An arousing job

These stores are filled with items that make most blush, but this is where Sarah Boyle works. After Dark is a sex shop in Muncie, Anderson and Marion.

By Dustin Neill

I stroll through the door, and I am immediately bombarded with pictures of naked men and women who I will never meet. Their pictures appear on the DVD boxes, magazine covers and product packaging. The walls and racks around the store are lined with vibrators, lubricants, dildos and various lingerie. This is After Dark, an adult store with shops in Muncie, Anderson and Marion, where Sarah Boyle works.

“When I first started working here, it was an information overload,” she says as she adjusts a disheveled rack of lingerie. She crowds around the counter until the phone rings. The man on the phone, Eric Ramsey, tells us that we need to move away from the counter. Ramsey is one of the co-owners, and he is watching the surveillance feed at one of the other stores. The three stores are heavily monitored because of the real possibility of theft or other problems.

“You have to treat the people who come in here like they’re your children,” Boyle says before she tells the story of a woman who darted from the store with $150 worth of stolen clothing. Boyle chased the woman to her car, wrote down her license plate number and called the police. “I care about the bosses, care about the business,” she says afterwards, before talking about how the bosses care about their employees too. The employees receive a $50 bonus for any shoplifter they catch. Sarah also says that the job gives her a nice paycheck with Valentine’s and Christmas day bonuses, along with the owners paying for the gas she uses to get to the more distant stores.

“We want people who aren’t going to steal,” says Gary Martin, co-owner of the three After Darks, explaining why he pays his employees so well.

Boyle walks to the video room, where more naked men and women of all shapes and sizes blanket the walls with explicit sexual acts.

“We have a very strict policy of accepting everyone,” she says, assuring that After Dark is a place of tolerance.

“We get everyone in here from 18 to 80,” Martin says before talking about an 83-year-old woman who came in recently to purchase a sex toy. Apparently, she came in the following week asking for something bigger.

Martin describes the atmosphere in the store and how it makes customers feel welcome. The burning incense allows the store to feel more like a living room than a business that thrives on humankind’s sexual drive. The loud music allows customers to talk without feeling like someone is listening to their every word. He also says that the store carries plus size lingerie. “Big girls want to feel sexy too,” he says.

“We greet and say goodbye to everyone who comes in the store,” Boyle says. She says that it’s a way of letting the customers know that employees are keeping an eye on them, but it’s also another friendly gesture that can make people feel welcome in a possibly uncomfortable environment.

Working at After Dark is just like working at Sears − After Dark just happens to sell dildos and vibrators.