The first time I walk through the door of tiny Oxford Books, I’m nine years old, alone, and barefoot.
The nut-brown hippie girl counterperson looks up from a newspaper. She smiles and nods.
I step lightly into a labyrinth of packed shelves. Woodsy warmth. The only sounds are my dirty feet on the carpet, my fingers grazing book spines, and the hippie girl turning pages.
In the back of the store, a white paperback cover draws my focus: I pull The Sensuous Woman by”J” from the shelf. At nine, I’m already a “word guy,” descended from writers and bookish folk, so I have some dim understanding of the term “sensuous.” Within a minute or so, I understand exactly what I’m reading. I move to the nearby “Cookbooks” section and slip the little volume into The French Chef. Surely, no one will find anything remarkable about a nine-year-old focused on Julia Child. (No one does.)
I’ve never read erotica, but I’ve seen my grandfather’s ill-hidden vintage Playboys. Indeed, the images in those quicken my pulse. But The Sensuous Woman lights up a different part of my mind, warms my blood slowly, steadily. Language can do this?
I will visit Oxford Books frequently that summer. Smiles and nods pass between the hippie girl and me. No conversation. I head straight to the “Erotica” section at the back. I burrow into my secret spot between the stacks, disguise The Sensuous Woman in some innocuous book, and read. Image-heavy selections like The Joy of Sex and Vatsyayana’s Kama Sutra are there for perusal, too, but The Sensuous Woman – all text – is my favorite. Of the few customers who come in during my visits, none seem to notice me.
The hippie girl is the first person to quietly share space with me as I devour a book. I thrill at the very real possibility she knows exactly what I’m doing. As in The Sensuous Woman, there is no judgment, no shaming.
At age nine, my impulse to transgress is strong, though no one knows. I usually hold it in check, building my “wise beyond his years” persona. The dependable, nice guy who will “do the right thing.” My pleaser mask. Who would want to hurt or leave such a person? The Sensuous Woman and the hippie girl’s laissez faire attitude give me temporary respite from this effort. I fear no punishment, no rejection for “bad” behavior.
Once, after being particularly engrossed, I withdraw from the world of The Sensuous Woman to a heavy quiet. I pad to the front desk. The hippie girl is gone. The lights at the front of the store are off. Late summer dusk has fallen outside. I am locked in Oxford Books.
I stand at the glass door, my breath fogging the pane. Other businesses in Peachtree Battle Shopping Center remain open: a disco, a bar, the Winn Dixie. A passing young couple spies me and stops. I explain through the glass. They call the police from a payphone.
“Sure you don’t want us to call your parents?” the woman says.
“They’re not home,” I answer. I don’t go into my dad being dead, etc. I am enjoying this scene. It’s all about me.
In minutes, the hippie girl pulls up in an old beater of a car, jumps out, and unlocks the door. She apologizes repeatedly. The police had called her.
“Oh my God! Did you fall asleep?”
This is the most I’ve ever heard her say. Her panicked patchouli sweat fills my nostrils.
“No,” I say. “I was just reading.”
“I’m so sorry!”
Seeing her upset saddens me. I want her serene and unconcerned, as usual. I don’t want her fussing over me, treating me like the child I am.
“You need a ride somewhere?” she asks.
“No thanks,” I reply, my face hot.
Like most adults in my life at this point, she looks at me and says, “OK.”
I run home, feet slapping cooling pavement, to a vacant house, as Venus flickers to life in the sky, pulsing constant.
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