Still, he was curious. It felt good to know that he was resisting the mailman’s constant temptation, that whatever Postal Service pranks had been planned for he and his family had been successfully thwarted, but he could not deny that there was something inside him, that same stubborn something that had always made him do exactly what authority told him not to do, which made him now want to open up the mail and see what was inside, though he knew it was the dumbest move he could make under the circumstances.

He thought of Hobie and Irene, who had both stopped answering their doors or their phones.

His feet crunched in the gravel. He reached the foot of the drive and opened the mailbox. Inside was a single envelope addressed by computerized mailing label to “Occupant.” Doug removed the envelope and slammed shut the box. He was still debating with himself whether to throw it away or look at it when his hands ripped open the sealed paper. He withdrew the contents of the envelope—a professionally typeset brochure and two photographs.

Nude photographs.

Of Tritia.

His mouth felt suddenly dry, his legs weak. He turned over the brochure and began to read. “Hi,” it said. “My name’s Tritia, and I want to be your very special friend. As an introduction to the Ranch Club, I am sending you two photos of myself, to show you what you get by taking advantage of our introductory offer. By night I am a wife and mother, but by day I am anything you want me to be. Your hot slut. Your love slave…”

He couldn’t read any more. Breathing heavily with anger, revulsion, and trembling fear, he looked at the two photos. In one, a rear view, Tritia was bent over the back of a couch, offering to the camera a perfect shot of her white untanned ass.

Only…

Only it wasn’t Tritia. The cheeks were too firm, and too round, the buttocks of a young woman in her late teens or early twenties. He looked closer. The small birthmark she had on her lower back was missing as well, and the fingers were too short and stubby. He looked at the other photograph, this one of Trish seated in a wicker chair, legs spread, eyes closed as she fingered herself. The breasts were wrong, he noticed. The size was about right, but Trish’s nipples were much darker, much more prominent.

He tore up the photographs, tore up the brochure, tore up the envelope. The mailman had obviously pasted photographs of Trish’s head onto someone else’s body, although he did not know how or where the mailman could have gotten a hold of pictures of Trish. The photos were done well, flawlessly executed, with no visible seams, and would probably fool anyone else but him. But what was the point? Why go to so much trouble?