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"I've got a gift for you!" Claire sang as she burst excitedly through the door of her and Lia's flat much later than she should have been home. She had texted Lia over an hour ago that she had a stop to make, then she'd be back. Lia had started to get worried, if she were being honest. But Claire didn't look drunk or anything. Suspicious, maybe, but definitely not drunk. Especially considering the way she rushed to where Lia was sitting on the couch and plopped down next to her with a glittery gift bag in her lap.
"That's never a good sign." Usually whenever Claire got her impromptu gifts, it meant she was apologizing for something. Something that Lia, most likely, would be hearing about for the first time as she opened said gift. Claire was often unpredictable, but she wasn't one for gift giving outside of required holidays, so a Tuesday night in November had Lia eyeing the carefully placed tissue paper.
"No, no, no! You'll love it! Well… I hope you'll love it, anyway! I just had a, uh… revelation a while ago and I've been thinking that you might be missing out."
Lia, who had begun to reach for the bag, paused her hand. There was really no telling what was in there now. "Missing out? On what?"
"Sex," Claire explained plainly.
She had to be joking, right? Claire couldn't possibly be serious. While Lia wasn't always one to overshare when it came to her sex life with her girlfriends, Claire knew that she and Ginny had been having sex. Not much currently with Ginny at Hogwarts, but they didn't waste any time in the couple free weeks they had at the end of summer and the few times they'd seen each other at Hogsmeade. Claire had even been the one to encourage it when Lia had been hesitant. Lia’s eyebrow slowly crawled up in confusion. “I’m sorry? How exactly am I missing out? Do you want more details? Because I will gladly—”
Claire answered “No!” a little too quickly, bristling at her own negativity. “No, you’re fine. Keep telling me all about it if you want. Tell me all the intimate details about my boyfriend’s little sister. Just what I always want to hear.” Lia rolled her eyes, then looked back at Claire expectantly as if to say well, go on. “Anyway, I was just thinking that fingers and mouths are really great and all, and—“
“If you’re about to tell me I need a man in my life—“
“I would never! Don’t worry. But with the recent reintroduction of one into my own, which led to me rediscovering how amazing they are—“
“Get on with it,” Lia prompted playfully.
“I know I don't know your preferences when it comes to that sort of thing, so if you want me to take it back, I will, but I was thinking that you might greatly benefit from having a dick in your life. Or… equivalent. Not that I think you need one, of course, because I know you and Gin are both perfectly content with everything you’re doing, but if you wanted to ever try something new or… spice things up a little bit...”
Lia glanced down at the bag, waiting a few seconds to ask, “Claire, what’s in here?”
Claire’s answer was paired with passing the bag into Lia’s hesitant hands. “Equivalent.”
“Oh, thank God,” Lia deadpanned. “For a second, I was worried it was a real one.” It wasn’t the first time she’d heard Claire threaten to cut one off of a guy she didn’t like, and she was sure there was a long list of men she'd gladly follow through with, given the opportunity.
“Now, hear me out,” Claire continued, pretending she didn’t hear her comment as Lia began to pull the tissue paper out, “I had Ginny in mind when I got this too, so don’t worry.”
“Well, now you’ve made it weird—“
“Just open the fucking bag,” Claire finally laughed, shutting up and waiting for Lia’s reaction.
She groaned as she tossed the tissue paper unceremoniously to the floor to reveal something large, though admittedly a very pretty shade of pastel pink. Lia almost didn’t want to touch it, but Claire was looking at her like she was supposed to be excited, so she held it with the tip of her thumb and index finger and pulled it out like it was someone's used Kleenex.
“Well don’t hold it like it’ll bite you! It won’t. Not that one, anyway. I got it from a Muggle shop. I tried to go to a magical one but there was some fucked up stuff in there. I actually think you'd have a great time if you ever feel the need to lose faith in humanity.”
Lia just let out a hum, not really paying attention to what her friend was saying. She didn’t know how to feel about something like this. Not that she was surprised that Claire would buy her a sex toy in the first place, but it was… it definitely looked like what she’d imagine an appropriate size, which she guessed she should be appreciative of. She didn’t need this at all. Honestly, she was kind of trying to keep the insult from her face. She was, in fact, a lesbian for a reason.
Ginny, however, she quickly remembered, liked guys too. Lia’s mind started racing—had Ginny said something to Claire? Was she unhappy with what they were doing? Did she think Lia wasn’t enough? Had she expressed a desire for-
“Hey, don’t have a crisis, love,” Claire said, a comforting hand on her knee. "Gin hasn’t said a thing.” It was in moments like these that so many years of friendship and silent conversations, years of learning how to read each other, came in handy. “That’s not why I got this for you, okay? I was serious. If you don’t want it, you don't have to—"
“I’ve just…” Lia shook her head—was she really about to cry over a fucking sex toy? The fear had always been in the back of her mind, but honestly, she was banking on the fact that Ginny hadn’t had any other experiences. She didn’t know any better. She didn’t know what she was missing out on, if she really was missing out on anything. “What am I even supposed to do with this? What’s this bit?”
In addition to the part that was clearly supposed to be the equivalent, sticking up from it, almost in an V shape, was what looked like a small egg. It looked too far back to reach her clit, and it didn’t look like it had any kind of battery compartment, so it didn’t do anything.
“That’s for you. Or Gin. So that part,” she pointed to the small one, “goes in one of you, whoever's… giving it. You hold it in. And the other part is for-“
“I could…?”
“Fuck the absolute daylights out of her, yes.”
Insecurity aside, the thought was incredibly… intriguing. Maybe having an extra appendage would come in handy. But not right now.
They were too new. Lia had barely gotten to touch her that much. They were still trying to learn each others’ bodies, what they liked and what they didn’t, and introducing something like this so early on might mess all that up.
“I honestly don’t know what to say, Claire…”
“Look, if you use it and hate it, you can toss it. If you never use it, I won’t be offended. I know it’s not for everyone and that’s fine. But I also know you’d never buy anything like that yourself, so I thought you just might want to try something different every once in a while, that’s all. It just feels really good. For me, anyway, so if the two of you wanted to experience that together, then… you can.”
Lia sighed, rubbing her forehead. Claire really hadn’t meant any harm. Ginny wasn’t complaining about being unsatisfied, but what if once they used this, it was all she wanted? No, it was definitely too soon to try anything like this. Maybe later. Maybe in a couple years. Maybe never. Or maybe she’d be able to get over herself and listen to how stupid she sounded. She had been finding that dating Ginny was different in many ways from what she was used to, and those different things provided much more discomfort than she anticipated they would. Ginny was younger, Ginny was in school when she wasn’t, Ginny didn’t exclusively like women, and Ginny was the person she’d fallen the fastest for. She couldn’t risk something like that over fake genitals. She had friends that liked stuff like this, of course, but she was perfectly happy with her sex life, past and current. Just like Ginny, though, she couldn't know she hated something she'd never tried, and if she were being honest, the nervousness was probably just… stemming from having no experience. What if Ginny was excited to use it and Lia was horrible at it? Would she be disappointed? And there she was, sounding stupid again. It's just a sex toy, she told herself. Maybe if it's putting Claire in this good of a mood, it would be worth keeping for some day in the future.
She nodded, appreciating that Claire had been thinking about her, honestly thanked her for the gift, then took the toy to her room and shoved it in a corner of her closet so she didn’t have to see it all the time (God forbid Ginny saw it sitting on the floor). She didn’t have to see it at all, and she didn’t have to think about it. It only took a busy couple of weeks for her to forget about it entirely.
Until one day, almost a year later, Ginny was the one to find it.