TVA BABY and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

colleagues, in a way, after all.
    At precisely five she saw me out. “Protocols.”
    I felt my clients departing, all thirty-four of them.
    She was killing my business, but I didn’t care.
    I hurried home.

    Eula-Cam
.
    I scrolled through her Free Stills. There she was, carefully taking a cigarette from my fingers without touching them. Even though cams have no sound, I could hear her voice in my head. Low, smoky, intimate—
    I clicked on the next Free Still.
    She had just closed the door after seeing me out. I clicked again and she was starting to pull her slip off over her head. I happened to know she wasn’t wearing a bra.
    Or was it wearing no bra?
    I clicked again, a little too eagerly, and a new screen came up: End User Licensing Agreement. EULA.
    I scrolled through it. All I wanted was to see her nipples. All it wanted was my credit card number, and my scout’s honor that I was Over 18.
    I almost clicked on
I Agree
.
    Almost. Then I thought of the five thousand other guys and went to the movie instead. I saw Meg Ryan’s nipples along with a hundred other guys.
    I went to bed feeling lonely for the first time in months.
    On Tuesday Lou brought two wines without asking, white and red. I tapped out two Camels.
    “Eula,” I said. “End User Licensing Agreement. I’m a little slow but I got it. What’s your real name?”
    “I’m not allowed to say,” she said. “Protocols.”
    “Am I allowed to extrapolate?”
    “Isn’t that your specialty?” She leaned forward to get a light. The Burberry fell open and there was that dear little strap. But tight, not loose, and pink, not black. “But why extrapolate when you can see everything on the Web?”
    “With five thousand other guys?” I lit her Camel for her. “I prefer the intimacy of a private conversation.”
    “Even when it ruins your business?” She pointed at my Fauxlex. It was down to twenty-one.
    “It’s not a business,” I said. “It’s a part-time job.”
    “I suppose I should be flattered,” she said, picking up my cigarettes.
    It was 2:55. “I suppose you should,” I said. I beeped the bill strip and followed.

    I sat down on the rug and watched while she spread her Burberry carefully over the back of its chair.
    She wore a black half-slip and a little pink brassiere. Cups edged with lace.
    I checked the TV. The green light was on and the counter under it read 06564.
    “So why are they here?” I asked.
    “Who?”
    “Your clients. Why are they even logged on when I am here? A visitor. They must know your Protocols.”
    “You seem to resent them,” she said.
    “The Protocols?”
    “The clients.”
    I did but said I didn’t. She was working, after all, just like me.
    “Maybe they’re romantics,” she said. “It must be the suspense. Protocols are all about suspense.”
    “So are bras,” I said. Her pink cups were not so little after all.
    “Extrapolating again?” She sat on the couch, pulling the slip down between her thighs. “What is it with you guys and bras, anyway?”
    “The brassiere,” I said, pouring us both a glass of Pinot Grigio, “is the most romantic invention of western civilization.”
    “Next to the Web.”
    “Better. The brassiere is itself a kind of web. It traps guys. It’s a kind of Protocol. It restricts, restrains. It shapes and displays that which it conceals. It focuses the regard. It presents.”
    “Well said,” she said, adjusting her cups, first one and then the other. “Plus it keeps the green light on.”
    We both looked at the TV. 07865.
    “Were it to come off,” she said, “the light would go red and they would all be gone.” She reached out for a cigarette.
    “I wouldn’t miss them,” I said. I gave her one and lit it, being careful not to touch her fingers with my own.
    “I might,” she said. “They’re paying for my XLinteL99.”
    We talked of sports and sonnets and she saw me out at five.
    I felt my clients departing, all eighteen of them. I still could feel the