Chapter 1

The peeps at the local adult emporium were in the basement -- probably in an effort to make us all feel lower than dirt. By 'us,' I meant the community of users of the peep booths, elite group of losers that we are... Either this tactic was so they could close the lid and roast us in case of a fire, or so the cops would only need one tear-gas grenade in case of a raid, I figured.

I'd reached that point of desperation that allowed me to countenance whatever it was going to take to get my cock sucked and put in an appearance and dropped about five bucks in the booths -- but the pickings were just too slim. There was no new or young or fresh talent -- just the usual group of old suck-whores -- toothless granddads that can't get it up any more and have learned to subsist on cum. I'd learned the hard way that while I might not get AIDS from one, there were other diseases to be transmitted by the community mouths...

I was headed up the narrow stairs, not looking at anything much except the next stair, when a pair of feet in flip-flops appeared there.

The feet in them were female -- I knew that, despite the fact that the toes weren't polished. They weren't young, either -- they were a little too wide and flat -- something about them said thirty-five. The ankles and calves agreed with that assessment as my eyes swept upward -- then we hit the skirt, a loose, dark item that hung below the knees. Moving on up, my eyes discovered a couple of decent-sized hooters wrapped in a peasant blouse -- and no bra. The amount of sag they displayed -- not serious, but it was there, confirmed earlier assessments. In passing, my eyes took in her arms and hands -- which were extended as a buffer to keep me from climbing into her -- which said forty. So did the small cluster of freckles on her chest above her cleavage and her neck and shoulders, which were sun-reddened.

Her face had been narrower, once, but had widened and thickened some -- perhaps from smiling. She had wide lips and was a tiny bit buck-toothed, something easily seen due to her "Oh!" of surprise. There were more freckles on the snub nose; the grey eyes behind her wire-rimmed eyeglasses were undoubtedly normally calm, but had widened a bit at our impending collision. Mouse-brown pigtails, streaked with grey, were pinned atop her head; undoubtedly, her hair was long, but thin. Basically, if you took one of those earthy, Holly Hobbie gingham-dressed outdoorsy-type girls and aged her for a decade and a half while pulling three children out of her, you'd get this. You know them -- the calm, pioneer mother Jesus-freak type, aging toward that phase when they seemed to have all of the excess flesh sucked off them, leaving an apparently indestructible skin-wrapped skeleton. She hadn't gotten there yet, though -- she was still thick with what I thought of as 'motherhood flesh'.

Now, I know what you're thinking -- 'Just how long did you stand there blocking the staircase and taking inventory, five minutes?' Not even close. From start to finish, it was maybe two seconds, including the jerk of surprise and the detection of the guy hulking behind her. I froze momentarily, got my eyes back into my head, and my brain said, "We're not leaving just yet." I turned around and headed back down the stairs. The soft flick of her flip-flops followed me downstairs, along with the heavy clump of the guy behind her, and I remember thinking, 'Jeezus, Honey, what are YOU doing HERE?'

Women don't go to adult video stores. Well, okay, they do -- but the male-female ration is ninety to ten, at least. And the ones that do tend to come in groups and giggle at the toys and tell everyone they're buying a gag gift for a bridal shower or bachelorette party -- which, in my humble opinion is usually a damned lie. Even in couples, the girl usually sits outside in the car in the parking lot while the guy picks out the videos, or whatever.

The statistics I just quoted were for the sales floor, though, not the peeps; for the peeps, the numbers went 'WAY up -- maybe a hundred or a hundred fifty to one, MINIMUM -- probably more in the five hundred to one range! The chances that an unescorted woman would enter the peep area were, I dunno, incalculable, I imagined -- with the exception of the female clerks, maybe, for clean up -- and I'd never seen that, either. Generally, if someone was in the peep area wearing a skirt, there was a dick under there, somewhere, no matter how good the exterior appeared to be -- and even that didn't happen often. No matter how you sliced it, this was a pretty unlikely occurrence; there was no way I was going to miss it!

At the foot of the stairs, I stood aside and let them pass. They went over to the display where the video selection in the system was displayed, and I -- and every other male in the place -- got a good look at them in the somewhat brighter light.

The guy with her was a classic -- the huge, big-headed type that was built like a Rock'em Sock'em Robot. You've seen 'em -- they have this head the size of a cinder block and obviously just as hard -- and they'll have a full head of hair when they put them in the grave. He wasn't workout muscular, more just thick and blocky, but you knew he wouldn't shy away from a fight -- largely because he could take punishment all day long. I think these guys are mostly Irish -- they can usually drink a case of beer at a sitting and not even blink. I've had friends of this type, and they're real charmers -- and they seldom do without pussy. The thing was, what was he doing with her? Her type usually saw right through this type's Jack Armstrong charm; they were looking for something a little more substantive. And while they had a reputation for fucking like a mink, it was usually with someone who met her criteria as socially responsible and genuinely concerned with whatever issues were on her ideological agenda. The guy was more the casual sex without strings type, I figured. Still, there she was, hanging back while he moved up to examine the video boxes behind the Plexiglas, but holding his hand.

Come to think of it, why was HE here? That type never wanted for women -- and therefore had no need of peep booths. Most of us were in the other camp. Me, for instance -- for females, I'm an acquired taste. I tended to run to long-term relationships once in the door, but I had to get through the door, first -- and that wasn't easy. Women pick their men on looks, mostly, and the things I brought to the table, while more valuable in the long run, weren't immediately visible to the casual observer -- or at all, in polite company...

The rest of us quickly separated into two groups. The first group got the Hell out of sight, either because they were embarrassed and humiliated to have a woman see them sink this low, or because they were no longer interested in creatures of the female persuasion. The second group (including me) hung close, trying to just get a whiff, if nothing else.

The big guy stepped back from his examination of the available entertainment and led the woman off on a recon of the peep area, with probably a half-dozen of us following while pretending not to be stalking. There were nineteen peeps in two rows, back to back, in the center of the room; Number Nineteen was a Premium booth, supposedly -- it was bigger, and it cost five bucks minimum to use. Maybe it was a little better appointed; in any case, it took up room for two or more regular peeps, and made up the end of the row nearest the feature display. If you were facing Number Nineteen, with your back to the display, booths numbered One through Nine were accessed from the corridor on the right and the remainder, including Number Nineteen, were accessible from the left. I don't guess that they were really corridors -- the double row of booths, back to back, made an island in the center of the room and the corridor was actually the space between the peeps and the wall on all sides. You could go down one side and circle around the back, ending up back at the video display -- and that's what they -- and we -- did, glancing into the open booths to see how clean they were and such.

There was another difference between the booths, not noticeable from the outside. While booths One through Nine were pretty basic -- a big screen and a smaller one, buttons to change the channel and the volume, and a plastic chair fixed in the corner -- and maybe a patched glory hole -- booths Ten through Eighteen were Buddy Booths. What that meant was that every pair of booths had a piece of glass between them. There was some kind of electrical field in the glass that made it translucent -- but if you were in the booth with the video running, you could touch a button and, if the guy on the other side had done the same thing, the glass would clear and you could watch each other whack off -- and maybe mime an invitation for one of you to join the other for a blowjob.

The Buddy Booths got some 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' from the couple as they drifted past, but they scoped out everything including Booth Nineteen. Then they reversed themselves and went looking for a Buddy Booth that met sanitary standards -- something that, frankly, was going to require some compromise. They jinked back and forth, finally settling on Fourteen -- and I was out of the pocket, being on the Booth Thirteen side, so some old guy hit the jackpot, closeting himself in Booth Fifteen.

Now, a buck buys you maybe five minutes of video viewing -- and probably more like three. They didn't stay in there that long; when they came out, the video in the booth was still playing. Some cheap bastard went in and took their place and they headed back to the display. I figured she'd seen enough, and they were gone, but I held my position, leaning against the wall where I could see them, and in a minute or so, here they came, back my way. This time, they ducked into Booth Ten, and I, after a quick tussle with the old guy at the door, took possession of Booth Eleven.

I heard the unmistakable servomotor whine of the changer sucking in a bill, so I dug in my pocket and pulled out a buck for my booth, knowing they'd settled in and weren't leaving instantly. When the video started, I rubbed my cock a bit through my jeans to make sure I had a bulge and hit the button that just might clear the glass.

It did. Rocky was standing there with his meat out, jacking it and punching the buttons to change the video feed, while the woman had just finished unzipping her skirt and was stepping out of it. She was facing my way, so she picked up the change in the glass immediately and nudged Rocky.

They had several options, one of which was to hit the button that fogged the glass -- but if they were going to do that, why bother with a Buddy Booth in the first place? Instead, Rocky reacted more or less as expected; he turned toward me and made sure I got a good look at him jacking his meat.

Okay. The ball was back in my court. The old guy they'd walked out on before was a suck whore; he'd probably offered to blow Rocky. But knowing that wasn't my primary reason for selecting my tactic -- it was just confirmation that my plan was probably better. I had at least two better reasons for deciding to do what I did -- which was undo my belt and tug my jeans down around my knees and start fondling my meat, too.

That was the right tactic; the woman smiled, and Rocky got even more obvious, if it was possible. The woman snatched her top over her head and my cock fired up rapidly, something she made it clear she was checking on while she put her top on the chair atop her skirt.

Rocky firmed up, too, but I felt sorry for him -- he was thick, but wasn't running any more that five inches, max, over big fat balls. There are bigger cocks out there -- lots of them -- but mine is my secret weapon; it comes in somewhere between seven and a half and eight inches, depending on which way the wind blew or some other criterion I hadn't managed to identify. These two had me pushing top end in about ten seconds.

The bigger I got, the bigger he got, and the happier they both seemed to get. I took inventory; the woman had a nice pair of C cup titties that sagged just about the amount I expected them to on a woman her age, capped with big, pinkish-brown areolas and pencil-eraser nipples. Smiling and eyeing my cock, she bent to snatch down and step out of her pair of no-nonsense baby blue panties -- and the window fogged.

Fuck. And things were going so well... But I heard the whine of the video machine sucking in a bill, and in a couple of seconds, the glass cleared again. Hurriedly, I took care of my end -- feeding another buck into my machine, too -- and we went back to mutual admiration.

By then, Happy Girl was down to just her flip-flops. I took in her furry pussy, noting that it matched her hair, grey streaks and all. It was good stuff. I was pushing forty and balding on top of everything else -- a nineteen-year-old might have looked better, but would have been unattainable. She laid three fingers on the fat pad of her muff and pulled up and gave me a good view of her clit and the top of her gash, then started masturbating with just her middle finger, using the other two to keep her stretched and open.

I think I could have poked my cock through the glass, it was so hard, but Rocky got restive and said something, so Happy Girl started paying more attention to him -- and I did, too, knowing which side my bread was buttered on. She knelt and jacked him, shifting her attention between him and me, and I tried to memorize the way her breasts swayed and the pattern of cellulite on her right thigh fifty percent of the time while keeping an eye on him the other fifty percent.

I was pretty much ignoring my video; we were into the next phase of things, where you find out what the other guy likes by which videos he selects. Rocky punched the buttons, settling momentarily on some gay action, then a transvestite fucking a guy, then more gays -- the video selection was weighted that way -- before finally settling on a threesome -- which turned out to be a bi flick!

This had to be just about perfect; the open question was all about whether he wanted to be the sucker or the suckee or we were gonna swap off. Would I blow him to get into her sweet muff? You bet your ass! Of course, the open question was whether she wanted to just sit on the sidelines and watch, or only play with him -- both of which were very possible outcomes. The other issue was whether I was betting MY ass or not -- something I'd pretty much avoided, to date...

In the meantime, the timer ran out on the video again. The good news was that they were pretty committed; I was pretty sure they would burn another buck. I was right, too; as soon as I heard the machine working, I fed mine, too.

The next phase was more personal for Rocky and me. Up to now, we hadn't really seen each other's faces; due to the positioning of the window, each of us could see the other's dick just fine, but our heads were out of view. Happy Girl spent a lot of her time looking at me, one way or another, but there was an issue with who looked first among the guys; while it wasn't absolutely binding, the guy who ducked to look first lost points -- and that meant he might be the one giving head. Rocky knew the game; he started it by putting on a pretty hardcore gay sex video, so we both knew the subject of the negotiation. We got into this deal where he would duck down a little and then I would duck down a little -- but neither of us gave the whole game away. Happy girl didn't get it; I saw her asking what the fuck was going on, and Rocky apparently told her enough that she understood. Finally, we both slowly squatted down until we could approach each other evenly and proceeded to admire each other's cocks. Happy Girl got it and laughed; I'm sure it looked ridiculous to her.

The clock was ticking by then; Happy Girl forced the issue, getting Rocky's attention. The two of them discussed things, agreed, and then made a united front in gesturing at themselves and me and pointing out the door. I agreed, and everyone started putting themselves together, since the wild hairs outside would start pounding the doors and twisting doorknobs even worse than they were once the video machines stopped and the little red lights over the doors went out.

I forgot that, didn't I? Peep booth doors have locks -- and if you don't use yours, some people take it as an invitation. Suck whores tend to ensure that no doorknob is left unturned, frequently -- and of course, if you look tasty in any way, things escalate. Better places police this kind of thing and run off the big offenders, but I've already told you what a dive this was...

Given the distance Happy Girl had to go to get dressed, I was surprised when they exited the booth within a second or two of when I did and glanced around for me. I stepped up, but some young kid who had apparently arrived while we were in the booths did, too, and I saw them both stop to reassess the fresh meat. Rocky turned to wave me off, but Happy Girl grabbed his wrist and shook her head and I knew I'd leaped another hurdle. Happy Girl leaned over to me, "Where can we go?"

"Just to get to know one another?" I clarified.

"Yes." I could tell that she was pleased with my answer. She was hot -- I could smell it -- but she was fearful, too.

"Let's use that," I recommended, pointing out Booth Nineteen. Happy Girl frowned, so I explained myself, "If we don't hit it off, you can come back out and try again."

Rocky was sold, "Okay." Actually, I'd presented it to Happy Girl, but the pitch was really to Rocky; if she decided that things weren't good, that would end the trip, as far as she was concerned -- but Rocky wouldn't see it that way. I'd suggested a restaurant or something on a couple of lucky -- or almost lucky -- occasions when I'd met couples on the sales floor of a store and we'd appeared to hit it off, but the results had been mixed. It seemed like once a woman was worked up to do something sordid and dove into the flesh pits, removing her from the atmosphere got her out of the mood. I'd bought some rather expensive meals and ended up one for three. This was sales; I didn't know jack shit about sales, but I knew what a commitment was, and I knew if we walked out the door upstairs with Happy Girl committed to feeling my pole in her pussy, I was golden -- but if she was still making up her mind, bright lights and the clatter of dishes wouldn't help me.

My stroke of genius worked; Rocky bought off for the pair of them and we entered Booth Nineteen. I shoved a five into the changer, then paid it no mind while we got around to names.

Rocky's name was Frank; Happy Girl's was June; I wondered if it had been April until she reached thirty, or something. Chicks like this might have ended up with Flower, or something, back in the day. Frank was bouncing around, wanting to do something, but I took my cue from June, and kept my hands to myself while I popped the big question, "What do you like to do?"

"Well, Frank likes sucking," June replied. Frank gave her a look.

"And what do you like to do?" I asked.

"I like fucking," June replied, giving me a wicked grin. She was all proud of herself.

"Well," I hazarded, "that still leaves about eight permutations and combinations. I can probably put up with any or all of them, depending on how comfortable we get with one another, but I DO have preferences..."

Frank was restive. "Are we gonna..."

I turned to him and replied, "Probably not here, unless that's how you two want it. Frank, do you want this to work out? More important, do you think you're gonna want to repeat it? I figure we can make an accommodation in any case that will take care of things for us. June is another story -- I need to make sure she gets what she came for, or you're going to have problems down the road. I'm assuming that June didn't come out with, 'Hey, let's go play in the peep booths...', so I figure she has reservations, you know?"

Frank frowned. "I thought..."

"Hey, I'm the visiting team, Man," I replied. "If you're both cool with doing whatever we're gonna do in here, I am, too -- but I need to know the rules, so I don't break any. And I figure that June has some reservations about all of this that you don't know anything about, so I'm trying to clear them up, if I can. I'm not ignoring you -- I just figure you're gonna be the easy one to make happy."

Frank was still frowning, but June was eyeing me with her head cocked. "You've done this before," she guessed.

"Not from down here," I replied. "I was pretty amazed, frankly... I've hit it off with couples a few times upstairs, though."

My reply left her both eased and concerned. "So what does my having come down here say about me?" she asked.

"Well, you're inordinately brave, you enjoy sex enough to allow for a little exhibitionism, and you trust your man to take care of you," I replied. Throwing Frank a bone seemed to be a good idea...

"But was I an idiot?" she asked.

I frowned. "No. Most women are just too chicken. This is a risky environment -- or, rather, most women would assume it to be. Actually, you'd be pretty safe coming down here alone, I think -- the guys who would be interested in you would all be trying to get on your good side. One peep from you and they would probably all help each other tear off the doors and beat the crap out of the offender." I smiled. "You have a serious reputation for being a hot babe right now with anybody down here who hasn't given up on women totally. Most of us would wax pretty chivalrous just to be able to hang out in your orbit."

June cocked her head. "But you said women don't come down here."

"No, I said I hadn't met any," I replied. "I've read about guys who send their women to places like this to give blowjobs -- but I've never seen one in real life. I've heard of couples who come to places like this to be seen fucking in a buddy booth for the thrill it gives them -- but, again, I've never experienced it personally. I HAVE seen a couple of things that were somewhat similar, though, and I think the world of any woman in touch with her sexuality enough to share herself like that."

"Share herself?" June continued being quizzical.

"Share herself," I repeated. "You took off your clothes and let me see your body while in that booth. You have to understand that what goes on through that glass is MUCH more important that what happens on the video screen -- and that I have been vouchsafed a glimpse of a real woman with the guts to share her sexuality in that manner. If that was all I got -- if you just had sex with Frank and let me watch -- it would still have been an affirmation that there are real, live women out there who really enjoy sex -- not just hump for cameras to make a buck."

June smiled, timidly. "I'm afraid that I still don't understand."

"Well," I replied, "it's a philosophical discussion, perhaps." I glanced at the video screen, which was counting down fairly rapidly. "This could end up being a costly place to have it. If that's what you want, I'm game -- or if you want to get on to the more physical aspects, I'm game for that, too -- but we might be more comfortable doing both elsewhere."

Now, Frank had spent the early going hopping from foot to foot, obviously planning to cut to the chase -- but he had settled down when he discovered that June thought he might have made a mistake in bringing her there -- and that I was working hard to fix it for him. Now, he let the cat out of the bag by grunting, "Oh?"

June glanced around with distaste, "It's nasty in here, Frank."

"But the videos..." Frank objected.

"Why don't we rent a few upstairs and take them out?" I suggested. "I'm sure we can come up with an alternate location."

"Oh, okay." Frank eyed me dubiously, then flicked his eyes to June. "Yeah."

I decided to throw him another bone. "There is a certain element of the forbidden involved in doing things here, but the facilities are limited..." I waved at the booth's only furniture, a bench seat. It was time to press for a commitment. "Of course, you two might want to exercise your option to find another play partner..."

Frank, for whom I was getting mixed reviews, opened his mouth -- but June got there first, eyeing me and saying, "No, I don't think so. I like what I'm hearing." Frank all but sighed. At that point, the video shut off, too.

"Why don't we adjourn upstairs?" I suggested. Frank nodded and led the way out, June following, and me taking up the rear. Actually, there were at least three cars in the train behind me, but they were just hopefuls.

Once upstairs, Frank led the way to the video racks. As the three of us walked the rows, the three hopefuls that had followed us up orbited us, positioning themselves in the next aisle so as to be able to make eye contact and scope June and look for ways of sparking a conversation. "He's following us," June hissed to me, picking out one of them with her eyes.

I chuckled quietly, picking out the others, "So is he, and so is he, too. They're attracted by you and, in particular, the fact that you're not pretending to be horrified by the idea of sex. They're hoping that one of them will look better to you than I do -- or Frank does, if they're not sure who your escort is."

"Why me?" she asked. "What about them?" There were two other women in the place, younger chicks, giggling over by the toy rack.

"Guts," I replied. "They don't have any -- or they don't have as much as you do."

"No? They're here..."

I nodded. "Listen to them, though. If you ask them why they're here, they'll probably tell you that they're buying a gag gift for a girlfriend, instead of telling the truth and admitting that they're scoping the toys for themselves. I don't have to tell you what those nervous giggles mean..."

"No, you're right," June whispered back. "They're pretending that they're not serious about what they're doing."

"Exactly," I agreed. "If a man was to approach them in here, they'd probably make a run for the door as soon as they could disengage. Evil creatures live here -- or so they think."

Frank passed her a video and she pretended to examine it. It was a bisexual flick, I think. "Fine," she muttered, and handed it back. I held my peace, but I figured that she would probably prefer something a bit softer. "Why me, though?" she asked, returning to the original question.

"Because you're being honest about the fact that you're here looking for sex," I replied. "That makes you a valuable commodity."

"Oh, come on!" She waved at herself disparagingly. "You're kidding, right?"

"Not at all," I replied, shaking my head. "I'll try to explain it if you like, but Frank REALLY wants us to look at videos..."

"Fine." June took charge of making video selections, and we had five of various types, fairly quickly. At the checkout counter, I forked over some cash so Frank wouldn't end up putting out thirty bucks all by himself -- besides, it was another bond between us. Frank knew what was up, and accepted the cash with less than perfect grace, but June stayed out of it. Once outside, June said, "Now what?"

"We're still doing a lot of talking," I replied. "Why don't we hit a restaurant and get to know one another?"

This was another less than popular idea with Frank -- as far as he was concerned, I was an anonymous mouth, and/or and anonymous cock -- and maybe, ass. He wanted to get on with the show; when we were done, he never expected to see me again. But June was running things... "Good idea!" she approved. "How about..." -- she named a local diner.

"Sounds good to me," I agreed. Frank all but rolled his eyes, but in a moment his humongous pickup was pulling out of the parking lot, and I was following in my pseudo-sports car.

Now, he could try to lose me, at this point -- a classic tactic -- but it would be a waste of time, because I knew where we were going, unless he got June to change her mind. I was counting on the fact that if he did, he would ruin the night; he and June wouldn't be going back and trolling for strange dick a second time tonight -- or ever, possibly, for that matter. On the other hand, I figured that they would use the time in frank discussion of the possibilities -- and maybe they would cut me loose. When I pulled into the diner's parking lot, I was gratified to see that June was looking calm and Frank was looking grumpy -- a sure sign that she'd told him that either they approved the current applicant or the adventure was over and they would leave the position vacant. I parked, joined them, and we went inside.

We got a booth; June and Frank took one side, and I got the other. The place served breakfast twenty-four hours a day, so that's what I ordered; most times, a place like that didn't really do anything else well. Besides, I liked breakfast... June did too, apparently; Frank got a burger, another safe choice. When the waitress hit the bricks, June said brightly, "So, Mike, tell us a little about yourself."

"Okay," I grinned. "I'm between wives -- numbers two and three, if you're counting, so I have reduced expectations. I do computer work for a local company, and have for some time. I'll be forty in a couple of weeks."

"Why were you there?" June asked.

"Desperation," I replied, adding, "I'm not a varsity womanizer; I'm not quite handsome enough, and not quite muscular enough, and not quite outgoing enough, and a little too intelligent. I'm strong second-string when I get to play, but I seldom get to."

June blinked. "I don't see anything wrong with you..."

"You would if you'd just met me on the street," I argued. "Actually, it wouldn't be so much that you saw something wrong, but that you didn't see anything that made me stand out from a zillion other guys."

"But..." June began.

"But nothing," I cut her off. "We've had a one-on-one, now, thanks to those peep booths. We've talked, and you've even seen something that in your mind might make me stand out from the crowd."

"Being?" she asked. I just looked at her. "Oh, that," she mumbled, blushing. "So do a lot of guys go to those places?"

I grimaced a bit. "Well, yes, some -- but not near everyone. There are issues -- embarrassment, homophobia, plain old shyness -- not to mention the fact that in a lot of places, prudes have shut down anything resembling adult video stores. I started by going in and locking myself in and just watching the videos -- and jerking off, of course. But over time, the barriers come down; you realize that other guys are getting their cocks sucked -- and that's better than jerking off. Maybe you only get brave enough for that -- but after a while, just taking and not giving anything back starts to wear on your conscience, so you offer to jerk the other guy off... You get the picture." I sighed. "Thanks to internet porn, most guys can now just beat off in front of a computer -- and many are satisfied with that. But the highly sexed have to have more, and that's where places like that come in."

"But, aren't there something like one point two women for every man?" June asked. "Why is this all an issue? Why should anyone have to do without?"

"Actually, there are one point zero five males per female in the U.S.," I replied, adding, "I don't think that variance covers homosexuals, but I'm not sure. The second issue has to do with standards -- we all have them and many people don't measure up. For most people, the first hurdle is totally visual -- and as I've indicated, most people flunk that one regularly. If you're lucky, you get thrown together with someone who is at least acceptable -- at work, usually, despite the current vicious sexual harassment regulations -- who manages eventually to see your sterling qualities. That is, if you aren't perpetually tongue-tied. There is a pivotal difference between men and women in that women really need to hear from a man, while men consider having done something for a woman to be an indicator of their interest. Pity the poor geek who goes out to get a female co-worker lunch every day for years and gets nothing for it because he can't tell her he loves her because if he does, he opens himself up for a lawsuit, never mind just the possibility of being humiliated."

"Oh, dear," June murmured.

I had to chuckle. "Last, but not least, there appears to be a fundamental difference in how males and females handle sex. Women seem to be able to turn it off for significant periods of time -- but for guys, it's always on. It changes the effective ratio something awful -- I couldn't begin to guess how many males actively interested in sex there are to females actively interested in sex at any given moment, but I'm sure the ratio is staggering. Add in a little ridiculously Elizabethan morality that says women can't admit to being interested in sex and are duty bound to hold others who do in contempt, and things spiral out of control rapidly."

"This is all great, I'm sure," Frank grunted, "but what does it have to do with..."

"...What we're going to do?" I finished for him. "June has questions about that den of iniquity she was just in and just who hangs out there. I happen to think that the answers might surprise her -- or just about ANY woman, for that matter." I turned back to June. "Simply put, the guys down there looking at peep shows and cavorting in the booths are guys who have either no other sexual outlet or the ones they have are extremely limited. And the guys who get their jollies servicing them, of course."

June looked unconvinced. "I bet a bunch of them are married."

I laughed. "That changes things? My second wife thought it was okay to permit me to get a piece about once a month. This isn't the eighteen hundreds, when it was a woman's duty to bow to a man's needs. The pendulum is 'way over on the other end of the cycle -- a married man can be charged with rape of his wife! It's a seller's market. Don't get me going on the subject of what a male gets out of a modern marriage -- and especially, a modern divorce..."

June more or less took this as a slap in the face; it was time to soften things. "This is what I meant when I indicated that you were considered to be special -- you were there, in that place, openly admitting just by being there that you enjoyed sex. Anything else you did -- even if it was just to go into a booth -- said you were a sexy woman. That made you infinitely desirable -- and it made you precious. And the guys down there that weren't necessarily there for other guys would accept any crumb from you that you offered, and not demand more for fear that you might never return."

June shook her head. "That's... unbelievable. What if I was sixty and weighed three hundred pounds?"

I smiled. "That's one of the ironies of the situation. Women avoid those places because they fear they'll be raped or something -- when the men there are so grateful for their presence that they would do anything to be in their good graces. A woman who under any other circumstances would be considered unappetizing could find a man there -- or two, or three, or six, for that matter. And they would all take only what was offered and no more, because the minute she got unhappy, the others present would remove the offender from play, for the simple reason that if she gets unhappy, she'll leave, and they'll be stuck with guys again..." I shook my head. "I've seen this in adult theaters. A couple will come in, and usually, the woman is busy being embarrassed, and the guy thinks he's brought her somewhere private where he can get her hot and paw her. But an adult theater is a public place, not a private one, so they're going to be watched, and envied -- and, if at all possible, approached to discover if they're there to meet other men. When the couple is there for the right reasons -- to do something in public -- the woman gets all the attention that she cares to accept -- and when she says no, it's no. Nobody complains, because anything she gives is just that -- a gift."

"You can't be serious!" June laughed nervously.

"I'm absolutely serious," I argued. "I have personally diddled a woman's clit while two other guys chewed her tits and her boyfriend fucked the shit out of her in a broken theater seat, while a dozen other guys stood around and jacked off, watching her. And she raised the roof when she came and everybody enjoyed it. Nobody else got to fuck her, and no one did more than ask -- and when she was done, she stood up embarrassed and asked the bunch of us if we thought she was a whore, and we all assured her that we wouldn't possibly think such a thing -- she was just a nice lady who liked sex and sharing."

"I didn't know there were any adult theaters around here," June mumbled.

"There aren't any more," I sighed. "They were the first targets of the current wave of hypocrisy. It was too obvious that people were having fun in them, so politicians looking for the vote from moralist hypocrites attacked them. I think you'd probably have to go two states over to find one, now."

"Well, I'm sure they had their reasons," June replied, eyeing me.

"Myth and superstition," I replied. "And myth and superstition and the people who use them to scare you into supporting them are slowly removing every sexual outlet men have been granted since the second half of the twentieth century -- and women, too, for that matter!" I turned to Frank. "So, how many times have you been laid in a strip bar?"

Frank laughed. "None."

I turned to June. "Does that surprise you? Popular myth has it that strip bars are places where the strippers all hook on the side and men are fucking women in the back room. Unfortunately, it isn't true -- you see, they're right out in the open, so law enforcement watches them anyway. And strippers don't need to hook -- they get plenty of income from just displaying their wares on the stage, without having to run the risks involved in hooking. And for a price they can maybe rub themselves on a guy who is fully clothed or suck up drinks with no alcohol in them at high prices. What a guy gets at a strip bar, usually, is a hard dick and nowhere to use it -- although the better dancers at least provide a variation on the same theme we're talking about -- the chance for a guy who has nothing to touch something soft and sweet, even if it is in a controlled environment."

"Married men go there, too," June insisted.

"They sure do," I agreed, "and largely for the same reasons I've already mentioned. Either their spouse isn't living up to her side of the bargain -- and in this day and age, there are no incentives -- or maybe it's just to experience a little variety -- someone who at least pretends to appreciate their presence and is exotic and sexy, instead of the old battle ax who just wants him home to do the chores and deliver the paycheck and stay on his own side of the bed."

"You're pretty bitter," June observed.

"I've been a victim of the process for quite some time," I related, somewhat embarrassed at my vehemence.

"Do you resent women, then?" June asked, eyeing me sidelong.

"No, the good times tend to outweigh the bad," I replied. "But I really believe that these places keep the guys worse off than me from raping the occasional woman. That's why I think they're still tolerated, here and there. The real problem is that our culture got torqued, 'way back when the Pilgrims landed. They brought with them extremist views that got poured into the very foundation of American culture -- and we can't seem to learn enough to get away from them. It's largely ignorance and superstition -- but when you keep people ignorant, they never rid themselves of the superstition."

"You're quite the intellectual," June mused.

"Like that's a bad thing!" I laughed.

"Look, what's this all got to do with..." Frank blurted.

"It's kind of why, Frank," I explained. "June wanted to know why things went as they did. Now we can probably get on to who and what and stuff, if you like." I shifted my gaze back and forth between them. "What are you looking for?"

The pair of them shared a glance; it was obvious to me that they really hadn't set goals as a couple, and that both were embarrassed to proceed. I grimaced. "Okay, what's off-limits?"

That got another shared glance. "I don't know," June ventured, cautiously.

I turned an expectant expression on Frank, "Frank? You're calling the shots, I guess."

Frank glanced uncomfortably at June, "I, um, don't want to close anything off, totally." June returned his gaze, poker-faced. "Any suggestions? You've done this before, supposedly."

I ignored the irony in his voice as best I could, but began to wonder if I shouldn't just walk away. "Well, the best thing I can say is don't sign up for anything you don't think you can handle, emotionally. Couples that swing well know each other and are confident in their relationship -- an odd dick or pussy on the side doesn't bother them. If you're prone to get jealous, or you have lines you can't cross -- or, more important, don't want your partner to cross -- speak up right away. And if your partner comes up with an objection, listen to it -- don't just blow it off in the heat of the moment. If you cross a line your partner can't deal with, you're asking for cracks in your relationship."

Typically, I figured, Frank just looked irritated -- I'd been supposed to say, "Nope." June looked thoughtful. I moved on, "So I guess the next question is 'where?' "

They crossed glances -- again -- and I began to have serious reservations -- well the big head did, anyway. "What about your place?" Frank asked.

I shrugged. If I'd been them, I'd have asked that, because if I was lying about my marital status, the question would trip me up -- but I suspected that Frank hadn't had that in mind. "Nothing much to it -- typical bachelor pad. It'll work, but I didn't expect this, so it isn't clean." I paused, then added, "June might feel more comfortable on her home turf." I didn't much care; if they would give me a couple of minutes to pick up dirty underwear and throw the blankets back up on the bed and they could handle the almost-empty pizza boxes on the coffee table, I was golden. The beer and soda cans had gone out to the recycle the day before.

Instead, Frank said, "Follow us, then," and fished for his wallet.

I waved him off. "I've got it -- it's the least I can do."

I must have failed to cover my thought process, because June cocked her head. "What's wrong?"

"Well, I've been busy chasing you guys away and sowing the seeds of doubt," I replied. "Now's the time when you guys can be rid of me by losing me on the road -- that way, if our paths ever cross again, you can just act surprised that I got lost. And I just offered to make it easier for you by going to the cash register..."

Frank went poker-faced, then wary. "June, why don't you ride with Mike?"

"Hey, I apologize," I broke in. "I had no call saying that. It's just that June asked, and I couldn't come up with anything slick."

"That's happened before, hasn't it?" June asked, her head again cocked.

"Yeah," I admitted. "It has." I ducked my head and went off to pay the check, leaving them to discuss tactics without me present. After that gaffe, I figured I'd probably be going home alone...

Instead, I felt a tentative touch on my right arm as I handed the cash to the kid behind the counter and looked up to see June standing there. Craning around, I saw Frank headed out the door. "He remembered that we had a couple of things to touch up, too," June explained. I nodded. I had no complaints -- I'd apparently survived putting my foot in my mouth all the way to my knee.