Promises Promises

What is that weird funky smell that all smut shops have? Seriously, what is it about empty DVD cases, magazines and latex that causes such an indescribable, yet instantly discernible odour? If the shop also has a cinema and/​or wanki… sorry, I mean ‘viewing’ booths then fair enough. It at least goes some way to explaining the smell, but those shops that are just shops have no excuse.
Promises Promises is one such place, its a small but well stocked shop with the usual array of overpriced magazines and DVD’s… This is something that has always been a bit of a mystery to me, why would anyone pay for these? When, with just a simple Google search or by installing the Tor browser (I’m not judging you!), its all there at your sticky finger tips. Gone are the grand ol’ days of yore, when it was £40 a tape in an over-​sized box and £20 to exchange it for another…
…anyway, upon entering Promises Promises the first thing you’ll see is the dressing up section. The reason my girlfriend and I went in to begin with, we were there for a French maid outfit and/​or nurse, the blue 1970’s kind, (remember, I didn’t judge you!)… both of these garments were found and purchased later… online.
Wondering around Promises Promises, after already deciding we were going to buy, (at this point), outfits and stockings. My partner and I spent some time picking up various empty DVD cases, turning them over, choosing the hottest looking girl and putting them back. After some time of doing this we noticed we were getting dirty looks from the guy behind the counter. Taped up magazines were of no interest to us, so we skirted the small selection of magazines and looked over the toys. The toys, in our opinion were cheap looking and overpriced, we saw a cock ring that seemed to have a sharp edge running around the inside. As there was nothing of interest, nothing hilarious, impressive or frightening, we moved away from the toys, we’d seen enough, wasn’t impressed and decided to get our outfits and go.
On the way back over to the outfit section, we noticed a small shelf that we hadn’t seen previously, containing ‘vintage’ smut shop fare. There was a well thumbed copy of The Joy of Sex, some old Rodox and two issues of a gay pornographic comic from the 70’s, whose principle characters seemed to be muscled leather boys. The Joy of Sex and Rodox didn’t do it for us, but the two comics contained just the right mix of filth, sleaze and hilarity, that we would have purchased them for display in our home.
While we perused the literature to find out if the erect penis to anal insertion ratio was up to standard and therefore acceptable to be displayed in our parlor at home, we were told that looking through the comics wasn’t allowed. Now, I am fully aware that magazines in smut shops are usually taped up, but non of the ‘vintage’ stuff had any tape keeping them closed. Therefore I assumed the guy was selling them as cheeky gifts or on that level of retro, where once you see the unkempt bush of a model in 1980’s Rodox, then its instantly funny and no longer real porn… but no, this guy was expecting paying customers to buy out of date, relatively soft core porn without first allowing them to be enticed by the humour aspect… the only selling point of out dated pornography! Did this guy not get that?! Needless to say, we walked out without buying anything… something I regretted for a few days after, as it was proving difficult to find the right French maids outfit that looked sexy, classy and cheap all at the same time.
Overall Promises Promises is an all round smut shop with a fair selection of items, it is however ran by a guy with no sense of humour and for us, that is the shops biggest let down.