May 26, 2009

Senior Kink


At my local Barnes & Noble today, I overheard a grandmotherly lady (lace-up white loafers and all) inquire at the Information kiosk about some titles she'd jotted down on a scrap of paper.

Ever-nosy about what books people are interested in, I lingered at the nearby table of paperbacks and was stunned when the employee read back the names of the 3 books the lady was asking about. They were: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Release, and Beauty's Punishment: the trilogy of erotic and S&M-themed porn novels written by good 'ol (crazy) Anne Rice.

"Yes, that's it," the woman said. "I want to order two copies of each." Two copies of each? Look, I've read at least one of the above books. They're pretty sexy -- lots of spanking and creative uses of foreign objects, I seem to recall. Does this grandma know what she's in for? And why two? Is she in some kind of assisted-living book club? Is one for her, and the other for grandpa?

The mind reels.

Also: I found a good quote by e.e. cummings on the inside of a young-adult novel, about a girl who can fly:

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting."

Aha. No wonder I'm so tired.

It's even harder to fight the good battle if one lives in this isolated and uber-suburban town, which some have deemed "the bible belt of Southern California." (But with me & kinky grandma here, rest assured we have at least a couple of free-thinking residents.) There goes the neighborhood.

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