Some of the cucumbers sculpted to resemble the male anatomy. (Photo by Rachel Kurzius)

During the most intense part of the rainstorm last night, I find myself in a dark alley by Eastern Market groping for a doorbell.

A young woman arrives shortly after I do. “Are you here for the blow job class?” she asks me sheepishly.

Yes, I am.

Moments later, Reba Corrine, who goes by Reba the Diva, pulls up in a car. Her husband—who we will hear lots about in due time—helps her unpack her equipment and set up chairs and tables inside of the StudiowerksDC photography studio before heading out.

Reba has a big smile as she offers us water and cookies. She’s stylish and upbeat, buzzing around the studio as she fields calls from folks wondering if the class is still on, given the storm. Oh, it’s on.

She’s only been teaching the Blow His Mind! Oral Sex Workshop since the end of last year, and all of the December, January, and February offerings have sold out. One classmate tells me she’s been trying to get in since it started. Another says that her friends missed out because they were too late to purchase tickets.

The inclement weather has scared off a few people who were planning on driving in from Fredericksburg, but everyone else seems to be en route. One by one, women walk through the door. They’re all young professionals, and they’re drenched.

We move from a set of couches to three tables, which have cucumbers, peelers, and a Pure Romance catalog (Reba also sells sex toys and products, and by the end of class many of the students have bought some of these “relationship enhancers”).

“She’s got the cucumbers out, so we’ll see you soon girl,” a classmate says into the phone to a friend stuck in traffic.

“Welcome to Penis Class!” Reba chirps. She tells us the short version of why she’s standing in front of us: her husband is a chef who was trying to launch a series of supper parties, and they decided coupling them with sex toy parties would differentiate them. So Reba signed up to be a representative (think an Avon salesperson, but for vibrators and the like), and it went great. “Then my husband said, ‘You could teach a class on blow jobs,’ and here we are!” Right as she makes that pronouncement, as if on cue, thunder rumbles.

Reba the Diva during the Blow His Mind! Oral Sex Workshop. (Photo by Rachel Kurzius)

We all get “porn names” from Reba—mine, for instance, was Ravishing Rachel (editor’s note: this is an atrocious porn name). She passes out pink bags with all of our classroom materials—Dr. Sadie Allison’s book Tickle His Pickle: Your Hands-On Guide To Penis Pleasing (“the best book for blow jobs,” she claims); a small amount of Passion Powder, a white chocolate raspberry-tasting talc for sweaty balls; Great Head goop, which moistens the mouth; a lollipop; and a flavored condom.

“I love to answer questions and get women talking, because it’s the best way to have orgasms!” Reba says.

And this is where I should say that I came into this class as a big old skeptic. Whose orgasms are we talking about exactly? Here we are, 14 women and one man, shelling out money to learn how to suck dick better, when new studies show that women are significantly less likely to have received oral sex than men.

Before class, I called around to see if places in D.C. hold cunnilingus classes and found one at Secret Pleasures Boutique. Gwen Fallon, the education coordinator and lead educator there, says that the class, which’ll be offered next in either April or May, is “very well-attended,” with folks running “the gamut of genders and age.”

I held an informal Gchat poll with some male friends to see if they’d attend such a class. One said yes, “as long as it wasn’t at the library,” another gave a flat-out no, and a third said he preferred to “read up on it like I do every once in a while.”

But week after week, people (mostly women) flock to Reba to better their fellatio skills and I cannot deny that the mood here is buoyant.

When Reba tells us she’s going to teach us how to keep our jaws from hurting, she gets a big “Yes!” from the class. We all look around at each other. Your jaws hurt too sometimes? Well, how about that.

She asks us to hold up our cucumbers in the air, and note that some of them lean to the left or the right. They all look a little different, just like penises. And now, as she goes through the male anatomy with us, we take out our peelers and start carving out the glans and corona on our vegetables. The person who creates the most realistic dick gets a discount on any products purchased. I do not win.

She wants to get one thing straight before we start getting to the big tips. “It’s your job,” she says. “You decide if you want to sit, swallow, spit, or duck.”

After the 101 stuff, Reba shares tricks that she “learned in the field”—the two-for-one (which comes with a choke warning), the Rocket pop, the pendulum, and more. It’s reminiscent of ordering at an old-school Chinese restaurant: you combine these moves and bam! dinner is served.

Reba is really funny. Her imitations of dudes in the throes of pleasure are priceless, and she can oscillate between sex kitten and world-weary in a flash.

At one point, Reba demonstrates how a toy can accentuate one of the tricks. “This is my a-ha! moment,” says a woman at my table. “I knew the rest of this stuff but wow, that’s good.”

There’s only one person in class who expresses genuine concern about her oral sex skills, and she gets encouragement from Reba and her fellow students. A classmate gives her a printed-out “2016 Deep Throat Award” and a bouquet of lollipops. As another participant put it, “We’re a dick-sucking support group.”

One of the awards made by classmate Silky B. (Photo by Rachel Kurzius)

And it’s true—there’s nothing quite like joking with people you’ve never met with a cucumber in your mouth.

Many of the women like giving head, but want to improve. “I just wanted to know if there was something else I could be doing,” one woman tells me.

“I do need to learn how to give better head,” another says. “And this was so tasteful.”

One woman had met Reba in another setting and found her inspiring, prompting her to take the class with a friend.

The sole man in the class saw the class online and sent it to a female friend, saying, “This seems like a fun, weird thing to do together.” While he is recounting this, his friend is standing nearby and juggling male masturbation sleeves.

Yes, even Fleshlights can have a role to play in blow jobs. And that’s the real takeaway from Blow His Mind—that there’s no limit to what you can do with a little creativity and enthusiasm. As we say goodbye to one another, we return to the world like sexual MacGivers, armed with the knowledge that pretty much everything could be a tool for a better blow job.

Blow His Mind! Oral Sex Workshop happens on Wednesdays at StudioWerkDC (415B Walker Court SE). Tickets are $40. Reba the Diva is also available for private events.