Bookaholic

In the back room of a YMCA, six people, varied in class and temperament, sit in a sharing circle. A rotund woman wearing a wrinkled black T-shirt stands up. The shirt reads: 𝗠𝗬 𝗛𝗨𝗦𝗕𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗜𝗦 𝙃𝙐𝙁𝙁𝙇𝙀𝙋𝙐𝙁𝙁 𝗕𝗨𝗧 𝗠𝗬 𝗕𝗢𝗬𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗗 𝗕𝗘 𝙎𝙇𝙔𝙏𝙃𝙀𝙍𝙄𝙉

“Hello, my name’s Serena and I’m a bookaholic.”

“Hi Serena,” the circle responds.

She gives them a wan smile. “So um I started with Harry Potter, like many of you.” She gestures to the shirt. “Oh. This isn’t appropriate to wear to a meeting like this, is it?”

The session leader, an older woman with a crunchy aesthetic, shakes her head.

“Sorry,” Serena whispers. “So sorry. Anyway uh, it started with Harry Potter. The light stuff. But that was a gateway into the world of YA. Girlboss protagonists. Technocratic dystopias. Magic worlds hidden from modern society. Love triangles. God, I love a good love triangle.”

The Old Cruncher furrows her brow.

“I was packing whole series away like stacks of double stuffed mints Oreos, gorging myself like Cookie Monster: Hunger Games, Divergent, Shadow and Bone, the Raven Cycle, oh and I really love the first ten books of-”

“Serena.”

“Oh, right. Right. Sorry,” she whispered again. “Anyway, I thought I was just your average Goodreads-Booktokker until I got into the fairy stuff. The hard fairy stuff. I found myself lost for days at a time in the courts of the seelie and unseelie. I wouldn’t pay my bills or go buy groceries, because I was too busy reading smut about dryads and kelpie. Eventually my tastes got a little too, uh, baroque for the mainstream Barnes and Noble stuff. And that’s when I got into self-published high fantasy erotica on Smashwords and Amazon. I knew I hit rock bottom when I read this one off book about a goblin cranking it for a scientist elf. The author’s pen name was Lemmy Smackett. Like that’s not even that clever.”

“It’s pretty dumb,” the Old Cruncher conceded.

“Yeah, see, that’s what I’m saying!” Serena beamed. “Anyway, by that point I hadn’t gotten out of bed in 8 months and the county was threatening to condemn my home because they said my hoarding had endangered the structural integrity of the house. Naturally, most of the mess was books. Anyway, my husband and boyfriend cleaned all that up and I’ve been book clean for 3 months!”

The circle claps.

“Very good, Serena,” the Old Cruncher says. “And how have you been handling the withdrawls?”

“Pretty good. My boyfriend lets me read the appliance manuals we keep in a kitchen drawer. I think I might be starting to learn Chinese!”

“Mhm.” The Old Cruncher nods. “And do you have anyone monitoring your phone for Kindle purchases?”

Serena averts her eyes. “Well…”

“Serena.” The Old Cruncher shoots her a look.

Serena shrugs with a sheepish grin. “Girls can have a little bad boy millionaire bdsm power exchange smut as a 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡?” Ω