"Ray, I can't thank you enough for letting me move in with you.  When Inspector Thatcher told me I had to be out by this weekend. . ."

"No problem, Fraser, that's what friends are for."

"I wish you'd let me pay for half the rent and utilities."

"Fraser, I've seen your paycheck; even-steven wouldn't exactly be fair."

"I suppose you're right.  At least let me contribute the same amount I paid for my room in the consulate."

"You paid for that room?"

"Yes, Ray, five hundred dollars a month."

"The Ice Queen charged you five hunderd dollars a month to live at work?"

"Well. . . it was five hundred Canadian."

"Oh, well in that case.  Still!  Fraser. . ."

"Speaking of money, Ray, I had an idea.  Since we'll be sharing expenses, we should have some extra, and we could. . . if you're not totally adverse to the idea. . ."

"Are you actually thinking of buying something for yourself, Fraser?"

"Well, it wouldn't be for me, it would  be for both us. I'm sure we'd get equal enjoyment out of it."

"Equal. . .  Just what did you have in mind?"

"A computer."

"What?"

"A personal computer.  We could keep all our bank records on it, have it automatically balance your checkbook, track of our purchases and energy consumption--"

"Fraser."

"We could tap into the police records at work, if we happened to come up with something insightful about a case--"

"Fraser."

"We'd have a wealth of information and expertise at our fingertips, available through the internet--"

"Fraser!"

"We could surf for porn."

"Porn?  Huhn."

"Well, not that I've ever seen internet porn, not as such.  I've just heard. . . some of the other officers are concerned their children might accidentally stumble across some unsuitable websites."

"All right, all right, I can get behind that.  A computer."

"Then, yes?"

"Sure, Fraser.  For, uh, so we can have a wealth of information available at our fingertips."

"Of course, Ray."

___

Next day, after work, at Best Buy:

"Uh, Fraser," Ray whispered, leaning into his partner.  "I'm a little lost here.  I understand the memory thing, and hard drive, but the I don't get this stuff about busses and ports and SDRs.  You know what that's all about?"

"Hey guys."  A young heavyset man appeared from behind the counter.  "Sounds like you need a little help."

"Ah, yes," said Fraser.  "Perhaps you could direct us to something you think would be suitable, for, uh, a modest budget."

"Yeah, sure," said the salesman, pointing them toward a row of colorful computers.  "I think you'd be interested in the iMac.  A little more expensive than a PC, but you can't beat it for usability."

Ray walked over to a blue machine and started playing with the keyboard and mouse.   After a few minutes, he was smiling.  "I like this one.  It's, uh, economically friendly.  What do you say, Frase?"

"If this is the one you want."

"Yep.  It's a lot easier than the one at work.  Look – I can even figure out how to print."

"I think the red one would be suitable, don't you, Ray?"

"Yeah, yeah, good idea.  It goes with my decor and your wardrobe.  Red it is.  Hey, look," said Ray, taking the cell phone out of his pocket and gesturing toward the repair center.  "This thing's been acting up.  I'm going to have these guys look at it.  Here's my credit card, Fraser.  We all set?"

"Sure thing," said the salesman.  "I'll have you loaded up by the time you come back."

_____

Later, walking up the stairs to Ray and Fraser's apartment:

"Fraser, why do we have so many boxes?"

"Well, Ray, while you were getting your phone repaired, Doug and I started discussing platform stability, and I decided that with your propensity for glitching, that perhaps another machine would be more suitable."

"You mean you didn't get the red one?" asked Ray, rebalancing the box so he could unlock the door.

"No," replied Fraser.  They both walked in and set their boxes down.  Fraser pulled out a utility knife and with almost super-human speed, unpacked the computer, set it up on Ray's desk, and turned it on.

"That doesn't look anything like the one we decided on."

"No, Ray, this is a Hewlet Packard, with a Linux operating system."

"A what?"

"Linux.  It's like Unix, which I used to use. . . Doug informed me it's the most stable operating system, and judging by how often you manage to crash the computer at work, I thought it would be our best choice."

"Fraser--"

"Here, let me show you."  Fraser let Ray sit down in front of the monitor and scooted in close behind him, wrapping his arms around Ray so he could reach the keyboard.

"I don't get this, what do you do?"

"You just pull up a terminal window and type in a command."

Fraser demonstrated a few commands.

"Fraser, none of this makes any sense.  What about the. . . uh, what about the wealth of information available at our fingertips?"

"Ah, perhaps that's a better place to start.  I took the liberty of having Doug install a browser and set us up with an internet provider.  Here."

Ray watched as Netscape booted up.  "Ok, good, good.  This is the web?  Now what do I do?"

"Well Ray, I suggest you search for something.  What are you looking for?"

Without a moment's hesitation, Ray typed 'porn' into the search engine and hit enter.  The search results came back with over 65 million sites.

"Wow, that's a lot of porn!"

"Indeed."

Ray spent a few minutes exploring the first two sites.  "This is. . ."

"Not as good as you thought it would be?"

"Right."

"Perhaps we should refine the search."

"How do we do that?"

"Well, it depends on what you're looking for."

Ray turned to see Fraser looking at. . . him.

"How about you Fraser, what are you looking for?"

"Well, Ray, my tastes are a bit, shall we say, out of the ordinary."

"Yeah?  Um, mine too.  Do you, uh, do you want to play?" he asked, gesturing weakly toward the computer.

Fraser's eyes never left Ray's.  "Yes, Ray, very much so.
 

End 

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