She had always loved to read. Even as a kid, she always had her nose in a book. She’d read while walking to school, while brushing her teeth, she used to ride to the library and come home bowed under the weight of her book bag. She was voracious about it, she devoured novels, she worked her way systematically through the library. When her mum and dad went to shopping malls on the weekend, they often left her in a book store while they got groceries or ran errands, it was easy, she’d just sit in a corner and read and read and read. She couldn’t quite remember when she first discovered the adult books section. She’d been young, she knew that much. Maybe 11, maybe 12. Every bookstore has one, Borders, Dymmocks, Angus & Robertson – it’s a thin slice of shelf, usually somewhere in between Self Help and Health. She was a kid, she was curious. She’d already found her mum’s copy of the Joy of Sex, she’d felt that hot guilty pressure in her lower stomach, she thought there might be more where that came from in this new genre, this new frontier, ADULT NOVELS . She stood in front of books about portion size and the optimum amount of daily steps and darted her eyes left. Hand outstretched, shaking, trying desperately to seem casual. Slipping out that first volume. Hurrying away to a corner and devouring it in hot, hungry eyefuls; feeling swollen, feeling distended and not knowing why. Clenching her thighs together. Peering around to make sure no one was coming. She wouldn’t want to get …