Esoteric Part IV: Peep Shows and Amaretto Sours

"Lady..." Esoteric stands outside the shop on Granville Street, trying to reason with all my 5ft1 of blonde curly haired pigheadedness "... you really really do not want to go in there..."

"Yes, I do."

I am defiant, amaretto sours and champagne cocktails overriding any rationale I may have once been in possession of. Curiousity has managed to get the best of me.

I want to go in.

I want to see.

"Do you have any change then?" He says wearily. Rummaging through my handbag I triumphantly produce 2 quarters.

"You are going to hate it."

But I have never been inside before, never ventured past those curtains at the back of the shop, have walked down the red light district of Paris. Been intrigued by those flashing neon signs flashing *Peep Show*, the sidewalks illuminated in candidacy.

However in my inebriated mind, the images of mac clad gentlemen rubbing furiously pale in comparison to artfully posed women on velvet furnishings. In my mind, there is a beauty in the act.

I cannot say I wasn't warned. I cannot say that Esoteric didn't give me a graphic description of what I might find back there.

And so it is with an open mind, and alcohol muddled sensibility that we make our way past plastic curtains, into dimly lit corridors and it is less than a minute later we emerge, slightly more traumatised than when we pulled back curtains and briefly stepped into darkened booths, the sounds and smell of desperation surrounding us, channel after channel of androgynous bodies writhing on a tiny television screen.
It took us less than a minute to come to an understanding, stand up and stumble back out into the bright lights of downtown Vancouver in search of something stronger to rid ourselves of those images, that smell, that overwhelming feeling of desperate loneliness.