by Mia Ford
Dru leaned back and folded her skinny arms over her flat chest. She gave me a sideways look. “What’s going on, Kate? And don’t give me the old ‘it’s better if you don’t know’ routine. If I’m going to forge a card for you, I need to know why.”
I glanced at the closed door and leaned in to lower my voice. “Do you know who Sean Donovan is? Wide receiver for the Kings?”
“Of course,” she scoffed. “Lesbians follow football, too, you know. What about him?”
“I want to interview Sean Donovan,” I said. “But he won’t talk to anyone from SIO. We’re even banned from the stadium. So, I was thinking…”
“You were thinking that you could pretend to work for another magazine, which means you’d need a business card with that other magazine’s name on it,” she said. A devilish grin crossed her thin lips. “Let me guess… Playboy? Maxim? GQ?”
I smiled at her. “How did you know?”
She waved a hand in the air between us. “Sean Donovan is a swinging dick,” she said, rolling her eyes. She nodded at my boobs, which were pushing against the material of my t-shirt. “You go in with the right business card and the right blouse, you flash a little cleavage, and you might get an interview. Heck, you might get laid. Is that the idea?”
I bit my lip. It sounded crazy when she said it. I said, “Yes, that’s the idea. I mean, not the getting laid part, but the rest. Do you think it’ll work?”
“You’ll never know unless you try,” she said, turning to her computer and resting her fingers on the keys. “So, Playboy or Maxim?”
“Playboy, I think.”
I watched her Google the words “Playboy logo”.
The screen filled with images of the famous bunny head. She selected one of the images and pasted it into the business card template she had called up in her graphics program.
Next, she clicked a link to get the address of the Playboy offices in New York City, then added that to the template.
“What’s your cell number?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at me.
“Why?”
“For the card,” she said, tapping a finger to the screen. “You don’t want me to put the real Playboy office number on there. What if he tries to call Playboy to check you out and discovers that you don’t really work there?”
“You’re really good at this,” I said. I gave her my cell number and she typed it into the template. I smiled at the screen. It looked like an actual Playboy business card.
“Okay, next, what name do you want on the card?”
I frowned at her. “What name?”
“You can’t use Kate Asher,” she scoffed. “What if he Googles you and discovers that you work for SIO? Besides, you need something sexy, like a real Playboy Playmate’s name.”
“I’m not posing as a Playboy Playmate,” I said.
“Don’t fool yourself,” she said, glancing at my boobs again. “He’s not going to give a serious journalist the time of day, but if he thinks you’re a former Playmate trying to score points with her boss by doing a story on him… Hell, he’ll probably try to fuck you even before you start trying to interview him.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said, scratching my chin. “How about Katie Holmes? Holmes was my mom’s maiden name.”
“Katie Holmes? Like the actress, Katie Holmes.”
“Might make for a great conversation starter,” I said.
“I love it,” she said, chuckling. Her fingers went across the keys. “Katie Holmes, Journalist, Playboy Magazine.”
We both sat back to admire her handy work.
It looked like the real thing.
“Can you print a few cards for me?” I asked.
“Of course, Katie Holmes, hang on a second.”
She rolled her chair over to the printer station and opened a drawer to bring out a sheet of pre-cut card stock. She loaded the card stock into the printer and rolled back to the computer. “Is eight enough or will you need more?”
“With any luck, I’ll only need one,” I said.
“Luck and those tits will go a long way,” she said with a grin.
“Will you stop looking at my tits,” I said, playfully slapping her arm. The printer cranked out the sheet of cards and she rolled over and back to retrieve it.
“For what I’m doing for you, I should get to see those tits,” she said, separating the cards to make a neat stack. She held out the cards to me and raised one eyebrow. “Or at least touch them for a minute. Those are natural, right?”
“Yes, they are, thank you very much.” I took the stack of perfectly-forged business cards and put my hands on my hips. I stuck out my boobs and sighed.
“Fine, but make it quick. Katie Holmes has things to do.”
Sean
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I was on my hands and knees on the side of the practice field puking my guts out when Leon trotted over to make sure I was all right. I could hear him coming without looking up. His nearly four-hundred-pound frame seemed to shake the ground beneath my hands, like that T-Rex in Jurassic Park. I was glad he was on my side. I would have hated being on the receiving end of one of Leon Lewis’ hits.
“You all right, man?” he asked. His voice was deep and he always spoke in a lazy rhythm, making him sound like he was speaking in slow motion. “You need a medic? A Gatorade?”
“Naw, I’m fine,” I said, holding up a hand as my stomach finished emptying itself in the grass. I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and rolled to my back. I put my hands on my stomach and stared up at the clear blue sky above me.
“You drank too much,” Leon said, dropping onto the ground next to me. He tugged the sweat towel from around his neck and tossed it over my face. “You gotta slow down man. You’re gonna burn yourself out.”
“I know,” I said, taking the damp towel that reeked of Leon’s stink and mopping the cold sweat from my face. “I gotta stop partying before a heavy practice week.”
It was just an excuse. Never mind that it was eighty-five degrees in October and the coach was pushing us hard to get ready for our next game with the Tigers. I’d never minded the heat and the tougher the practice, the better. I wasn’t puking because of practice. I was puking because I was still fucked up from the two-day victory party at my house, which broke up just a few hours ago.
“You gotta slow down, man,” Leon said. He put a hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun and nodded at the field, where the players who weren’t puking were going through offensive drills. “Look at Matt Murphy. That motherfucker ain’t even sweating.”
I rolled my head to the side to look at Murphy. We were the same age, both came out of Clemson in the same AFL draft. Matt wasn’t on the sidelines, white as a sheet, sweating like a pig, purging the booze and pot and coke from his system. Matt was the goddamn poster child for clean living, and it showed.
“Remember what a basket case Murphy was before he got married and had kids?” Leon asked. “That dude made you look like a lightweight when it came to drinking and partying.”
“What’s your point?” I asked, covering my face with the towel, ignoring its stench.
“He found a nice girl and settled down, got himself off the booze and coke, had a couple of kids, and look at him. He’ll be the fucking team MVP this year.”
“Clean living will do that to you,” I said, pushing up onto my elbows. “But clean living can also be pretty fucking boring.”
“Maybe boring wouldn’t be so bad if you had the right person to get bored with.” He said it quietly. He was staring at Murphy and slowly nodding his head. I knew something was up.
“Wait a minute,” I said, pushing myself up to face him. I brought up my knees and hugged them to keep from falling over. I leaned my head around to look him in the eye. “Oh shit, man, say it isn’t so.”
He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, then a smile crossed his dark face. “I’m gonna ask Monique to marry me,” he said, referring to his on again, off again, bab
y mama who he had two small kids with.
“You’re shitting me,” I said, dumbfounded. I didn’t know why the news was hitting me like a ton of bricks, but it was. I felt as if I were being dumped. Leon, my best friend and party-partner for five years, was breaking up with me.
I felt myself getting nauseous again, even though there was nothing left in my stomach to heave. Maybe the news was hitting me so hard because Leon was the hardest partier and biggest groupie fucker on the team. His exploits were legendary. He would sometimes have two, three, four women at a time. And now this. Fuck. It was the end of an era.
I shook my head. “Leon Lewis is going to get married.”
“Yep, I got the ring already. Gonna ask her tonight when we have dinner with the kids.”
“But what about our victory parties?” I asked. I realized I had a little whine in my voice, like a little kid begging his best pal not to move away. “Dude, you can’t stop coming to our victory parties.”
He just gave me a big toothy grin and put a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt on my shoulder. “Sean, dude, you gotta grow up sometime, man.”
“No I don’t,” I said quietly. I glanced at Matt Murphy, all muscles and smiles and MVP awards and trophy wife and perfect kids. Fucker. I hated Matt Murphy. I muttered to myself. “I don’t have to grow up.”
Leon chuckled as he picked up his helmet and got ready to put it on. “You ain’t Peter Pan,” he said, getting to his feet and setting the helmet on top of his head. “We all gotta grow up sometime.”
“Not me,” I scoffed.
“Whatever man,” he said, shaking his large head. He nudged the toe of my cleat with his. “Word of warning. You keep this up and you’ll be watching the game from the bench on Sunday. Coach is thinking about putting Lockett in your spot if you don’t shape up.”
I glanced at Coach Rickets, who was standing on the field with Denzell Lockett, the star running back from USC the team had drafted to back me up. Lockett was six years younger than me and almost as fast. He was also hungry. He’d made no bones about the fact that he wanted my spot and if I didn’t straighten up, he’d probably get it.
I gave the coach a smile and stuck a thumb in the air. “Bad seafood,” I said. “I’ll be all right in a minute.”
Coach glared at me and shook his head.
Locket gave me a smile. Fucker.
I held out a hand to Leon and he pulled me up like a rag doll.
Dusting off my hands, I asked, “Has Coach said anything about putting Lockett in over me?”
Leon tugged his helmet down over his head and snapped the strap under his chin. He gave me a serious look. “Like I said, man, you gotta grow up sometime. And now would be a good time to start.”
Kate
I stood in front of the full-length mirror in my shabby little loft apartment, modeling a black miniskirt and red halter top. My long red hair was pinned up in a messy bun atop my head. I wobbled a little. I was doing my best to keep my balance in a pair of four-inch stiletto heels I’d bought on a whim years ago, but had never worn.
“How do women walk in these things?” I asked.
“Very carefully,” Dru answered with a smirk. “They do make your legs look amazing.”
She was sitting cross-legged on my bed smoking a joint, supposedly here to help me pick out the perfect outfit to wear to convince Sean Donovan to talk with me.
I really think she just wanted to see me naked, which was fine. I wasn’t shy about my body and I found her attention flattering, even though I couldn’t imagine myself ever having sex with a woman. Heck, I’d barely had sex with men. I’d slept with two guys in college and one since moving to New York. My vagina had more cobwebs than a haunted house.
I invited Dru to come home with me during our lunch hour because I needed someone else’s opinion because I had no idea how to dress to seduce a man into giving me an interview; or anything else for that matter.
She eyed my long legs and ample cleavage. “You’ve got a rocking body, girl. And you look hot as hell,” she said, licking her lips. “But you also kind of look like a prostitute.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “Thanks.” I glanced in the mirror. She was right. I looked like a hooker. My ass was practically hanging out from beneath the skirt and my big tits looked like they had been squeezed into the top; which they had.
I blew out a long breath and kicked off the shoes, which were killing my feet. I sighed. “Maybe a lesbian and a tomboy are not the best judges of what a man finds sexy,” I said.
“You want sexy, but professional,” Dru said. She took out her phone and fiddled with it for a moment. “Look at these pictures of Trump’s daughter. She doesn’t have your tits and ass, but she dresses professional and I think she’s sexy as fuck.”
I looked through the images of Ivanka Trump. I said, “She’s sexy in a very classy way.”
“Exactly.” Dru said. She looked at the pictures again and sighed. “Man, I’d munch her rug till my teeth fell out.”
“You’re horrible,” I said with a giggle. “So maybe I go for Ivanka Trump with a little bad girl cleavage.”
“Sounds perfect,” Dru said. She glanced at my meager closet. “Do you have anything like that?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Let me look.”
I tore off the tight halter top and shimmied out of the mini skirt. When my tits bounced free I heard Dru playfully moan. I ignored her and pushed through the racks until I found the dress that I’d worn to an awards dinner once. It was a red dress cut midway above the knee, with a wide black belt, and buttoned up the front.
I stepped into the dress and tugged it over my bubble butt and up my shoulders. I button the front, but left the three top buttons open. I put my hands on the sides of my tits and mashed them together. With my tits in a pushup bra, it might just do the trick. I slipped on the stilettos to finish the outfit. The stilettos were uncomfortable as hell, but Dru was right: they made my legs look amazing.
“What do you think?” I asked with my hands on my hips, turning from side to side.
“I think that’s the one,” Dru said, giving me a thumbs-up. “Wedge your big tits in a bra for cleavage, put on some red lipstick and he won’t be able to resist you.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” I said with a smile. “Now, if I can just learn to walk in these shoes, I’ll be all set.”
Kate
Getting an interview with a major sports star is not as easy as one might think. I couldn’t just stroll into Kings Stadium and ask to speak to Sean Donovan. They weren’t going to page him to come to the front desk to meet me, no matter how hot I looked.
There are protocols in place for interviewing anyone associated with the Kings. I would have been directed to the team’s media relations office, where I would have to submit a formal request for an interview and hope it was granted at some point in the future.
I knew that would be a complete dead end.
SIO was banned from the stadium. Word was that they had photos of every SIO journalist, including me, tacked to a wall like criminals in a police investigation. I was going to use a pretty good disguise, but I knew they would have sniffed me out sooner or later.
The other tactic was to contact the player’s personal PR rep directly and request an interview. Sean’s PR rep was a hardnosed woman named Madge Sinclair, who guarded her clients with the tenacity of a pit bull.
Madge might consider your request if you were lucky, or most likely, just dismiss it outright. If she thought an interview with you was beneficial to her client, and you represented a prestigious media outlet like Sports Illustrated or ESPN, you might be granted an interview under Madge’s watchful eye.
That’s why no one had done an eyewitness exposé of Sean Donovan before. Madge controlled the media’s access to her bad boy client and personally monitored every interview.
If you were granted an interview, which was like getting Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket, you were required to submit your questions in writi
ng first for Madge’s approval.
If she didn’t like a question, it was stricken from the list. Step over a line or go in a direction that made her client look bad, and Madge would end the interview immediately and blacklist you from ever talking to another of her clients.
I knew I’d never get access to Sean Donovan if Madge Sinclair had anything to do with it.
So, I would have to approach him directly without going through the proper channels.
And the only way to do that was to somehow find him away from Kings Stadium and approach him there. It would be a little like tracking a lion in its natural habitat, knowing there was the risk of getting mauled.
I knew Sean Donovan frequented a dance club on 10th Avenue called Maxie’s New York. The place was always teaming with celebrities and groupies, and was almost as hard to get into as Fort Knox.
But, with the right look and the right credentials, maybe Katie Holmes, former Playboy Playmate turned serious journalist, just might be able to get inside.
Kate
It was nearly midnight when Dru and I stepped out of the cab in front of Maxie’s New York. The rumor was that the stars didn’t come out to play until after midnight; like late night vampires crawling from their coffins and crypts. Being famous must be exhausting. I was already trying not to yawn. It was a work night; and hours past my bedtime.
I stood on the sidewalk and watched as hordes of young, scantily-dress party goers lined up at Maxie’s front door.
There were two large bouncers at the door, serving as the guardians of the gate.
They scanned the crowd like Terminators, selectively choosing who got in and who didn’t. Apparently, the shorter the dress and bigger the tits, the higher the chances of getting inside.
The lucky few who got inside would party the night away. The rest would end up waiting on the sidewalk until they gave up and went home.
“I’m not sure this was such a good idea,” I said, nodding at the line that was growing longer by the minute.