The afternoon lecture kicked straight off with sex. They broke down the techniques and mechanics, and brought out schematics alongside actual samples of assistive devices and consumables, reminding us that these weren't sad substitutes, but achievements of human civilization, so there was zero reason to feel ashamed. After all, we don't climb to the top of a tree to holler love declarations at a woman from the neighboring tribe anymore; we grab a smartphone and send a text, place a call, or set up a video chat. Sex is no different. Just don't get too carried away sending text messages to yourself, because nature intended the conversation for two.
Next came the section on foreplay. And for after dinner, they promised a deep dive into the female perspective, because a girl isn't obligated to play a passive, receiving role in bed, and is more than capable of taking the initiative with more than just her mouth. That bit of suspense was intriguing enough to hold onto most of the audience. The lecturer was swapped out for a woman, though Mr. and Mrs. Mannequin remained the same.
I actually recognized a few moves that Christina No. 1 had pulled on me. Turns out those specific touches work on a massive percentage of guys and had absolutely nothing to do with how madly in love she was with me. Some points didn't sit right with me, though, like the advice that a woman shouldn't give in right away and ought to play hard to get instead, supposedly triggering the male "hunter instinct" because hard-won prey tastes better than someone just lying there like a log.
Everything wrapped up around nine.
After that, the hall was invaded by ad agents handing out prizes and gifts on a scale far larger than anything Christina No. 1 had described from her session. Nobody even glanced at the standard state "assistance" baskets today. Tourism companies were practically tearing each other apart for our attention, handing out free 24-hour vouchers for hotels, cruise ships, and luxury glamping sites, all just to pitch us on booking our future honeymoons with them. But that wasn't even their main prize; they were playing the long game, aiming for anniversary celebrations and locking in lifelong clients.
Naturally, the reality of it settled in: there was no real discrimination going on, just plain business logic. Companies don't hand out luxury samples to people who can't afford the final product. And since I was officially down as the future husband of the wealthy Christina No. 2, I was right in the bullseye of elite marketing.
Christina quietly admitted to me that she'd massively overshot her own budget, realizing her pocket money for the break could maybe get us a room in a seaside pension or a cozy country cabin, but definitely not a suite where the bathroom alone was the size of her entire apartment.
As for me, I'd never seen that level of luxury even on TV. These weren't museum palaces built for flashy show, nor were they over-filtered social media apartments. They were legitimately thought-out living spaces. No gaudy gold or ridiculous frills, just cutting-edge technology and applied art.
"Honestly," Christina broke the silence, unable to hold it in any longer. "This is a highway to hell."
"What do you mean?" I blinked, looking up from an interactive demo of a luxury cruise suite.
"Sometimes it's better not to know what's out there, so you don't end up craving it. I'd much rather just let my husband handle all of this. That way I can just drive him crazy complaining about how he did it wrong, instead of counting down the days until vacation like an addict."
"Then why don't we just grab the freebies from the state basket and head home?"
"That's not what I mean. I'm scared of getting hooked on these kinds of rituals, doesn't matter if they're state-sponsored or top-tier luxury. I don't even celebrate my own birthday."
"Wait, what?" I asked, thrown off.
"How do I explain it... Okay, imagine you're... well, actually, your laziness probably shields you from this."
"Hey, I'm not completely brain-dead..." I started, intending to say I was capable of empathy.
"Brain-dead..." Christina giggled, seizing on the phrase since the female lecturer had been tossing it around all evening. "Look, imagine you were unimaginably happy. And you knew for a fact that a year from now, you'd be just as happy again. Would you spend the year waiting for it?"
"Well, yeah. Obviously."
"Now imagine you're too lazy to wait."
"Then I'd just repeat whatever made me happy right now."
"Except you can't do it right now. And that's my problem with holidays. You get one single day of joy, and three hundred and sixty-four days of feeling completely empty."
"You could just make every day a holiday," I offered. "Something happens every day, doesn't it?"
"Sure. But if today is Honey Day, it means it's not Sugar Day, or Chef's Day, or Student's Day, or whatever. No matter how many holidays fall on today, there are millions more that don't. I know normal people don't think like this, but I've been broken like this since I was a kid. Right after a holiday ends, it feels like someone died. If I can't control when my joy happens, the crash afterward is just too painful. I used to re-wrap my own birthday presents just so I could open them again."
"So what they were saying about scheduled 'marital duties'... that wouldn't work for you at all."
"That'd be literal torture. I'd probably end up jumping my husband first, even if I wasn't in the mood, just to break the routine."
"What if every experience was completely unique, though?"
"That's basically how I survive. Whenever something good happens, I tell myself it's never going to happen again."
"What if it happens again, down to the exact detail?"
"Then it's still a completely different event."
"You could apply that exact same logic to birthdays, you know. They're different every year."
"The problem isn't that they're different. The problem is I know they're coming, but I can't drag them any closer to me."
"So graduating school didn't bother you because you could finish early, but a wedding annoys you because you literally can't speed up the six-month waiting period."
"Pretty much. Plus, a wedding doesn't repeat every year, but an anniversary does."
"So a guy wouldn't have to celebrate the anniversary of the day you met."
"God forbid."
"Wait, that makes you the ideal wife," I smiled. "You'd never torture your husband with 'Do you remember what today is?'"
"Oh, stop it," Christina blinked rapidly, suddenly flustered. "The one time in my life I actually open up about a real flaw, and you go and turn my neuroses into a compliment. You've already got a Christina waiting for you. You're supposed to be showing off your master skills to her tomorrow, not sweet-talking me. Keep it up and I'm bringing back the pig snout."
"All right, all right," I tried to put on a serious face.