Chapter 1

I knew Sam a long time ago, in elementary school. He was shy, barely noticed. He wasn’t interested in sports except during recess with our ball games. We lived in the same neighborhood but a good distance apart, so I rarely saw him.

He went to middle school, but dropped out after the first year. I don’t know how, but he opened a video store when VHS tapes came along late 70s. His business seemed to be doing well, and it grew considerably. After just one year, he rented the entire building. An old three-story building. The ground floor consists of three rooms, one independent, and one directly into the store, a jewelry store at the time. An entrance hall provided access to the two other businesses, and stairs led to the upper floors, where tiny, modest apartments were located, most of which were occupied by single retirees and a few students.

His video rental store was on the left, and he opened a sex shop in the center’s premises. He carried out some renovations and transformed the top-floor apartments into a small hotel. In the entrance hall was the receptionist, a pretty woman in her forties who greeted customers for the video store as well as the sex shop.

One day, as a favor to my mother-in-law, I had to go to the video store to return two cassettes. Sam recognized me and greeted me warmly.

“Jack, good to see you!”

“Me too, Sam, it’s my first time here. Wow, your business seems to be going well.”

“Oh yeah! I’m negotiating the purchase of the whole building!”

He told me how he’d gotten the money to start the business from his elderly parents, who believed in his project. The video store was booming, but he had to work sixteen hours a day. He retrieved the cassettes and saw the titles. One was “Deep Throat”, the other one was “Seka”.

“Are you watching with your girlfriend?”

“No, my mother-in-law asked me to come and return these!”

He smiled, then told me he’d opened the sex shop and offered me a tour. He led me to the shop. The place was vast. He began by describing the Halloween costumes, telling me he paid a pittance and sold them ten times the price or rented them by the day for four times the price. And they weren’t just rented for Halloween, but also for masquerade parties, and for some, for erotic fantasies.

There was a lot of women’s lingerie and fitting rooms. He opened one of the changing rooms, pointing out a six-inch hole. He added, “The problem is, you don’t know if it’s a slut or a pervert sucking you off on the other side,” and he burst out laughing. Finally, he showed me the glass counter, where they had sex accessories. On Valentine’s Day, I sold three times what it contained; I had stocked up on the advice of my supplier. He led me into the back room, which was closed by a door. We entered; there was an office with two chairs in front and a large sofa on the right wall. A curtain to the right revealed a small living room with two sofas and a coffee table in the middle.