After teaching his afternoon class, he strolled over to the book store and wandered aimlessly through the aisles, eventually settling down in front of the SciFi section. 'No new Zelazny.' Stooping down, 'no next short story collection of Lafferty.' He stooped down more, 'no new Niven.' But then, `I haven't seen that one before.' He took it, flip briefly through it, and walked to the front of the store.
At the checkout he handed the book to the cashier, a women, pretty looking, probably a graduate student. Holding the book while ringing it up, she looked at him and asked, 'How do you guys find this stuff?' He embarrassingly mumbled something incoherent, quickly paid, and hurried off home alone, to masturbate to his new Gor novel.
'I wonder how she knew about the Gor books? This one doesn't even hint at slave girls with the cover art.'
He thought of that Nero Wolfe comment: Why did Nietzsche say: Thou goest to women, forget not thy whip? Because he had not the temerity to touch a women with the tip of a goose-feather.
'Yes, me and Friedrich both' he thought. I couldn't even face that cashier let alone answer her. And I have no idea myself how I find this stuff.'
He thought of that erotic French novel he had found, The Image. Finding the Story of O was easy, it was everywhere, even a new movie, now showing where Barry Lyndon had recently played. But The Image? some hidden radar, that 'we guys' must possess, had somehow drawn him to it one day at the university book store. Things to feed fetid imaginations, desperately dealing with their sense of rejection by all those lovely irresistible ladies they longed for and could only imagine possessing as powerless slave girls forced to yield up themselves. Such lust mixed with the frustrated anger at the hurt of rejection.
'How do you guys find this stuff?' How did she know about 'this stuff' he wondered. Maybe she liked it too, was trying to connect with one of 'you guys' and was reaching out. If he had only had the temerity to venture a reply. Well, maybe ...
Back at the bookstore the next day. Not very busy, no one at the checkout. And there she was, just standing by the cash register. He quickly grabbed a book from the Recent Additions table, one he had previously thought of buying. She rang it up.
'I read other things beside Gor books' he squeaked, mouth dry.
'What?'
'You rang me up yesterday. The Gor book.' His voice sounded strange to himself.