It was painted a cheerful shade of pink, and was women-only, so we thought we'd go in and have a look. I haven't been in a sex shop for at least a decade. Ten years or so ago, when I worked in a shop in Old Compton Street, in Soho, there was one opposite which used to amuse me deeply, devoted as it was to spanking and Big Pants (mmmm). Strange place to work, Old Compton Street - there was also an elderly man, who must be dead by now, who had the most appalling elephantitis of the genitals. He used to wander up and down, shielding his loins with a plastic bag, and whenever he spotted someone he liked the look of - usually some poor desperate-looking glue-sniffer in the amusement arcade - he would lift the plastic bag and leer. I nearly died of shock every time, and so did the youths, usually: the man was deformed, like a photograph in a medical textbook. I was very busy in my shop, mainly trying to prevent the (male) customers from having sex with each other in the changing room (Excuse me? Could you stop doing that? Oh, please stop. Oh, God. Oh, yuck. I'm going on my break). I look back fondly on this period, although I had an exhausting friend called Shane who would drag me around with him after work as if he were busily re-making his very own version of Suddenly Last Summer, except that nobody ate him up, as far as I am aware.
Anyway: there we were outside the sex shop, and after some deliberation we went in, slightly drunk and giggling. My friend immediately disappeared off to the loo.
I felt quite embarrassed - and then embarrassed for being so uncool as to be embarrassed in the first place - and I didn't know what to do with myself, so I browsed. I stared blankly at a couple of items whose purpose utterly eluded me (rather reminding myself of Alan Partridge in the process); and then at the illustrations on the side of a box containing a Love Swing (bearded Nordics in sexual ecstasy). When a woman came out of the changing room wearing a kind of harness with a dildo attached, I tried to look as composed as possible and even smiled at her, and then wished I hadn't. I startled myself by wishing I were somewhere else, pretty much anywhere, like outside in the rain - not on grounds of embarrassment, but on grounds of distaste and grotesque unloveliness. I was just thinking to myself, "Don't be such an old prude; it's only a stupid sex shop" when I saw the tail.
There was a tail, in the sex shop, for humans. A tail.
I actually rubbed my eyes pantomimically, and blinked, because I just couldn't understand what it was for. My mind was boggling away and the only thing I could think of was that I'd misread the packaging and that the tail - the tail! - was in fact some kind of hair-piece for the head. But no: it really, truly was a tail for the bottom, requiring anal insertion. My friend came back from the loo to find me hopping up and down, whispering "There's a tail! Look! A tail! Can you believe this tail?" She glanced at the tail in an unpuzzled, oh-yes-there's-a-tail fashion and shrugged. I could feel the hysteria welling up in my stomach at this stage, and a terrible urge to make dreadful horse puns ("Neigh thank you"), so I paid for the innocent condoms I'd felt obliged to buy and we left quickly. But I have been preoccupied with this tail ever since. I am disturbed by the tail. I wish I didn't know such tails existed: they spoil my time. Ten years ago, I'd have howled with laughter at the tail and thought no more of it.
Today, sitting here, I can think of nothing else. But then, 10 years ago, I didn't have children - and that kind of tail-joke was much easier to see. Now, I am finding it difficult to come to grips with the idea that my children live in a world in which women wear tails up their behinds. I know tails are quite harmless, and insignificant compared to the monstrousness that goes on (but thus much easier to focus on). I am very depressed by them none the less. No more sniggering in sex shops: bang goes another nail in the coffin of my youth. I'd better go and have my cocoa. Tally-ho!
