The problem with being top dog in a pack of hungry wolves is that the other wolves are continuously slathering for your downfall. Ralphie Sullivan knew this better than anyone. But the brash, longhaired reporter never believed it applied to him. In the three years since he had segued from a struggling artist-photographer to the super-duper tabloid-jock extraordinaire, he had proven himself to have the perfectly flawless instincts as of a journalistic scum. Like Wayne Gretsky on the ice, Ralphie wasn't the strongest or the fastest, but he had an indefinable talent for being where the "puck" was. And the skinny Newark kid, who had spent most of his childhood getting beaten up, took great delight in rubbing everyone else's nose in his superior skills.
But now they were going to get him back!
It had been several hours since he had locked Lisa back in her bedroom, several hours since that run-in with her parents. His Nikon D1X was already plugged into his Macintosh desktop, and he simply sat and stared at the digital photographs of Robby and Lisa that he had taken earlier that day. He had instructed his editor to hold the Gazette's cover and center pages the night before because he had something that would "knock his socks off." His deadline was in just a few hours, and he had nothing.
Ralphie hadn't been cautious when he withheld the fact that he was getting an exclusive interview with the seedy couple -- he was being his usual cocky self. He simply wanted to see everyone's faces when he waltzed in with the biggest story of the week -- once again.
But as it turned out, he had nothing. Robby wasn't the first star to fuck him on a promise, but Ralphie had believed the ex-star and, as a result, the photo-jock was left in the lurch.
The pictures that he had, which had been taken in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel that morning, were primarily unusable poses -- "bullshit Eiffel-Tower" shots of Robby and Lisa standing arm-in-arm while smiling for the camera, plus a few of a giddy Lisa strutting around with her hips out in what she thought were a series of sexy moves. The shots of Robby and Lisa kissing were usable in a crunch, but were by no means special. Every local paper that past weekend had shots of them kissing in the hospital parking lot. They, along with every other photo-hack, talk-show host or comedian, all told the same story. Rockman was a pervert, Lisa Docks was ugly, Rockman had no taste. Ralphie's Beverly Hills Hotel pictures were just more of the same, retelling the same old tale. Yesterday's chapter one.
Ralphie prided himself on his reputation of always being one step ahead of the story -- and he thrived on the respect that came with that. He HAD to be the one to move the Robby-Lisa saga to a fresh, new chapter two. The newest national soap opera that he alone would mold and control. So lacking the authorized exclusive interview he had been promised, he would have to somehow change the story to keep it fresh. He had done it before and to staggeringly wondrous results, so by now he expected no less of himself.
The fact that Lisa was a virgin was a great story, Ralphie knew, but only if it were true. Ralphie normally had no reservations about printing global untruths -- but if this one turned out to be a lie, it would appear to the world that Ralphie had gone soft. The last thing he wanted to be known for was the guy who DEFENDED Rockman. Might as well say O.J. didn't do it. It's not what people want to hear, and it makes you look stupid.
Unless you can prove it, in which case everyone else jumps on your bandwagon, and you're a big fucking hero.
But Ralphie couldn't prove it. He had offered all his contacts in the D.A.'s office twice their usual fee, but not one of them could get anywhere near Theresa's files. Even her secretary was an unflappable tight-ass, his contacts had told him. There was simply no way short of gunpoint that they could get to the files that Ralphie so desperately needed.
He knew he had a few decent quotes -- Lisa's "We'll have twenty-five thousand children" and Robby's "I like 'em young." But even Robby's seeming admission of having done it to other teenagers before was little more than a minor spin on what was by now household information.
Rockman was a pervert.
It certainly didn't warrant the cover and the center spread. The fact that Ralphie would be fabricating the details of such a story from sheer cloth made it warrant them even less.
So he clicked through the images on his Mac, meticulously studying each photograph in the desperate hope he could find something telling which he had previously missed. It quickly became apparent that the task was hopeless, and Ralphie gave up.
He chopped up two of lines of cocaine as he decided to give himself thirty more minutes to come up with something dazzling enough to turn the world on its head. If he couldn't do it in that time, he would have to take his best shot with Robby's "I like 'em young" line. He could accompany that true quote with fabricated quotes of the many fictional teens that Robby had been banging since he lost his first Emmy.
It would be a decent, respectable story, maybe even a hair better than what the other rags did -- but he would end up taking a lot of shit from his editor for promoting it as something special. He would never again be able to reserve the cover or center pages on his word alone. His competition at the rival papers would rib him incessantly, while his colleagues at the Gazette would try to muscle him out of the top spot... and would most likely succeed.
He snorted the two lines off the table as he hoped the stuff would help him find an original way to publicly condemn the cokehead TV star. But still he could find nothing. The skinny, longhaired writer-photographer wanted to cry.
He happened to glance back over at his computer monitor. It was sheer dumb luck that one of Lisa's more sexual poses happened to be on the screen at the time. The girl's comical attempt at sensual glamour was a mockery to beautiful women everywhere. The bright red pimples covering her face made Ralphie want to throw up, and he knew he could never concentrate with those bulbous zits staring at him.
"Get a fuckin' dermatologist!" he yelled at the digitized image as he moved back to his desk and electronically removed her blemishes, one by one, until her face was smooth and clear, albeit a little pale for a California girl.
So with just a few key strokes and an easy splash of pink, he fixed that, too. For the first time since he had seen her, Lisa looked healthy -- she would even be attractive if not for that odd bump in the center of her nose. It took him less than a minute to wipe that away, and only a few minutes more to repaint the shadows on her face accordingly.
Each little correction took very little time, but they added up. Ralphie slowly began to forget about his looming deadline as a wave of inspiration overtook him. It was the same kind of creative spark that he used to live for back in his days as a struggling artist.
Lisa had a pretty face, he realized. It was her hair that destroyed the look. Ralphie had a thousand movies and rock videos stored on his many zip disks, so he began to search for the perfect Lisa "do." It should be shoulder length, straight and preferably sandy blonde -- although he could always fix the color later. He didn't want to make Lisa into someone else -- he just wanted her to be the most beautiful she could be.
He began by "cutting & pasting" Christina Aguilera's coif from the "What a Girl Wants" video onto Lisa's head -- and it was a near perfect match right off the bat. It was only a bit too short and the color was slightly off, but it took Ralphie less than a minute to digitally lengthen it and sandy it up.
Her hair seemed completely natural, as if Lisa had simply gone to a good neighborhood stylist for once.
Lisa suddenly had a perfect face. But now the body didn't live up to it.
The pose he was working on had Lisa leaning forward, her lips just slightly pursed, and her open cotton blouse falling several inches off of her chest. Her sternum was revealed. Given her pose, she should have been falling out of her blouse, yet there was nothing to fall. Even a well-developed boy had more contours. It took Ralphie less than five minutes to create the highlights and shadows that changed the girl's bosom from a pathetic training bra to a respectable C cup.
(Originally Ralphie had started with a DD cup size, but it looked crazy and fake. Beyond that, it wasn't very appealing either.)
He knew he had wholly fabricated the girl -- yet for a moment he couldn't stop himself from trying to mentally undress her.
But she was still slightly less than perfect, he realized. So he gave her an ass, narrowed her waist and rounded out her hips just a hair to keep it proportional. Her blouse was somewhat untucked anyway, revealing just a smidgeon of her navel, so he digitally opened it up a tad more and changed her outty to an inny.
Then, as his manic inspiration exploded, he fattened out her lips and added a hint of protruding nipple to her newly formed tight blouse.
By the time Ralphie was done, he was in love. In fact, he couldn't take his eyes off his own digital creation.
But reality set in when he happened to notice the time.
He was furious with himself when he realized that he had spent over forty-five minutes on this artistic nonsense, and he was no closer to a story.
So he resigned himself to the "I like 'em young" angle, and set out to write the fiction of Robby's other young lovers.
But he couldn't concentrate. Lisa's haunting eyes -- the only thing he hadn't changed -- beckoned to him. Her beautiful face and fantastic body demanded him.
Must be responsible, he told himself as he changed the page on his computer screen to an alternate Lisa -- the original ugly one. He looked at this girl with pity, then flipped back to his recreated woman and gazed at her with desire.
And then it hit him! That was the story! It was the media's fault!
The evil press wanted to portray Robby as sinful for seducing a young, homely child, but in reality Lisa wasn't homely at all! The media, Ralphie would say, immoral rogues that they are, only made Lisa APPEAR ugly in order to garner her more pity and thereby exacerbate Robby's sin. These pictures, his pictures, are the real Lisa. The other rags should be ashamed of themselves for manipulating the truth just to sell more papers.
The public hadn't seen Lisa in anything but black & white newsprint or shaky handheld video up till then, so all Ralphie would have to do was dig up some old horrible shots of Julia Roberts or Pam Anderson, doctor them down a bit and show the public how anyone can be made to look bad if that's what an unscrupulous tabloid desires.
The real story was, according to Ralphie, that Lisa Docks was a beautiful teenage siren who, like so many teen sirens before her, threw herself at Robby's feet. An unwanted actor who had been shamefully tossed aside by Hollywood was simply at the mercy of these young hotties.
"I like 'em young," Robby had boasted.
He was not evil. He was weak. Just look how beautiful this "child" is. What man could withstand her advances? Do you honestly think your husband could?
Married women everywhere would hate Lisa for stealing another woman's man -- as they would see it, their man -- and they would keep reading to learn more about her so they could continue to hate her issue after issue. If Ralphie could ever prove that she was still a virgin, (next edition) they would hate the cock-tease even more for her ability to steal their man without even putting out.
On the other hand, single women everywhere would love Lisa for the empowerment she symbolized. If it were to come out that she was a virgin, they would almost canonize her for her ability to get what she wanted without giving anything away.
Hell, even those Christian coalition fucks would come to admire Lisa Docks for her ability to hold steadfast and pure.
And by giving the newly formed goddess a beautiful color centerfold, even men -- who generally aren't as keen on the tabloids as women -- would be buying the rag. The Gazette might even overtake Victoria's Secret as the wife-acceptable form of soft core porn.
"I like 'em young" -- every man would understand it. Every woman would want to read more.
"We're going to have twenty-five thousand babies" was Lisa's headlined quote, and it could only mean, "We're going to fuck our asses off."
Every man will cream! Every woman will buy it!
Ralphie had outdone himself and he knew it. So he called his editor to tell him that he needed an extra hour and the center page had to be color!
"It's that good?" asked the editor, skeptically.
"Better," said Ralphie. "Way fucking better."
But even Ralphie didn't know how much better it was.
By the time Friday's issue would come out, at least one executive at every ad agency on Madison Avenue would realize that Lisa Docks was to be the next big thing. Ralphie's phone would ring off the hook before he'd even be able to finish his morning coffee. He would receive calls from the ad reps of Cover Girl, Clairol, L'Oreal and Lancome -- and they'd all want to know who represented Lisa.
"That would be me, you bastards," he would respond. "I represent her."
It would be the beginning of his career as a supermodel's agent. He would then work his ass off to learn everything about the trade because he was going to ride Lisa Docks all the way to the top.
But for the moment, he just wanted to get his column in on time.
*** Up Next: "Robby And The Japanese Doctor" ***
The main characters in this e-novel are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual individuals, whether living or dead (except for Jeff Abugov who is a real screenwriter, director and producer.) Although certain real people and companies are mentioned in this e-novel, all of the events are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual events.
Copyright © 2015 Tinseltrash, Inc.