A Visit to an Adult Store

I remember how jealous my older sister always got when I was little and my mother would brush my straight, thick blond hair.

"You should have been a girl, Robin," Sis would say, shaking her frizzy, dirty-blond locks.

It bothered me because I was not a girl. I was a boy. Mom would sigh and tell me that most girls would kill to have hair like mine, not only thick and straight, but bright and shiny, too. The style for boys was to wear it pretty long, so I did. As I grew up, I compared my hair with other guys', and I always thought I had the nicest hair. Then, I started comparing it to girls' hair, and I envied them a bit for being able to style their hair any way they wanted. As my hair got longer, I wore it mostly in a pony tail.

I had always considered myself a normal teenage boy. I found I liked to look at the thin, willowy girls at school, but I could never muster the courage to ask one out. I loved it when they would wear something off-the-shoulder or a halter-top. I think bare shoulders and necks are very sexy. I also loved bare midriffs ... as long as the girls were thin and had curves. I imagined running my hands over their bare sides while my mouth nuzzled their necks and soft shoulders.

Then, slowly, as my teen years progressed, my fantasies began to change. It was my

body being caressed, my shoulders and neck being nipped at ... by some man. I never could quite imagine what he looked like, but he would be older and stronger than me. I thought about crossing my arms around this man's neck, giving his hands free rein over my body while he kissed me.

I thought about this anonymous man a lot, about what he would want to do to me after he asserted his will and I surrendered mine. 

I figured that I was probably gay, not that I had done anything about it when I was in high school. I ran track and was a pretty fair swimmer (with my hair packed under a swimming cap). I was 5-foot-8 1/2 and very thin. One day, I came upon one of my sister's fashion magazines. There was a male modeling Speedos. He was so perfectly thin that I almost couldn't tell where his flat stomach ended and his hips began.

He was very good-looking, but I realized that if I sculpted my body, I could be much better-looking. I could be beautiful. I couldn't really explain it, but I wanted to be able to attract a man someday, even if I wasn't going to let him touch me.

After I graduated high school, I had several academic scholarship offers, but I decided to take a year off to, I told my parents, earn enough to buy a car. I got a job in a fast-food restaurant where I didn't eat anything. What I really wanted to do was to get my body like the model's, if not better. I still went swimming, but I cut down on it because I wanted my arms to be toned, but soft, without too much definition. My waist didn't need much work, but I reduced my calorie intake and began a workout regimen to give me the tiniest waist I could have without it becoming too rigid.

I made sure my chest didn't get too hard. I was thin, but not emaciated. I was quite trim above the waist, but fairly soft, particularly near both nipples. My legs were trim from thigh to feet, and my butt was small, and, I thought, kind of sexy. As I approached 19 years old, I hardly had a hair on my body, and those I did have, I shaved.

After a shower, behind the locked bathroom door, I would wear my robe off both shoulders, let my hair cascade over my bare neck and shoulders, and pose for the mirror. I'd shimmy back and forth and pretend that my soft little mounds were real cleavage. It occurred to me each time that it wouldn't take much for me to pass as a woman. Perhaps I was just seeing what I wanted to see, but I thought I was beautiful.

I still thought of myself, though, as a man -- probably just a heterosexual man with a gay fantasy.

Finally, my year was over and it was time for me to leave my Connecticut home at age 19 and go off to college at the University of New Hampshire. After a tearful goodbye to mom and dad (my sister was already off to school in Boston), I drove off in the used car I had bought. It was raining and a bit chilly when I got to New Hampshire. I got a little lost on my way to the campus, and in my wanderings, I noticed a rather large adult book store and arcade, and made a mental note to check it out later. I had decided I wanted to buy a dildo, just to see what it felt like. I may be too scared to actually be with a man, but I felt it wouldn't do any harm to see what a dildo felt like as long as I could be gentle with myself.

It was late by the time I got all my stuff unpacked at the dorm. I was a whole day early, so there weren't many other students around. I was on my own at last. It was after 10 p.m., but I figured the book store would be open until at least 1 a.m., or maybe even 24 hours. I thought I might as well check it out and see if it had a dildo, maybe even with batteries that would make it vibrate. I showered, then dressed in sandals, cut-off shorts and an armless T-shirt cut to go down only to my rib cage. I looked in the mirror and raised my arms a bit. There was a pronounced concave from my thin ribs to my tiny stomach and then to the low-riding shorts on my hips.

I had sneaked off once to an adult arcade in Connecticut, but I didn't stay but a minute. An older man spotted me as soon as I went into the store and moved up close to me and mumbled something I didn't understand. I got frightened and left, but not before I noticed that they sold dildos and other paraphernalia in the store..

Now, in my dorm room, I thought perhaps I looked too good. I didn't want to attract any attention. I was going to change into something a bit less-revealing, but I said the heck with it and just put my raincoat on over my shorts and T-shirt. I stuffed most of my shoulder-blade-length blond hair under a cap and drove through the rain to the bookstore, where I was surprised to see that there was only one car in the large parking lot. 

It was five minutes to 11 when I opened the door. Perched on a high stool behind the elevated counter reading a magazine was a burly old man, maybe 60 years old with a paunchy stomach, a black and gray moustache and what looked like about a five-day growth of beard. Not my dream man, or perhaps anybody else's.

He was not only ugly, but rude.

"We're closing," he said condescendingly, barely looking up from his magazine. I didn't say anything for a few moments, and he finally looked down at me. He hesitated a second, then resignedly said, "We're closing. Come back tomorrow." 

The store closed at 11 p.m.? I was really disappointed. I don't know why I did it. I think on my first night away from home, while I had my room all to myself before my college roomate arrived, I really wanted to play with a dildo, and I since I was new in town, I didn't know anywhere else I could find one at that time of night.

"You know," I said while I eased out of my raincoat and looked up at him with my most-innocent, blue-eyed expression, "I've never been in a bookstore like this after it closed."

I removed my cap, shook my head, and my thick, straight blond hair cascaded around my bare arms.

I definitely had his attention now. His dark eyes drank me in.

"There's so much to see," I said as alluringly as I could. "There's something I really want to buy -- a dildo? -- and I thought maybe you could show me around and help me find it and maybe some other stuff."

Oh my goodness, I was flirting! With a man. With a man I didn't find even remotely attractive. Just to get a dildo. I was thinking maybe I should just leave when he stood up and walked around to the door. His bearded, pock-marked face was expressionless. He was a giant, at least 6-foot-5, perhaps 6-6, and must have weighed about 270 pounds. I only weighed 157. He wore his pants belt under his belly, which jiggled under his checkered short-sleeved shirt with the shirttails out.