Raw: A Love Story

by Mark Haskell Smith

  While Frazier handled the signing table, Kathryn walked down the line, taking names and writing them on Post-its so that Sepp didn’t have to deal with all the variations of names like Debbie, Debbi, Devi, Debby, Dybbie, and whatever else their parents, desperate to be original, had come up with. Marybeth watched Sepp greet a fan and personalize her book. The girl looked at Sepp and said, “That was something I’ll never forget. I hope you feel better, Sepp. ”

  Marybeth looked at the young woman. “Just don’t put it on Facebook. Okay?”

  The girl giggled. “No worries. They kick you off if you post any nudity.”

  Marybeth looked at Sepp and cocked an eyebrow. “Well, that’s reassuring.”

  But as concerned about her client as she was—both his meticulously constructed brand and his apparently fragile psyche—she could tell that the fans were touched by what had happened and were being protective and gentle around Sepp.

  “You want to put on some clothes?”

  Sepp shook his head and began signing another book. “It’s too hot.”

  “It’s not that hot.”

  Sepp looked at her. “I thought I was taking a pill for, you know, stage fright. Anxiety.”

  Marybeth thought for a moment. “I can cancel the rest of your tour. It’s not a problem.“

  “No. No. I’ll be all right.”

  “Maybe you should see a doctor.“

  “I saw one today. I’m feeling better now.”

  He signed some more books. Marybeth looked over at Kathryn. “You couldn’t do anything?”

  Kathryn held up her hands. “It just happened.”

  Frazier smiled. “This is nothing. You should’ve seen Hunter Thompson when he was here.”

  …

  Harriet had heard the commotion from the back of the crowd and tried to see what was going on. In desperation she stood on a chair and held her smartphone above her head, trying to get a photo. She succeeded. She had a very clear shot of the author known as Sepp Gregory standing next to the podium, a large erection jutting up into the air. It wasn’t something she’d ever seen at a reading before and, if she was being totally honest, it wasn’t something she’d seen anywhere in a long time. She wasn’t sure what she could do with the picture. She didn’t want to make her blog NSFW, but then it was too good a shot not to use. She was zooming in on Sepp’s erection when a woman behind her said, “Wow. Good one. Will you email that to me?”

  The crowd’s reaction was strange. It unnerved Harriet. For a while it looked like the signing was going to be canceled, but no one wanted to leave. Normally Harriet would’ve mocked Sepp’s incoherent presentation—it really sounded like he was having a nervous breakdown—and snarked about it online. With the photographic evidence she could’ve sold the piece to Gawker or Vulture or TMZ. So she was somewhat taken aback by the reaction of the crowd. They weren’t angry or annoyed, they were actually worried about this charlatan’s well-being. Harriet shook her head in amazement. People are so fucking stupid. And yet, she couldn’t deny that there was a sweetness about Sepp that was compelling. Unless that was fake, too.

  …

  Sepp appreciated having a team of handlers to help him deal with his fans. He wasn’t himself lately, not the self that was the winner of Sex Crib, not the person that these people had come to see, so it was important to have Marybeth, and the media escort, and a dude like Frazier there to back him up. Even the hot bookstore nerd who introduced him was on his side—although she did brush her hand against his boner a couple of times when she put the towel on his lap.

  A stocky white guy with a trim mustache and baseball cap ambled up to Sepp. It was almost the end of the line and the guy had waited patiently—humming an almost unrecognizable version of A-Ha’s eighties classic “Take on Me”—for two hours. Sepp smiled. “Sorry it’s taking so long.”

  The guy hoisted a large canvas bag onto the table. “It’s worth it.”

  He pulled a dozen boxes of Girl Scout cookies out of the canvas bag. There were Samoas, Thin Mints, Tagalongs, and Trefoils. Sepp was confused. “Are you selling cookies?”

  The guy chuckled. “No man, remember that episode of Love Express where you took that smokin’ hot Mexican chick to the cookie factory in San Antonio?”

  Sepp nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Remember how you an’ her made out on a bed made out of gingersnaps?”

  Sepp winced at the memory. That had been one of the producer’s brainstorms and he and the young woman had spent the night in the Emergency Room getting cookie shrapnel picked out of their skin. They didn’t show that part on TV.

  “Don’t try it at home, bro. That’s my advice.”

  The guy slid the cookies in front of Sepp and, for a brief strange second, Sepp thought he was going to be asked to roll around in cookies with a stocky guy in a baseball cap.

  “Would you mind signing these?”

  “The cookies?”

  “Pretty cool, huh?”

  …

  Harriet had waited at the end of the line, behind the guy with the Girl Scout cookies, and now had the A-Ha song stuck in her head. She thought about the guy she’d just met, the fan of her blog who read Steve Erickson, and regretted not getting his number or asking him to meet for a drink while she was in town. But it wasn’t a total failure; she’d told him to friend her on Facebook. Maybe he would.

  She watched as Sepp shook hands with the eighties-rock cookie fetishist and then turned toward her. If he recognized her, he didn’t show it.

  “Hey. Good turnout.”

  Sepp nodded. “LA’s great.”

  “So are you ready?”

  He looked at her blankly.

  “I’m here to interview you.”

  It was a gamble on her part. She hadn’t made plans or cleared it with his publicist. But if the publicist knew it was her, after that late-night phone call, they’d never allow it. Harriet was pretty sure that Sepp wasn’t the kind of author who checked his schedule that closely.

  “It won’t take long. I promise.”

  Harriet thought she detected a flash of disappointment in Sepp’s eyes. “I’m supposed to go to this party.”

  “I can drop you there after we talk.”

  Sepp hedged. “Yeah, but I don’t want to be out late.”

  Frazier interrupted them. “I got you something.” He handed Sepp a book. It was a copy of Being and Time by Martin Heidegger. “It’s about reality. It might help you sort things out.”

  “Cool. Thanks.”

  Harriet cleared her throat. Sepp turned back toward her. “Hey, why don’t you just come to the party? You can interview me there. ”

  21

  Beverly Hills

  Sepp liked the critic. She was kind of bossy, but he thought it showed she was spunky and he’d always liked what his dad called “feisty” women. It reminded him of some of the contestants on Sex Crib, the women who were there to have fun, who were up for anything. Chicks with game rule, bro.

  Sepp couldn’t help it, he started thinking about Roxy, comparing the critic to her. Is that why he was having a problem with women? He compared them all to Roxy? Roxy was a force of nature, a juggernaut with implants and a smile that launched a million boners. Add in her ruthless strategic genius, her mastery of mind games, and you’ve got all the essential qualities of a reality TV superstar. Most girls didn’t stand a chance, but maybe a super-smart nerd could give Roxy a run for her money.

  Marybeth drove, pointing out streets where famous actors and directors lived. Sepp heard Harriet clear her throat. “You want to do the interview now?”

  Sepp turned and looked into the backseat. “Why not?”

  He watched her click on a small digital recorder and then she began. “What happened back there at the bookstore?”

  A sheepish smile flashed across Sepp’s face and he blushed. “I took the wrong pill.”

  Marybeth interjected. “He had a bad reaction to some prescription medication his doctor gave him. But we really d
on’t want to talk about it. His medical history is off limits.”

  Sepp looked at her. “It is?”

  Marybeth turned and looked at him. “It is now.”

  Harriet remained upbeat. “No worries. I was just curious. It did make it one of the more interesting readings I’ve attended.”

  Marybeth cleared her throat in a threatening way and Harriet changed the subject. “So tell me, just so I can get some background about your process, how long did it take to write the book?”

  Sepp pretended to thoughtfully consider the question by putting his hand on his chin. “About nine or ten months, I guess.”

  “What was your process like?”

  Sepp blinked.

  Marybeth looked at him. “She wants to know how you write. What your day is like.”

  Sepp nodded. He cocked his head to one side and looked out the window. “My process is pretty boring.”

  Harriet encouraged him. She wanted to get him talking. “People are fascinated by how writers come up with ideas.”

  Sepp nodded again. “I have a computer. That’s a big help. And, you know, a lot of my best ideas come from when I’m at the beach.”

  “You get inspired at the beach?”

  “Pretty much. Yeah. I really like the beach.”

  “What inspires you at the beach?”

  Sepp scratched his head. “It’s like, you know, the waves and the sand. That kind of thing.”

  “That pretty much describes a beach.”

  Sepp agreed. “Totally.”

  Harriet smiled. “I’m surprised because most celebrities, you know the really big stars, have professional writers helping them, but you wrote this yourself.”

  “I never said I didn’t have help.”

  Harriet nodded. “You had a ghostwriter?”

  “Well. I’m not the best when it comes to computers.”

  “So your publisher hired the best.”

  Marybeth interrupted. “I think this is getting off topic.”

  Harriet looked at her. “Is it? I was asking about his process. If he had someone help him, then that’s part of his process.”

  Sepp nodded. “Yeah, this dude helped.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  Sepp shook his head. Harriet looked at him, surprised. “You don’t remember his name?”

  Sepp legitimately struggled to recall the name of the dorkatron who’d hung around for a couple days. “I’m pretty bad with names.”

  Before Harriet could say anything else, Marybeth interrupted. “Voilà. The Playboy Mansion.”

  Sepp looked up and saw the mansion.

  “You sure that’s it?”

  Marybeth nodded. “What were you expecting?”

  What he’d been expecting was some kind of magical kingdom with larger-than-life sculptures of naked women lining the drive and neon nudity flashing from every window. In his fantasy, buxom bunnies cavorted on the lawn and the mansion was like the illustration on the original poster for The Little Mermaid where some of the Disney Imagineers discreetly hid veiny erections amongst the gilded towers of Neptune’s undersea palace; instead the Casa de Hef looked a lot like the mansion they’d used for Sex Crib or any of the episodes of The Bachelor and Bachelorette. It looked nice, but not the resplendent pleasuredome of his dreams.

  …

  Phony-breasted Playmates greeted them at the door like short-circuiting animatronic Barbie dolls; their haywire enthusiasm nearly knocked Sepp over. “Sepp Gregory! Oh my God! Let’s see those abs!” The Playmates surrounded Sepp, yanked his shirt over his head, and began running their fingers up and down his washboard torso. A catalog of squeals erupted as they stroked him.

  Harriet’s eyes rolled so violently that she thought they might flip out of her skull and go spinning across the floor. Seeing Playboy Playmates in the flesh was bordering on a surreal experience, like seeing a leprechaun sitting on a pot of gold with a shillelagh in one hand and a Guinness in the other. She liked that word, “shillelagh.” The truncheon or cudgel was named after the Irish town of Shillelagh, which was famous for the hardness of its oak trees. She also liked the words “truncheon” and “cudgel.” “Baton,” “nightstick,” and “billyclub” were pretty good too. Why were all the good words used to describe something that you beat people with?

  “Oh my God! These are, like, totally rock hard!”

  The bunnies kept squealing.

  “Awesome!”

  Harriet couldn’t believe that they looked the way they looked—it was so plastic, their heaving fake breasts holstered in bikini tops, pushing against the fabric that yoked them, like tethered blimps. Marybeth looked at Harriet and, as if reading her mind, said, “I’m going to find the bar.”

  Harriet was no prude and had, in fact, ranted and railed against PC lit crit as often as she could, but she’d also taken enough women’s studies classes in college to know that there was something deeply wrong with these Playmates. Of course, if you thought about it, there was something wrong with calling grown women Playmates in the first place.

  The Playmates surrounded Sepp in a huddle of manicured flesh. Their skin was pool-tanned and glowing, their hair processed and molded, their limbs thin, almost scrawny, the aforementioned breasts, bulbous and aggressive. They weren’t women anymore, not really, they were more like genetically engineered breast displays, every part of their body designed to emphasize the heft and heave of their mammaries, their brains exhibiting all the gravity of meringues. Even their personalities were frothy. They pogo’d with jiggly excitement at the slightest comment from Sepp.

  As more women ran to touch Sepp’s body, Harriet stepped to the side, out of the way. She looked at the other guests. Apparently “Reality Night” at the Playboy Mansion meant that all the women were required to wear bikini tops and all the men were either shirtless hunks like Sepp or middle-aged players who hid their tubby guts under retro bowling shirts. There were a few women not in a state of near nudity, obvious professionals, publicists, agents, and journalists. Women like her. She saw Marybeth standing over a buffet table.

  Harriet walked over and joined her at what turned out to be an improvised sushi bar where two Latino chefs cranked out specialty maki rolls for the occasion. The roll inspired by the hit show Big Island Nudist Camp was sushi rice wrapped around a sliver of cheesecake and a slice of ham, while the Southern Roadkill Diner roll was venison smeared with marshmallow fluff.

  Marybeth turned to Harriet. “Get your interview?”

  “I’m going to wait until they’ve finished adoring his abdomen.”

  Marybeth smiled wryly. “Better get a drink then. You’re in for a long night.”

  Harriet looked at Marybeth. “What about you? Are you just going to hang around?”

  Marybeth shrugged. “It’s my job.”

  Harriet looked at the sushi. It didn’t offer any reassurances. “I think I’ll go exploring.”

  Marybeth stuck a piece of California roll in her mouth and said, “I’ll be outside.”

  …

  Sepp had been wandering through the mansion, looking for Marybeth or the critic. He walked outside and saw some topless women bouncing on a trampoline. He heard splashing in the pool and laughter coming from the famed Playboy Mansion grotto.

  He continued down the path, past the flapping fabric of several tents that had been erected on the lawn, walking toward the pool. He stopped when he heard a voice ask, “Ever do it bunny-style?”

  He turned and saw a woman in the flickering candlelight lying on a round mattress in a little Arabian-fantasy tent just off the path. He moved closer, ducking his head as he entered. He saw a brunette, topless, her long hair framing a face that would’ve looked pretty if it hadn’t been for her strangely oversize front teeth.

  “Can’t say I ever have.”

  “Well, if you were ever considering it, this is the place.”

  She stretched out on the bed, her body sleek and long, more athletic than those of the other women in the house.<
br />
  Sepp sat down, mostly to keep from crouching, and smiled at her. “What’s happening out here?”

  She lifted her long legs up, touching the roof of the tent while simultaneously giving Sepp a very clear look at her magnificently muscled ass. She noticed Sepp’s stare.

  “I played goalie on my college soccer team.”

  Sepp nodded, unsure of the significance of this new information.

  “Cool.”

  “I was waiting for you.”

  “Me?”

  “And here you are.”

  She reached out and stroked his abs. “I’ve wanted to touch your body since I first saw you on TV.”

  “I get that a lot.”

  She sat up, putting her face an inch from Sepp’s.

  “Let me get off on your abs.”

  “What?”

  “Here. I’ll show you what I mean.”

  She pushed him down on the mattress, yanked off her bikini bottoms, and straddled his belly. She leaned over him and he felt her breath, hot and minty, on his face as she whispered in his ear.

  “I won’t scratch you. I just shaved.”

  …

  Harriet felt like a documentarian—Albert Maysles, maybe —roaming the world’s most exclusive frat house. She saw middle-aged men swaggering and strutting, desperate to impress women half their age. The Playboy Mansion encouraged this behavior; it was a safe zone where they could, with apologies to Dylan Thomas, rage against the fading of their erections, and attempt to recapture the vigor of their youthful ejaculations. “Ejaculation.” There was a good word. It was from the Latin eiaculari, meaning to “throw out or shoot out,” and based on iaculum, the Roman word for “javelin.” Harriet was certain there was some ejaculation going on in the mansion.

  …

  Curtis had looked everywhere for Roxy, searching the mansion, opening doors, sticking his head in where he’d really rather not. He’d found people doing dark and sticky business in every crevice, crack, and crawlspace of the mansion. He’d seen middle-aged, pot-bellied barons-of-some-kind-of-industry wielding their pharmaceutically afflicted hard-ons, their chemical boners, at fake blondes with overinflated tits; it was all like some exaggerated caricature, science gone off the rails, Norman Rockwell’s domestic heterosexuality redrawn by Tom of Finland.