Wednesday, July 30, 2008

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.

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