
Swartz was transferred and promoted to management when this store opened in 2005. (It’s owned by the same national chain, Dejá Vu.) She paused, eyed me over, and then added, "It could also be your hat making them uncomfortable." (I borrowed it from the Fetish section.)Īfter Swartz graduated Bonanza High School, she became a waitress at Little Darlings, the strip club at the Love Boutique. "But you can’t laugh, and you can’t act freaked out," she said, "because somebody might be into that and you might offend them." Swartz said her job tempts her to laugh "all the time" for instance, "when men who look completely normal ask to try on a size 10 pair of heels."
#Deja vu store near me movie
(I haven’t checked every inch of Neiman Marcus at the Fashion Show mall, so I can’t say for sure, but I don’t remember a gay porn movie theater behind housewares.) And their wives don’t wait in the car while they shop." "People don’t feel like they need to get in and get out right away. "We like to think of ourselves as Neiman Marcus," Swartz said. This was the point in the tour that I began walking with a slight limp.Īlthough the merchandise at Dejá Vu is undeniably sleazy, the presentation is a classy surprise.

"It goes down your urethra and you hit it with a tuning fork and it vibrates." "You see that right there?" she asked, pointing to a large steel rod. Swartz also introduced me to something called a dilator. "These are all of our (expletive) pumps right here, and these are our (expletive) (expletive)."

"This is an anal G-spot toy for a man," she said in the toys and more section. Earlier, Swartz gave me a merchandise tour that started at excruciatingly awkward and got less printable from there. "Some people aren’t comfortable shopping for this stuff," Swartz said, "and they’re even less comfortable talking about it."Ĭount me among them. (This was especially true in the Bi-Tranny video section, where it was almost always accompanied by contact-avoiding eyes.) "No, thanks, I’m just looking" is the only response I got when I asked. (The fine for admitting minors is $50,000.) Then he checks out candles, books, gag gifts and many other things he’s not really here for - much as he might buy cigarettes and gum at a magazine rack to create the impression that the Penthouse Forum he traveled across town for is really an afterthought.Īnd forget about wanting help. He’s carded to make sure he’s older than 18. Here’s the typical pattern: A man enters the store. In fact, most males I observed tonight were reluctant to touch anything without checking over each shoulder to make sure their high-school gym teacher wasn’t looking. Women are way more comfortable with this stuff. "This is only the third store we’ve been to," Joanne says. Another part of a clerk’s job at Dejá Vu is to test all battery-operated merchandise before purchasing. Right now I’m at the front counter a few minutes earlier, where Joanne has just plopped down eight sex toys. I’ll get back to the most potentially traumatizing moment of my life later. "Which one vibrates the hardest?" asks a woman who identifies herself only as Joanne. Swartz shines a flashlight and all three figures begin rifling through their pants. What I really want to do is speed home and scrub my eye sockets with a toilet brush. "You can turn the lights on if you want," Swartz tells me. We enter the room on the left, interrupting the simultaneous double-feature of "Transsexual Prostitutes" and "Sharp Shooters." As my eyes adjust, the silhouettes of three figures materialize. "Some men come in here to watch a gay movie because they’re married, with kids, and their wife doesn’t know they’re gay," Swartz explained. According to Swartz, if two men are sitting in adjacent seats, "they’re most likely gonna fool around - or try to."Įarlier, I saw one customer dart from the straight theater to the gay one.
#Deja vu store near me tv
Inside each screening room, eight seats face two wall-mounted TV monitors. "It’s not legal to do the things that they try and do in there," says manager Megan Swartz, my boss for the night, "but most people go in there to try and do them." Tropicana Ave., one of my responsibilities is to enforce the laws spelled out by a sign outside: no minors, public exposure or sexual activity. As a clerk for Dejá Vu Adult Emporium at 4335 W. You will not be proud of what your son is doing this week. It’s now my job to check behind the door on the left.

Behind the right, a theater screens pornos that are heterosexual.
