I adjusted my tie and rang the doorbell. I heard scuffling and a female voice say "Get out of my way, you damn cat" and then the door was unlocked and opened. "Yeah?" said the woman visible in the small opening.

"Ass tax," I said. "You should have received official notification--"

"Oh, yeah, right," she said, closing the door and unlatching the chain, then reopening it. "I got it here somewhere. I never heard of no ass tax before."

"It's a new government program, designed to reduce bureaucratic inefficiency as a result of the Hmmhmm-Frmmhmmhmm Act," I said as she let me into the house.

"Whatever," she said as I followed her back toward the kitchen of her cheap, untidy apartment.

Her place, and its occupant, were perfect examples of Jerry Springer America--the apartment dominated by a TV, food plates sitting straight on the roughly upholstered couch, beer cans and one of the Left Behind novels visible just under it. While she--how may I describe her loveliness? Fat ass in a too-tight pair of white shorts leading down think trunk-like thighs to bare feet, sloping breasts hanging low over a broad belly under a Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt, stringy bottle-blonde hair and sunken eyes bespeaking little intelligence but, I sensed, enormous primitive enthusiasm in bed.

"Here it is," she said, holding my own crudely computer-generated document at me. "Are you sure this is the only way to pay this tax?"

"Not at all, ma'am," I said. "If you'll just look under subparagraph B, Section 2, codicil XVIII, you will see that a cashier's check for $6,313 may be remitted--"

"I don't got no six thousand dollars lyin' around," she snorted derisively.

"Well, that only leaves one alternative," I said. "Is your husband around?"

"Nah, he's at work at the bottling plant," she said. "He won't be back until tonight."

"Well, then, that should give us plenty of time to handle the entire past due amount," I said. "Would you like to get started or do you need a drink first?"

"Nah, I already had one at breakfast," she said. "You want something?"

"Not on the job, ma'am," I said. "May I sit down?"

"Sure, whatever," she said, as I knocked a pizza box onto the floor, scaring the cat back into the closet. "How do we do this?"

"Well, from my point of view, it's usually best to get started with a little striptease," I said. "Helps me get into the frame of mind. You understand, I have to keep my enthusiasm up, I have to make 7 or 8 of these calls a day."

"I don't normally like to show off," she said, looking uncertain for the first time. "I ain't no Cameroon Dye-ass."

"Why, I think you're quite lovely," I said. "A robust, womanly figure of Rubenseque sensuality. He was a painter, Rubens."

"Right, and he played Pee Wee Herman, too," she said, visibly cheered by the unaccustomed praise. "I guess I can do that." She turned on the radio and some ghastly rap music started coming out of it. But it did the job, she started grinding her huge round ass and letting her droopy tits sway back and forth. "Should I take off my shirt?"

"Yes, please, slowly," I said as she snuck it up over her white belly, then revealed the bottom part of each pendulous tit, then turned around as she lifted it over her head, showing the folds of fat beneath each underarm and the love handles on each hip. She turned around, and shimmied as her flat dangly tits swayed back and forth, rising and then slapping down onto her pale jelly belly.