Have you ever found smut where you least expect it?
I live in a Dutch Christian Reformed, conservative city with a healthy dose of Catholicism thrown in. A good place
to raise a straight laced family, play sports, and you're surrounded by hipster restaurants, bars, craft breweries,
distilleries, over priced coffee shops and every corporate chain store you can imagine, all within a nice white
picket fence.
There is surprisingly a good noise scene here, and has been for quite sometime. One of the best in the Midwest.
Underground culture exists, but nothing too edgy. Occasional leather night at secret gay club, and I know of one
full-time dominatrix. Though, inspiration for something different than the normal surroundings is still quite thin.
Like any noise pervert would do, I've taken up the hobby of collage making from different magazine sources. Mostly
purchased online and from Europe. Some borrowed from friends. Sometimes photos I've shot myself.
Due to the rising shipping costs of everything good from overseas, I've grown tired of paying more than I should for printed
materials to scratch my artistic itch. One Saturday afternoon I decided to give my local bookstore a call, expecting to
not get any answers, but yet I was wrong. A sweet lady in her 40's answers...
Conversation went something like this:
"Hello, ____ Bookstore. How can I help you?"
"Yes, I was wondering if you had any vintage fetish magazines or vintage leather magazines specifically in stock?
(I've learned it's best to be direct and to the point instead of beating around the bush with this type of thing)
"Uh... well, is there any specific title you're looking for?"
"Anything, really. Atom Age but I know those are very rare so..."
"Well, my husband and I just bought this shop and he's been going through the basement and sorting out
books. He has found some... hidden... things from the previous owners. It might be something you're interested in.
He isn't in the shop right now but should be back within the hour if you'd like to come in?"
"Yes, I'll see you within the hour, then"
After hanging up I couldn't contain my excitement. I mean, what kind of materials were found in that old dusty
basement? Why "hidden"? And how much stock? I knew very little about the previous bookstore owners other than
that they were two older gay men. Maybe they left behind old Drummer magazines, or Dungeon Master issues?
There weren't too many customers when I arrived a little later. The sweet lady who answered the phone had
greeted me at the door.
"Hello, how are you?"
"I'm doing well. I called earlier about some... magazines"
Her face turned a certain way. Not scared, not confused, but just... a way.
"Ah, yes, you'll have to talk to him" and she points to her husband behind the register, talking to customers.
I made my way towards to other end of the bookstore and started perusing different comics and whatnot, waiting
for a moment when I could ask the shop owner where the smut was. Finally, after about 15 minutes of him talking
about the latest Batman movie with some patrons, he made his way over towards me.
He opens up a shelf and pulls out a large white pull box.
"Hey, so I have some... stuff... down here for you. I think you might, uh, find what you're looking for."
I thanked him and eagerly started flipping through titles.
There was a small variety of magazines inside, all bagged and boarded. Mostly untouched. Titles like
Corporal, Spank, Nugget, various magazines devoted to reader submitted ads, a couple of copies of Janus,
Latent Image. He was basically sitting on a goldmine of smut. For being in the basement for who knows how long,
they all appear in good condition.
After talking with the owner a little more, it turns out that there is plenty of more magazines like this in the basement
that he still has to go through. None of it is priced yet, and due to location of the shop in this socially conservative
town, he doesn't quite know how to display these out in the public without catching complaints. He then says what
most fans of this type of rare items loves to hear -- "I tend to play favorites, and I see that you're interested in these, so
I'll let you have priority of these magazines before I let anyone else look at them".
I'm not sure what else may be in that basement but I'll be sure to check back every couple of weeks to see if anything
else interesting is stirred up.
