three fifty seven

ache¹ (reading aloud): “If you have any worries regarding your children” oh please please please “viewing this material, a simple call to reception will” blah blah BLAH!

and using the remote in her other hands flips channels to first 8 then 16, neither offering more than linear static rising repeatedly over itself, and beyond which exists the just detectable movement of indecipherable somethings.

ache¹ (to herself): I guess I am worried about my kids watching this.

Various controls on the remote allow her the firing up of sound and colour, brightness and contrast, which she does across the entire gamut, channel-hopping for the freakshow spread of afforded visual distortions, until even this fails to satisfy and 0 on the phonepad gets her reception.

cog: Good evening, reception. How may I help you?

the voice rising into its query.

ache¹: Hi this is three oh three, could you

and then an albeit brief hesitation has her flinch with embarrassment

ache¹: Could you please patch me in to the movie channel please?

and then quickly

ache¹: Thanks

and hanging up with neither confirmation nor reply.

She returns her attention to the timetable in her hands and its menu of entertainment. One call to the front desk and she can now avail herself of not only the six current mainstream movies, two of which are shown each evening on Channel 8, with the programme on a three-day turnaround changing in full each month, but also a range of midcore pornography following its own similar schedule on Channel 16, which right now proffers an uncomfortably heavily-breasted woman buoyed in an outdoor pool of such intense blue as to have ache¹ check again the colour balance.

There is a spark of memories: Greece, a family holiday, and further homesickness in which she refuses to indulge herself.

ache¹: Fat bitch

keying back to 8 for something that is all music and car-chase and enough momentarily.

When she returns to Channel 16, the woman grunts herself to the end of a poolside fuck before diving back into the blue water, followed by her male co-star.

Feeling awkward and unsure about masturbating this soon after the operation, ache¹ climbs up onto her bed and, lying flat on her belly and looking up at the screen, swims right along with them.