The Wages, An Illustrated Story | 11. Masterstroke | Shadowy Spaces
A chill washed over me—but the Wilsons had made no mention of me prying and had hired me again. I went back to the movie on TV and fretted. At the end of their night out Mr. Wilson handed me my money without giving me a weird look. I had no idea if the disappearance of the smut was a coincidence or if this was my silent welcome into the brotherhood of porn readers. The Wilsons asked if I was available next week.
While Mrs. Wilson drove me home we chatted about her memories of doo-wop. I should have been excited to talk to anyone about music, but I kept staring into nighttime Toronto while I wondered what was going on in the shadowy spaces between the lights. It occurred to me that Mr. Wilson’s secret stash of porn might have been merged with more he had hidden elsewhere in their home.
Maybe a broader selection would reveal some fantasy that could get me going for real.
This thought terrified me. I had dodged a catastrophe of shame, but my urges were now threatening an escalation to tearing the Wilsons’ house apart. I imagined a future night where Mr. and Mrs. Wilson would return home and open their garage door to reveal me in the glare of their headlights while I raided smut from a toolbox with my pants down. Prayer and self-control were failing me.
The only way to contain my bad behavior would be to buy filth of my own.
The big city that overwhelmed me also offered anonymity. On a weekday afternoon off, I took an unfamiliar TTC route to a funky used bookshop. The two other shoppers were ladies looking at mysteries and gardening books. I summoned my nerve and scanned the covers of the shop’s horde of vulgarity, but found it either bland or scary. I kept checking the store entrance for men.
Then I spotted a paperback titled Girlfriend Librarians. A few stories of prim-and-proper women who explode into debauchery together might prevent me from getting into other trouble. I bought it in a cold sweat, along with two spy-thrillers that I grabbed for their flashy cover art to distract from the lurid main attraction sandwiched between the two espionage pulps.
