Hollywood After Dark Ch. 02

"Do you have any idea why he would be doing it? I mean, I can understand if either one of them just wanted to sleep with you, but sharing you out to other men seems strange,"

"That's what I have spent the past few years trying to figure out. I even raised the question to Hapsboro one time in his office and he was livid. He called me all sorts of horrible names that still make my eyes well up just thinking about. He refused to even think of answering the question and instead just stormed out of his office. I must have seriously angered him because it was only a few weeks later before 'Roswell' was cancelled,"

I felt a slight chill run down my back. "You mean they cancelled your show because you wouldn't fuck other guys?"

"That's the way I took it. I of course can't prove anything, but the other girls on the show had all been handpicked by Willis so I assume that one of them must have said something to them," Katherine said. She hadn't touched her food in quite a while.

"So then with the show cancelled, you aren't in his control anymore right? I mean, you don't owe them anything," I asked.

"It's not that simple Alex," she said, shaking her head. "It's almost like the mob. Once you are in, you can't get out. I've heard talks of girls trying to break away from Willis or other studios who do the same sort of thing, but they all ended up with completely trashed careers. I don't want that, not after having tasted fame, so I stopped trying to buck away from the system,"

I sat there for a moment, dumbfounded, as I soaked in all this information at once. Who would have thought that such a simple question just a few minutes earlier would have led to all this.

"Where do I fit into all of this? Why did you call me an innocent?" I asked, trying to keep Katherine from having to dredge up old feelings and memories.

"When Hapsboro introduced us at the party, I just assumed you were one of the people 'in the know' and that you were just another sort of regular customer, albeit a new one," she said.

"But I wasn't," I replied.

"I didn't know that then, and it wasn't until you just told me how clueless you were that things actually started to sink in. They never would tell me anything about the men I was with, Hapsboro just made sure I always kept them happy. In that way, I guess you were right: I was and still am a sort of Hollywood whore,"

Katherine sighed a bit at this last sentence, as if she had resolved herself to her fate. I tried to cheer her up by offering some alternatives.

"Why don't you just go to the police? I'm sure that they could arrest him for doing such a horrible thing," I said.

She laughed for the first time in our conversation, although it wasn't a very pleasant laugh. More of a biting, sarcastic giggle.

"You're joking right? Go to the LAPD, the most corrupt police force in the country, and tell them that Hollywood isn't treating it's actresses fairly? I'd be laughed out of the station,"

"Well, you've got to do SOMETHING!" I said, a little miffed that she had laughed at my honest suggestion.

"I know that. But right now, the timing is just not right. I'm not high enough in the girl rankings to do anything worthwhile against them,"

"Girl rankings?" I asked, surprised even more by this new twist in the story.

Katherine shot me a wry look. "What, you didn't think that I was the only girl in Hollywood they were doing this to, did you?"

"Well...I..."

"The 'girl ranking' is just a sort of term I use to describe the hierarchy of other women under Willis' wing. I don't know who they are or how many of them he has actually asserted some control over, but I have heard rumors that there is a way to tell who they are. There is supposedly a symbol or piercing or mark or something on them somewhere on their body that indicates, like a gang, that they are deeply entrenched in this. I haven't actually seen these anywhere, but I get the feeling that the longer I stay and do this for Willis, the closer I come to finding out,"

"Katherine, you realize that this all sounds like some great big conspiracy theory, right?"

"I know, but I swear to you that it's true Alex. Look, for right now, this stays between you and me. No one else. I don't want to put you or myself in danger if they find out that you know the other side of the system,"

"The other side meaning where the women come from,"

"Exactly. So stay quiet about all this, please. I can't stress that enough. And if you want proof about all this, come with me tonight. I'm supposed to put a show on at the Starry Dreams Club tonight with some other girls and if you don't believe all this is actually happening then you need to come watch for yourself. It will convince you real quick," Katherine said.

She glanced down at her watch a little nervously. "Shit, I need to go. I have to go buy an outfit for this thing tonight,"

Reaching into her purse to pull out a pen, she scribbled down an address on a napkin and handed it to me.

"Here. Get there about 8:00 and go inside. Wait in one of the bathroom stalls until 9:00, as they are shutting the club down for us, since it's a private party. It's just a normal strip club during the day but when Hapsboro or Willis or someone else wants to throw a private "show" then they always rent this place out. If you hide in the bathroom, you should manage to stay out of the way of the bouncers when they clear out all the normal customers," Katherine said, standing up to go.

"We should come on stage about 9:30, so make sure you are somewhere that you can see what's happening but also where you won't get caught by the bouncer or any of Willis' people," she said, turning to go.

I grabbed her arm for a second, one lingering question still rattling around in my mind.

"Katherine, wait," I said, turning her towards me.

She looked down at me in the seat and then glanced around the room as if to make sure no one else saw her talking to me.

"What?"

"Just one more thing. Why do you or any of the other girls do it to begin with?" I said.

Katherine thought for a moment, then just shrugged her shoulders.

"He offers us something that we want," she said. I let her arm go from my grasp and watched her as she walked out the door, the bell above her head jingling on the way out.

I sat in my booth for what must have been a long time, as the manager of the place, a large man with a massive belly and grease on his shirt, came over to me and told me I had to leave since I was taking up a booth and there were customers waiting. I nodded my head and left a tip before stepping outside into the late afternoon sun. The events of the morning seemed so far away now, and strangely tainted by the conversation between Katherine and I. Walking back to the studio lot, I suddenly remembered that Petty was supposed to meet me for lunch! Shit, how could I have forgotten something like that!

Dashing into the A8 office, I raced down the hall to my office and flung the door open, expecting to see Petty sitting there on the couch with that angry but still cute look on her face. But the room was empty and quiet. She must have came and went, and was probably at home right now fuming that I had stood her up. I closed the door slowly and walked back down the hall towards the casting lot.

Passing the secretaries desk, she stopped me for a moment. "Here Mr. Hilt, a message for you,"

I took it from her and scanned it quickly.

'Alex - Sorry we missed lunch, but it was my fault for getting here late. I've got some big news though, and I can't wait to see you tonight. Love, Petty'

I folded the note up and stuck it in my pocket, wondering what her news was that could even possibly hope to top my conversation with Katherine. The big question now was whether or not to tell Petty, or just let it ride for a while until I found out more information. It would probably be best to keep my mouth shut until I was completely convinced that Katherine was telling the truth. I couldn't stop thinking about what Katherine said, and must have zoned out again as I walked onto the casting lot, startling the actors who were reading lines by the blue screen.

The entire room turned to look at me as I walked over to the table where Shuman and Furrow were sitting, as if they hadn't moved an inch from when I last saw them. I took a seat next to them and apologized for interrupting.

"You know Hilt, a lunch break usually only lasts an hour," Furrow whispered to me, a bit of malice in his voice.

"How long was I gone?"

"Three hours," Shuman replied.

"Shit, sorry. I...I wasn't feeling too good, I had a late night last night and I guess my mind is on other things," I said. "Maybe I should just call it a day and leave the rest of the casting up to you two,"

They both looked at each other for a moment and then Furrow nodded.

"Yeah, maybe that's best. Unless you plan on making out with any of the male actors," he said. Shuman snickered a bit at this joke.

"No, that wasn't my intention. And this morning I hadn't planned on doing anything with the actresses but," I said, but Furrow interrupted me.

"It was a joke Hilt. Go home and feel better and we can deal with this some other time. Leave the casting to the professionals,"

I was a bit offended at this comment but I let it slide as I stood up to go. Neither of them offered me so much as a goodbye as I left the room and stepped back out into the office, the sound of the currently auditioning actor butchering one of the lines of my script.

Getting into my car, I sat there for a few minutes, holding the address Katherine had written down out in front of me on the steering wheel, debating on what to do. She had told me to get there at 8:00, but I still had two hours to go till that time. I didn't want to go home and have to dump all of this on Petty and then leave again, so I was torn about what to do. Sitting there for a while, I dissected everything Katherine had said to me: Was she telling the truth? Was Hollywood as deeply entrenched in sexual exploits as she had hinted? If so, why hadn't any of this ever become public knowledge? Surely the odds of all those people she implied being involved actually keeping a secret like that for so long would have meant that someone would have spoken up before then. Unless of course there was more to it, more that she wasn't telling me or more that she didn't know.

Starting up my car, I pulled out of the lot and got onto the freeway, driving to no place in particular. My stomach growled and I stopped at a Jack in the Box to scarf down a couple of burgers before heading back out towards Hollywood Boulevard. Traffic was heavy, the rush hour crowd slowing things down considerably as I sat in my car in silence, lost in my own mental tangents about what might lay in store for me at the strip club that night. The sun began to go down over the horizon when I finally managed to break out of traffic and went looking for the Starry Dreams club, the streetlights coming on one by one as the pedestrians out walking and the tourists taking in the sights began to thin out.

The club was on a side street off of Vine road, one of the main drags of the city. Once you got away from the glimmer and flashiness of the usual tourist traps, Los Angeles resembled any other big city in the country: homeless people huddled in doorways, gaudy looking older women strutting their sun wrinkled bodies down the road as they shopped at the latest trendy stores, and the regular influx of hardened city dwellers going about their business, an especially harsh breed coming out at night.

The purple sign of the club, which featured a constellation of stars made out to look like a nude woman, gleamed brightly above the parking lot of the building, the place itself not much more than a hole in the wall type of club, a few cars in the lot but for the most part deserted looking. Pulling in, I locked my car (and locked it twice, just to make sure) and then removed my tie and coat as I waited for a few minutes before going in. It was ten till 8:00 and if what Katherine had said was true then things would get started any time now.

Opening my car door, I fixed my hair and tried to look as neatly dressed as possible, despite my inner nervousness at going inside. I had been to plenty of strip clubs in my earlier years but the idea that I was going to be privy to something that was a closely guarded secret tonight just by being inside this one made my heart beat faster in my chest. Approaching the door, I saw a large black man, a little bit bigger than my own bulky frame, standing by the door with his arms crossed. He wore all black and looked like a granite statue standing there, the light of the sign above reflecting off of his bald head. I saw his eyes scan me over as I walked towards him.

For a moment I thought he was going to say something to me, but instead he simply stepped out of the way and let me walk in to the door, the cracked red paint on it peeling in about a dozen places. Stepping inside, the room was darkly lit and had a very heavy odor of old cigarette smoke and spilled alcohol that hit my nostrils in force. The music blaring further inside was some rap song I had heard a few years ago and I could just barely make out the naked flesh of a woman spinning around on a pole, her long brown hair twirling like a sheet behind her.

To my right I saw a grizzled looking old man, a tattoo of a bulldog on his shoulder and an eye patch over his left eye sitting behind a counter. Beneath him were what you would expect to find at a club like this: dirty magazines, boxes of cigarettes and a few boxes of condoms that looked like they hadn't moved since the 1970s. The man sucked on a cigarette that dangled from his mouth limply as he leaned across the counter to speak to me.

"Cover's $15 big man," he said.

I reached into my pocket and gave him a $20 bill. He handed me a five in return.

"You need any change? Any $1 bills?" he asked.

"No, thanks. But I'll come talk to you if I do," I said, walking past him.

The place had a few other patrons seated up as close as possible to the stage. A short girl wearing nothing but a green g-string danced and slid up and down on the pole beside her, rubbing her breasts between the metal rod. A group of Hispanic men were huddled closely together, making change with one another while the girl danced. One of the men, a very short guy, leaned forward onto the stage, his arms crossed in front of him as he held out a wad of dollar bills in front of his face. The girl spotted him and smiled, slinking her way over to the group of men, who uttered something excitedly in Spanish.

I took a seat a few chairs back from the stage, behind a lonely looking middle-aged business man who, from the five or six bottles in front of him on the table, looked to be quite drunk. His gaze was transfixed on the woman, her supple ass bouncing and gyrating in front of the Hispanic men, the g-string clearly defining the crack of her ass and ending at the mound of her womanhood.

I sat and watched the show as the song ended and the brunette sauntered away from the men, who looked crestfallen at seeing her leave. Another song came on promptly however and the men's mood quickly changed as the hooted and hollered while a busty blond took to the pole, the straps of her flimsy dress already starting to slide down her shoulders.

Taking in the scene, I started to find it a bit depressing to watch. I wondered what the stories were for all of the participants in this club. Why the old man was missing an eye. Why the middle-aged man was sitting there looking so sodden. What had happened to the strippers themselves, in their lives, to make them end up here, revealing their bodies to whomever was willing to pay $15 and would tip them. It was a little sad to think about the state of the human condition like that, but then again the world was tough and I wondered if I would have resorted to such extreme ways eventually if my script hadn't been picked up.

My thoughts on this were short lived however as I saw out of the corner of my eye the old man saying something to the bouncer. The black man was nodding his head and looking around the club, inspecting the other men who were occupied watching the stripper. Glancing at my watch, I noticed that it was 20 till 9:00, and they must have been about to start kicking people out. Katherine had been right, at least on that part.

Standing up slowly, I backed into a bit of shadow near the bar of the club, which was thankfully unmanned, as I slid into the men's room. The place was a shit hole, the floors covered in God knows what, the place probably not cleaned in years, and the smell of urine strong enough to make you gag. Making my way towards the stalls of the poorly lit room, I stepped into the farthest of the three and climbed onto the toilet, steadying myself by holding onto the plastic walls around me.

The crouch wasn't comfortable in the slightest, but hopefully it would work in allowing me to stay on in the club. I adjusted my legs and tried to stay as still as possible, listening to the soft thud of the bass from the rap music outside the bathroom. Five minutes or so passed and I started to feel silly about the whole thing, another five minutes away from simply climbing down and going back out into the club like a normal person. Then, the music outside stopped. I heard voices talking, although I couldn't make out what they were saying. One was gruff and loud, while the others all seemed to come at once, their own voices raised in tempo. Must be the Hispanic guys arguing with the bouncer.

The argument continued for a minute or two and then the voices faded away from the bathroom. The place was strangely quiet then, not a sound to be heard anywhere except for the occasional drip from one of the sink faucets. Looking at my watch, it was 8:53 and that meant that in just a few more minutes the private guests would start to arrive. I became more comfortable then, knowing that I was almost home free. That is, until the bathroom door opened.

My heart leapt into my throat and I could feel the blood pounding in my head as I heard heavy footsteps on the tile floor. They walked into the bathroom and then seemed to stop by the urinal. I didn't dare look under the stall to see who it was, as doing so would most certainly give away my hiding spot. The feet moved again and then I heard a loud grunt/sigh come from whoever the feet belonged to. A moment later I heard the trickle of water hitting the back of a urinal and I finally breathed out slowly, though I still didn't dare move.

A minute or so later, I heard a zipper being drawn up and the weak flushing of the urinal as the feet stepped away towards the door. I heard the door creak open and the footfalls disappear outside, the flimsy door slamming shut behind them. It was now 9:01 and the party should be starting any time now, but I didn't want to risk things until I was sure that it was clear to go outside. My legs had started to ache from the sitting position and my knees felt wobbly as I balanced there, still gripping onto the walls tightly. I tried to think of other things to take my mind off of it, and managed to succeed at this for a few more minutes as voices outside thankfully began to be heard.

Stepping down off the toilet, I straightened myself out and regained my balance, my knees finally stopping from shaking, as the voices outside grew in number and the music kicked on. Looking at my watch one last time, it was 9:08 and the promised private party had officially begun. Taking a deep breath, I walked out of the stall and pushed the door open back out into the club, still careful to avoid being seen. Clinging to the shadow between the men's and women's bathroom doors, I moved slowly back into the main viewing area of the club.