Michael took a swig of coffee from his mug. It was emblazoned with the show’s logo of an owl perched on the branch of a tree with a moon in the backdrop. Little did his audience know that his mug contained an Irish coffee that was more Irish than coffee.
“You give the impression you’re such a goody-two-shoes, but you’re not so squeaky clean yourself, are you Claudia?” he said with a devious smile. “We did some digging into your past and it seems that you’ve been a very naughty girl!”
“Huh?” she asked with a frown.
Where was he going with this?
“Let me refresh your memory,” he said. “You spent some time in the adult entertainment industry.”
“What do you mean?” she asked sincerely.
The interview had taken an unexpected turn.
“You used to work for a phone sex line,” he said to a chorus of “Oohs!” in the audience.
This was true.
When she finished high school she tried to find a job as a journalist, but every potential employer wanted her to have a degree. In desperation she took a night job as a phone sex operator. The callers believed they were chatting with sexy chicks wearing slinky lingerie and touching themselves. In reality, there was nothing sexy about the work, or the women. They loathed the men who called. Most of the men were so desperate to hear a female voice they would have had an orgasm listening to Siri. Claudia only worked there for a few weeks until she could scrape together enough money to move to Southern California. She was ashamed of her brief stint as a phone sex worker and she’d never told anybody about it.
How did Michael know about this?
“You also posed nude for a girly magazine,” he said disapprovingly to more “Oohs!”
This was also true, but there was a lot more to the story.
In her early twenties she dabbled in modeling. One day she was posing for a department store catalogue when the photographer got her liquored up. She’d been wearing a very demure button-up shirt and jeans when he said to her, “Can you undo your top button?” So, she did. Then he wanted her to undo another button. Then another.
“These will be very tasteful shots,” he assured her. “No one will ever see these photos. They will just be for your own private collection,” he promised her.
She didn’t have a memory of the rest of the night but when she woke up the next morning she could tell they’d had sex. That was the last she heard from the photographer.
A few years later she was in Las Vegas when a busload of Japanese businessmen recognized her and started snapping photos, shouting “Oh yes! Oh yes!” She discovered that the images from the photo shoot had been featured in a Japanese porn magazine.
Claudia had signed a model release so there was nothing she could do about it.
“The magazine was called Oh Yes! Enjoy Your Happy Times.”
How did Michael know about this?
“And now your career involves framing men,” he said to “Boos!” from the audience. “You have a detective agency that entraps innocent husbands and breaks up happy families.”
“If you want to call catching men who cheat on their wives “entrapment”, then yes,” she replied indignantly.
She’d helped many couples to stay together when wives found out their husbands were honest, but she’d also helped numerous women to make the decision to leave their cheating men. Her job required anonymity. What was this negative publicity going to do to her business?
How did Michael know these things?
Telling these stories about her past, which were only partly true, was nothing but misdirection to put people off the scent of Gil’s bad behavior.
“None of this has anything to do with the fact that Gil Godsend is a fraud!” she cried.
“Yes it does, Claudia,” he said piously. “This damages your credibility.”
She tried to respond but he cut her off.
“You may not believe in psychics, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist,” he said to the camera. “There is so much we don’t know about the universe. It’s the height of arrogance to think we know everything. We should try to keep an open mind about the paranormal. We’ll be back after a break.”
Once his microphone was off Michael turned to Claudia with a smug expression on his face.
“Regretting your decision now, my dear?” he asked as he patted down his toupee.
“Fuck you,” she replied.
“Yes. Perhaps you should have…” he said. “But it’s not too late…I can still fix this dreadful mess for you. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours…”
Claudia tore off her microphone and threw it on her seat. Then she stormed out of the studio. She stepped out of the building into the early morning air. A cooling breeze blew against her burning skin. Claudia was livid. She was disgusted at the way Michael had treated her before, during, and after the interview.
At least no one watched that horrible show.
She decided to walk home to cool off a little. It was actually pleasant walking the empty streets of San Francisco in the early hours of the morning. She was starting to feel a little better when her phone rang. The number was blocked. Who would call her at this hour?
“Hello?”
“Claudia…” said a deep voice that once thrilled and excited her but now made her shudder.
It was Gil.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she said.
This was just what she needed.
“How did you get my phone number?” she asked. Then she remembered his trick on the show the day before. “Oh, never mind. What do you want?”
“I have a copy of Oh Yes! Enjoy Your Happy Times that I’d like you sign,” he joked.
Was it Gil who told Michael Michaels about the porn magazine and her brief stint as a phone sex operator? Hang on, she’d never told him about her past. He couldn’t be at fault, as much as she wanted to blame him.
“Leave me alone. I’ve had a bad night,” she said meekly.
“I know,” he said gently. “I’m sorry Michael Michaels treated you that way.”
He didn’t know the half of it, but then this kind of behavior was right up his alley.
“Yeah, sure you are.”
“I am,” he said sincerely. “I don’t like seeing you being treated this way. You deserve better.
“Like the way I was treated on The Julie Davenport Show?”
“Let’s set that aside for a minute,” he said. “I need to talk to you. I want you, Claudia, to become my manager.”
She almost laughed. She didn’t expect this.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Not at all,” he said. “You’re one of the few people I can trust to be honest with me and nobody works as hard as you do.”
“You want to be endorsed by your nemesis. That’s what,” she said.
How good would it look for Gil if his archenemy suddenly defected to his side?
“That’s not true,” he said. “There are a lot of people out there in mourning who can’t move on until they’ve got some closure. Helping me to help them is the right thing to do…and the pay’s not bad either…”
Claudia thought about the things Gil did to give people “piece of mind” and help them get “closure”. She shuddered again.
“Never,” she said.
“Think about it. Please,” he urged. “And don’t worry about Night Owl. No one watches that show…”
“Goodbye, Gil,” she said sternly.
Then she hung up on him.
The next morning the news of Claudia’s appearance on Night Owl and the revelations about her past were splashed across the media.
Chapter 19
The day after her appearance on Night Owl, Claudia was walking down the street to work when a group of construction workers started harassing her. That was nothing new. She was used to catcalls and wolf whistles from men in hard hats dangling from buildings, but this time it was different.
“Oh yes! Oh yes!” they shouted as
they pretended to snap photographs of her.
She gave them the finger, held her head up high, and walked on. One of the men yelled out after her, “Hey, sweetheart. How much do you charge for phone sex?”
Clearly, they’d recognized her from the interview.
She thought no one watched that show…
But Claudia had bigger concerns. Over the next few days she churned over the sexual assault. She’d urged Kate and Abby to go to the police with their stories so why wasn’t she speaking out herself? Well, she had her reasons. She was embarrassed and didn’t want anyone to know about the incident. She didn’t want to rock the boat. She wanted to move on with her life and forget it ever happened.
She was also in denial. She was a sophisticated and educated woman; it could never happen to her. But was it her fault somehow? Did she dress too provocatively? Did she flirt with him unintentionally? Did she send him the wrong message? Now she understood how Kate and Abby felt.
She was conflicted in her thoughts. Her anger was mounting over the incident. She was suffering from insomnia. She lay awake at night feeling distressed, while the incident replayed over and over again in her head. She kept thinking about what she should have done, and she imagined different reactions and outcomes. Not saying anything was also weighing on her conscience.
She was shocked that this kind of casting couch behavior still went on and she felt it was her responsibility to others to do something about it. What if it was happening to other guests or to his co-workers? The next woman might get raped. But if she reported him, would anyone believe her anyway? It was just her word against his. Or would they accuse her of being out for revenge for the way Michael had treated her on the show?
After much soul searching, Claudia decided that reporting Michael Michaels to his employer was the right thing to do. She phoned the studio and asked to speak with the producer of Night Owl. She had met him before the show that night and he seemed like a reasonable guy. She was amused to learn that his name was Peter Peters. He kept her on hold for almost fifteen minutes before he finally came to the phone. She felt like she was calling the IRS.
“Ms. Cox,” Peter said. “…How are you?” He asked hesitantly, expecting to be lambasted for Michael’s behavior on the show last week.
“I’m…fine, thanks,” she said with equal hesitation. “I was a guest on Night Owl last week.”
“Yes, I remember. How can I help you?”
“I um…need to tell you something,” she began, her voice faltering.
She paused and took a deep breath.
“…Michael…assaulted me that night before the show.”
“Oh my God! Tell me what happened,” Peter said with what seemed like genuine concern.
Claudia recounted the incident to him in all of its grotesque detail. As she did so she couldn’t recognize her own voice. It sounded hollow and timid.
This was a humiliating experience. Peter was silent the whole time.
“I’m going to look into this matter right away and I’ll call you back,” he said when she’d finished telling her story. “Please don’t say anything to anyone else,” he begged her.
This was the last thing Peter wanted leaked to the media, hot on the heels of stories of Michael’s alcoholism and the news that he was now wearing a toupee.
Peter marched down to Michael’s dressing room. He stormed in on Michael who hadn’t yet put on his toupee.
“Hey! Don’t barge into my dressing room without knocking on my fucking door first!” Michael yelled as he grabbed a baseball cap and slapped it on his head.
“There’s no time for vanity,” scolded Peter. “Yet another chick has contacted me complaining that you attacked her. What the fuck is going on, Michael?”
“This is ridiculous, Peter. Nothing happened.”
“That’s what you said last time. And the time before.”
“Who’s accusing me now?” Michael asked indignantly, but secretly wondering if it was Julie Davenport, or that cute new brunette in accounting he’d cornered in the kitchen last week.
“Claudia Cox.”
“Oh, her? We just flirted a little,” Michael said calmly as he took a swig from his mug but avoided looking at Peter.
“Flirted? She says you tried to force her to give you a blow job!”
Peter grabbed Michael’s mug and took a sniff. The alcohol made his eyes water and he shook his head. Perhaps it was time to book Michael into rehab again.
“Ah…I know what’s going on,” Michael said in sudden realization. “She’s upset because I called her out on national television about what a filthy little slut she is. I had my researchers dig up some dirt on her and I spilled it. That’s all.”
Peter thought about this for a while.
“Okay. I suppose it’s just a matter of ‘he said, she said’.” That argument might work. “But I have to call her back. What do I say to her?”
“Have her produce some evidence, or tell her to go away.”
“Well, alright,” said Peter, somewhat unconvinced. “But don’t let it happen again…”
He was sick of saying that.
Peter phoned Claudia back that afternoon. She’d been watching her phone nervously all day waiting for his call.
“Hi there,” he said.
Claudia thought he sounded cold. This wasn’t a good sign.
“I had a talk with Michael and he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What?” she cried in outrage. “He knows exactly what he did to me!”
Then came the argument that she had expected to hear.
“Look, it’s just your word against his,” he said.
“And my word is the truth!” she cried.
“If that’s the case, why didn’t you say something during the show?” Peter asked. “It seems strange that you’re bringing up this complaint a whole week after the show rather than at the time it happened…allegedly happened, that is,” he corrected himself.
“I-I don’t know,” she stammered. “I have many reasons. I didn’t think it was appropriate to say anything at the time. I was trying to be professional. I was stressed out. I wanted to pretend that it never happened. Then the more I thought about it I realized I had to speak up.”
“I get it,” said Peter. “Michael dragged you through the mud on the show and now you’re out for revenge,” he accused her.
“No. That’s not how it happened,” she argued. “He was out for revenge because I rejected him!”
“Then… where’s your evidence?” he demanded to know.
Claudia paused.
“There isn’t always evidence for this sort of thing,” she said.
“Oh really? This comes from the woman who doesn’t believe in psychics because there’s no evidence? That’s what you said on the show…”
“Sometimes you just have to believe people and give them the benefit of the doubt, ” she said, feeling weak.
“Just the way you believe Gil Godsend and give him the benefit of the doubt? Hypocrite,” Peter spat. “So, I should believe a woman who’s posed for dirty magazines and worked for a phone sex line? I’m sick of women like you complaining about Michael,” he let slip.
“Ah-ha! I’m not surprised that other women have complained about Michael,” Claudia scoffed. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. If women keep complaining about him then maybe you’d better start listening to them!”
“I’ll listen when someone brings me some proof,” Peter said.
“Perhaps the media will listen,” Claudia warned him.
Peter sighed.
It was time to bring out the usual threat. He’d had to keep an attorney on speed dial because of Michael’s antics.
“Claudia, if you keep running your mouth we’ll sue you for slander.”
Claudia paused.
She had experience in this game of bullshit. She had been sued before by the Scientologists because of things she’d said and written about them, even though they were t
rue. She had been caught up in expensive and messy litigation for years. As an attorney friend once said to her, “If you’re sued. You lose.”
He also added, “It’s a legal system, not a justice system.”
The truth didn’t matter. They had tried to silence her and it had worked. So much for freedom of speech.
She didn’t know what to say to Peter. For once she was speechless.
“I thought so,” he said smugly. “Goodbye, Ms. Cox.”
He hung up on her.
For the first time in years, Claudia broke down and cried.
Chapter 20
After her experience with Michael Michaels and Peter Peters, Claudia went through a bout of depression. She moped around her apartment in her pajamas and plowed though tubs of rocky road ice cream and bottles of chardonnay. She binge watched TV soap operas that her mother used to watch when she was a child. Claudia was amazed that after 20 years, the cast members were still the same, and they even looked the same, thanks to plastic surgery.
She used to laugh at the histrionic lives of these characters as they battled affairs, evil twins, and even died only to come back to life; although right now it felt like her own life was as melodramatic as a soap. After sitting around in misery for a few weeks, and putting on a few pounds, Claudia wanted to put the incident behind her and move on with her life. She didn’t believe in karma, but she hoped that Michael would eventually bring about his own downfall with his bad behavior.
Right now Claudia had bigger fish to fry than Michael Michaels. She cleaned herself up and went back to work. In the evenings she started researching Gil again. She was preparing to take him down, not that she had a plan yet. She re-watched episodes of Between Heaven and Earth with Gil Godsend. She watched videos of his interviews and other television appearances. She took notes and analyzed his techniques. Claudia re-read all of his books, and those written about him, including 21 Days with Gil Godsend. The bottle of chardonnay came out again for that one. The book was so full of lies it wasn’t a biography, it was a work of fiction. She also revisited all of the articles she’d written about him, and mused about how ineffective they were. She had been repeating the same mistakes over and over again but expecting different results.
Hits & Mrs. Page 18