Indeed. And if you do wear it all day, I promise I’ll give you a nice, hot reward later.”

Dawn smirked as she set her coffee down. “You better. But that one’s so big, I think I’d rather wear my smaller one.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because…well, I’m not sure I’d actually feel sexy with that monster inside me. It’ll be so distracting. I bet even sitting would be an ordeal.”

Maggy glanced at the toy that matched the one she currently had inside her. “I have the feeling that you’ll be surprised. I was. Anyway, I’m off to scope out this garden that Rache just finished and grab a coffee with this hot guy I met online.”

“Who?”

“Who, who? The guy? I think his name is Stephan, but I mostly remember his abs.”

“No. Do I know Rache?”

“Oh, of course, Rachel Fletcher, the woman that linked up with my boss Suzie for a while. She’s doing her own thing now and just finished a fancy garden commission near the university.”

“Oh.” Dawn frowned and sipped her coffee. Today more than ever, she felt like caffeine was going to be a requirement.

Maggy watched her housemate-with-benefits melt with a moment of relief from the hot coffee. She gave her the biggest, most innocent smile she could, and she said, “Well, anyway, have a great day today, sunshine.” She turned and spirited herself away, not giving Dawn a chance for a response, and giving the steel balls inside the toy she was wearing a chance to shake things up a little.

Dawn set the plug down, and it made a quiet -thud- on the table. She closed her eyes and shook her head. Of all the days for this, she thought, why today? Fuck me.

***

“Fuck me,” Michael Marshall said to himself as he paused at the mouth of an alley in downtown Raleigh. His hair was dark brown, his eyes were a lighter, russet brown, and the stubble his face always had—because shaving to him meant zooming a pair of electric clippers across his skin—darkened his chin and cheeks away from their natural yellowish-tan. He worked at Oil and Water, the hottest restaurant in the city. He was trying to arrive early because it was no ordinary day. His boss, sous chef Serafina Ortiz, was called to visit her family on short notice, and she left late in the evening the prior night to drive to D.C. She had promised to the restaurant’s head chef and owner Gustav Lange that she would only miss a day, and Gustav agreed to let Michael fill in for her.

Michael had decided to prove himself, to not let the chance opportunity slip by. He hit the farmer’s market as they opened, and with the restaurant’s company card—which he was only allowed to use on occasion under specific instruction—he went all out. He had a plan, and he was excited to enact it.

But that morning, he didn’t rush straight into the restaurant’s kitchen through the alleyway door, because as he stepped off the sidewalk, he heard a noise he was very familiar with: the sound of someone going through the garbage.

He sighed as he wondered if he should confront whoever it was that was making such a racket that he could hear it from the street, or if he should ignore them and slip into the kitchen, undetected. The large bags of produce and meat he carried were growing heavy in his arms, and although he longed to set them down inside and get to work, he knew that he just had to say something.

During each of the ten paces he took to get to the back-alley, he heard rustles and rattles that grew louder and louder. He rolled his eyes. Amateur, he thought. He was about to yell ‘Hey, get the hell out of here!’ but then he heard a person’s voice. They swore, but the part that surprised him the most was that it was a woman’s voice that he heard.

As feminist as Michael believed himself to be, he never imagined he’d run into a female dumpster-diver. He only knew a few—beside himself—and they were all guys. In his mind, there wasn’t a reality where a woman would be digging through garbage for trash treasure—not even a homeless woman, who in Raleigh were much less common than homeless men.

No, to him, the sounds were wrong. There was something wrong. “Hey, you alright?”

The noises stopped.

The bags threatened to tip, and Michael had to reposition them. “I know you’re back there,” he said while he was realigning the bags so that they were leaning into each other. “Do you need help? Is everything alright?”

Just then, a woman with golden-blonde hair popped her head out from behind the dumpster. “Hi, uh, I’m fine,” she said with a very red, blushing face.

Michael squinted to make sure he was seeing clearly. The sun was up, but it was still dim in the alley. And there was definitely a beautiful woman there in the alley with him. “What are you doing?”

Dawn swallowed, straightened her coat, gripped her bags tightly, and walked out. “Oh, nothing, I was just looking for something.”

It didn’t take an impolite look for Michael to see that she was young, attractive, and well put together in her sky-blue dress. All of which accounted to another set of surprises to him so early in the morning. Intrigued, he tilted his head. “What are you looking for? Did you lose something in the restaurant last night?”

A glimmer flashed in her eye, and her face lifted—then she let the thought of a lie float away and frowned. “No, it’s hard to explain.”

Wow, he thought. She is a diver. And cute! This is my lucky day! He cleared his throat. “I’m Michael.”

Her eyes flashed from him to the street, then back. “I’m Dawn.”

…