Green and Red and White

It was a large house, with heavy doors. Meghan could feel confident that she wouldn’t be overheard in almost any room. Nonetheless she’d retreated to the far bathroom to call her husband.

“Oh!” Austin sounded very delighted about the arrival of the cable guy. “He’s here! Great, just— uhhh— what’d he tell you, actually?”

“He said he was here to fix the cable, which is something we don’t have.”

“Install cable. Yeah,” She could practically hear Austin’s grin over the phone. “For watching TV.”

“TV. You?”

“I would enjoy TV, if we had cable,” Austin said. “We just don’t. I grew up with cable.”

“Yeah, I grew up with things too. What would you watch?”

A long pause. “Sports? Hey, hold on and I’ll give him a call. But don’t worry, he’s a professional. Thirty-five years in the industry. At least. I bet it’s more, that’s just what the business card says.”

“He looks maybe twenty-two,” Meghan said.

Another pause.

“Okay, let me make a phone call,” Austin said.

—

Trey rummaged. The man was discombobulated and adrift. Meghan watched him from behind a cup of green tea, uncertain if she was extremely annoyed or distantly amused. At the least, the cable man functioned as a welcome relief from editing the personal essays of recent Liberal Arts graduates. But he had lost a fifty foot length of cord, a bright green one, solely within the confines of her house. That seemed nearly impossible, like losing a bookcase, and especially so for someone with “cable” in his job description. The contents of his tool belt were perched all across surfaces, including two sets of pliers on top of the refrigerator.

“Everything going okay?” Meghan called out. He was now embroiled in the television’s guts. Red yellow and blue wiring billowed out from the backsides. He’d given the TV a beard of its own, Meghan thought. She felt a personal essay of her own brewing: relating to blue collar men. It was good enough for a shameful add to her Maybe pile.

“No, it’s going terribly,” Trey called back. It weighed on the “charming” side that he was open and honest with his struggles and faults. In this he contrasted well with Austin. Austin, who had clearly been upset that he’d gotten the And Sons instead of the Trey. Trey was Trey Number Two, Meghan gathered, from her husband’s annoyed interrogation. “It’s supposed to be a thirty minute install. How long have I taken so far?”

“Two hours,” Meghan said.

“Wow,” Trey shook his head, banging it against wiring. “That is so terrible.”

He wasn’t terrible on the eyes. His sleeves were rolled up, and the man had a healthy sweat going. He wore black and white vans. After marriage to a Man Who Biked, and the corresponding aggressively tight t-shirts, it was a refreshingly casual look. And he smelled really nice. Meghan wasn’t super clear on the purpose of the pink spritz, but it was an effective cologne. Flowers in a blender. She found excuses to hang out in his vicinity.

“Okay, here goes,” there was also the cable box. It was a dark black monster with a horrible aura. Even the LEDs were bright red. The TV flickered on.

There on screen was soft-core porno. From the 90s, judging from the soft lighting. A girl with big blonde hair looked very relaxed, on her hands and knees, her partner practically draped over her.

Meghan took another long sip of her tea.

“Oh, my god,” Trey pushed buttons on an oversized remote. That just led to more porno, albeit in flicker-flash, so fast Meghan could just register boobs and butts. It was very pink. “Oh god, I’m so sorry.”

“So we get those channels, huh?” Meghan thought about this. What did this mean for Austin?

“No. No you don’t— well, yes. Yes, you do. You get every channel. That’s the idea.”

“Ah-ha,” Meghan said. So this was an illicit install. Not actually out of character for Austin. The TV, after crashing through a swathe of smiling girls with their legs up, finally made it to local television.

“Okay… okay,” Trey was now bathed in different kinds of sweat. “So that’s channel four thousand ninety-nine, and then it wraps around to channel two.”

Meghan stood up and walked over. “Take it back to the porno,” she commanded, arms folded.

“Uh– okay, sure,” Trey flipped the channel down one notch. Channel four thousand ninety-nine wasn’t softcore at all. A girl was clothed in dark lingerie, lace and filigree, and also had her wrists tightly bound to a Victorian four-poster bed. A man with a riding crop was lightly teasing the outside of her pussy with it. The girl already had a few red stripes on her thighs. She was trying to say something around a ball gag.

“So we have guests over, we’re watching the game on channel two, I accidentally press the channel down button, one time. And… what’s the name of this channel?” Meghan said.

“Ah– Lacing Stripes,” Trey said, checking the guide.

“Lacing stripes will come on. Alright. I will speak with my husband. About this. For the time being, and nothing personal at all, if you could disconnect this. Of course I’ll pay your charge.”

Trey watched her, face sad somewhere underneath the fur. “Disconnect it?” he said. “Are you..” he scratched at his head. “..you sure?”

On screen, the man with the riding crop decided that the time for being nice was over. Meghan, jaded as she considered herself, raised both eyebrows. “I’m definitely sure,” she said, over the sound of wet smacks. The actress, to her credit, managed very convincing moans over a big red rubber ball in her mouth.

“But…” Trey looked puzzled. He looked over at his ominous black box. “Oh! The white wire!” He flourished it for a half-moment, and then jammed it in.

Something blipped, on the screen. A shimmer effect. It seemed to start in the middle and then spread, all around, until everything had a haze to it. Meghan started to say something, and then halted. Words that had seemed so simple and straightforward didn’t feel like coming to the forefront. She watched the man lovingly lay in to his sex partner. She really seemed to be enjoying herself.

Meghan opened her mouth to say something, but each leather slap seemed to take the words away.

“So I’ll just leave it on, right?” Trey said, anxious. “Finish the installation tomorrow?”

“Oh sure, that’s fine,” Meghan said, eventually. She felt a couch cushion underneath her butt. So she’d sat down, then. “See you tomorrow.” Wait, why.. she had to do better then that. He had come all this way and given her the gift of thousands of channels. “Thanks for the free sex cable.”

Was the room– different? Very slowly it occurred to her: it was clean. A moment ago – it was a moment, wasn’t it? – Trey had it as a swamp of wires, in every color except for green. Now they were all neatly coiled in a pile. And the sun was shining low, right onto the wonderful, wonderful television. But that couldn’t be right. It was hardly two.

On screen the scene had changed. It was the lightest of BDSM: a girl with her hands tied behind her back, giving a slow and lazy blowjob. She had dark black hair and wore a lot of mascara, and looked like she could suck dick for hours. Meghan thought, in molasses-slow thoughts: I could never do that. She’d only sucked Austin’s cock transactionally. It was such an unpleasant and salty experience that he’d stopped asking. Said her distaste for it, like she was licking a gun barrel, made it no fun.

“Okay, I’m out,” Trey said. “Thanks for letting me take a shower. Oh.. oh, I should switch the channel. Alright, here you go.”

The porno swapped off [did it? Meghan could still see the rhythmic bob of the girl’s head. She’d tied her hair back with a ribbon]. The new show was some sitcom she’d never seen before, and couldn’t quite follow. A housewife in a poodle skirt, named… did the husband imperiously call her Meghan? With the H? She was simperingly eager to please and wore heels around the house. The screen flickered between black and white and color [and cocksucking, Meghan was sure of it, the man was about ready to explode].

The housewife [Meghan, with an H] messed up dinner fiercely and it all seemed a disaster until it transpired the husband’s boss liked everything burnt to a crisp. Nonetheless she got put over her husband’s knee. The laugh track screamed delight at a half-dozen firm corrective slaps. Just on the last one the Meghan [housewife] turned right at the camera as the man exploded in her face, her mascara covered in cum. Meghan the real Meghan shuddered and—

The TV was off. It was 5:30 p.m. exactly. In the pantry Meghan found a tied up length of green cable. She tossed it out back, unsettled.