***
A week later, my girlfriend opened a small box in Christmas wrapping paper and saw a receipt from a store called Adult Galaxy.
“That’s great…” she began to say, “But where is the toy?”
“You mean the cantaloupe?”
“The what?”
“That’s not important,” I said. “The point is the journey. You always joked how I would never be able to walk into a store like that, but I did. I broadened my horizons, just like you asked.”
“I think that’s great,” she said, “I really do think it’s great. But seriously, where’s the toy?”
“You mean cantaloupe.”
“What?”
“I threw it out. I’m sorry, but I had to. It was violated.”
“Violated how?”
“Let me just say that I didn’t want your vagina to catch the flu. Trust me.”
The moment was bittersweet, for it really was a struggle for me to do what I did that day, and I told myself that I would never go into a porno shop again, for obvious reasons. But I can’t help but think of that room with the saloon doors. I lie awake some nights and think about what could be so adult that it can’t be shown to adults in the main area of the adult video store. What could it possibly be? What??
Maybe in another 15 years I’ll venture back there and finally find out, but only if someone puts their hands over my eyes first, leaving just a small crack of opportunity between their fingers.
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Ride the Tiger