THREE

Twenty stories above the Las Vegas Strip Louie Sinreich examined his thirty-one year-old body in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Five hours a week at a Hollywood gym had transformed his raw musculature to an Adonis statue. The effect was all natural, which was more than he could say for his overnight guest, a surgically-altered blonde sprawled atop the king-sized bed’s satin sheets.

Her name was a blank. She couldn’t have been born with which she had introduced herself at the casino bar last night. Two drinks into her come-on she had commented on his resemblance to James Wood. Louie had heard the line before.

“He’s my 3rd cousin.”

“What’s a 3rd cousin?”

“The son of my uncle’s nephew.” Louie had no one famous on either side of the family.

“That’s funny.” The promise of $500 had persuaded the blonde bombshell to join him for a nightcap. He had dropped a Blue Boy on the elevator to insure getting his money’s worth. The Viagra had another few hours to run and he slapped the showgirl’s ass hard.

The blonde whelped awake and raked back her Malibu-blonde hair with lacquered fingernails. She hated the inventor of Viagra, since her customers could have sex, until they had a heart attack.

“Don’t worry, honey, party time’s over.” Louie waved for her to get out of the giant bed. “I have guests in five minutes, so you gotta go. Now.”

“Whatever you say.” The curvy showgirl tugged on the form-fitting leather sheath. “You need a date for later?”

“I know where to find you, if I do.” Louie hid his erection, since he disliked any woman, especially a hooker, thinking she had any power over him.

“Then I’ll be seeing you around.” The blonde checked for the $500 in her purse and blew him a kiss.

The door shut without a noise and Louie went over to the double-paned window. His room overlooked the canyon of casinos. Across the street a fake volcano’s fiery eruption magnetically drew hick tourists into the gambling hall like the ants to a picnic and Louie’s mind crunched the numbers.

“$600,000,000 makes someone a player in this town. When I build my casino, it’ll cost a billion, maybe even more. The biggest and the best. A regular Tenth Wonder of the World.”

Louie Sinreich’s dream was to construct a casino catering to the wicked of this world far from family-oriented Vegas. Deep in the desert BABYLON would crown his five-year plan to dominate the adult-film industry and the buzz at the hotel room’s door was a small step in the right direction.

“One second.” Louie slipped into a silk robe and opened the door to a middle-aged couple in matching purple jogging suits. The redheaded woman’s massacred eyes grazed down his torso and her slightly overweight husband grasped Louie’s hand.

“Sorry, if we’re a little early.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Louie released the handshake and led the woman inside the room. “Please sit down. Can I get you a drink? Some coffee maybe?”

“Just some water.” The older man settled onto the sofa next to his wife and patted her thigh. “Dorrine and I have given up caffeine.”

“Nothing like living healthy.” His smile displayed $65,000 of caps and dental dyeing.

“We agree, Mr. Sinreich.” Dorrine unzipped her warm-up jacket. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts were sagging onto her ribcage.

“On the West Coast we go on a first name basis.” Louie handed them two glasses of water. He figured her breasts for 42 Longs. “Call me Louie, please.”

“Sure, Louie, I want to thank you for flying us out here, but I don’t really see how you can help us.”

“Henry, why are you always so negative?” Dorrine planted herself on her husband’s lap.

In Rockford, Illinois Dorrine Johns stopped cars.

In Vegas she was an over-sexed woman vainly struggling to fight off the flow of years.

“Kids, it’s love not war.” Louie signaled a time-out with his hands. “Henry’s right to wonder why I flew you two out here. Sure, there’s the computer convention, the awards ceremony, gambling, and shows, but when I said, “Business.” I meant business.”

“What kind of business?” Henry put down his water.

“Ten years ago if anyone had told me amateur videos would grab 15% percent of the market, I would have told them that they were nuts. That’s how big the home videos are now and whether you like it or not you are on the cutting edge of the porno industry.”

“Dorrine and I never intended to sell videos. They were just a way for people like us to get in touch with each other. With themselves.”

“Henry thinks of ‘Swinging’ as a religion to free both body and soul.” Dorrine tapped her husband’s face.

“However it started, now you find yourselves the head of America’s biggest swinging network. 150,000 couples coast to coast happy to pay you $150 per year to join a swinging network. Pretty good money any way you cut it, but I can increase your earnings.”

“I’m quite happy where I am,” Henry fidgeted under his wife.

“I know you are, but you have obligations to the public now. The viewers were tired of Barbie Doll starlets faking orgasms. They started buying your videos. When you have a ‘product’ people want, money comes to you. No one’s asking you to betray your members or beliefs and I respect your protecting members by HIV tests. I do the same for my actors and actresses. Every twenty-one days they’re tested for diseases. You and I may have different goals, but when it comes time to defending our freedom, you, me, and Dorrine all get naked on the same side of the bed.”

“I guess so.” The years of harassment by the various anti-porno prosecutors had proven allies in the battle for a free libido were few and far between.

“Henry has trouble accepting that being ‘King of the Swingers’ has made him a millionaire, right, Henry?”

“Swinging isn’t about the money. You may see hundreds of starlets a week, but I see Dorrine with another man, I see her alive with his desire. Almost like the first time I saw her.”

“I was 19. You were married, but this isn’t about us, honey, listen to what the man says.”

Thanks you, Dorrine.” Louie sat on the sofa and stared into Henry’s eyes. ” Believe me, I understand your feeling for Dorrine. I felt the same way the first time I saw her in that badly cut video. And I saw that she wanted more excitement than any small town can give her.’ Louie Sinreich seamlessly explained how the Johns could expand their access to swingers by having his production company professionally edit and license their catalogue of amateur videos. “Not only will you make millions, you’ll be stars.”

“Just say yes, darling, just say the word.” The redhead bounced on her husband’s lap.

“When Have I ever been able to say no?” Henry smiled like a little dog and his wife and she kissed her husband with a conspiratorial wink at Louie.

“You won’t regret this, Henry. Not one bit.” Louie derived zero thrills from watching regular John and Jane Does mimicking porno films. Still snaring a major share of a multi-billion dollar industry was good work for a man just out of bed and he reached over to free Dorrine’s breasts from her track suit. The 42 longs were not a pretty sight either, but this part of the game never was until you singed a contract. Then it was all happy faces to the bank.