Questionable Behavior in Public Places

You used to be able to smoke in old downtown porno theatres. You used to be able to smoke in all theatres, then they made you smoke only in the side sections, then only the balcony. But that only in the uptown theatres. Even then, the porno dives on Market Street still wouldn't send an usher in if you lit up. Times changed slowest in the porno houses. No one would have come out to complain anyway.

The small theatres were converted nickelodeons, from before 1910. 199 seats, just under the code limit so they didn't have to put in another side exit. They were small storefronts, narrow and long, still movie theatres after all these years, because what were you going to put in that space anyway, between the liquor store and the hallway entrance to the residence hotel? The walls were covered with folded curtain soundfold first put up in the '40s, and patched, then stapled down to hide the rips, in the late '60s. The theatres converted to showing porn in the early '70s when sub-run houses moved along with the population out to the suburbs, and they were churning out $100k porno films a dozen a month. Eventually video cassettes would ruin the porno theatre business - 10 years later.

They'd have a round neon-faced clock by the screen, in green, over on the left above the one exit door out to the alley behind. “Phil & Son Auto.” It must have been free. A left over from the neon shop, never paid for or picked up.
 

Everyone had either a cigarette or a cock in their hand. There were 15 people in there, a little after lunch time, perhaps taking off from work. The clock reminded them when they had to leave...if they had to. No one was disgusted or looked away...we even looked at each other, just to verify it was there, being stroked. Yes.

I chain-smoked to keep my hands occupied. I lit the next one from the butt of the previous, and stepped on the old one on the thick floor. All eyes were otherwise glued to the screen, looking blankly at that second, that pose, that edit. Of what it was like – the return to some primal memory of another girl, seen and felt, or imagined and dreamed of. Naked and plastic. Projected. That was the way she looked, yes, that's the way it felt, that's how she stuck out the turn of her ass. That moment, the truthful and pure image that would make want to stroke your cock, make you jerk to orgasm, blow your wad, get your hand moving faster, and spurt, leaned back cock out, spunk dribbling down your knuckles in the screen-lit dark theatre air.

Outside in the lobby the workers wore a strangely opaque mask of customer service that you could not get through. The customers wore themselves an invisible mask of you-didn't-see-me as they put their money out and try to get admittance with a minimum of talk and explanation. The times are posted but no-one refers to it. The 22-year old girl working behind the candy counter won't tell anyone why she chose this theatre to work, but she always takes the late shifts that run until 2:am. One night after closing she pisses into the popcorn bin when the manager walks back upstairs with the videotapes, after trying unsuccessfully to flirt with her.

She places her foot up on the popcorn warmer's sill and pulls her panties aside and pees onto the popped corn in a yellowy buttery stream. For 2 days afterwards customers could barely discern that wangy taste that was the remnant of the discontent of a post-pubescent girl's heart being bruised...but not broken. Not yet.

Saloon Doors

Adult book stores don't have the same front presentation to the street that other stores have. They don't have the wares in the window. Not really.

Instead they have words - in neon, and in code. "Adult books" means more than those words may indicate. Giant 2-color sales offers painted on plywood on the front, covering the window.

Perhaps at one point the shop was a clothing store, with windows to see in.

The front door isn't open to the street. There's a partition blocking a straight view in, and you have to zig-zag to get in. And then...you're in.

The place isn't dark, but it isn't well-lit. The aisles aren't cramped but they're not spacious either. There's just enough room to roam around and browse, without bumping into or upsetting anyone else in the store.

The merchandise is organized by category. The three-way gangbang DVDs are on their own shelf. The interracial anal fucking ones are in a spot of their own.

Magazines are lined up neatly, and in plastic half the time. They're cleaner, dare I say it, virginal. Invariably there's a hallway in the back in which single-occupant booths show scenes from porn films on a video screen. It's usually marked by swinging saloon doors. It's the separator between the mere browsers and the ones who are here to jerk off.

The booths have a video monitor, built into the wall, and the deck is at the front. Men stand calmly, politely, and patiently in the hallway, not making eye contact. They peruse the card at the front of the hall, figuring out which girl, which angle, which position is going to get them hardest and orgasming the quickest. They wait for their booth to be free.

The fellow before them comes out and quietly lets the door close behind him. He's had his cock out in there, and either jerked off onto the floor, or into a paper towel, or even into his own underpants. Quietly he finishes and lets the next guy go in. And they do, looking to side-step any sticky puddles that may make them slip.

No one makes eye contact, and no one gives anyone any lip. Everyone is here for the same reason, to be stimulated beyond what the normal world out there can give them. No one here is giving anyone any trips. No one notes or bats an eye when you pick up "Cum-Drinking Whores with Dicks Up Their Assholes." It's not sick, it's not out of the ordinary. Of course, you're merely curious.

The smell of fecund humid sweat fills the air. The only sounds are the muffled treble-y moans from the playback machines. Even when you come up to buy something, there is no real talking. You hand it to the clerk. And the money. "I want it" does not need to be said.

He nods, you nod, he hands you the bag. If you accidentally bump someone, you back off. No shoving, or pushing in this testosterone-heavy environment. Because all the masculine male energy has been externalized, onto the material surrounding, the men are docile.

Practically emasculated. I don't think a fist fight ever breaks out in an adult bookstore.

The places are harder to leave than to enter into. First, to exit the realm of open positive polysexuality is to allow a slight death of reality intrude. And besides, someone might see you exit the den of sin.

These "bookstores" were special temples hidden and prevalent on the city landscape. The internet has closed them about all down, and changed this democratic and social environment.

RPH

Some measurements or tolerances are too fine to be properly measured by normal means. A useful unit of measure is an "RPH," or red pussy hair.

My first wife had red hair...and red pussy hair. And there's a lot of baggage there related to how it came to pass that I had begun to fetishize it - regardless of how well (or how poorly) she treated me. It had to do with the previous experiences in my life, relating to sex, to naked people, to pictures of naked people.

A fine thing indeed.