Chapter 2

Soon enough, I grew comfortable with three fingers inside me, and with her tongue on my clit, I was really hoping she’d forget about the whole dildo thing and just continue doing what she was doing, because she was so good at it, and I was gearing up to explode.

But then she stopped.

“Its time,” she sang, as she grazed the dildo tip against the inside of my thighs.

Lucky for me, she was thoughtful with her plan (how very German of her). She squirted some lube from a bottle she kept in her nightstand onto her hand, and slathered it onto the dildo, and then she worked the dildo into my slit with the slow, methodical process of climbers making their way up the world’s highest peak. In and then out a bit, and then in a little bit farther. I tensed up anxiously as it stretched me, but it went in smoothly, and rather painlessly. The lube definitely helped, and so did her warming me up. 

When it had gone as far in as it could go (I took way more of it than I thought I could), she pumped it back and forth a few times. I tensed up a bit, expecting pain, and there was a little, but it was manageable. But there was also pleasure in the way it filled me up, stretched me, and challenged me.

“Ok. Now, my turn,” she said after a few pumps. And just like I had seen in lesbian porn featuring double-sided dildos, she positioned herself directly opposite me, mirroring me, facing me. She splayed out her legs like I had and shuffled herself towards me, spearing herself with the other end of the dildo, squealing as the bulging tip went in.

I helped by holding her legs and pulling her towards me. As her half of the dildo disappeared into her, my half pushed farther into me. 

At this point in my short career as a sexual being, a few objects had already been inside me, but this dildo was different, which is funny to say if you consider my vagina’s perspective, which was that it just another dildo. But sex isn’t just about what the vagina experiences, is it? There’s a psychological element to it that’s more intense than the physical and in this case, that psychological element was Sigi being on the other end of the dildo, stretching and filling her slit with it as it stretched and filled mine. When she pushes herself onto it, she would squeal with pleasure, and I would feel the moment that caused her to squeal because I would feel the dildo respond to her tensing and twitching, and bucking. That is a very long-winded way of saying that this dildo then was nothing if not a pure conduit of pleasure, allowing us to share our electricity with each other. 

And that was just the start.

Slowly but surely, the dildo disappeared completely into both of us. I wasn’t sure that it would fit entirely, but it did (like she had perfectly calculated the optimal length). Our pussies touched.

“Mein Gott,” she moaned. “That feels so good. How does it feel for you?” 

I could write a sonnet about the cacophonous mix, or rather the delightfully appropriate German word for it — the kuddelmuddel — of emotions I felt, but in the heat of the moment, all I could utter was, “So good…”

She grasped my forearms and pulled us both into a sitting position so that we could kiss, and as we kissed, she began to rock and gyrate her hips so that the dildo moved in and out of her. I began to do the same and quickly realized that getting the movement right required a little bit of finesse. The dildo slipped out of me immediately. I slipped it back in and tried again, this time, thrusting my hip after she thrusted in a sort of see-sawing fashion. As we rocked, our pussies tribbed. When we got the motion down, she began playing with my clit for that extra oomph, and so I played with hers. We moaned in sync as we rocked faster and faster.

As the pleasure intensified, we locked eyes, and with our eyes made the tacit agreement to not stop until we both came.

And we did. With a final thrust, one final crashing of our pussies, we broke the dam together. She threw her head back, and I fell back onto the bed, my orgasm hitting me, my pussy squeezing the dildo in an attempt to squeeze it out of me, but it couldn’t because the dildo had nowhere to go. Sigi was on the other end, squeezing back as her orgasm hit her. And in that moment, I looked up at her, trying to find her eyes again to more deeply share that incredible moment with her.

Her eyes found mine, but then they flitted to the nightstand. I followed her eyes to spot a framed photo I hadn’t noticed before, of two women wearing traditional dirndl dresses with their arms around each.

I didn’t think much of it since I was right in the middle of an amazing ecstasy, but afterwards, in that tranquil, buzzing refractory, as we held each other tightly, and the morning sunlight wrapped us in its warm embrace, I took another, more careful look at the photo, and realized that I knew who that girl with the long, blonde hair was. It was Sigi, but with an entirely different look. A parallel universe Sigi that was not the shaved head, punk-rock, leather-clad, beer-chugging, sailor-mouthed girl that was my roommate, but a conservative, sweet Sigi, with Rapunzel-blonde hair, more baby-faced, more bright-eyed, bushy-tailed. The girl in her arms, I didn’t recognize at all.

When I finally drummed up the nerve, I cautiously asked the question that desperately wanted out of my mouth. “Hey Sigi, who is that?”

I tried my best to not sound like a jealous hen.

“Oh…that’s Paulina.”

She stopped at Paulina and didn’t explain any further, as if I would obviously know who Paulina was. As if we had Vulcan mind-melded through the dildo so I should know everything about her life.

Obviously, it wouldn’t take a Vulcan dildo mind-meld to infer who Paulina was, so I felt a bit awkward asking, but all the same, I was curious about this ex-girlfriend Sigi still kept a photo of right on her nightstand.

“Paulina is my ex,” she said. That was not what I really wanted to know, and she knew that. She sighed and said, “God. I’m really sorry Roz, but… fuck… I’m still not over her. I hope that’s not a problem…”

“No. Of course not. No.” 

I chortled to make sure she understood that it wasn’t. But after a short pause, in which I had the moment to think about it, I realized, that maybe I did have a slight problem with it, or at least, a pang had started to develop in my chest that started to feel like a problem.

“Its not a problem for me if its not a problem for you,” I said, more to reassure myself than her. But that pang that had developed started to nag me all the same.

Why should it be a problem? Really? I asked myself. I’m only here for a few more months. At the end of the semester, I’d be going back to the States, where I would still have two more years of college, all the while, Sigi would remain here in Berlin to finish nursing school and then go on to be a nurse, if not in Berlin, then somewhere else in Germany. Its not like we had set up for anything long term. We were attracted to each other, we got drunk, we made out, and then we had sex. It was spontaneous and fun, and that was all it was supposed to be, right? I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with her, right?

Ah, and then there was the purple, double-sided dildo. There’s the clincher.

The dildo that was meant to be shared with Paulina. The dildo that was perhaps a last-ditch effort to mend an obviously deep and meaningful relationship turned torpid. The dildo that tragically didn’t arrive in time. I showed up, though, and Sigi thought it was a nice idea, at least in her tormented, heartbroken mind, to role play a fantasy in which the dildo did exactly what she had planned for it to do. And in that fantasy role play, I was Paulina, and the sex was mind-blowing, and all their problems disappeared before the relationship could crumble into ruins. My heart sank for her. The pang disappeared. I squeezed her tightly.

I heard her swallow a tight knot. I could tell she was on the verge of tears, which meant I was somewhere in the vicinity of the truth with my theory. At the very least, she was reeling from a wounded heart, so I didn’t say anything more. I decided I didn’t need to. I could just be there for her.

Afterwards, we had a light breakfast and then went for a walk in the nippy but sunny morning. We walked along her favorite path along the river beneath a long row of Linden trees that rained bright yellow heart-shaped leaves on us. Unprompted by me, she broke into the story of her life with Paulina.

“We grew up in Konstanz together. We were neighbors and best friends. In high school, we fell in love and promised we would be together forever. So, we moved to Berlin. We thought we’d make a life together here. I fucking loved Berlin right from the start. Berlin gave me what Konstanz never could. I felt like I belonged here. I felt like I could be me. But it wasn’t the same for her. She never got used to it. She didn’t get along with my friends and had a hard time making her own. She was homesick and… well, I am ashamed to say I began to resent her for it. I know she wanted to be with me, but I guess I made it easy for her to want home even more. I miss her, and without her, this city is starting to feel…”

Her voice wavered and died before she could finish, but she didn’t need to finish. There were a hundred different words with which I could fill in the blank. Cold. Empty. Lonely. Words that could not ever be changed by sharing a purple double-sided dildo with your Asian American roommate.

She brushed off the yellow Linden leaves that covered a bench, and we sat there together. I ventured to hold her hand, and she let me.

I could have said that it would get better for her, but I knew it would sound too trite. What could a neophyte like me who never had her heart broken know how to feel and what to do about it? I didn’t have a clue. So, all I did was hold her hand.

We went to her favorite sandwich shop for lunch, then when we got home, she hugged me and said, “scheiße… thank you for letting me be honest with you, Roz,” which was a lovely sentiment, but at the same time, silly, because it wasn’t like I had any other choice. She wasn’t just my roommate, she was my landlord! Of course I was going to let her be honest with me.

All the same, I was still enamored by her, and maybe a little bit in love, and I loved that she could be honest with me, and I loved that I was that person for her.

Of course, for the rest of the semester, as the weather grew shittier and colder, we kept having fun. We kept going out for cheap beers and punk rock shows. Most importantly, we kept each other warm. We kept things hot.

When time came for me to go back to the States, she went to the airport with me and we had a cry, and we promised to stay in touch.

On my birthday the following year, I received a present from her. Fortunately for me, I opened it in private. Of course it was purple double-sided dildo (to be clear, a new one).

In a handwritten note, she wrote:

Fuck you if you can’t find someone to use this with.

~Your favorite roommate, Sigi

The problem was, how could I ever use it without thinking of her? Maybe that was the point. What an absolute fiend.

Pictures of You – The Cure

Lasse Redn – Die Ärzte

We Will Fall Together – Streetlight Manifesto

Stop the Clocks – Donots

I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself – The White Stripes

Universal Tellerwäscher – Die Sterne

Ziggy Stardust – David Bowie*

The Winner Takes It All – ABBA**

Bonus details about Sigi that never made it into the story:

*Sigi’s dad told her once that she was named after this song. He called her ‘my Sigi Stardust.’

**A song she cherishes because of a memory of singing it with her dad on caravan camping trips.

Crash Into Me – Dave Matthews Band

Heartbeats – Jose Gonzales

Yesterday – Atmosphere

Cannonball – Damien Rice

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel

If I Ain’t Got You – Alicia Keys

Turpentine – Brandi Carlile

Meet Me in the Woods – Lord Huron

Lazy Eye – Silversun Pickups

99 Luftballons – Nena*

Bonus details about Roz that never made it into the story:

*Sigi busted Roz’s balls hard for this being the only German music Roz could name, but surprised Roz with tickets to a Nena show. The show was amazing.