February 14, 2026 Albany New York

Garrett is enjoying a nice ham and cheese omelet en croissant, with raspberries on the side, when he hears the news on TV about Clifton Farris' latest money-maker. Milkenson Company has just built a huge outdoor fun house that features to-the-death gladiator contractuals that allow people to get themselves out of poverty quickly. Flaming socialists have been lobbying against it as "cruel and inhuman." The news commentator is now interviewing a gladiator who comments "The liberal do-gooders are a bunch of rich kids who don't have to live in poverty themselves. I wish they would stop interfering with my right to choose, just mind their own goddamn business, and get back to their LSD and video games.

Once again Garrett heads out to Washington.

February 20, 2026. 11:48 AM

At the diner again. This time Garrett tries the backed stuffed trout with egg-potato salad. As he heads up to the lodge to see Clifton he sees the vast sprawling outdoor fun-house to the north. At the gate there is a huge head which turns from side to side. It has a big nose, huge flapping ears, and short brown hair. The face looks oddly familiar, like a caricature of someone Garrett knows but can't quite place at the moment. Perhaps a middle aged businessman/

One of the rangers at the lodge phones for Clifton, who comes down from the basin area to greet Garrett within a few minutes. They shake hands.

"Howdy Clifton. Thought I would see this new thing for myself, but I wanted to find out more about the gladiator arrangements first. How does it work?"

"Well, people who are poor, but good fighters, sign a contract where they agree to participate in six, twelve, or twenty-four death matches armed like Roman Gladiators. I put Jake Povick in charge of it because of his earlier interest in the gladiator motif. He tests them first to be sure they really are good fighters and not just suicidal.

The participants are paid either two, four, or six thousand bucks for every victory depending on the contact length. The longer hitch pays more per battle. The pay for each victory is deposited to an escrow account in the competitor's name. If they are killed the accrued pay goes to their specified recipient. If they make it to the end or the contract they can renew. We're working on a pay increase scale for people who distinguish themselves by staying around a long time. We plan to create fan clubs for the good ones with monthly dues. If they chicken out, and quit before the end of their contract, they forfeit the accumulated pay.

"You old rattlesnake! You really think of everything." chuckles Garrett.

"I studied business in college. We need to rake it in some way because the gladiator pay is so high. The profit margin on this is actually about break-even, but it generates a lot of controversy which works like free advertising for everything else that we offer." replies Farris.

He gives Garrett a press pass badge. Garrett heads over to see the fun-house.

Once past the flapping eared head Garrett gazes with amazement at this Garden of Earthly Delights. There seems to be every kind of freak show, every mode of depravity: exhibitions of torture, sexual aberration, human deformity, a boy with two heads. There is a man with genitals where his nose and mouth should be, and nose and mouth where the genitals should be. They call him "Fuck Face." There is every variety of peep show known to man. One that Garrett sees he enjoys in particular and thinks it should be requisite field study for young gynecologists.

There is one side attraction where you must undress and run a gauntlet of people who wield long sticks tipped with various means of injury. The people with the sticks are very skilled, as many of the takers find out. The reward at the end is a choice of sexual options with any of fifteen different partners who the contestant can view first. The prices vary and there are fees to spectators as well as participants. You pay extra if you want privacy at the end with your chosen partner. If you are too beat up from the gauntlet run to do the sex part, you can get a rain check to try again another day. The partners of course are desirable, almost beyond endurance.

Now Garrett comes to an attraction called the Temple of Hecate. It is a strange little wooden theater with a large round central chamber surrounded by small private booths. Mostly men buy tokens, enter a booth, and put a token in a slot. This causes a mechanical barrier to drop allowing the occupant to see what is going on in the chamber.

Garrett gets a token and goes in. As he strolls around the outside circumference, he comes to one booth where he hears sounds like someone punching the booth wall from inside. He hears the same sound again at another booth and then another as he passes.

Finally he comes to a booth where the door is open and he sees a man goosing himself mercilessly as he gazes into the inner chamber. The noise is made by his elbow hitting the wall. This is unavoidable because the booth is very tight. Garrett keeps walking and hears this sound at seven or eight of the booths as he completes the circumference. At the point of origin he retraces his steps to a quiet empty booth and, with eager anticipation, puts his token into the slot to see what all this fuss is about. And then he sees her -

Oh yes! - the Mistress of Mistresses! Tall and shapely with ghastly white skin that has a subtle bluish gray quality. Raven black hair. Large firm grapefruit breasts, short wasp waist, flaring hips, upright protruding buttocks, long legs, and an exotic, cruelly beautiful face.

Garrett has seen hundreds of beautiful naked women in his life, but this is by far the most desirable he has ever seen before or since. A Caucasian Vampirella with a chic late 1920s pageboy hairdo. Garrett will have her, he thinks, and on any terms she will accept.

It takes three tokens, but finally she comes near to Garrett's booth. He catches her eye and says "I admire you very much. If we can have but an hour alone together I promise to obey you completely."

She says "Of course. Give me a tip, please. Twenty dollars."

Garrett says "Nah!" knowing by her tone and demeanor that he will not connect. Besides, such women almost always has a big jealous bruiser as a boyfriend. Not worth the trouble.

Garrett goes back outside and has an an interesting day of further adventures, but for the rest of his life, this woman will haunt his dreams.

Garrett recognizes the pecking order in human sexuality and would very much like to see the kind of economy where, for a small donation, people could make deep and solemn obeisance to human pulchritude amidst opulent surroundings and then go home satisfied, at one with their place in nature's sexual hierarchy.

Lured by the cooking smaoke, Garrett stops for sausage with peppers and onions, knowing that he will probably regret it later. As he reaches the approximate center of the grounds, right out in plain view, there is an obese naked woman who seems to be half-pig. She is the same pen, and chows down daily, with other full blooded pigs. Her nose, ears, and legs are porcine. What Garrett sees must be genetic. Nobody could, or would, do such a thing surgically. At feeding time the spectators are directed here to view the poor woman's disgraceful breeches of culinary etiquette. Garrett looks at her. Her expression is sullen and cruel. In meeting her gaze one would almost feel, very subjectively of course, that she somehow deserves to be where she is, doing what she is doing.

A bit further along Garrett comes to the gladiator area and goes into the arena which resembles the Coliseum in Rome but two thirds the size. They are just removing the dead body from the previous battle. Jake Povick is announcing the gladiators. Next up is a tall, fine looking young man of extraordinary physique. He is dressed in blue and silver. His opponent is a tall, beautiful long-legged young woman with sleek brown hair pony-tailed up on top of her head. She is all in red with a black sash.

The pair stand facing Povick, who is dressed as a Roman Emperor, and say the traditional, "Ave Imperator, motituri te salutamus!" Then they move to the center of the arena. The young man looks at the girl. What a bad match. How can he be expected to hurt such a beautiful creature? All he wants to do is kiss her all over, not kill her. She, however, has many victories to her credit and sees all these thoughts in his eyes. Instantly her sword flashes out and lays open the young man's right cheek. He screams. Now he will fight, and angrily pulls his sword. The girl tosses her beautiful head back and laughs...

"It's too late, fool. Just die!"

A kick from her pointed steel boot goes under his kneecap shield, and he falls upon both knees. Then with a single quick stroke she decapitates him. The crowd goes berserk. Garrett doesn't like this attraction enough to stay for another match so he leaves. After the Luncheon Theater, after all, this kind of thing is a bit old hat. All Garrett has seen here today is enough to fascinate almost anybody or to make the them throw up in horror, depending upon their curiosity, values, and feelings. "Where will all this rottenness end?" he wonders.

Garrett retires early and the next morning heads home back to Albany somewhat saddened by what the current lack of economic liberty, combined with almost unlimited civil liberty, is leading to in America. What a pity that people are too ignorant and apathetic to demand both.