86An online friend of mine (theotherdibbler on Live Journal (I can't link or I would; you'll have to look it up the hard way if you want to know more)) wrote a story about a coffee shop that also sold...other things. He then challenged his LJ friends to write their own stories featured in the coffee shop called...
Pleasures
Simon was leaning languidly against the side of Ryan's office building, where the dark gray of his jacket blended in so well with the black marble siding that Ryan nearly walked past him before he noticed.
"There you are," Ryan said, stopping and turning to face his boyfriend.
"Here I am," Simon Reese agreed with a smirk that practically oozed sex.
"Oh no," Ryan said. "You're not to turn on the turn-ons until we've gone wherever it is you said you wanted to go—a café, was it?"
"Spoil spot," Simon replied, walking to Ryan's side and gesturing down the street. "It's a new coffee shop chain they've just put in where Common Grounds used to be."
Ryan stopped in his tracks, scowling at Simon. "You begged me to take off work early so we can go to a chain coffee shop?" he demanded; Simon knew full-well Ryan's opinion on chains stores, after all. Better no coffee at all than something from Starbucks.
"It's not that sort of coffee shop," Simon protested, pivoting to look at Ryan. "You'll like it, I promise."
"How can it be a chain and not be 'that sort of coffee shop?'" Ryan asked, although he began to walk again.
"It's a high-quality international establishment with exclusive goods, fair trade coffee, vegan architecture, organic plates, and green treats," Simon replied.
Ryan punched his arm for that. "I should sleep with ear plugs," he muttered, because it was still the best threat he could come up with, even after all this time—and the only one that had a possibility of working.
"I'll get you some made by little old ladies in Tibet out of llama wool or something," Simon said, tugging Ryan's sleeve to hurry him along. "Now come on."
"Lama, not llama," Ryan protested, although he allowed himself to be dragged.
The coffee shop's architecture was no more 'vegan' than Common Grounds' had been, since the building looked nearly the same, although the windows had been frosted over, and the sign bearing the name Pleasures also had an image of a coffee mug with the most interestingly shaped steam.
How did that get through production without someone noticing? Ryan wondered as Simon ushered him through the door. Surely that was the sort of thing industrial design majors had been told to watch out for? But Simon had said the coffee chain was international, so maybe corporate offices were in some country that didn't see sex under every rock.
It sounded like a thin excuse—at least until Ryan got in the door and realized that no, the corporate offices of Pleasures knew exactly what their coffee steam looked like.
"Simon, what—?" Ryan articulated as he stopped short just inside the building.
"Come on," Simon said, reaching for Ryan's hand properly—not just his sleeve as was his usual public gesture.
Ryan was too shocked to protest and simply allowed himself to be pulled wide-eyed through a coffee shop full of sex toys. The toys were displayed about on shelves, where they appeared nearly harmless—except for the bondage gear, Ryan thought with a shudder—but some of them also seemed to inhabit trays which were brought to tables and browsed by customers.
Ryan spotted a table of young women clustered about a tray of dildos and vibrators, and he blushed in the embarrassment that none of them seemed to feel.
Ryan scuttled forward the few steps to Simon's side. "Why are we here?" Ryan asked in an undertone.
"Guess," Simon said, gesturing Ryan into a tiny booth. He slid into the other side, and Ryan leaned forward.
"I already have a kink," Ryan hissed.
"Do you?" Simon asked, the sound of his voice running up the inside of Ryan's leg and cupping him in a most inappropriate manner.
"Simon," Ryan moaned—part lust, part protest.
"Hello, and welcome to Pleasures," said a cheerful young waiter. "Can I get your orders?"
"Coffee, black," Simon said, because he always drank his black.
They turned to look at Ryan. "Coffee with c-cream," he said, not even trying to fight the blush that caught his cheeks on fire as he avoided looking at anyone. Ryan had never felt quite so embarrassed about how he drank his coffee.
The waiter coughed slightly, as if he was hiding a laugh, and Ryan bit his lip.
"Can you also bring us a tray of dildos?" Simon said, using his sex voice and watching Ryan's reaction, which was to cover his face with his hands and mutter 'oh god.'
"Certainly," the waiter said. "Would you like vibrators as well or—"
"No, just simple ones," Simon said, glancing up at him.
"It'll be just a moment, then," the waiter said, turning and vanishing back into the coffee shop.
"Why are we here?" Ryan moaned, daring to peek through his fingers at Simon—who was no longer sitting across from him. Ryan pulled his hands away from his face in alarm, but hadn't needed to as Simon slipped into the booth next to him, cuddling close in the small seat.
"Not your usual chain restaurant, is it?" Simon said quietly.
"I'm not seeing a whole lot of vegans here," Ryan muttered. "And the plates don't look particularly organic."
"But you do like it," Simon pointed out.
"If you can call dying of embarrassment liking, then yes, maybe," Ryan said. "I just don't underst-" he interrupted himself at the return of their waiter, who didn't bat an eye at Simon's switching sides, as he placed their drinks before them.
He slid the second tray onto the table, and Ryan's eye grew wide as he looked at the variety of dildos, their sizes going from 'why bother' up to 'omfg' and their colors covering everything from realistic to a florescent green that Ryan idly thought must only appeal to the alien-loving crowd.
'Alien-loving' being a term that Ryan never again wanted to have enter his brain in such a context.
Searching for something to displace that image, Ryan tuned in to what the waiter was saying. "…and this last one is the 'My Own,' by Human Touch. This is merely an example to show the quality, while the actual product is a kit to make a latex cast of your own—" he hesitated and glanced at Ryan "—self."
Simon chuckled, although it was more because he loved Ryan's reaction to them than because the waiter had said something funny.
Hearing that chuckle while sitting next to a table full of…such objects was too much, and Ryan buried his face again in his hands, trying to control his breathing and his body at the same time.
When he felt marginally under control, Ryan noticed that the waiter was gone again, although the tray of…objects remained.
"What. Are. We—" Ryan began, turning to face Simon, who merely closed the distance between them for a passionate kiss—and let it never be said that Simon Reese had anything other than the most talented tongue.
That talented tongue was also very distracting, and Ryan had nearly forgotten where they were when it withdrew.
"Imagine," Simon said, his voice like sex over velvet, "my voice directing, while you—" he dipped his head closer to nibble delicately on Ryan's ear. "—while you follow my directions with one of those," Simon finished, nodding towards the tray on the table.
Simon's voice always made Ryan think of sex, even when he wasn't talking about sex—but when he was…
Ryan whimpered, clutching Simon's arm so he didn't clutch himself—this café might be a sex-toy shop, but it was still too much like public.
"Like that idea, do you?" Simon asked, his voice still doing inappropriate things to Ryan. "Then we just need to pick which one."