It's the kind of town that always thought it would get bigger. The town square is ringed with empty storefronts. A wide bridge spans the rushing water of a mountain stream. A lone stoplight presides over the junction of Main Street with the two-lane county highway that got her here. Farm trucks are parked in a neat diagonal row in front of the feed store. Five steeples are visible, revealing the presence of at least five churches of interchangeable evangelical denominations. On the way to this neighborhood she passed three pawnshops.
But even this town is changing. She saw the trucks, far down the mountain, on her way in. The work crews were sweating over earth-movers and directing traffic with flags. The provider logo was blazoned on every vest. High-speed Internet. It's coming, even here.
The store is the kind that is only barely tolerated in a town like this. The sign is small, nondescript. No neon. No glittering display windows. It's a furtive place that caters to shameful needs. The best things will be behind the counter or in the back room. The best things will not be very good. There is probably another entrance through the pawn shop next door, or maybe the tattoo place on the other side. No one in town would want to be seen going in.
There aren't many of these stores left. People go online for this sort of thing now. Country people do. The mailman can whisk an anonymous brown box past any number of churches and no one is the wiser. Soon people here will satisfy their urges that way.
She has traveled far to find this place. She thinks that it probably won't last the year.
A bell tinkles as she walks in, a surprisingly friendly little bell, incongruous in the dim light. She looks around, wondering if she has come to the wrong store, but she hasn't. There is a case of glass pipes by the counter. A display case holds large black dildos and a single pair of furry pink handcuffs. There is a wire rack of magazines, repellently bedraggled, their pages curled with damp. Along the back wall she sees what she came for: rows of movies. DVDs on shelves. VHS cassettes in teetering stacks.
The girl behind the counter looks up briefly when the bell rings, then turns back to her book. Cheaply dyed hair, black lipstick, a gold ring through one nostril: a cutting-edge rocker chick, if this were 1985. Her hair is shaved short at the sides and part of a tattoo - apparently the tail of a dragon or a serpent - extends beyond the rolled sleeves of her flannel shirt. The traveler doesn't need to see behind the counter to know the girl is wearing Doc Martens, or probably cheap Doc Marten knock-offs.
The girl leans on the worn wooden counter, her arm curled around the book. She's got chipped black polish on nails bitten short.
"Hello," the traveler says. The shopgirl nods without looking up. The traveler walks slowly to the shelves.
She scans the titles. She can tell right away that these aren't what she wants. Throbbing cocks. Beach Girls 2. The women on the covers are mostly blonde and mostly smiling. They look as though they are made of plastic. The shelves are clean but they smell of dust and mildew.
She takes a random title from the shelf and reads the back slowly, drawing her lower lip in between her teeth. She picks another title and does it again. Her hair tumbles forward over her face. She shakes it back and returns to lip-biting.
The shopgirl sighs at something in her book. Her hand presses it down hard, fingers splayed over the pages as if to force it down into the counter. She is surely breaking the spine.
The traveler replaces the DVD she is holding and looks up into the girl's eyes. The girl doesn't look away, but she's not really seeing her either. Not seeing the swollen mouth. Not seeing the tousled hair. That is not good. If she is going to ask, she needs the girl to be off-balance. She turns back to the shelves.
It has been a long time since she's done this. She has an Internet connection, of course. She could go out. She could meet people. There are plenty of other ways. But the other ways never feel right. She doesn't want daylight. She needs the privacy of being a stranger in a tawdry shop, of coming into town and going away again.
She walks to the counter. Eight steps. She is conscious of her thighs brushing together as she walks.
"Do you have anything...else?" she asks.
"What are you looking for?" The girl's voice is deeper than she expected. Less accented. Less country.
She can hardly say it. But it's what she is here for. Almost what she's here for. "Do you have the kind where they...hurt women?"
The shopgirl looks at her as if she has suddenly snapped into focus. It is a strange look, full of more things than she knows how to define, emotions rolling over one another like the fast-moving river outside. Interest. Pain. A deep-welling compassion. Need.
It is a naked look. The traveler thinks she recognizes it. She's seen it in the mirror.
The shopgirl takes a long time to answer, so long the traveler considers simply walking out. She could have lunch at the town's single diner. She could drive around. Later, she might stop the car on her way out of town if the work crew is still out. Later, there might be the heat of the road, and of strange men. She might go home marked with them. She doesn't have to stay here. She doesn't.
"In the back," the shopgirl says. Her hand is still hard on the book.
The traveler feels her spine relax, just a fraction, while the rest of her trembles and clenches. "Will you show me?"
The girl has not not dropped her gaze. She carefully slides a slip of paper between the pages in the book and closes it.
"Let me lock up," she says.
"Yes." the traveler answers. "Yes."
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