Alexandra's Cameraman

Alexandra Benning checked her makeup for what felt like the hundredth time. It was a nervous tick. A way for her mind to fortify itself from the self doubt and unease that that came with an upcoming live broadcast.

"You look great!" Robbie assured her.

Alexandra smiled warmly at her cameraman. His thoughtful assurance pushing away all doubt she looked anything less then superb. "Well at least I have that going for me. Now I just have to worry about fumbling my words."

"Relax your going to do fine. All you have to do is get out of the van tell the audience how hot and wet you are and we can call it a day."

Alexandra smiled at Robbie's description of the weather. A hot humid day was right. Today's weather hardly called for an onsite broadcast, but that call had come straight from the top floor. The Big Shots upstairs wanted their new meteorologist out in the field reporting on this morning floods. Even through that wasn't technically what a meteorologist did.

"Ha. When you say it like that it sounds down right perverted." Alexandra commented.

"Perverted is my middle name."

Alexandra cringle her nose up in disgust. "If that was my middle name I'd never tell anyone. Why didn't you have it changed?"

"Huh..." Robbie stammered. Taken back by Alexandra's apparent seriousness.

"Your middle name. Why didn't you have it changed to something more... sociable?"

"My middle name's not..." Robbie cut himself off at the last moment. Suddenly struck by the realization that the normally humorous Alexandra was only teasing him.

"Well you know Robbie Perverted makes a great porn star name. Its hard to pay the bills on a cameraman's meager salary."

Alexandra looked even more scandalized then before. "Does management know? I can't believe they let you say on board with such a side job."

"Ha. The bigwigs are totally cool with it. They even suggested I recruit you as a co-star."

"Those pompous, sexist, bastards!" Alexandra was so angry her temperature jumped ten degrees. Her cheeks flushing with righteous rage.

"Well... uh... lets drop this for now." Robbie stammered eager to avoid placing himself in Alexandra's crosshairs. One word from the networks newest star and a lowly cameraman like him would be looking through the want ads.

"Yes your right. I need to concentrate on the broadcast. Then I can rip Wallace a new asshole." Alexandra agreed. Her voice calmer, but her cheeks still glowed with anger.

Robbie breathed a silent sign of relieve. Alexandra having clearly set her crosshairs on the Channel 5 New Director. Still he found it odd that Alexandra didn't seem capable of differentiating clearly fictional statements from non-fictional ones.

Taking several deep breaths Alexandra recomposed herself. The realization that her cameraman was a porn star had been mildly shocking. His confession that her superiors wanted her to 'perform' with him had been down right upsetting. But she was a professional with a job to do.

Checking herself in the mirror one last time Alexandra said. "Well at least it's not storming out."

"Yeah." a distracted Robbie agreed. His mind a whirl with a single unanswered question. 'Just how gullible was Alexandra?'