While Kimberly Fleetwood was having such a hard time getting into the X Channel network, a thin, fair haired, 24-year-old shoe clerk in Melvindale Michigan, named P.J. Shields, was having no such difficulty. The same was true of two married people in a Harrisburg Pennsylvania motel room, one of whom was Jill Kaiser’s husband, Glen.

The woman was Vera Karr. Glen once told her that Jill’s idea of sexual variety was to change the way she faked an orgasm. Vera had neither experienced an orgasm nor faked one with her 40-year-old husband in many years. He could have been "Gidarbed" at 25, with the biggest change in his life being his habit of leaving the toilet lid up. Her need for intimate physical contact had started strong and never diminished. In these respects and more, Vera bore an uncanny resemblance to P.J.’s mother.

Fortunately for Vera, he would never know she existed...

P.J. Shields sat on the edge of his bed, in his tidy little room and entered a six digit code in the key-in box with his light pen. Hundreds of X rated services filled his one-and a-half by two-and-a-half foot telewindow. He didn’t mind having to settle for the smallest, cheapest wall monitor on the market. The basic technology for all T-windows was identical. Given the size of his room, his was big enough to see everything a person sitting farther back would see in a standard 3’ x 5,’ a large 6’ x 10’ or a full-sized window that covered an entire wall.

What he did mind was the paucity of good programs to watch.

He picked a box which featured S&M, and scanned the titles for what was new. It was hard to tell what he’d get by the titles or the previews, the sampling of which, could add up to a fortune. He tried as many as he could afford, wondering in the end, why he had bothered—though the girls were pretty enough—except for the ones with the big, ugly tits.

Anybody who would go for a woman with tits like that had to be sick, he thought, not that P.J. was the best judge of what was mentally sound—not with his mother tucked away for the last 17 months in the basement freezer.

Sometimes he liked to go down there to visit her. She looked so right in her red party dress and high-healed shoes, preserved at the peek of her loveliness, her face frozen in wide-eyed terror, with a brown leather belt cinched around her neck. She had gotten what she deserved for being a whore. He felt proud to have done the honors.

P.J.’s wandering mind returned to the task of finding a good X Channel program to watch. The ones with actors posing for the camera were phony by definition, and the time tracks of couples doing it without the knowledge that they would one day be recorded on flashback film, weren’t much better. He had downloaded a few time tracks of fallen, high-profile Democrats that seemed to fill the bill, only to discover on closer observation that the female star of the show was a disgusting faggot, a cleverly designed ELF or an ELF-faggot. Most of the flashbacks had the same flaw that the posed programs did. The people involved were only playing games. Whenever he thought he was seeing a slut being physically and mentally punished for what she was, she turned out to be a willing participant, or worse; the one calling the shots.

The trouble with putting sadism and masochism in the same general category, was the fact that the pleasure of causing pain was incompatible with the pleasure of receiving it. Any fool could see that. Yet, the rich hypocrites who sold this X Channel crap to the public, always put them together as if they belonged. He was sure the program managers and their friends had access to the real thing. The rich could have what they wanted.

As he viewed the last preview cut, he thought he was on to something, with an arousing scene of a woman being whipped, spat upon and used in ways too vile to put into words, by three hooded men. She was crying and pleading for them to stop. The price of the full cut pushed his budget to the limit, but he paid to watch it.

His high expectations sank quickly when he saw that it was a flashback of "swingers" from the ’80s, wherein the woman, and a man not in the action, had arranged the scene between them. It wasn’t clear whether the man or the woman had instigated it, but P.J. hung on to the hope that she had no control over the situation he saw her in, regardless of her initial wishes. It looked that way almost to the end, when a sloppy editing job picked up a raunchy laugh from the woman where there should have been a cry of shame, if anything. A masochist! thought P.J. The only way to torture a masochist is not to!

P.J. felt cheated and angry. He would have done better to watch a regular network program for free. CBI and Tanaka had excellent rape and murder shows anyone could enjoy. The drawback to them was the need to edit out the best action scenes because of the children who may have been watching. The good thing about them, was their authenticity. The victims were real, and the flashbacks invariably showed enough before and after time tracks of them at the scene of the encounter to help fill in what was missing.

P.J. was in no mood to accentuate the positive. He was tense. Painful pressure was beginning to build in his temples. He needed relief, desperately.

He went back to the first "Ballot" window to do some shopping. Strange how the decision to go out for a girl was enough to ease his sense of urgency. He felt so much better, in fact, that he put off his shopping to answer the Democratic party survey. The party of perverts was always good for a laugh.

"Let's see," he said, with a smile, "New Economic Zone Reform:

HIGHLIGHT YES IF YOU AGREE, NO IF YOU DISAGREE

All citizens are entitled to the same civil rights. Yes/No.

Dangerous drugs should be regulated. Yes/No.

Laws against food smuggling to NEZs should be repealed. Yes/No

Money smuggling to NEZs should be decriminalized. Yes/No.

Federal man-hunting licenses are unconstitutional. Yes/No.

Everyone who wants a job should have one. Yes/No.

Public education is the birthright of all American children. Yes/No.

All citizens are entitled to police protection. Yes/No.

Basic health care needs should be provided by the state. Yes/No.

The NEZ system needs to be reformed. Yes/No.

What P.J. liked most about these polls was their forty five degree slant. A quick scan told him that the "right" answer to all ten questions was, "Yes." So that’s what he highlighted. The Democrats were easy to hang. They even supplied their own rope. If only the Republicans and the Americans were so easy.

Not enough yeses on the Democratic survey meant that they would not publish the result, which would mean no national debate. In the absence of national debates on NEZ reform, voters could begin to question the whole concept of having urban reservations without the same level of government help or interference as the surrounding community. The NEZ system was the American party’s answer to prison reform, drug control, race relations, crime in suburbia and high taxes to support the least productive people in America. What voter in his right mind would want to change a system like that?

Nobody lived in NEZs but toasties, drug-thugs, buzz-brains, perverts and whores. So what if they killed each other off? That’s what they were there for and why most people called them disposal zones, instead of NEZs. Why shouldn’t a citizen be able to buy a man-hunting licenses to dispose of felons who were tried and convicted in absentia for capital crimes? Naturally, there were other undesirables for whom a hunting license could not be obtained—immoral women who seduce men with see-through blouses, French perfume, bright red lipstick, curve-hugging dresses with hemlines above the knees and red or yellow party shoes. But that, figured P.J., was where citizens like him came in. A good citizen couldn’t expect his government to do everything.

He turned his attention to the advertisements. He needed a gun to try something he had seen on a popular T-window cop show. It didn’t have to be in working order. It didn’t even have to be real as long as it looked real. Yes, he would need to buy a gun. And he was almost out of brown leather belts....

Vera’s head lay on Glen’s harry chest while her hands played with her favorite part of his body below his lazy, middle-aged paunch. She liked Glen, blubber and all. He liked her, dark brown eyes and all. They were sent to Harrisburg frequently as telewindow designers to oversee the factory launch of their Lansing-based company’s new product lines. They worked well together. They played well together. They were lovers and best friends. Sometimes it was nice to pretend they were married to each other. Vera doubted it would work in reality. She’d never heard of committed partners who had such a ripping good time with each other’s minds and bodies as she and Glen did. Then, again, she’d never heard of Andrea Urlan and Leah Flores. She hadn’t heard of many things which were undoubtedly real. Perhaps...

"Glen?"

"Huh?"

"What would you do if you could get a divorce?"

"Jill would never stand for it. The first thing she’d do is ask the court for a time scan. Since I’d be the one asking for the divorce, I’d have to pay for it. That’s like paying for a gold-plated bomb to blow yourself up with."

Vera wished she could come up with analogies like that, even if it meant avoiding the question, the way Glen had done. All she could think to say was, "I know. We’re in the same boat."

Glen sighed, running his fingers through her short, unruly, mousy brown, 36-year-old hair until they hit a stubborn snag, which he pretended not to notice. "Almost makes you wish you lived in a disposal zone, doesn’t it," he said, describing both the circumstances under which a divorce could be obtained without penalty and the penalty for seeking one "without cause."

Vera got the message. "Yeah," she said, "Almost." She kissed his chest and whispered, "I love you, Glen." She heard him whisper, "I love you, Vera." Then he said, "Too bad we’re cowards."

"We’re not cowards. We’re practical adults with a hell of a lot to loose—including each other."

"That’s what I said."

"...Yeah. I guess you did."

Vera felt the movement of Glen’s right arm behind her and watched the amber light beam dance from one ad to another in the standard-sized T-window. Her spirits rose, "Think you can find something super nasty?"

"Wasn’t the last one nasty enough?"

"It was good, but this time I wanna see the guys on the receiving end."

Vera wanted to see equality on the X Channel; not necessarily in the same program or during the same three or four day tryst with Glen, but in due course. Though the equity-in-sex idea didn’t appeal to him, the permission they gave each other to enjoy whatever they wanted, made up for it. What gave them the most viewing pleasure was often far removed from anything they would want to do, anyway. There were so few people with whom they could enjoy uncensored erotic conversations. They were like football fans prohibited by law from talking to other fans of their favorite teams and favorite players about their favorite players and favorite plays.

When Vera saw what Glen was doing with his light pen, she groaned. "Not again?"

Don’t be such a pessimist. Lets try this one."

Glen sat up with his back against the headboard and fixed the amber beam on an ad that said "Swing Set. $869. Ron and Nancy." Swing Set $869, was the code for people who wanted to talk to each other about sex. Lots of "Swing Sets" were available in the main BALLOT window for $869. The difference between them was the name that followed the number.

"What’s the point?" said Vera who was now sitting upright, shoulder to shoulder with Glen, "They’re all the same."

"Come on, Vera."

"Okay. But don’t say I didn’t warn you."

Glen knew what she was talking about. Adult bulletin boards were legal, but sexual honesty was not. Language restrictions made it impossible to know what anyone truly thought. People communicated electronically with the knowledge that someone was tapping the lines for unspeakable words. One had to read between the lines to know what was really being said. Even then, it was a guess which was more likely than not to be wrong if it strayed to far from the norm.

Glen clicked on the "Swing Set."

Ron and Nancy, a trim, attractive thirtyish couple, in the act of face to face copulation, introduced themselves and their service with a montage of other attractive couples engaged in various sex acts. They did a voice-over while the action continued, explaining their menu set-up, which appeared as a U-shaped frame around the window, and invited their viewers to, "Enjoy."

Glen purchased fifteen minutes of preview time. Vera teased him about being a sucker. "I can tell you in two minutes whether we’re gonna find anybody we want to talk to."

"How?"

Vera told him the taboo words and phrases to look for in scanning the ads—the same words and phrases the censors were looking for. He had to agree that she was right. Only the very brave or the very ignorant would take the chance. Men and women had to advertise for what was acceptable to most other people; for bodies with the right age, weight, contour and color; for minds with the correct range of sexual tastes.

People had firm ideas about what they wanted, with young, attractive, single, white females, heading the list followed closely by "well endowed" black men. They had even firmer ideas about what they didn’t want, with single white men heading up that list.

Glen shook his head, "Why is it that nobody wants a single white guy?"

"You’re not single."

"No, but if I didn’t have you, who would want me?"

Vera chuckled, turning to pat his tummy. "Good point."

"Ahhhh!"

"I told you."

"Yeah. But if black guys were as popular as they look like on these Swing Sets, why are so many of’em gettin’ race change operations?"

"Who knows? Politics. Everything is politics; even the Swing Sets. They’re about the only place a middle class white woman can go to meet a middle-class black guy for sex. They’re a rare commodity. That’s why you see so much demand for them from women and couples. Most advertisers are single white guys. Most white guys want young, attractive white women. If they see a black woman they want they can go up to her and strike up a conversation. No problem. They do it all the time. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these "black studs" you see are former white guys."

"You really think so?"

"If it’s possible, somebody has done it. You know Edith what’s-her-name, the company’s new time-track engineer. She say’s the truth is more distorted now than it was when they advertised in magazines—and it was really distorted then. You would have thought over half the women in America were lesbians and the rest were bisexual."

"I thought that Charm was responsible for giving people that idea."

"You mean Euelalia Charmane. Charm was her stage name."

"You know who I mean."

"Obviously. But the ads were there a long time before she came along. You're thinking about the dirty book store jokes she used to tell. A woman had to be assertive to go in the stores where the swinger magazines were sold. So you’d see twenty ads from dominant women for every one from a submissive one."

"And," said Glen, "the submissive one would usually turn out to be a lesbian, a man or a con-artist. Or a white woman lookin' for a black man."

"Yeah, just like now. The ads only tell you what people can’t readily get and what they think they can ask for without getting into trouble. I think that's what got Charm into trouble. Her entire act came out of swinger's magazine and the things you could and couldn't say in them. I think she was starting to bridge the gap with a growing audience. No telling what the truth is now, except that a lot of people can’t get together because they’re afraid to tell the truth."

Glen sighed. "My white-guy paranoia got the best of me for a minute. I bet black women reading this shit go through the same thing."

A chime sounded in Glen’s ear plug receiver. "Oh-oh. It’s Jill."

Vera scooted out of bed and searched in near panic for incriminating apparel which might have lay in the path of view from the window to Glen. He saw what she was doing and shook his head as he reached for his wrist-band computer. Talk about paranoia. The motel T-window was a one way model. She and Glen had designed similar ones themselves.

Glen held his multi-function wrist-band, face up, and clicked the preset button that answered Jill’s call and shut off all other signals to his receiver. He saw her in his standard 1.5" x 2.5" wristband T-window, looking highly agitated. From the background, he could tell that she was standing in front of the two way telewindow in their son’s bedroom. Not a good sign.

"What is it Jill?"

"It’s Chucky. It’s an emergency."

The blood drained from Glen’s face. Fearing the worst for his 14-year-old son, he asked, "What happened, to Chuck?"

Jill held up a T-window recording diskette and said, "This!" She thrust the diskette into the "play/record" port.