Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 01:53:54 -0500
From: Susan Cray <gscray@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu>
Subject: AT THE BOOKSTORE

AT THE BOOKSTORE

/lesbian/young-friends

Posted to the Nifty Archive, but not written by Susan Cray
(gscray@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu).

Posted to the USENET June 03, 1997.
----

I'm at my favorite bookstore here in town(Border's, 17th & Walnut,
Philadelphia).  I get bored with the magazines so I head upstairs,
not really looking for anything in particular, just browsing,
idling, wasting a hazy afternoon.  I wander through the
lesbian/gay/s&m section, notice there is nothing new by Pat
Califia, think about my dyke friend Beth, and tool down to fiction.
The thing that always makes me smile in the fiction section is that
all the spines to the Anais Nin books are broken, and the pages are
worn and well-thumbed.  The Henry Miller 'Tropics' books too.  And
some Erica Jong and D.H. Lawrence.
     I hear a tiny "eep" from behind me.  I turn around.  There are
two girls on the wooden bench between the racks of books.  They
couldn't be more than thirteen and they are next to each other, but
facing away.  Each has a windbreaker across her lap, one leg tucked
under her, and hand hidden to the elbow under the windbreaker.
One is reading 'Delta of Venus', the other, 'Little Birds'.
     This is interesting.
     I pull a book at random off the rack next to me and sit down
and pretend to be reading it.  The book is 'A Scanner Darkly' by
Philip Dick, and it's such a cool book I almost forget about the
girls.
     Almost.
     These girls are really going at it.  Ever so often, one will
pull her hand out from under her windbreaker and hold it to her
friend's lips.  The other one will kiss and suck the offered
fingers, which will soon again disappear.
     The "eep's" come louder and quicker from the two girls and I
mentally will them to quiet down or the show'll be interrupted.  It
doesn't work.
     "Eep, eep"
     "Yip, yip."
     Finally, it stops.  I adjust my hard-on so it's vertical and
head over to the girls.
     "How come you don't just use the bathroom?" I ask.
     The girl with 'Delta of Venus' looks at me like I just asked
the stupidest question on Earth and says, "You can't get caught in
*there*..."
     Silly me.
     The girls ask me if I know of any other "good" books.  I look
around to make sure no one is watching and introduce them to the
lesbian/gay/s&m section.
     "Wow," says the one, "there's so *many*."  They ask me which
ones are best.
     I point out 'Macho Sluts' and the 'Serious Pleasure' series
published by the Sheba Collective.  They each grab one and the next
thing I know the girls are swishing down the stairs, holding hands.
     I head back to where they were sitting and pick up the copy
of 'Delta of Venus' the one girl was using.  I find the page she
was on.  The story was 'Mathilde'.  I slide 'A Scanner Darkly' into
an inappropriate place on the shelf and head into the bathroom, my
thumb holding the book open to the beginning of 'Mathilde'.

     Just after I come I know: I'll never die of natural causes.

RICHH