“People are taking pictures,” I scold. “Take off your dongs and act normal for once.”

Violet’s face is red from laughing and exertion. “But I like my dong.”

“Pictures are probably going to be posted all over the place, and you’re wearing an Alex shirt. He’s going to get tagged, and then he’s going to see you and Lily having a strap-on sword fight.”

Her smile drops and she cringes, the red spots on her chest grow progressively blotchier. “Shitballs.” She tries to unharness herself, but she’s too frantic to manage it. “I can’t get my dong off!”

“Here, let me help.” I free her quickly while Lily unbuckles her own.

“You’re awfully good with the buckles and stuff,” Vi observes.

“Don’t even go there,” I tell her. “If it wasn’t for you and the rest of the girls, I wouldn’t be here.”

“It’s fun though, and it demystifies a lot of the stuff we read about in BDSM, right? Besides, this one is loving all the porny stuff.” She thumbs over her shoulder at Lily, who shrugs and grins.

We come back out from behind the wall of dildos, thank the guy who’s probably going to be blue balling it for the rest of the day, and go in search of Sunny. Which is when we run into Skye, Violet’s mom, and Daisy, who is Alex and Sunny’s mother.

“Shit!” Violet tries to pull me behind a display of latex-body-suit-wearing mannequins.

“Vi! Charlene! Girls!” Skye shouts.

Violet cringes and drops her head in defeat. “Hey, Mom. Daisy, what are you doing here?” She peeks inside the stroller Daisy’s pushing. “With Logan?”

Skye wraps her arm around Violet’s shoulder and gives her a big hug. “Sunny mentioned you were going to this ’palooza thing today, so Daisy and I looked it up and thought it would be fun if we came, too!”

“With a baby?” Violet asks.

“Logan is too little to remember any of it, so it’s fine. Isn’t that right, my favorite little chubbie-wubbie?” Daisy gets all up in little Logan’s face and tickles his feet. He giggles and swipes at her swinging hair.

“You should’ve told us about this! We could’ve made it a whole mother-daughter bonding experience!” Skye flails around excitedly.

“Yeah, ’cause shopping for sex toys with my mom is exactly what I want to do on a Saturday afternoon.”

“Oh, come on, Vi! We had so much fun when we went in Vegas, didn’t we?”

“I think they have a maternity sex section,” Daisy tells Sunny, who’s finally wandered over. She looks a little disturbed to find her mother here. At least hers is just shopping and not part of the event.

This day keeps getting better and better. Especially when we finally stumble upon my mom, performing a Dominatrix demonstration. There’s a different masked, assless chaps guy following her around on all fours wearing a leash. I know it’s a different guy because this one has a massive back tattoo, and the guy from yesterday did not.

Thankfully, we arrive at the tail end of the demonstration.

Skye does her dejected-four-year-old flaily thing. “Too bad we missed that. It looked like fun. I wonder if Sidney would like those kinds of pants.” She turns to Daisy. “I bet we’d look hot in that leather business. That woman looks to be about our age.” She gestures to my mom.

It’s then that my mother notices me and starts waving. She struts—she’s actually incredibly adept at the whole strut deal—over to us. “Char-char! Are you and the girls having fun?”

I slip my hand into my pocket, feeling around for my candies. I’m a little worried about introducing Skye to my mom. Individually they’re embarrassing enough, but together, the humiliation could be epic.

“Oh my God!” Skye shrieks like a teeny bopper at a boy band concert. “You two know each other?” Skye’s hand shoots out, and my mom takes it. “I’m Skye, Violet’s mother.”

“I’m Whensday, Charlene’s mother!” my mom replies with exactly the same level of enthusiasm. “But my stage name is Climaxica.”

Maybe I can sneak away while this happens. My mom threads her arm through mine and hugs me to her, killing that idea.

“I was mentioning to Daisy how amazing you look in this ensemble!” Skye motions beside her. Daisy’s still in charge of the stroller.

My mom runs her hands over her leather corset. “I have half an hour between performances. I’d be happy to show you around and take you to a few of the BDSM-wear booths.”

Daisy pats her hair. It used to be more helmet-like, but since Violet’s wedding, it’s moved into the twenty-first century. Her clothes are a slower transition out of the eighties, but at least she’s not wearing shoulder pads anymore. “I’m not sure leather would work with my complexion.”

“Are you kidding me? Blond hair and black leather are a lethal combination.” My mom threads her arm through Skye’s as well, and the girls follow her as she woman-swaggers through the crowd, waving hello to the other vendors and performers. She air kisses about twenty people and stops at one booth to paddle some random guy’s ass.