Selling sex toys in a court house was disrespectful, I agree, but being caught by an orthodox Priest was downright embarrassing.
It was hilarious, really, how everything went down that day. Like a chain of well synchronised dominos, deliberately set up to fall because of one and over the other. The day burns in my memory as someone's meticulous plan, as if the momentum of our deterministic world bred and fed me for that exact date. Fate or some bullshit.
When I think back at it, I guess, it started with the quirky twins.
You see, Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Mills Miller birthed out a Police Station, over two acres of land, after nine months of processing a million dollar will, of their formerly alive parents, among all it's illegitimate contenders and rightfully winning the case.
Mayor of Brickery County signed the agreement of the station with sinister ease and sheer brilliance reflected in smile, agreeing wholeheartedly over every word of the now rich Millers.
"We shall make a kids police force!" Jacob Miller had exclaimed while dunking his cookies in the milk jar. He was thirty-four in age. A slouchy young man with determined eyes and a resigned-to-fate face. He dressed like a pushover but could claw someone's eyes out if he did not get his way through.
"Why of course, that would be profitable!" The Mayor had replied, wiping the cookie crumbs off Mr. Jacob's mouth with his handkerchief.
"And we shall have a police force for the elderly!" Mill Miller had spoken right after, as per tradition of never speaking before his older twin brother, with a thoughtful nod. He too was thirty-four and busy knitting cat sweaters. He was fitter than his twin brother, dressed in proper British perfection with berets and breeches and whatnot— but, on the inside, he was a real pushover at heart.
"Why of course, that would be profitable!" The Mayor had replied, knowing all the well that it would not. It would be a huge bust in the confines of their non-cooperative town.
Though, which sane man would ever stop a rich person from spending money? While the rich like the Millers remained spendthrifts, Mayors like Mr. Mayor flourished.
And so, the station was up and employees were none. They needed to hold an inauguration without coming off as snobbish and I was the unwanted, unwelcomed, and uncalled for, inaugurator.
I, a dirt-poor college student scraping through life as a contracted sex-toy seller to make ends meet [It was quite a profitable business if you kept shame at bay], inaugurated the police station with the joys of a wedding.
In a scalding afternoon of a random Wednesday. The twenty third.
That's what the calendars at the Courthouse said.
Just like everyday, I was out and about, this time at the court house. My father, his highness, was up in his chamber making affidavits or pretending he had a job while I was right underneath his chamber, convincing a stranger how one could ride a dildo to heaven.
He thought it was a metaphor. It wasn't.
I meant it literally, like in the case of poor old Mr. Collins. Owner of the Collins Sugar Mill of Brickery County and a former customer of mine. He bought an nine-inch groovy figure that hit his prostrate with such satisfaction that his post-orgasmic bliss bade life adieu. He saved his best orgasm as his last and went with a smile on his face.
They said it was a heart attack.
Snobbish noses were squirmed at his funeral but former Mrs. Collins, now the sole heir of all her husband's property, took none to heart. Instead of sueing our company and getting me sacked on the spot, she became a benefactor of ours and started a campaign to 'Normalize Men Using Sex Toys'.
I guess she viewed us with gratitude, blessed be her superstitious soul, and considered our measly sex-toy selling company as "Harbingers of Fate". She had me rewarded with a $50 note last summer.
It was the most money I had seen altogether in the entirety of the twenty-one years of my life's existence. Everytime I looked at it, a sense of nouveau richness overwhelmed my peasantry soul. So, I had the note taped on the inside of the backpocket of the only pair of jeans I owned.
Bad decision.
Mother-figure, birth-giver, her highness, washed it.
Our neighbors had gotten this fancy new automatic washing machine and she was too excited to have a try for herself. So, she picked up the first laying dirty article of clothing and gave it up for washing. It was one of my first and last Sundays that I overslept on.
The brightness in the navy of my jeans was not worth the loss of that $50 treasure I once had. I had kept that note, vowing never to spend it before my wedding. It was an emergency fund, in case I got married to a drunkard and had to run away from home and begin anew.
But my bad wedding dreams were now a detergent soaked and jasmine scented paper mush.
Safe to say, I never earned that sum back. But I was always in a constant drive to win it again.
"So, what you're saying is, uhm, I slick this... phallic, uh, up and put it—" The man was too dignified to speak out crude words so he sufficed with hand and eye gestures. Aiming at his butt and making to-and-fro motions with his hands.
I nodded, agreeing with a commercial smile, "Yes, you shove the dildo up anyone's hole."
He looked panic-stricken at me. As if I committed blasphemy of the highest order by speaking the actual names of the objects rather beating around the bush.
And then, in the dimly lit, stale paper scented, cold dungeon of his chamber, there was a knock at the door.
The man jumped with his all, body and soul, throwing the dildo at me and answering the door in a breezy manner. He had a diplomatic smile on and welcomed in a priest.
Lawyers.
Quick witted fast action takers.
Hypocrites with a special place in hell.
I was too wrapped up in my judgement of the bad from the worse that I barely had time to wrap up my illegal sales market and escape.
And well, I got caught.