I’ve always been a lover of books since I discovered what I enjoyed reading. It takes finding what you enjoy to enjoy reading. Think back to the books you desperately wanted to learn to read as a toddler, books that were fun, shit, they were fun and informative, had great messages, and wonderful pictures! Then what happens? The pictures go away and books become boring and like work to read. Yes, reading became a job to us all. Some of us found what we wanted to read about sooner rather than later and many gave up. I, on the other hand, found science-fiction and fantasy pretty fast into my young adult years. I also found comics, even younger, and Playboy, Penthouse, and Leg Show a little bit later. The sci-fi painted pictures in my mind, the comics gave me the pictures, and the adult magazines brought an element of sex into my virgin being.
So from time to time I would go into book stores to find something new and exciting to read, usually it was the Walden Books or the B. Dalton’s and Barnes’ and Nobel's. Although it was also into the special section of the local convenience store where they had the nuddie-mags, for my more sexual needs. Rarely I would go into a used or antique book store, and I don’t know why it was rare because I was always amazed when I looked around one. Now to give you a place to stake this story in the time line, it was right after I graduated high school and quite sometime before I got married. I was a few towns from where I lived and decided to go into the local used book store. The name of the store was The Mystical Reader: All Genres Featuring Books of the Past Present and Future. I was greeted as I entered,
“Welcome to the Mystic, if you need anything just let me know.”
The woman at the counter must have been in her seventies. She looked good for her age and reminded me of a girl from back in my freshmen year of high school, who was from a large family in the area and I wondered if they were related. I asked,
“I’m looking for old sci-fi, fantasy, and, uh, erotic works. Something I wouldn’t find at the new book stores.”
This older woman smiled at be knowingly and said,
“Most of the science-fiction we have is the same older ones you’d find at the ‘new’ stores, but there is some fantasy that’s not in reprint, and if you want some rather peculiar erotic fiction we have a smell wall of that in the basement. You’ll need to show me your ID before you can go down there though.”
At first I just looked around the store, picking out a few books I was interested in, and I placed them on the counter to buy, telling the woman,
“I’m going to buy these, but I’d like to look downstairs?”
I gave her my ID and then she gave me the go ahead, so I walked down the creaky stairs to the dark basement. There was a dimly lit sign that read,
“Flip the switch for the lights, turn off the lights when you’re done. ~Thank you.”
I flipped the switch and the room was filled with bright lights that made the room look more clear and illuminated than even upstairs. I looked through the books on the shelves and there was everything from classic Playboys to “dirty” magazines from way back. I loved reading and jerking off to vintage porn, so I thought that maybe I’d pick a few of the older magazines up, but then I felt a strange pull to a rather large and ancient looking book on the far side of the shelf. It looked warn and fragile, but when I picked it up it was rather sturdy and held together well as I flipped through the pages. There were illustrations with the writing and all sorts of erotic things from cover to cover and in great detail, too. It was a book I just had to have, but there was no price tag on it. I took it upstairs with me and turned the light off on the way out. When I arrived at the counter I asked the woman how much the book cost. She answered,
“This book will cost you $25, but normally I would charge $50 for it, but you turned off the light before you came up.”
I put the book on the counter and pulled out my wallet. The total price for everything I bought was $35 and I thought I’d gotten a good deal. She put the books from upstairs in a bag and picked up the book to hand it directly to me. In that next moment, the moment that both her hands and mine were both on the book, something strange and magical happened. No, it was mystical! The women in her seventies that looked similar to the girl from my freshman high school class, almost four years ago, transformed into the spitting image of that girl as she’d look that day! I froze in place as I stared at her. She asked,
“Are you okay, young man?”