He was absolutely beautiful. She wanted him. Surprising herself so much she nearly swooned, Hope said, “Hi.”
He stopped. “Hi, yourself. My name’s Rusty. What’s yours?”
“Hope.”
“And what can I hope for, Hope?”
In an even more spectacular surprise that made her head spin, she said. “Why don’t you come upstairs and find out?”
Rusty was wonderful. And though she was not up to his usual standards, he felt the same way about her.
HOPE shanghaied Jess to be her assistant and hired Rusty as the office gofer. After the first day, during which he cracked her up with silly jokes, she decided he had served a long enough apprenticeship and promoted him to chief writer.
A year of madness followed. The Sexploits ratings went through the stratosphere.
Each day Hope’s port-wine stain faded to almost a memory. She lost weight, and her complexion turned peaches and cream.
Until one day she realized that she was prettier than Jess.
HOPE turned out to be a born producer, learning every aspect of the job quickly and efficiently. She never seemed to falter or grow weary, and she continued to find new and interesting people with alluring stories about their sex lives that the audience never tired of hearing.
Next, Hope came up with the idea of Celebrity Sexploits. The celebrities were eager to appear and tell all, admitting to outrageous events. Some actionable. One was even questioned by the DA’s office after the show.
Of course, Hope happened to have a camera crew there to capture the arrest. Pop musicians were a glut on the market, and there was no shortage of exhibitionist actors or athletes.
Politicians clamored to be guests on the show after reports came in from pollsters that a Sexploits appearance would enhance their numbers and help them get elected.
Impatient with her talent coordinator, Hope took over the final interview of each guest before Vic met them. And, Rusty supposed, had sex with as many as she could. Male and female.
It wasn’t long before they were making the big move. Full network and live. The only talk show of its sort. The gimmick had worked: Sexploits-or as some people were sarcastically calling it-“Safe Sex”-was a great big monster of a hit.
Vic always claimed credit for the original idea. The man was a walking contradiction; he kept giving Hope more responsibility but at the same time continued to bad-mouth her, saying she was only there to implement his concepts, just another pushy bitch with no new ideas of her own.
The people at the top paid no attention to Vic’s dissing Hope. They were high on the show and high on her.
This strange phenom called Hope Brady grew more and more beautiful, and more and more powerful.
Things hadn’t been too bad for Rusty, either. He slept in Hope’s bed. And much of the time she was there with him. He was also getting his own action on the side. Sauce for the gander was sauce for the goose. It was a brave new world, and he was all for it.
The dreams were horrible. But his new life was wonderful.
Hell, when he first met Hope, his prospects were lower than a snake’s belly. Now he had a future with Sexploits, the greatest thing on TV since the tube itself. And he was getting sex that was better than his wildest fantasies.
That certainly was worth a few bad dreams.
Rusty shivered and began sweating; he pushed away the thought that nothing was worth those damn dreams.
Sexploits had gone through miraculous transitions. It had become the leading prime-time show on U.B.S.
After Lunar Broadcasting acquired U.B.S., the show became the bright star of Lunar-TV.
ONE of the first things Lunar did was rip out two floors of the Superior Broadcasting building and construct a new auditorium to seat five hundred people.
Sports, music, comedy, original movies for television, talk shows, all these and more were to be found on Lunar-TV. Plus, and most important, everybody’s new favorite: Sexploits, live, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
As Sexploits grew bolder in using gutter language and becoming more explicit, religious leaders railed against it. Still, Lunar-TV’s popularity and revenue soared.
Sexploits was described by the religionists as pornographic proselytizing. Nonetheless, in a quick turnabout, their power in the country seemed to be diminishing.
Applications to deal with the matter traveled quickly through the judiciary system to the Supreme Court, but the Court refused to get involved, declaring that the pornography issue was a matter for the lower courts.
Happily for Vic and company, an erstwhile conservative judge came down on the side of free speech. Sexploits had a clear and smooth path, and all systems were go.
The network was shifting to a weekly schedule. Sexploits was going to five nights a week, eight thirty to ten p.m., EST, toe-to-toe with the established networks at the start of the new fall season.
No doubt about it, Lunar-TV was the new network, an integral fact of life of the broadcasting industry, with highly rated programs and phenomenal billings.
Sexploits, their innovative live show, was a vital part of that fact of life. And Vic Lancaster was Sexploits.
HE dreamed he was on that street corner again watching Hope and Vic in the bloody scene in the mirror. He heard the chanting voices. “Hecate, Goddess of Darkness. Hecate, Goddess of the Moon. Hecate, Goddess of Blood.”
THE bright part of the dull party was spotting Jess. Rusty lit a joint. Marijuana helped his headache lose its shape. After a while it would be just a dull, bearable throb.
“Hi,” he said, aiming a kiss at her cheek. She moved her face around quickly so that their lips touched. He pulled back and up, she followed, and her spiky black hair whisked his chin.
“What am I, poison or something?” she asked.
“Well, you know.”
“When we first met, you came on pretty strong.”
He didn’t know why, but Jess was one line he didn’t want to cross. Or maybe it was Hope he didn’t want to cross. “That was before Hope and I…”
“Before Hope and you what?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t know. It doesn’t stop her. Why should it stop you? She used to think you could get AIDS out of thin air; now she goes after everything that moves.”
He clenched his right fist and relaxed it. What was the use? Jess was right. Except it hurt too much to hear it out loud. “Ease off, will you? I thought we were friends.”
“Okay, friend,” she said without cheer.
He grabbed two cold brews from the tub of ice on the table and quickly took a swig of his.
Challenging him, Jess chugged her beer straight down.
He matched her, ending with a noisy burp.
“Charming,” she said.
He patted his jeans for his cigarettes.
“In your shirt pocket,” Jess said, pointing with the knife she was using to cut cheese.
“Careful with that thing.” He pulled out the pack of Luckies and another prerolled joint. “You’re liable to hurt someone.”
“Not me, Rusty, I’m not the one around here who hurts people.”
He lit up and took a deep drag. He did like Jess. A lot. He moved closer to her. “Don’t get so serious. Life’s too short for that sort of crap.” When he kissed her, she kissed him back.
Hard. Demanding.
And he was afraid.
It was a struggle to admit it to himself, but it was true.
He was afraid of Hope.
“I don’t get it,” Jess said later in Hope’s apartment, which had become command central. “She was changing all along, and I didn’t realize it. Ugly duckling becomes super swan. That pimply faced, flat-chested, fat-assed thing now has skin like silk. She has spectacular tits, and the rest of her is great, too. How did it happen? Is she taking hormones or something?”