Both Tim and she had felt very lucky that the Bijou Theater in the small downtown shopping area had needed a girl to take tickets and operate the candy and popcorn concession in the lobby. The owner, Amos Andersson, had wanted somebody to replace his wife, Syble, from the chores, and was most pleased that someone as smart and beautiful as Melanie was available. Older women, he'd said to her, were continually getting sick or baby-sitting their grandchildren, and teenagers from school were eager, but often irresponsible. Melanie was, as far as Amos Andersson was concerned, the perfect combination, and he'd been glad to allow her the few extra days – and nights – with her husband until Tim left. But tomorrow evening she would be going to work at the Bijou, and the theater was the leading movie house for erotic, sex-oriented films…

After watching the picture, SINNING STUDENTS, for almost an hour and a half tonight, Melanie was beginning to feel slight twinges of doubt about whether she should have agreed to see it with Tim. Or, for that matter, that she should have taken the job at the Bijou at all, considering the kind of movies they were showing! She had told her husband the truth about working out in the lobby, closed off from the images on the screen by the closed swing-doors – but still and all, just knowing this was the type of films the customers were viewing would be a shameful thought continually torturing her mind. The soft mewling sounds coming from the other women in the audience around her, and the grating noise of heavy deep breathing from their male escorts was telling enough of the effects such eroticism was having. She could see through the dim light the vague shapes of other couples wrapped in tight embraces around the darkened theater.