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Shelly Bryant

Bargain Hunter

He opened the sticky cover of the gray notebook and began running his finger along the listings on the first page. They were arranged by price. Flipping the page, he stopped at the third listing.

“You got this in stock?”

“Ah, that’s a good one. Yeah, I got it. It’s in the back.”

“Is it original?”

“It’s five bucks.”

“Yeah, OK.”

He watched the the pimply-faced youth disappear through a door, then idly flipped to the pages at the back of the notebook. He wondered who could ever fork over that kind of money.

“Those are for the real aficionados,” the boy said as he emerged from the back room.

“I guess so. Aficionados with loads of cash.”

“Well, an aficionado by definition has broad tastes. You gotta have money to do the sort of sampling necessary, y’know.”

He reached for his wallet. Parting with a five dollar note, he received a thin black plastic bag in exchange.

He could hardly wait to get home.

producing pleasure
properly pirated porn
just like the real thing