—pierce him utterly. She straddles him, slides onto him. Ah: the vital connection. She’s on top and she plays at holding down his wrists, so that her biceps bulge and her face is in exquisite profile as she looks to the screens to her left, and her breasts … well, it’s almost enough to distract Jim from the screens, but on the wall he’s looking at there is a view from above his head, so he can still see breasts falling from taut pectorals, while the screen next to it has the reverse angle, and shows the obscene, pornographic, not to say anatomically improbable image of his cock sliding in and out of her: concealed by the big muscles of her bottom, revealed pink and wet, concealed—

The screens flicker and go blank. Glassy gray-green nothingness.

Virginia jumps off Jim. “What the fuck!” Angrily she punches the buttons of the control panel over by the light switches. “It’s on!” But no pictures. The cameras are not following her as she moves, either. “Well, what the hell!” She’s flushed with exertion, exasperation, she tries the buttons again, hitting them hard. “The damn thing must be broken!” Something in her tone of voice makes Jim start to go limp, despite the way she looks standing there. Besides, he’s distracted himself. What happened to them? “Can you fix it?” she asks.

“Well…” Dubiously Jim rolls off the gel bed and looks at the control panel. Everything appears to be in order there.… He looks up at all the cameras; cables still extend from them into the walls. “I don’t think so.…”

“Shit.” She sits on the bed, bounces beautifully.

“Well, but…” Jim gestures at the bed. “We’ve still got the major piece of equipment.”

Her mouth purses into a moue of irritation. She glances up, flips his deflated cock against his leg. “Oh yeah?” She laughs.

Now Jim, who is beginning to get a bit concerned, cannot afford a decent bedroom video system himself, and his little set is always breaking down. So he’s used to ad-libbing in difficult situations like these. He takes a look in the bathroom. “Ah ha!” There’s a free-standing full-length mirror in the great skylighted expanse of the bathroom, and full of hope he pulls it out into the bedroom. Virginia is draped out on the bed like a centerfold, looking for eyedroppers in the bedside table drawer. “Here we have it,” says Jim. “Early version of the system.”