Pages of arguments littered my desk. Researching the correlation between TV violence and the commission of real-life violence hadn’t been done on a large scale since the Reagan administration, but I didn’t need a report to tell me about the connection between fantastic digital images and everyday real life. Fantasy had kept my marriage semi-intact for the past five years.

After a difficult first decade that featured infidelity and two separations, Tamara and I had come to an understanding. We declared the past behind us and focused our efforts on a renewed partnership, keeping the fantasy alive so the reality would stay grounded. Years of counseling and talk therapy were supported by second, third, and fourth honeymoons, weekend getaways to island resorts, and cruises. On a rotating basis we traveled to the Caribbean, Mexico, Jamaica, Cuba, Aruba, Antigua, Paris, Venice, and Tuscany in an attempt to avoid the repetitive dailyness of home whenever possible. At home, the Internet proved to be a great deliverer of carnal escape for us. We had a designated e-card in her deceased aunt’s name; anonymity was key. We used it to buy videos, magazines, toys, exotic oils, and fetish objects; they were all sent to a postal box two towns away.

Despite the reopened lines of communication, our travel schedule, counseling sessions, and reaffirmed commitment, I continued to pursue my prior interests. It was not so much the risk, but the fact that I just needed a little something that was free, or at least something I perceived not to have any claims on me. Janice Korgan, one of our program manager assistants, filled the slot perfectly. With a flexible schedule and a slim, almost teenaged figure, she brought the virility of my youth back. When I had sex with Tamara, I thought of ex-girlfriends and porno sluts, sometimes I thought of bills I had to pay or how much the vacation we were on was costing us. When I had sex with Janice, no depicted acts came to mind; she was the fantasy. I thought about the real and the world of fantasy and looked at the papers on my desk that outlined the legal arguments.

The studio was being hit with a major lawsuit by a woman whose daughter had been set on fire at a filling station after getting into an altercation with a "friend." Nevermind that the group was coming back from a party–where the fight had started–and that her daughter and the two passengers were all drunk, it was the studio’s fault that this malicious act of stupidity happened. Apparently, a week before the incident, we aired a late-night B-movie in which this very scene took place. Now, every network had the real thing. The filling station’s video surveillance camera had captured the entire incident on tape. It was replayed hourly in grainy black and white for all the world to see, all the screams to be heard. A feeling of urgency coupled with a growing desensitivity invaded my body every time I viewed the crime.

Reading the legal papers and watching myself on television announce the departure of the programming exec responsible for the scheduling made the issue seem less real. Of course, presently I have a new enemy and another lawsuit to deal with from the programming exec, Neal Robbins. He’s been denouncing me personally on his website and airing out the private business of the company. If the newspapers are correct–and aren’t they always when it’s bad news–he’s been getting over five hundred hits an hour on his site since the whole thing started. Our owner isn’t happy. Our law firm isn’t happy. I’m not happy. But here comes Janice and I remember that no matter how dark things get, there is always a bright side to life in the entertainment industry.

"James, are you okay?"

The door closes.

She’s in a summer dress, a lightweight flower pattern. The light coming through my office window highlights the fabric and for a brief second I can almost see through it, concentrating on the space between her legs. Her streaming black hair nestles up to her neck and my thoughts as she takes a seat and puts a folder on my desk. I look at the shiny gold and the colored stones that always adorn her fingers and wrists.

"James?"

I smile and tap the legal documents with my pen.

"That’s pretty rough stuff," she says.

I stand and walk to the window. I look at the greening lawns, the budding trees. The corporate campus is beautiful in the spring.

"Well, it’s nothing compared to the asshole that’s writing about my..." My voice trails off as I turn away from the vibrant color of heat to look at Janice.

She’s smiling. Neal has been writing about my previous marital problems. I want to countersue, but I don’t know if the law firm–or the station–would entertain my desire right now. I sit down and smile back at Janice.

"It a new schedule," she says. "Non-violent, but sexier."

"Not too sexy, we don’t need a new charge leveled against us."

"A couple of classic detective movies followed a late night ‘Detecting Divas’–an updated Charlie’s Angels in bikinis–and a women’s beach volleyball tournament. The Republicans touted it as a new booming industry at their presidential convention. That makes us a good American company supporting the growth of new business."

I smile at her sarcasm. I can envision her running TV ads with clips of the convention speech. "ABA, an American company, supporting American Values and American Business in its continued commitment to building American Communities of tomorrow." I think our pitches go something like that, but I’m not sure.

I open the folder. A key sits atop the sheaf of scheduling papers I have to sign for approval. I don’t touch it. I look at her, silent.

"I’ll be home later," she says. "But maybe I shouldn’t answer the door."

We have an arrangement. I take a late, long afternoon lunch on a revolving day each week. Janice always has somewhere to "go" most afternoons. Occasionally, I enjoy oral sex in the office, but for a full experience, privacy is required.

I read the schedule and smile at some of her alternate suggestions: Columbo reruns, the Rockford Files, The Chinese Detective, and a Sherlock Holmes series.

"The Chinese Detective?" I ask.

"It’s English."

"It’s old."

"It’s good."

"Well, this schedule certainly won’t provoke media attention."

"It will be very popular with the established late night viewers. Viewers who happen to have money to pass on to our sponsorship. Sales has already said they need more late-night programming that will interest senior citizens; they’re trying to market to drug companies on weeknights. Teen programming isn’t where it is at for us. Teens watch cable, the WB, and troll the Internet. We have to think like the big network we are, B-movie slasher films just earn the remote control one more click."

I nod. Tone down the programming, bring back the old favorites in syndication, and beef up the revenue. Not to mention, improve our public image in the process.

"Spoken just like Neal," I say.

"I studied his methods very hard," she says intently.

"I hope not too hard," I say. She dismisses me with a wave of her hand and calls me foolish. "Well, it may get some new sponsors short term–"

"This is what the sponsors want–"

"But I think, in the long run, it will just be a step to revive our image."

"Some short term revenue is never a bad thing."

"Nope," I say.

She doesn’t move from her chair.

"Two o’clock?" she asks.

"Or thereabouts, I suppose," I am not looking forward to reading through the rest of the legal papers, but it must be done.

Coming in to work I had felt sapped of all strength, limp, though I listened to a young female expose her breasts and kiss another topless young female against her will in a radio studio a few states away. As I stare at the circular black stone clock I feel that familiar excitement growing in the pit of my stomach. A sweet feeling courses through the walls of my waist in a spastic motion like the tongue of a snake. She stands and circumnavigates my desk.

"Make it two," she says. "I’ll make it worth it."

She engages my lips, coaxing my tongue with hers, while guiding my hand to where the key waits.

Two.

I pick up the key and she exits.

I pocket the key.

I went to Barry O’Donnell’s office with the folder. Barry was out from behind his desk, on his knees staring at the TV, his hands clasped in either prayer or anxiety. His third or fourth cup of coffee sat unattended and lukewarm; the bottom of the cup staining some of the legal papers that littered his workspace and had overflowed onto his floorspace. The cable news network was piping in the latest events of the hour. Our tragedy and the ensuing court battle placed second. A young gang of high school kids in Arkansas, whose favorite activity was group sex, had bludgeoned one of their sixteen-year-old male members to death after he had raped a thirteen-year-old female member because she had tried to shut him down. Their website was mentioned in the report. It was, thankfully, getting more hits than Neal’s. Neal was still getting more hits than AMEX or Yahoo, but I had a feeling he was being edged out by Victoria’s Secret. The screen flashed a picture of a small creek. Two bloody lead pipes rested on the gravel-covered ground. Yellow police tape highlighted the area. Two men carrying a body bag served as a visual close to the segment.

"Thank God that happened and we’re not responsible for it," he said and got off his knees as the TV went to commercial, something cable wasn’t initially designed to do. He muted the volume and began pacing.

"We’re not responsible," I said.

"We’re considering a settlement."

"With who?"

"Everyone, Neal too," he said. "If they just want money and we can quietly end this thing it may be worth it."

"What happened to the mother?"

"She’s realizing the expenses of healthcare," he said. He seemed visibly upset. "I was thinking about her poor child last night. Her daughter is a mess of charred skin. Swollen black and bubbling. Popping in places. She’s going to be deformed for the rest of her life, however long that is. She’ll be the town secret wherever she goes. Isolated, freakish, perverse, repulsive and revolting while eliciting the sympathy and sorrow of those repelled by her presence, a living testament to a horrible youth crime, a visual abomination."

Barry had a Ph.D. in English, but he’d never found a home in academia.

"Barry you read too many novels that list stuff. Have you forgotten about plastic surgery?"

"I think my words attempt to capture the repugnance we should all feel."

They didn’t to me, but he was the boss of his world and slightly my senior; and he was quite impressed with his own sentences. Despite his effusiveness at inappropriate moments, he was a very good manager and a good colleague. He also really cared about the viewers and wanted to give them good programs. Unfortunately, his taste often didn’t correspond to public interest. Mine did. But he was an excellent reader and organizer. His reading of the legal papers would be an important double check of the legal team defending us, as long as his emotions didn’t get in the way.

"Don’t you feel the terror of what’s happened? Don’t you recognize that their suffering has only begun?"

"I do feel sorry for them," I said and clasped his shoulder. "I wish it never happened. However, I also recognize their frivolous lawsuit against us and the fact that we had to change our programming and fire a good employee."

Barry wasn’t fooled by my last statement.

"Besides, in a few months this will all be forgotten. It will all be in the past and everything will be normal again," I said.

"Not today," he said. "When we replay things in the future, technology will refresh the stale mind. They come back with all the urgency of the moment. I know this. I still can’t watch the assassination of Kennedy nor his funeral without reliving the feelings of dread that existed inside my body the day it happened. The Zapruder film and the accompanying newscasts always bring it all right back to me. That was the first item of video technology that brought that home to me. And this incident," he pointed at the TV, "the horrible closeness of this incident...I don’t even have words to describe how it has etched itself on my psyche."

He looked at the paper-filled floor. I disagreed, but it was pointless to continue. All viewing did was infuse us with a sense of nostalgia, historical images tainted with our personal fantasies. Not reliable and not the same as that first initial virginal contact. Barry knew this; his emotions were just getting the better of him; he had a sixteen-year-old daughter. I handed him the new programming schedule that Janice had done.

"She also logged it in the system," I said. "If you already have too much paper."

"No, I’ll go over it this afternoon. After I finish the other papers."

He opened the folder and glanced at the schedule. I smell her scent on the pages, taste her lips and tongue with my imagination. I can feel her presence coupled with the sweet feeling arising in my stomach. He closed the folder and looked at me.

"Do you think we’re..." he stopped, but we both knew what he was going to say.

A scene of the gas station appeared on the silent box.

"A lot of factors influence the weak mind," I said. "If we were that important, people would shoot each other in movie theaters during violent movies."

"They do sometimes. Remember Colors?"

"That was all gang violence," I said. "They just all happened to be in the theater comparing their colors and tattoos. It would have happened anyway. Just like this case, that girl just lashed out without any thought. Her arms are all burned off too; didn’t she put two and two together? Light match, squeeze handle, what did she think would happen to her arms?"

I left his office to give him time to work through his questions and the legal ramifications of the paper homesteading in his office.

I returned to my office and answered an email from my wife. She was trolling the net and day trading. A former executive of a happy-to-be-purchased telecommunications outfit, she had been packaged out handsomely. Now she slept late, shopped, and actively invested our money using online tools. Occasionally, she bothered me about having a child. I ignored those emails. Today’s email was about a stock that climbed ten points in the first hour of trading and then dropped. She’d sold it, made a profit and then bought it back. She casually closed the note with the information that she’d ordered a suite of exotic massage oils from the Far East. I was a little tired of the Far East; it was not so exotic anymore. I replied enthusiastically anyway.

I write the text of my email in my word processor, which has a neat feature Janice showed me called Autotext. Using Autotext I could record whole paragraphs into the computer–let alone my address and a simple signoff–and summon them with a simple keystroke and a mouse click on the Autotext button. I could have just used a keyboard function key to activate the Autotext feature, but I needed the rodent; I always forgot commands I deemed extraneous.

To: dp011@connectnet.com
From: jkallious@aba.com
hon,

I finished spell checking the email–another feature set on automatic–and sent it. I thought about my wife as I waited for a "message sent" confirmation. The stone clock signaled to me it was time to return to the present reality of Janice. I think about her as I log off.

The visual delight of spring accompanies my drive to my long meeting. Flowering scents fill my car; the vegetation Gods flourish. I enjoy the wholesomeness of the landscape refreshing itself, waking from its barren dormancy. Barry’s advanced lexicon, his predilection for pastoral themes, would have a field day.

I reach my destination, a deserted upscale apartment complex; Janice’s four-month-old Beamer is the sole company for my Mercedes. No people. Only the gardener is here, a big Russian tending to the Elysian look of the place. He nods to me. I know this man. Occasionally, he gives Janice colorful bouquets of wild flowers that grow along the perimeter of the complex.

I retrieve the key from my pocket as I get to her doorstep.

I open the door to the sound of a techno group I despise. The volume lowers.

"Hi James," she is in the bedroom in black silk. The plastic tube by her side informs me she’s been masturbating.

I smile at her and go into the bathroom. I brush my teeth and urinate sitting down. I leave the faucet running and struggle to keep my erection aimed into the toilet.

It is a small black spot showing through the whiteness of the threaded paper. I smack the roll of paper sending it spinning. The black spot moves, but I’ve seen it, or him or her. A black fly crawling around perplexed and unbalanced. I smack the paper again. The fly drops to the ground and I stamp at him, but I miss and almost rip the toilet seat off its hinges. My erection is gone. The fly is airborne. It joins another fly in the corner of the ceiling.

I rip off some toilet paper and deposit it in the trashcan. I don’t want to share toilet paper with an insect. I decide not to flush the toilet. If it sounds like I only brushed my teeth I’m guaranteed oral.

She’s lying on her stomach on her bed. I look at her shape; the torso becomes a refined narrow cylinder at her waist; below, two mounds of flesh press against the shiny black silk. The smooth creamy muscular legs are lean and bending as she prepares to raise herself. Flesh and fabric rub together. Her face is adorned with the color of deep red. Her breasts peek at me from their resting place on the bed. I tell her about the flies.

"There are a lot of little things hiding in here, I don’t know how they get in," she says and beckons for me.

I think of the Russian.

"You’re allowed to flush the toilet," she says as she unzips my pants. I become a moist delicacy.

Back at the office I felt refreshed as I listened to Barry. He continued to talk to me about a settlement. After running my errands, I told him I was more receptive to it. Let’s settle, I said; let’s settle with everybody. Maybe we could even hire Neal back. Well, maybe not. I thought about Janice and the rhythmic moans she made during sex. My wife was the silent type. Janice screamed with pleasure when she climaxed; my wife hyperventilated. I mentioned Janice and her work. Barry liked the new schedule. He said he would enjoy the old Peter Falk series.

"Yes, I always enjoyed the catatonic detective myself."

In my office there was an email message from my wife. Actually, it was forwarded.

To: jkallious@aba.com
From: dp011@connectnet.com
Forwarded by dp011@connectnet.com
>From: nrcaster@infonet.com
>To: dp011@connectnet.com; news12@newsnet.org; radiotimes@whzy.org;
>citizenreports@actionsstories.com; netnews@netnews.com; >the_maxwellreport@max.com...

>Thought you might be interested:

>http://www.raw_and_live_01.com/~jk001/sexcam1373.htm

>username: nrobespierre
>password: korgslut

>Enjoy it while you can, I’ll be canceling my account in twenty fours hours.

>NR

I click on the link and get the obligatory warning screen, then comes the user identification screen. Sweat from my palms soaks the keyboard as I typed in the username and password. I fumble and mistype the password. Error screen. I grab the mouse to seize back control. I hit the back button and retype the name and password. Enter.

I type the URL provided in the email: http://www.raw_and_live_01.com/~jk001/ sexcam1373.htm. I watched Janice presently unzip my fly.

I picked up the phone. The line at home was busy. I hung up and shut down my computer improperly. It would scandisk in the morning. I had to get home.

In the car, I sat in stop and go traffic; the radio said it was due to volume. The news was next. I thought about the other addresses Neal had sent the email to: television stations, newspapers, radios, magazines, e-zines, possibly even Springer. I looked at my fellow drivers. How many of them would get the URL off their TV newscasts tonight and connect to see me and Janice? There had to be a lawsuit in here somewhere. I wondered if Janice knew. Did she know she was being filmed or digitized? Was Neal behind all of this?

The radio announced my name. I was the top story. A female reporter read the news. She spoke in tones that could only be described as aghast. Her lungs groped for elusive air as she verbally portrayed the acts of fornication the website had presented to her. She described us in detail. Janice was a sprightly young woman of curves and a voracious sexual appetite who had her own webcam site; membership–at $14.95 a month–was estimated in the hundreds or even thousands. I was one of three men and two women who had sex with Janice regularly on the site. She gave our bios, spoke about the court case, and then provided the website’s main address: http://www.raw_and_live_01.com. People were downloading us and replaying our act. As I sat in the car, I fornicate with Janice.

We were at a dead stop. Anger flooded me. I slammed on my horn and then began pounding my fist on my driver’s side window. Other horns began sounding. My neighbors looked at me briefly as I raged. Then they looked away and checked on me only peripherally.

My fist shattered the window; glass felt onto the pavement and onto my lap. My hand was soaked in blood. I brushed the little slivers off my lap onto the floor and picked up a large shard of glass, triangular, pointed, sharp, perfect. A horn raged behind me; traffic had started to move. I hit the gas and the car lurched forward. Behind me, cars swerved to avoid the glass that contained my DNA.

A quiet darkness had settled over my development. I half-expected police cars waiting for me in the driveway, but there were none. I stepped from my car nursing my hand. The throbbing pain suggested to my imagination that slivers of glass swam in my bloodstream now.

A neighbor’s dog barked.
A little girl was laughing.

Inside the house, I hear the familiar rhythmic moans accompanied by generic expletives with my name attached to them echo throughout the house. I walk up to the bedroom. Tammy is sitting on the bed. Her face is swollen deep red. An open suitcase waits on the floor to be packed. The computer is on and being fed by our cable connection; the upgraded speakers flood the house with the aurality of pleasure. The act depicted is not from today. Tamara knows this. She quite possibly knows what day is currently playing by my clothes, which she picks out each evening before every day. I admire the resolution of the twenty-one inch screen distributing the presentness of Janice.