A man was walking down the street when he heard a telephone ringing in a phone booth.  He kept going but after the third ring he stopped, and went and answered it.
 "Hello?" he said.
 "Please help me!" said a woman's voice.  "I'm tied up!  I can't move!  Somebody left me here!"  She was crying.
 "It's all right," he said.  "It's all right.  Tell me where you are."
 She gave him the address.
 He leaned out and looked.  "That's right across the street!" he said.  "You know this is a phone booth, don't you?"
 "I know," she sobbed.  "Two people already just laughed at me and hung up."  She cried uncontrollably.  "Please don't hang up!"
 "Why don't you just dial Emergency?"
 "No!  I can't!  My parents'll find out!  I'm tied to a bed!  I don't have any clothes on.  Please!"
 "Look, I don't know."
 "What am I going to do?" she bawled.
 "I don't want to--How did you get this number?"
 "It's written on the wall!  I don't know anybody here!"
 "How did you dial it if you're tied to a bed?"
 She sobbed hopelessly.  "The phone's on a table.  It took me an hour.  I had to hook it with my fingers and throw it so I could speak.  I can't do anything else!  Please!"
 "All right.  Who got you into this?"
 "A man!  Please help me!"
 "Where are you?"
 "I told you!"
 "What floor?"
 "I think it's the fourth.  Down at the end of the hall.  There's some junk piled up and a garbage can.  It's past that."
 No one answered his knock so he tried the door and walked in.  The apartment had an abused, abandoned look.  Dirty ashtrays and coffee cups.  He went down a narrow hall to the bedroom.  The door was open.  She was spreadeagled on the bed.
 "Hi," he said.
 "Oh, thank you," she wept.  "I was afraid it wasn't you."
 She was young and thin.  The telephone receiver was at her elbow and she was handcuffed to the bed.
 "You didn't say it was handcuffs," he said.  He tested the tension on her near ankle.  She was stretched taut.  "Where's the key?"
 "I don't know."
 "Look, we need the police."
 "Oh, no, please!  Please!  You don't know what my parents will do to me!  Isn't there something you could cut them with?"
 He kicked around in the trash on the floor, opened drawers in the dresser, went out to the kitchen and came back with a pair of scissors.
 "Maybe we can pry open a link, he said.
 "This is so nice of you."
 He worked at the one on her near wrist.  It was hard going.  He took his coat off and sat on the bed and started again.
 "How did you get into this?"
 "Somebody talked me into it."
 "Did he hurt you?  Are you all right?"
 "Nothing happened.  He just wanted to tie me up.  Then he left.  How are you doing?"
 "These weren't made to be fiddled with."  He tested the fit on her wrist.  They were locked to the bone.  "Look, I don't think I can--"
 "Oh, please don't give up.  Listen, I'll do anything just to get out of here!"
 They looked at each other.
 "Anything," she said.
 "That won't be necessary."  He jammed the scissors into a link and twisted.
 "Maybe--"
 He looked at her.
 She half-laughed, though the sound was husky with tears.  "We'll never have a chance like this again."
 He returned to his work.  "You don't even know me."
 "I know.  It's crazy.  I've been lying here like this.  Anybody could just come in and--It's not funny.  But it does something to me.  It's almost a shame to waste it."
 "That's how you got into this."
 "I hope you can get me out."
 He tried to force the scissors around.  His palm and finger were marked by the effort, and he shook his hand.
 "I trust you," she said.
 "You trust everybody."
 "No, I didn't trust him.  That's why it was fun.  I did it on a dare.  What you must think of me."
 "Don't worry about that.  Worry about how I'm going to get this link loose."
 "Could you--cover me up?"
 The mattress was bare and there was nothing but his coat.  He swept it along her until it reached over her breasts and pressed it snug at her underarms.
 Their eyes met over this new state of affairs, and he kissed her.  Their mouths locked and lingered.
 When they stopped she said, "Maybe it's just this position but I'm"--she tried to shrug--"open."
 "You don't do this with a stranger."
 "Haven't you got a--"
 He thought about it.  "Yah, I've got one."
 "Well what are you carrying it around for if not"--she half-laughed--"for something like this?"
 "You should be worried about getting out of this."
 "You're here now.  I'm not worried.  We'll be able to look back and say how we met."
 "No.  I can't."
 "Mmm," she said, wriggling.  "Your coat feels nice."
 He smirked back at her and put his hand on the coat, rubbing it against her until it slid from her breasts.  He pulled it down until it uncovered her stomach, looked at her and kissed her mouth.  She sighed vocally.  He kissed her throat and breasts and stood up and got his pants down and his condom out of his coat and rolled it on and got between her legs and found her, entering her slowly.  She sighed again, and then again more loudly as he moved.  Soon they were groaning in unison, shouting, and when it was over he raised himself on his arms still panting and looked at her.
 "All right, man, that's great.  That's a wrap.  Thank you."
 Two men were standing at the foot of the bed.  One had a video camera on his shoulder and the other held a long microphone encased in moulded foam rubber.
 The latter touched the woman's leg.  "Sweetheart, you were terrific."
 "What is this?"  The man with his pants down turned in a crouch and looked back at the woman, who shrugged.  "What is this, a dirty movie?"
 "This isn't a movie, man, it's TV.  Turn on channel 79 Friday night, you'll see yourself on TV, man."
 "What do you mean, this is TV!"  He climbed over the woman and stood fastening his pants.  "This isn't TV!"
 "That's what it is, man."
 "You can't just put people on TV!"
 "Sure you can."
 "I'll sue you!"
 "Sue the station, man.  I just work for the station."
 "You even think about putting that on TV and I will!"
 "What are you going to say in court, man, you didn't fuck her?  We saw you fucking her, man.  We got a tape of you fucking her."
 "Come on, Vinny," said the woman.  "He used a condom, Vinny, come on."
 The man with the camera lay it gently on the floor, opened his pants and got on the bed between her legs.  Soon they were groaning together.
 "Look, she asked me to do this."
 "And you did it, man!  There's no law against it!  It's all right!"  It was bright in the room.  The man with the microphone put his sunglasses on.
 "If this goes on television people will see me!  I'll lose my job!"
 "Well this is my job, man.  I've got to deliver.  You can always get another job, man."
 "No.  I can't always get another job.  This is my career.  My whole life will be ruined.  Do you understand the difference between a job and a career?"
 "Well this is my career, man.  I've got to do this to support myself as an artist."
 "This is a violation of my privacy."
 "What privacy, man?  This isn't your place."
 The lovers grunted on the bed.
 "This isn't happening."
 "It's on the tape, man."
 "All right.  All right.  I'll buy the tape.  How much is the tape?"
 "No, no, man, it's not that.  I've got to keep in with the station.  They pay me my salary.  They let me use the equipment to do my real work, man."
 "I need that tape.  You are going to give me that tape."
 "It doesn't come on till four in the morning, man.  I wouldn't worry about it."
 "Look--please.  This can't be."
 The man with the microphone looked at him.  "All right, man.  I hear you.  I think we can do something, here."  He lay the microphone down and crouched by the bed.  "I am going to give you"--he took the cassette out of the camera and held it up--"this tape.  But you've got to do something for me."
 There was a pause.
 "What?"
 "If you want the tape, man."
 "Tell me."
 "You've got to fuck this big fat broad, man."
 There was a pause.
 "Y'understand?  You've got to make love to this big fat broad.  Very big broad, man.  Then you can have the tape."
 "What are you talking about?"
 "I'll give you the tape if you do this for me, man."
 "While you film it."
 "It's not film, man, it's video."
 "You want me to do the same thing all over again."
 "It's not the same thing, man.  You wouldn't be fucking a helpless person.  It's not the same thing at all."
 There was a pause.
 "You want me to get myself in deeper."
 "No, man!  It's not like the other thing!  This is for art, man.  Private gallery stuff out on the coast.  Goes into somebody's collection.  Nobody'll ever see it.  Unless you don't feel up to it, man."
 "How do I know you won't show this on television."
 "I'm an artist, man.  I'm giving you my word as an artist.  Come on in here, man.  Vinny, get outa there."
 "I'm comin', man!"
 The one with the microphone led him out of the apartment and along the hall past the piled-up garbage to another apartment and opened the door.  "Prissy?"  They went into a bedroom where an enormously fat woman lay naked on a bed watching television.  He turned the television off and plugged in two blinding lights on stands.  "OK, you want to get out of your clothes and get on the bed with Prissy?"
 She watched him neutrally as he undressed.
 "Got a condom?  Here's a condom, man."
 He got onto the bed naked and holding the condom.  The lights made him sweat.  He knelt facing her.  "Hi," he said.
 She hove her weight into the middle of the bed and lay back with knees up and open.  Vinny came in with the camera on his shoulder and looked at them through it.
 The other man pointed the microphone at them.  "You better unwrap the condom, man.  Have it ready.  OK?  OK.  So what are you going to do now, man?  Action."
 He knelt up straight and looked down at her.
 "Come on, man, we're rolling.  This isn't a rehearsal."
 He passed his hands over her calves where they were pressed against her thighs, and leaned forward to reach down to her hips.  His arms looked scrawny.  He knelt over her on all fours, his hands spread uncomfortably wide.
 "Can't you get it up, man?  Look at this thing."
 He lowered his face to Prissy's stomach and kissed it, put his cheek on it.
 The man with the microphone sat on the side of the bed and held it at him.  "What's the matter, man, you want to talk about it?"
 He sat back on his heels.
 "Why can't you get it up, man?"
 "Lots of men like me," said Prissy.
 "She's a dynamite broad, man.  Can you come in on his bit?  What is it, man?"
 Vinny crouched with the camera.
 "It doesn't matter, man.  This is going to make a great human interest thing.  Can you just pull it a little bit, man?  Try to get it hard, man.  That's right."
 He knelt with his penis in his hand.
 "OK, I'll give you a little direction, man.  OK?  Prissy. lie back.  Put your knees up a little more.  Can you get this, Vinny?  OK, now you kneel here, man, all right?  Now hold her foot in your hands, man.  Pick her foot right up and hold it, man.  That's right.  OK, now suck her toes, man.  Go ahead, man, suck her toes.  Put her toes in your mouth, man."
 He held the foot in both hands and wept.  "I can't," he sobbed.  "I can't.  I'm sorry, I can't."  He collapsed and shook with sobs.  "I can't."
 "He's crying.  Can you get him crying?  OK, that's an emotion, let's wrap with that."