"I’ve made up my mind, Dr. Urlan," said Arnold Travis. "I want the procedure."

He was speaking to Andrea by way of his small, office T-window. All she could see of him in her standard-sized office T-window, was his head and shoulders. Ordinarily, she would have objected to not seeing the whole picture. This was not one of those times. Whereas most people told one story with their faces and another with other parts of their bodies from time to time, Arnold was uncommonly consistent. Some portion of his face always told the complete story. His eyes said he was lying.

"I can’t accept that, Arnold."

"For heaven’s sake." A contralto voice in Arnold’s window broke into the conversation as the Bulldog of a face it belonged to nudged him to one side. "Move back so she can see all of us."

Andrea watched a momentary jostling of upper torsos as Arnold and two husky women flanking him mirrored themselves in their window to fit into hers. The scrawny man and his female companions reminded her of a thin-necked cartoon mouse trapped between two macho prison guards in drag. To the extent that people can resemble animals, Andrea was sure that ten people out of ten would identify the women as belonging to the same breed of canine she saw in their pugnacious features. To the extent that people 25 years apart could resemble each other, they did.

"Mrs. Travis?"

"Yes?" replied the older woman in a pleasant tone so different from the one she used to issue the order to move back, that she sounded like another person.

"I’m his daughter," said the younger woman, pointing a contemptuous thumb at Arnold."

He cleared his throat. "I’ve been—"

"Oh shut up, you old jerk-off," barked the younger woman. "The only thing you’ve been all my life is an embarrassment."

Andrea had seen her share of verbal attacks by one family member on another. Normally they were accompanied by flushed faces and an attempt by the victim to either "cover up" or launch a counter-offensive. Arnold sat there like a target practice dummy serving the function for which it was created, with his wife nodding almost imperceptibly to her daughter’s words. One need not have been a trained psychologist to see that this was business as usual in the Travis household.

Andrea was appalled. Her troubled patient was like everyone else who saw themselves through the eyes of people who despised them. By looking at him, she should have been able to see the women as they were long before now. It wasn’t that the true picture never came to mind. But, by Arnold’s self-descriptions, no less than his reverent allusions to his wife and daughter, Andrea’s mental pictures of the women were too stereotypical to believe. She should have believed. Mr. and Mrs. Travis were the text-book Sado-Masochistic couple who had not learned to recognize and accept the sexual pleasure they received from pain and degradation. Nor were they ever likely to with a daughter involved and a moral code which allowed only the pain.

Andrea had made an error in professional judgment which could cost a man far more than his life. The effects it would have on his wife and daughter were unknown, but not necessarily as beneficial as the women anticipated. Mrs. Travis was as much a victim of her repressed sexuality as he was. She was a natural dominatrix who would have had all the control over men she desired without causing anyone permanent injury, if only she could see the truth. Yes, thought Andrea. The truth shall set you free.

"Mrs. Travis," she said, watching the woman lift her chin in response before continuing. "May I speak to you alone for a minute, one Christian to another?"

All three people in Arnold’s office telewindow blinked at the same time, as if to say, you mean you’re not an agnostic? They looked at each other. Mrs. Travis nodded. Her husband and daughter left the picture. A few seconds later, a door opened and closed with Mrs. Travis looking in the direction of the sound, then back again, at Andrea. Her crossed arms and hunched shoulders said that her guard was up.

"Are you really a Christian?"

"Yes. My father is an Episcopal priest in Madison Heights. My brother and I attend services there every Sunday. You and your family are welcome to join us."

"We’re Baptists," said Mrs. Travis, flatly. "What did you want to say?"

Andrea’s insides caved in. The road she’d picked to travel said, "Dead End." The only thing left to do was to make a U-turn as gracefully as possible. "I have an aunt and uncle who are Baptists. All Christians have more in common than—"

"Oh no. Episcopalians are more like Catholics. They have everything the Catholics do but the Pope. They pray to Mary instead of Jesus...."

For the next ten minutes, Andrea listened to the differences between Baptists and Episcopalians, some of which were accurate and some not. She heard at least five reasons for rejecting any "so called" Christian faith but her own, and one or more statements of "proof" from The Scriptures for every reason.

"Well?"

"I’m sorry," said Andrea. "Would you repeat that?"

"I said, Candy is married; why aren’t you?"

Mrs. Travis had asked so many rhetorical questions in her monologue that the real one slipped past Andrea. Now that she heard it, she also heard the accusation behind it. She had no idea who Candy was, and didn’t dare ask.

"Mrs. Travis, my personal life isn’t the issue."

"It most certainly is. You may be a therapist, as you call it, but you’re human. If you could help my poor husband become the normal person he wants to be, it stands to reason that you would be married."

"I don’t follow you."

Mrs. Travis sighed in exasperation. "A woman your age should be married. If she isn’t, there’s probably something about her that isn’t right. Dr. Gidarb says psycho-therapists have too much influence over their patents to trust just because they’re doctors—if they are real doctors. She says a lot of’em are more perverted than their patients. And frankly—Well...Arnold has been seeing you for—what is it—eight, nine months? And I’ve caught him ‘pleasuring himself’ five times! Just last week, I came in here and he was in the bathroom!"

"In the bathroom?"

"That’s where he does it, you know. No, you didn’t know, did you? We have lock-outs to the X Channel on all the T-windows he has access to here and at home. But he watches the dirty disks, then uses the bathroom to spew his goo when he thinks he can get a way with it. He’s like a child. He has to be watched all the time."

"I don’t think I understand."

"He drives down to a NEZ in Detroit or Highland Park, where they still have peep show booths. He does it in the booth, for heavens sake. Then he’ll buy a dirty disk to take with him and hide somewhere till he can watch it in a T-window when Candy or I can’t watch him."

Candy? thought, Andrea. So the daughter’s name is Candy. It figures.

"You say, you watch him—literally?"

"If I didn’t go to the bathroom with him at home so I could see what he was doing, he’d stand in the shower or sit on the can masturbating twice a week. Can’t you just see him? I can. Lord help him, it’s so pitiful and ridiculous. He’s always ashamed afterwards but he still does it unless somebody’s there to stop him. When Candy is with him and I’m not around, he tells her when he has to go. She stands outside the door till he’s done. Then she checks to see what’s in the toilet—and there better be something!"

"Don’t you think that’s taking things too far?"

"No. Dr. Gidarb doesn’t either. We don’t like checking up on him like that, but we have to."

"Why? Because Estelle Gidarb says so?"

"Because we love him. We were doing it before we heard of the Gidarbs. Lots of women have had to do it since pornography was invented. All she did was write about it and assure the loved ones of people like Arnold that it’s the right thing to do."

"What about his privacy needs?"

"For heavens shake. I told - you - what - he - does - with - his - privacy. He watches porn and has sex with his hand. He’s an addict!"

"Pleasure is addictive. Our craving for it and our fear and anger of being deprived of it drives everything we do in one way or another. It’s how all warm-blooded animals are made. We need a ‘pleasure-fix’ on a fairly regular basis to avoid emotional stresses that can have dangerous physical and psychological repercussions. It’s only when the addiction itself presents these problems that it becomes a clinical concern, because then it’s a matter of compulsive, self-destructive behavior. When that happens, we know that something else is involved, some bigger stick that makes the destructive behavior preferable to being hit with it. If that big stick isn’t a side-affect of an invidious chemical agent that works directly on the pleasure centers of the brain, it’s almost invariably an intolerable social circumstance."

"He’s got a big stick, all right. And it’s coming off! What use is that thing for a 52-year-old man, anyway? For heaven’s sake, all it can do is cause trouble. You know what can happen when a man watches too much pornography. No woman is safe. We’ve been lucky that it hasn’t advanced to rape. That’s the next step, you know."

"I doubt that very much. Men who rape women have no more respect for their victims’ desires than an armed robber or any other criminal has for his victims. That is not your husband. Those men are committing a crime of violence which requires an entirely different attitude toward woman than his."

"That’s what pornography does. It gives men violent attitudes toward women. It’s a documented fact. Dr. Gidarb has hundreds of case histories. They start watching this stuff and they forget about what the woman wants. They only wanna satisfy themselves except they use a woman instead of their hand. They see the dirty program. Then they see a woman they want and they get so excited they can’t control themselves."

"You could also document the instances of kitchen matches used in arson. It wouldn’t follow that matches cause arson. We’re talking about the difference between lighting a match to warm a cabin and lighting one to burn the place down."

"I’m talking about pornography and rape. I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Okay. Sexual desire and the expression of that desire can take many forms, depending on the individual’s genetic predispositions and early associations between desire and fulfillment, many of which are set in infancy. What I’m saying, Mrs. Travis, is that it takes a hell of lot more than dirty pictures to make a rapist. Apart from a violent sexual propensity, it takes a willful intent to express it and a determination to do it against someone else’s will. Your husband is so submissive to the will of others, specifically, strong-willed women, that he is more likely to be taken advantage of by women than the other way around."

"You don’t know Arnold. He runs his own construction company. He’s got over a hundred men working for him and he cracks the whip."

"Ah, but those are men. Doesn’t he have a female administrative assistant? Does he crack the whip on her? Or is it the other way around?"

"...I wasn’t sure before, but now I can see you’re one of those sick liberals. You’re making excuses for porn. And there is no excuse. Filth is filth. Perversion is perversion. I should have seen it when you started talking that rubbish about privacy needs. For heaven’s sake, nobody needs privacy unless they’re doing something they’re ashamed of. Or something they ought to be ashamed of. You probably need it to spread your legs for every man who comes along."

Andrea had no ready answer for that, so she didn’t attempt to give one. "I’m your husband’s therapist," she said.

"You used to be. You’re not even a real doctor. You’re only a Ph.D. You told Arnold that you watched Dr. Gidarb and her husband on the Sharon and Louise Show. Me and Candy were right here. We heard you. You should have told him to get the procedure. You know it’s the best thing for him. I don’t know why he respects your opinion so much. That’s the only reason we kept this appointment."

"The appointment was for Arnold."

"His decision on this thing affects me, his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandson. I don’t know about you liberals, but the family comes first with us. We decided together what to do. Candy has talked to the vice-president of the Michigan chapter of STOPIT and arranged an interview for this afternoon. She’s a real doctor and she says he sounds like a good candidate."

"Mrs. Travis. You can’t—" Andrea’s telewindow went blank. For a while, her mind did too.

A gaggle of thoughts burst forth from the void, standing Andrea on her feet like a sailor on a warship in hostile waters hearing a call to general quarters. This was not a drill. She had to act quickly and correctly for Arnold’s sake as well as her own. She blamed herself for his predicament, for no reading that goddamned book he begged her to read; for not seeing what his real dilemma was early enough to intervene forcefully when it might have done some good. She had to talk to somebody. Not another shrink. A friend, and someone with better contacts in the legal community than she had.

She pressed the voice command on her desk-top computer. "Telephone message: Call Leah. Urgent." When she saw her friend’s ELF on the pop-up T-window, she knew she had called at a bad time.

"Sorry," said the ELF, "I can’t break away right now. "If you want me to, I’ll call back in...five minutes?"

"Yes," said Andrea. "That’ll be fine."

While she waited for Leah’s call, she made a computer search for the Michigan chapter of STOPIT and a list of its officers. She found the vice-president right away: Dr. Shannon Duwoniack, a 33-year-old surgeon in Ann Arbor, with the dark-haired, green-eyed, dimple-cheeked looks of a glamour queen and the personality of a death-camp commandant. She had her own T-window talk show. Whereas her affiliation with STOPIT would have been known to her regular viewers, Andrea knew her only for her strident anti-lesbian feminism. That was all she thought she needed to know until now.

A message flashed in her wrist-band T-window, informing her that her next two scheduled patients had canceled their appointments. She elected to fill in the time with a short walk to the Guardian Building where she hoped to meet Leah for a long talk. Though it was as likely that Leah was in one of the court buildings, or out on an errand for one of the lawyers she worked for, Andrea thought the walk would do her good.