This old story came into my head when I was up in Victoria last summer. My family late at night were going through a Burger King when in the same shopping district was an Adult Store. The windows were barred and they looked like they had lard sprayed onto them; just thick inconsistent layers of disgusting whitish spray all over the windows to intentionally fog them. To keep the peering eyes of judgment from gazing in. I wanted to know what kind of spray they used to fog the windows so I could do it at my house to keep to my business in my room, so I asked my dad if I could go in. My sister was also mildly curious but disgusted. The man outside informed me I could do it myself, and he had videos that guided me through the process of doing so. He then informed me they were the security videos from inside the store, and after thinking what the customers actually did to get that thick film of slime on the windows, I gagged and left. But that wasn't the first time. Right, the story.
The first rule of thumb is to make sure that you don't go in alone. Going alone makes you the kind of sleezeball that will get you judged by others for being lonely, desperate, and a lech. Going in with somebody suddenly makes it an adventure with a bounty of relics screaming to be discovered. You would be surprised at the stuff that they keep in these stores. The unfortunate victim at the time was my girlfriend. Now after a first extremely awkward, extremely unnerving sexual experience that will never be discussed under the penalty of death, this seemed like a good idea to... well, get some good ideas. But if you people have read any previous stories, you would know that Ami is an extremely shy, withdrawn, bashful, socially-awkward individual. Nothing will drive that point home farther than taking said person to a sex shop. Oh dear, I had to get her high to convince her that it was a plausible idea. Besides, it couldn't be that awkward, right? Right?
The manager of the store either must've been stoned out of his mind or he simply didn't care that two 15-year olds were glancing through his peddling station of sleazy goods looking for something to indulge themselves with. Everything about the place seemed off. You were cut off from the rest of the world while you were in here. The apocalypse could occur, and you would only figure it out when you stepped outside. The air was... different. You felt like just breathing was making you contract any airborne STDs, which don't exist anywhere else but in a sex shop.
Going to these places, there's a lot to uncover. There's a lot of books and videos and instruments and doo-dads and our young ignorant minds couldn't stare at any of it for more than a second before being overcome with an intense combination of laughter and shame. This was back in the good ol' days where not everybody used the internet for porn because books and magazines were still the norm. It was like wandering into an abandoned library for smut. There were pornography magazines from eras that I didn't even know had pornography in active circulation. I guess those people in the 60s just started doing loads of drugs and started taking pictures of themselves sucking and fucking and contracting Gonorrhea and HIV without a care in a world. Those were beautiful times, weren't they?
"Ohhhh... my." Something caught her eye.
"Eh, you find something interesti-- Oh merciful Jesus what is that."
"I think that's supposed to go i--"
"Oh good Christ you're kidding."
"The picture of the woman spreading her legs like... that says otherwise..."
"Dear lord, it's like King Arthur left Excalibur in here."
"I think I would break something trying to get that up the--"
"Ami no."
"It's definitely bigger than y—"
"AMI NO."
Then we found another odd tool. It was something that was akin to a thong, except it had a penis in the front. I never saw anything like this at that point in time.
"...What in the hell would anybody do with this?"
"It's clearly for women." she responded.
"Why would they want such a thing?"
"Uh... lesbians maybe?" I then scoffed with disgust.
"Lesbians don't like shlongs. If they did, they wouldn't be lesbians now would they?"
"...Fair enough."
"Still disgusting."
"Maybe it's for a woman and her boyfriend t--"
"I SAID NO, AMI."
"That would explain the bottles of lubrica--"
"FUCKING HELL, SHUT THE HELL UP AMI."
Then we found the video section. With little booths. Tiny, dirty little booths where they showed clips of the dusty old VHSs playing their wares. Those tiny little booths smelled like something. I couldn't quite describe it. It smelled like someone ran a train on a horse in there and forgot to clean it up. It was intoxicating. It was disgusting. It was irresistible. What we saw on those tapes were abhorrent and vile, and it robbed us of our innocence as we were just visually violated. But we couldn't look away. Then Ami glanced at me, dead gaze on my face as she recalled.
"You know, after watching all these videos, I'm surprised you haven't--" I interrupted.
"Fighting with all my willpower, thank you very much."
"That must be har--"
"POOR CHOICE OF WORDS."
"That must be difficult here." Now she's messing with me.
"I'm thinking of those lewd images of my relatives I stumbled across to kill any urge."
"...Why?"
"God forbid I disgust you in any way with indecent thoughts."
"...Right."
Bringing a 15 or 16-year old young man to such a place was a poor decision upon recollection. I demanded to depart immediately. Ami was busy looking at her wallet while gazing at Thor's Hammer of Mjöllnir before hearing me shout "OH HELL NO." and dragging her away by the hood of her sweatshirt out the door.
* * *
"And that's how it would go." I declared.
"Interesting story. You should get it published." she said.
"It would be interesting, come on."
"Do you really think they would let us into a sex shop?" Ami asked.
"Maybe if they didn't care."
"I don't even think there's a sex shop in Manteca." she said.
"We've never been to the West side, there might be. A lot of old and shady places there."
"Lucas you're an idiot."
"I like how you just wondered how we would get in there and yet didn't question any implications of your behavior once we got in."
"Can it."
"The Hammer of Mjöllnir would be a definite buy."
"Get bent."
"It's probably bigger than I am, I don't see why you wouldn't."
"I'm getting the strap-on so I can f--"
"AMI NO."
No comments:
Post a Comment