Chapter 1

The charming tract home was nestled behind large trees in a suburb of Wichita, Kansas, the heartland of America. Its occupants, the Fuller's, were as average as average could be. Scott was forty. Brooke would be forty on her next birthday. The anniversary of their wedding, in two months, would be their twentieth. Their only child, Cindy, was a freshman at Kansas State, in Manhattan, Kansas just a hundred miles north of Wichita. However, there was one aspect of the couple's life in which they were not average. No one had ever said that Brooke was average in the look's department. She was a stunner in anybody's book, a ten on the most discriminating scale. Scott was proud of her and loved the way men's eyes bulged and most became tongue-tied when they met her for the first time.

The Fuller's were typical, nonetheless, in another respect; the economy had finally caught up with them as it had with two million other American families. A well-known company that manufactured private aircraft had employed Scott nearly all of his working life. His particular plant had closed down a year ago, consolidated and moved many of its operations offshore. Eight months ago he heard the dreaded word when they told him that he had been "terminated." Try as he might, he hadn't been successful in finding other work. His severance had covered six months of living expenses. After that, unemployment helped, but didn't come near covering their monthly nut. A dozen years of savings was rapidly dwindling.

He had sent his resume to hundreds of potential employers. Most politely informed him that they had "received his resume," "nothing was available at this time," they would "keep his resume on file and notify him when there was an opening." Finally, after months of sending out resumes and following up with phone calls, letters and e-mails he had been advised that he had made the cut and would be invited to Seattle to interview with Boeing.

Scott knew that if he didn't land this job--the job of last resort as he came to think of it--then they would have to quickly come up with another plan. It was highly unlikely, given the intense competition for the handful of jobs that became available and considering his age and the economy, that he would be able to find work in his chosen field in the foreseeable future. The prospects, to say the least, were dismal. If they were to maintain their lifestyle, he would just have to start a business, one that he could manage from their home.

Brooke had always been so supportive of him. She had always been his number one fan. When she dropped him off at the airport for his trip to Seattle she said, "honey, I just know that they'll hire you. After all, you're the best." She had much more faith and confidence in him than he did in himself.

Scott didn't get the job. There were 250 applicants, most of whom wouldn't have to move and nearly all of whom were younger, better qualified and willing to work for less. The trip would have been a huge letdown and a total waste of his time if he hadn't met Ray West at the bar in the Marriott Hotel near SeaTac Airport two hours after they had turned him down for the job.

He was drinking his second Coors and feeling sorry for himself when the man sitting on the barstool next to him asked, "why so glum, man?"

Scott was surprised that a total stranger could read him so well. He turned toward the voice-- really wanting to be left alone with his thoughts--paused to take in the smiling man who appeared to be about his own age, before answering. "Oh, I flew into town this morning, interviewed at Boeing and learned a couple of hours ago that I didn't get the job."

"I'm Ray, Ray West," the friendly man said as he stuck out his hand. "Let me buy you another. Where you from?"

"Thanks Ray, I'm Scott Fuller from Wichita," he explained.

"You flying out tonight?"

"No, I can't make connections tonight. Boeing put me up here. I'll fly out on the first flight in the morning."

"Too bad about the job," Ray said with genuine concern. "They trying to steal you from someone or are you out of work?"

Scott was normally a very private person. Tonight, after being rejected again, he needed someone to talk to. "No, they weren't trying to get me from a competitor. I've been out of work for more than six months. The aircraft business isn't so hot right now. Also, there are a lot of unemployed engineers, technicians and managers right here in the Pacific Northwest. Saves them a ton on moving someone like me."

During the next half hour, while they consumed two more drinks, Scott told Ray everything that had happened to him since he lost his job and even details of their life before then. Ray was an easy listener who seemed sincerely interested in him. The conversation had been devoted almost entirely to Scott and his plight when he said, "Ray, I've been blabbering about my situation, sorry. What do you do?"

"Oh, I'm in business for myself."

Scott had noticed the expensive clothes, the Platinum American Express card that he used to pay for the drinks and the expensive gold watch on Ray's tan wrist. "Business must be good," he observed.

Ray smiled. "Not bad, not bad at all."

Scott had also noticed the gold wedding band on Ray's finger. "Does your wife work?"

"Yes, she does. We're in business together." He took a sip of his drink and said, "her name's Anne, we've been married for eighteen years."

"Nearly twenty for us," said Scott. "What kind of business do you operate?" He asked.

"A home business, you could say."

Scott had assumed that the Wests must have an Amway distributorship or another type of network marketing business. Ray made it unnecessary for him to speculate further about the nature of his home business by saying, "we have an Internet site. Been doing it for a little more than a year."

"I thought that all of the dotcoms went bust."

"Not all of them. I don't want to shock you Scott but our site is a... how should I say this?" He placed his glass to his lips, drained it and said, "ours is an adult oriented site."

"You mean you operate a porn site?" Scott's jaw dropped and nearly hit the bar when the reality of what his drinking companion had said sunk in.

"Exactly. A year and a half ago our situation wasn't very different from yours is. We didn't have a kid to put through college but we did have bills to pay and not enough income to cover our expenses. I was still working, but the job was a dead end with a low ceiling. We both wanted more. So, we started our website... "

"Would I know it... do you think I might have come across it while surfing the net?"

"If you don't visit adult sites, you couldn't have visited ours. Also, it's a pay site. If you don't spend $19.95 a month, you can't get in. At least you can't access the good stuff."

"What's it called?" Scott asked.

Ray didn't hesitate for a second, "Anne's Sexcapades."

"What did you say?" Scott asked, not sure that he had heard correctly.

"Anne's Sexcapades." Ray smiled when he saw Scott's discomfort. "Let me explain. I'm not a computer whiz or anything like that. We're just an ordinary couple from Boise, Idaho. Like everyone else, I knew that porn was one of the few segments of Internet business that made money. Anne and I talked about it. We agreed we would look into it and see how it worked. I discovered several sites that were very interesting to me. I won't mention them all but some of them were: 'The Wetlands, ' 'Nina's bed, ' 'Cathycraving, ' oh yeah, 'AnnyXXX' and 'Hot Wife Hotel/My Hot Wife.' Anyway, these sites all had several things in common. First, they featured a married woman who was photographed and videoed while having sex, usually but not always, with one or more black men..."