Web observed it all with a detached, almost cynical look. He watched the way a scientist might observe an experiment he had set up or the way am amateur horticulturist might check the soil and temperature of his rare orchids. It was a thing that interested him, more than a hobby, more than a profession. With Web Hardman, sex was a way of life. He was a unique and fortunate man, for he was born wealthy and had grown up expecting the best that money could buy. He was educated abroad and was really much more European than American.

The last descendant of a rich old family, he was the sum result of almost incestuous in-breeding. Keenly intelligent, he had been, from childhood, too intense and too interested in sensuality and those pleasures which are forbidden by most societies. With endless wealth at his command, a keen mind, a vivid imagination, Web Hardman was soon tasting pleasures that most men only dream of.

Nor was he superficial about it. He pursued his activities with a scientist's passion. He was clever and covered up his illegal activities; he kept records in writing, on tape, and on film. Soon, he had amassed a considerable library of rather interesting pornography, some of which had enough overtones of sadism to excite the Marquis de Sade. Soon, he treated people – especially women – like a scientist would treat a laboratory rat: with objectivity and dispassion. His thrill, his satisfaction, was in proving his theory: that any woman could be reduced to a base, unthinking carnality in a matter of days. Sometimes, in a matter of hours. His theory held that women were the true pornographers, that their instinct and natural desire was obscene and that they understood and loved depravity. He felt that there were no depths of wantonness to which a woman would not sink if conditions were right; and it thrilled and excited him to see his theory being borne out, being lived out again and again, right in front of him.