I realized that the person who popped in out of the blue to chat with me was suspicious. This "little girl" said she liked to meet people and thought I'd be interested in seeing her.
Now being a techie who writes erotic fiction, I wasn't all that paranoid since I was, for the most part, as dull as ditchwater, but this kid was missing a lot of the references to printed fiction I kept waving at her. Her inability to catch these not-so-subtle references did more to convince me that she was for real.
Molly was apparently really fourteen and it bothered me that she seemed to be missing so much in life, so, when she suggested we meet at the park I figured that it wouldn't be much of a problem since it was convenient to where I work. The next day I was better prepared.
I saw a young woman sitting at the bench when I walked up with the backpack I'd put together the night before. She waved, I nodded, and, putting the bag down on the table, sat opposite her, then unzipped it.
"What would you like to do this afternoon?" she asked. She didn't look all that nervous to me though, truth be told, I would have been anxious.
"First off, I'm just dropping off something for you, I don't plan to spend too much time at this. I've got an extra soda in the bag if you want it, it's ginger ale, though. Anyway," I continued, reaching into the bag, "I hope you don't mind if I have a sandwich. I do hope that someone you know knows where you are, kid, 'cuz you damn well better be a lot more picky about who you invite to meet you."
After pulling out the two cans of soda I fished out a CD wallet.
By this time she was looking a little bit shook up and was starting to act a bit anxious. Then she asked, "Don't you like me?"
"I'd like you a lot better to talk to if you were better read, kid." I held up the CD wallet I'd just pulled out of my backpack and waved it to get her attention. "I've burned a couple of the Baen Books free CDs for you to read instead of spending your time chatting with guys my age. It'll help your spelling and vocabulary, too. I'd recommend the books by Lois McMaster Bujold, at least to start with, by the way."
I pushed one of the soda cans over to her and she stared at it. "Sorry, I didn't think to put 'em in a cooler so it's warm. Also, I brought you this," I said, reaching back into my bag and pulling out a smaller bag.
She stared at the bag as I bit into my sandwich, so I nodded to her that she should take a look. I heard a gasp. "But these are books!"
Swallowing that bite and taking a swig of my ginger ale, I answered, "Of course. It's sci fi, ancient stuff, Heinlein, Asimov and even some Clarke. Juvie stuff. It should get you ready to really enjoy reading. After seeing the books my daughter was expected to read for school it's a miracle anyone can stand to open up a book these days."
She stared at me. "I thought you would..."
I looked back at her, chewing my next bite, trying to get her to go on, which she didn't, leaving unspoken words in the air. I swallowed and prompted, "I would?"
Molly sighed, "I thought you wanted me for... for... sex."
Wow, unless she was some kind of decoy, this was a kid who qualified as a sex predator. I shook my head and resisted laughing at her naivete, figuring that my laughter would hurt her feelings. "Kid, I've been married over twenty five years. Sex is over-rated. Heck, sex is a waste of time, most of the time, and you will be better off finding someone who's not as scarred up as I am. Why the fuck do you think I'm trying to get you to read? You've gotta have something in your life that's fun to do."
The little girl stared at me, her mouth hanging open.
"And another thing, you mentioned that you're using XP. I took the liberty of providing the latest Ubuntu and Knoppix distributions in the CD wallet. Knoppix is a live CD so you don't have to install it on your hard drive. Linux, girl, is definitely better than sex."
She was sitting there, in shock. It was enough time for me to finish my sandwich and soda, so I got up to dump them in a waste bin, walked back over, zipped my bag closed, told her to be careful with anyone she chose to meet, adding that I had plenty of work to do that afternoon, and finally got to ruffle her hair, like I would my own daughter, and walked away.
Before I made it five steps away, I heard the yell of 'police' so I stopped to look around, wondering who was getting arrested.
You got it, I was the one who was arrested.
I was cuffed, pushed around, thrown into the back of a car and driven to a police station where they went through the process of booking me.
When I was placed in an interrogation room, I asked what charges they were going to file against me. "I didn't qualify as a litterbug until your guys spilled my backpack!"
"You are being charged as a sexual predator," the big, gruff guy told me. His expression got even more irritable when I laughed in his face.
An older female cop asked, "Why would you meet with a teen girl if it wasn't for sex?"
I shook my head and said, "In hindsight I realize I must've been taped in detail, to ensure that you had accurate evidence at trial. Have either of you listened to or viewed the tapes?"
Both of the interrogators shook their heads.
"Why don't you view all of that evidence and look through my backpack, the CD wallet and the bag of paperback books before you continue this interrogation. If you'll let me have my copy of 'Diplomatic Immunity' from my backpack, I'll be quite happy to wait here for you to return."
A tap on the window prefaced the entrance of an older officer into the room. He looked pretty pissed off and I guessed he'd already interviewed "Molly" and reviewed all of the footage they'd taken. "What the fuck were you doing with her? What the fuck did you think you were there for?"
I shrugged. "I thought that she didn't read enough and that her vocabulary, spelling and grammar needed some work, too, and the best way to do that was to give her some books to read."
He sighed. "You wasted so many fucking man-hours of police time, guy."
There was little chance I'd feel any sympathy for his costs with little benefit for the police department. It sure did look like quite a sting operation, too, and they must have chosen to target me because of what I'd authored. "Next time you decide to initiate a sting operation, perhaps you should consider that some of us, albeit not many, will feel protective of a child. It's a damn good thing she didn't imply a promise of sex in her chats or I'd've known it was a sting or that the kid was too fucking far gone. As it is, her spelling, grammar and word choices in her chats left me with the impression that she needed to be off the streets."
The older fellow stared at me, still pissed off. "We'll be able to charge you for littering, fellow. And we can make trouble for you, too."
This was funny enough. "Sure, you can make trouble for me, but my life can bore your officers to tears. On top of all that, wrongful arrest would make a waste of money far more wasteful for all. In my opinion, sting operations like these aren't far from entrapment. Maybe you guys should look at the politicians, like a Mark Foley, instead. How many real predators have you caught, so far? And, finally, what's the real response rate when Molly or whoever goes trolling for attention?"
He stood there, silent, staring me down. I stared back. He blinked. I sighed. "Look, I have an unfair advantage on you. I stare at computers all day."
"But you write porn!" he said.
I shrugged. "So? That's a crime?"
"Maybe not yet, but it has to mean something!"
"When the attorney general can arrange for me to be declared an enemy combatant, sir, then you can take me away to Guantanamo. Until then, sir, the whole Bill of Rights still applies to me. And just because I may think and write about sex does not automatically mean that I practice it often."
Mind you, I was sweating because these microcephalic morons who were supposed to serve and protect the public seemed like more of a menace than a means of civilization.
At least I didn't have to pay to get my car back, nor did I lose more than three hours from work, but, then, I had to pull overtime anyway.
Two weeks later I got a visit at work from "Molly". She now looked older, almost twenty, when I got to the security office to meet her. "Here are your books back, Mark. I did read them..."
"Good," I said, nodding. "You really do need to work on your language skills. And I do hope you'll have time to try Linux."
She smiled at me and said, a giggle in her voice, "You are such a geek!"
I smiled back when she left.
A month later I got a ping from "Molly" again via ICQ. She told me she was running Ubuntu on her PC and that she found it a lot easier to put up with.
We chatted for a wee bit and discussed technical tricks she would probably like to know before we disconnected.
Yes, I admit it, I had seduced her.
But, then, seduction should never have been necessary to get someone to consider running Linux.
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Author: Jack C Lipton Title: Online Seduction Part: Universe: Family Values Summary: Keywords: Revision: $Revision: 1.4 $ Archive: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/CupaSoup/www/ Mailing List: FAQ: RCS: $Id: onlineSeduction.x,v 1.4 2007/02/02 18:42:15 cupasoup Exp $