Well, that’s not it was when I was a teenager. In those days, sweets and newspapers adorned its shelves. On the top row, very interesting magazines. Every few weeks, summoning courage, entering the shop with studied nonchalance, noticing with hammy unexpectedness something that looks interesting, pulling down a magazine, studying it as if with detached amusement, replacing it, selecting another.
Doing this for as long as I could get away with. A complex calculation, if the shop was uncrowded you’d get the shopkeeper’s attention, if it was crowded there were too many people who could see what you were doing.
Eventually, buying one. To add to my collection, each one lovingly thumbed, each one with favorite women in favorite poses, each one fuel for countless masturbatory adventures. But each one also posing a problem, where to keep it. My hidey-hole, under an attic floorboard, hard to find and just about possible to disown.
Cute, innocent times. Now, no need for anyone to see you when you buy, in fact, no need to buy, it’s free. Three clicks of the mouse and you’re in your preferred site, and in your preferred niche in it. As much time as you want, no need to worry about a shopkeeper’s raised eyebrow. No limitation to five or six titles, the choice is never-ending. Videos rather than photos, No reining back to please prying censors.
Afterwards, run a free program downloaded for the purpose, to sanitize your computer. All records, browsing history, files, obliterated. The invisible files left behind by the computer's operating system, nuked, you can choose the same security setting as that used by the Pentagon. After a while, the sanitization an automatic habit. Saves embarrassing discoveries and allows everyone to sustain the fiction that you’re one of those mythical men that never watch porn.
Oh look, ten miles gone by without noticing, well, interesting thoughts, the world’s moved on.
