This is a memoir of a kind of shop and experience that is swiftly disappearing even as I’m writing this.

You feel the urge again. But you need new inspiration – something new  to feed your imagination. You’ve looked at the same old images too many times.

The section you want is in the basement of a second-hand book store, making it less embarrassing to enter. But still you feel the strange mixture of arousal and anxiety as you walk  through the door.

Your excitement grows as you walk down the stair to the dimly lit basement, and there they are: Rows of bookcases, full of pornographic magazines – the small, glossy, European type: Private, Pirate, Pleasure.

It’s quiet down here. One or two man are silently browsing the selection. No one looks at you or speaks. You pick a random bookcase, pick one magazine and leaf through it. Your brain registers a slight shock at the first, graphic depiction of a sex scene: Naked breasts, cocks, pussies, ejaculations. You ignore the reaction, and calmly leaf through the magazine.

You don’t spend too much time on each one: The shopkeeper is watching. You’re not supposed to wallow in porn – not supposed to get turned. You’re just looking to select your favourites.

And what are you looking for? What turns you on the most. What you can imagine masturbating to when you get home. What you want to look at when you orgasm.

Around you is semi-darkness and embarrassed silence. But inside the magazines is a world of pure fantasy: Where everyone is constantly horny. Where all women are beautiful, and all men virile and well-endowed. Where strangers meet – and immediately launch into savage acts of lascivious sex. Where everything is desire and primal urges.

You know that world from your own imagination.

You pick the magazines with the best scenarios, the sexiest and most convincing models. The scenes that look the most like your own fantasies – only better and more tangible. You pay, and the shopkeeper wrap the sinful magazines in a discreet black plastic bag, and you walk back up the stairs, your excitement now mixed with relief and anticipation. You’re bringing your loot home.

On the way, lust keeps building up inside you. You glance at the black plastic bag containing the images that will eventually bring release to your urges.

You lock your door and lie on  your bed, face down, the magazines in front of you. Perhaps a cup of coffe or a glass of wine. Now, finally, you can give the images your full attention – take them in, savouring the details. You leaf through every story, your arousal growing. And eventually, you return to a certain particular one: Your favourite fantasy, the ultimate visualization of insatiable animal lust. Already close to orgasm, you masturbate. And come so hard, it’s almost painful.

Satisfied, relaxed, you put away the magazines. Until you need them next. Until you feel the urge again.