“This is Matt,” he said. “Is this really you, Nerdly?”
“It’s really me, Matt,” the familiar voice said. “I know you have requested no contact with any of us, but I’m just fulfilling a promise I once made to you.”
“What promise are you talking about?” Matt asked.
“Eleven years ago,” Nerdly said. “On the day we met with Crow and Doolittle in the National Records building and gave them that cassette tape with the substandard music on it. Do you remember that?”
“Uh ... yeah,” Matt said. “Of course I remember that.” And he did. That had been the first shot of their breach of contract strike, when they had put a bunch of crap tunes on tape for submission knowing that National would reject them, but legally fulfilling the requirement that they make a ‘good faith’ attempt to produce marketable music for the label. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything? I don’t remember any promise.”
“It was before we gave them the tape,” Nerdly said. “We were talking about the rise of the online computer industry and how pornography would one day be available for free and would be easily accessible on the platform.”
“What?!” Matt barked. “You better start making some fucking sense, Nerdly, or I’m hanging up this goddamn phone.”
“You asked me to let you know when we reached the point that online pornography was freely available at a whim so you could then join the computer revolution. I promised I would let you know when that happened. That’s why I’m calling you now.”
“What?!” Matt barked again.
“We have reached that point,” Nerdly said. “Pornographic images, mostly still-shots at this point because that’s all that current bandwidth in its present form will support in a reasonable amount of time, are now readily available to those who know how to access them. Thousands of images of all varieties. All you have to do is have a computer connected to the internet. Once you have that, you need to access the Usenet bulletin boards and download the images one by one. They are categorized broadly and quite specifically. For instance, if you like images of lesbians, there is alt.usenet.binaries.lesbians. And if you like bestiality, there is...”
“This is what you fucking called me for?” Matt demanded.
“Yes,” Nerdly said. “I made a promise to you. I keep my promises.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Nerdly,” Matt said. “You are a fucking freak! I’m hanging up now. Do not ever call me again, for fucking anything!”
“Okay, Matt,” Nerdly said lightly. “I’m sorry if my communication upset you. I just wanted you to know.”
“All right, I fucking know,” Matt said. “Now fuck off.”
“Fucking off,” Nerdly said. And then the phone clicked.
Matt stared at the handset for a moment, still in disbelief over what had just happened. Fucking Nerdly! Jesus fucking Christ, what a geek!
He set the phone down on the desk and tried to go back to work. But now he couldn’t keep his mind on what he was doing. After a few minutes, he stood up and walked out of the room.
Kim was sitting on the couch, drinking a glass of tea and smoking a cigarette while she watched the latest update on the OJ trial. She was dressed in a pair of yellow shorts and a half shirt. Her blonde hair was down on her shoulders. She looked up at him as he walked into the room and stood before her.
“What’s up?” she asked him.
“What do you know about online bulletin boards?” he asked her.
Chapter 8: Talk Talk
Riverside County, California
April 24, 1995
It was ten o’clock on a Monday morning and two cars were traveling westbound on Interstate 10 as it climbed out of the Coachella Valley toward the top of the San Gorgonio pass. The car in front was a 1994 Toyota Camry, gold in color, and driven by pilot Susan Granderson. Following behind it was a 1995 Mercedes Benz E-320, silver in color, driven by Celia Valdez with Laura Kingsley in the front passenger seat. The three ladies had just spent the weekend all alone at Greg and Celia’s Palm Springs home. All three had had a good time. Celia and Suzie played several rounds of golf at the exclusive country club upon which the house sat while Laura, who did not golf and did not want to learn how, took turns riding in the carts with them. They went out on shopping trips and to lunch and dinner. They drank a great deal of alcohol while doing all of these things. And, while there was a considerable amount of sexual tension between all three of them, no girl-time (as defined by Neesh soon-to-be Paladay) had occurred.
In the town of Beaumont, at the top of the pass, Interstate 10 intersected State Route 79, which ran south. Suzie took the offramp for 79, which was the fastest way for her to get back to her home in San Diego. Celia kept going west on I-10, which was the fastest way to get her and Laura back to Los Angeles. Suzie waved at the Mercedes enthusiastically as it overtook her. Celia nudged Laura, who had been dozing listlessly in her seat, and the two of them waved back at her with just as much enthusiasm.
Once Suzie’s car was gone from sight, Laura yawned and sat up a little straighter. She had a moderate hangover going on. Her head ached dully, though not as badly as it had before a couple of Tylenol tablets had been washed down just before leaving the house. Her stomach rumbled disconcertingly, and a distinct sensation of nausea ebbed and flowed throughout her like a tide. Her mouth was dry despite the half a liter of water she’d put down since awakening, and a persistent feeling of fatigue tugged at her.
“How are you doing?” asked Celia, who was in pretty much the same boat.
“I feel like I’m paying the price for the fun we had this weekend,” she said simply.
“That’s the truth,” Celia said with a crooked smile. “It was a weekend to remember though, wasn’t it?”
“It was a blast,” Laura agreed. “I really like Suzie. She knows how to party.”
“She does,” Celia said. “When you can get her to let her hair down anyway.”
Laura giggled. “It was down all right. I still can’t believe that story she told us about the aircraft mechanic, that female airman, and the chicken over there in Kuwait.”
“Madres de Dios!” Celia laughed. “Isn’t that loco? It’s amazing some of the things people do.”
“I wouldn’t have even thought it possible,” Laura said, still giggling at the story. “I mean, wouldn’t there be feathers everywhere?”
“You would think, wouldn’t you?” Celia said.
They drove on, Celia keeping the cruise control at seventy-five miles per hour. She slid over to the fast lane to pass a line of semis hauling trailers. Both women were wearing shorts and every one of the truckers looked down in appreciation at their bare legs as they went by. One of them even gave a blast of air horn and a thumbs up.
“Horny bastards,” Celia said with a shake of her head as she switched back to the right lane.
“Well, you can’t really blame them,” Laura said. “They appreciate a nice set of legs—especially yours.”
“Don’t sell yours short, Teach,” Celia told her. “You’ve got a premium set of wheels too.”
“You really think so?” Laura asked, looking down at her thighs. “I always thought they were kind of skinny ... and a little pale too.”
“They’re hot legs,” Celia assured her. “Suzie was certainly drooling over them—especially when you wore that night shirt of yours before bed.”
“That’s just what I sleep in,” Laura said. “I wasn’t trying to turn her on.”
“I know,” Celia said. “And that’s what made it so hot. If you would have let her put a single finger on one of your legs, I don’t think you would have been able to pry it back off.”