Come for Jesus, stay for the Victorian Smut....

I don’t remember her name, but I do remember her. Let’s call her ‘Susan’.

A second-hand bookshop tends to attract unusual characters. Sometimes I felt like a bartender without alcohol involved. People seem to have the notion that a bookshop (particularly the small second-hand type) is a place where the owner is always available to listen to your troubles, hear synopses of the latest mystery you’ve read, or generally spend much time learning about the details of your life.

This one particular woman stood out. Susan was a book collector of a very specific genre. Her area of interest was hard cover vintage (preferably Victorian) bondage and sadomasochism. These books are not the easiest to find and tend to command higher prices, but she was undaunted by cost. It was the joy of the hunt and the thrill of the capture that enticed her, not to mention the satisfaction of ownership and the delight in the content. She told me she had quite an extensive collection.

She was a sporadic regular at first, maybe stopping by once every month or so to see whether anything of interest had come in. Over time, she told me more about herself, and then began visiting much more often.

Susan professed to be a devout Christian, of the Evangelical variety. She had experienced a revelation and now claimed Jesus Christ as a personal saviour. I wasn’t certain how she reconciled her specific tastes in literature with her faith, but as she was becoming more and more chatty, I thought she might explain this to me a some point but, alas, she never did.

In a slightly creepy way, Susan’s career meshed with her personal interests. She was a sale representative for gynecological products. She would visit clinics and gynecologists touting lubricants, specula, oven mitts (if, dear reader, you are a woman, you will understand), swabs and so on.

She was divorced, mostly because her husband had not declared himself for Christ. She had a teenage daughter, who I assume was conceived when Susan was quite young (Susan seemed to be in her early 30s). She was not unattractive but not noticeably pretty. In appearance, Susan was an ordinary woman, slim, her shoes matched her purse; she was neatly groomed, and nicely attired in slightly severe business no-nonsense clothes.

She confessed to being lonely and revealed she had been trolling some of the newly burgeoning (this was some time ago, prior to this being commonplace) dating websites. One day she came into the store and rather breathlessly confided that she was going on a date with a man she had met online. Susan assured me that I would be the first to know the outcome.

About a week later Susan strode into the shop — joyous, triumphant, and decidedly manic. She was no longer interested in buying books, but rather in relating her new dating experience. She leaned into the counter with a conspiratorial air and divulged that they had met the night before. She told me he was a wonderful man, a handsome man, a business executive of some sort, and a devout Christian to boot. He was educated, attentive, and completely besotted with her. They had made a profound connection. Even though it was just the first date, Susan thought it advisable to invite the man back to her apartment (which later I came to think of as her lair) to view her book collection.

Unsurprisingly, he expressed much interest in her branch of literature, and they eventually tumbled into bed. It was a night of passionate enchantment and he was to call her again, likely that day or the following one. He told her that he was married, but his wife was not a godly Christian woman and that she did not understand his needs as well as Susan intuitively did. He already planned on leaving his wife, and now having met Susan, the process would be accelerated. Although he had two children, Susan was undaunted and was already imagining a blended family with her daughter and his children.

Susan returned a few days later, now quite dejected. He had not called her.

Should she call him?

The number he had given her did not seem to be working; she must have written it down wrong.

I asked how she had planned on calling him since she didn’t have his correct number. She replied that he had told her the name of the company he worked for and she could call him at work. Did I think this was appropriate?

I quietly replied that calling him at work might be a little pushy, and that maybe, just maybe, he had had a change of heart. Susan resolutely denied this possibility. In fact, the mused that the man’s wife was probably being difficult and dominating all his time.

After a few days Susan staunchly marched up to the counter and informed me that she had called him at work after all. He was quite surprised to receive her call, and expressed how impressed he was with her resourcefulness. They had a nice conversation, but, being at work, he wasn’t at liberty to talk in detail. He also told her that he had been tied up with domestic issues, wife and children.

He would call 'real soon'. He promised.

The following week Susan reappeared and told me that he had not called her. She receptionist must have been in cahoots with his wife she believed; her calls to his office are not being put through to him. Meanwhile, she had done her homework, and knew where he lived. At this point, even though the man has made many stupid mistakes and is not on high moral ground, I felt rather distressed for him and felt I should try to help from afar (like his bookshop guardian angel). I suggested that she might walk away, almost pleading with her. Appealing to her sense of Christian vanity, I told her that she was clearly too good for this man, that he had shown himself unworthy of her devotion. Still, she was seriously considering visiting his home and confronting that “bitch” of a wife. The more she talked, the angrier she became and her conviction hardened.

Susan didn’t show up for the next few weeks and during that time I found myself casting my eye over the local newspaper, wondering if I would see an article about a lurid break-in or worse. Nothing.

Over time she receded from my thoughts, only to be revived whenever I spied a bit of Victorian smut.

About three years later, a sloppy, heavy-set, disheveled middle-aged woman came slumping into the shop. I didn’t recognize her at first; not until she began talking about older books on bondage did I realize this was Susan, returned from whatever dark places she had been.

Again, she was looking more for conversation than for books. She had lost her job. Her daughter wasn’t talking to her anymore. She had been evicted from her apartment and was living “somewhere else”. I didn’t ask about the man.

Susan vaguely asked if I would be willing to buy back some of her books. Then, like a fog clearing in her mind, she remembered that she had already sold them elsewhere. She wondered if I had any spare cash.

I gave her twenty dollars from the till and I never saw her again.