The tape was black and white, streaky at the edges.
'Adjust the tracking,' the Mole told him.
'I know, I know,' the kid said, absorbed, playing with a tiny dial.
The camera opened on a pristine white bedroom. White walls, white sheets…even the bedposts were white. The camera zoomed in on one of them. A black leather strap dangled, waiting.
'Go upstairs, Terry,' Michelle said, her voice calm.
'Ah, Mom…'
'Now!' she snapped. The kid turned his eyes from the screen, testing. Michelle stared him down, not saying a word. He gave her a baleful look over one shoulder as he climbed back to the outside air.
The only sound was the hum of the tape. A man entered the white bedroom, dressed in a conservative business suit. He sat down on the bed, hands on his knees, facing the way he came in. A woman walked in, her back to the camera. She was wearing a black–and–white–striped jacket with a peplum flare over a dark pencil skirt. Couldn't see her feet in the picture.
'Infrared camera,' the Mole said. 'High resolution. They wouldn't need lights.'
A match flared as the Prof lit a smoke.
The woman removed the peplum jacket, tossed it away. A scoop–necked white blouse was underneath. The man watched as she unbuttoned the blouse to display a black push–up bra. She said something to him. He looked down.
The bra unhooked from the front. The woman dropped it to her side. The man looked up. The woman stepped to him, slapped his face hard with a roundhouse swing. She said something to him again. He dropped his eyes.
The woman turned her back to him, reached behind her to unzip the pencil skirt. As she bent forward to tug it over her hips, the man
slyly looked up. The woman arched her back, looking full into the camera.
Fancy.
As she stood slightly to one side, the camera came in on the man's face, full and clear.
I didn't know him, but he'd recognize himself quick enough when they showed him the tape.
Fancy turned to the man, now wearing only a pair of black panties over a garter belt and dark hose. She stopped, walked off camera.
Came back holding a riding crop in one hand.
The man stood up and stripped, quickly. He lay face down on the bed as Fancy secured his hands with the restraining straps to the head–posts.
She worked him over with the riding crop. It went on for a while. Then she stopped, stood hands on hips, saying something to him.
The man turned his head. Fancy hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties, slipped them down over her legs. She walked to the side of the bed, slapped the man's upturned face, bunched up the panties and stuck them in his mouth.
Then she went back to work.
The man finished lying on his belly, his back all lacerated, hips jerking in harsh spasms. The camera zoomed in and out erratically, sometimes focusing on a place where nothing was happening. When Fancy finally unhooked him, he rolled off the bed, the gleaming evidence of his orgasm displayed in the classic Times Square tradition— freaks hate it when you fake it.
The last shot was of the man sitting on the bed, looking into the camera with a dazed look on his sweaty face.
'There's more?' Michelle asked.
'A lot more,' I told her.
'Audio too?'
'Yeah.'
'This is some sophisticated operation, baby. That's a fixed camera with a remote— a setup like that, you could run it without an operator, so long as the action lasts long enough.'
'I know. I met the woman.'
'She want you to play too?'
'Yeah.'
'It figures. This is the latest thing,' Michelle said. 'Super–safe sex. No penetration. In fact, no skin–on–skin, you get right down to it. You find a girl who works pro doing this, she probably likes it herself. Most of them, they just found a way to make it pay.'
'That's what we need too…a way to make it pay,' I told her. The Prof nodded agreement. Clarence watched us. The Mole was busy doing something at his workbench— he hadn't even watched the tape.
I packed everything up, walked topside with the Prof and Clarence, leaving Michelle downstairs. Terry wasn't around.
'What do you think?' I asked the man who taught me so much when I was a kid.
'I think they make a date, play it straight. Even a sap will turn off the tap, you push too hard. You can't keep
