The Playboy Party: The Exclusive

May 29, 2020.

Have you ever seen a room full of middle-aged men doing lines of coke off the Playboy Bunnies grinding on their laps? Neither had I, prior to today.

They sit in a row in this dark room, wide eyed, red eyed, the roar of the pop music over the speakers drowning out J’s words as she mutters something under her breath. The two of us hang by the doorway, watching the spectacle unfold like two pedestrians who’ve stumbled across a crime scene.

I watch as one man stuffs a fist full of hundreds down a Bunny’s bra. She shakes her tits in his face, letting him motorboat her for all of ten seconds, before she pulls away. She looks away, disgusted, and I catch her eye for a second. I think of saying something, but she wouldn’t hear me over the thump of the music anyways. Then he paws at her, mewling something, and she turns back to him, stuffing her tits back in his face. She’s his for the evening, like it or not.

I think of Tiffany sitting at home. Something cold grips me inside. I used to find nights like this fun?

J grabs my hand and pulls me into a neighbouring room, where the music isn’t quite as loud, and where the lights are a little brighter. She waves hello at some B-list actors passing a joint, and then turns to me.

“You didn’t bring me to here to look at that, did you?” she says, glancing back at the half-open door, where I can still see Mr. Businessman playing with Ms. Bunny’s tits.

“They put a girl tax. Each guy that comes in needs to bring a girl,” I say.

“Sorry, correction. You didn’t come here to look at that, did you?”

“No,” I admit.

“Good, because I was about to leave if that’s what this night was shaping up to be,” she says. “Prior history notwithstanding.”

I glance at her, trying to figure out what she means by that, but it’s clear that she’s expecting a response from me.

“There’s something that I’ve come here to show you,” I say. “A story that I think will catch your interest, or, if not you, then certainly somebody else at the Times.”

“What, actors and businessmen getting stoned and high and fucked up on crack?” J laughs. “That’s a throwaway line in a puff piece, at best. Everyone knows it happens.”

“I’m talking something more serious,” I say. I glance around, making sure that nobody around us is in earshot. The actors with the joint are huddled around a phone, laughing about something. All clear. “I have it on good word that shady things go down at this party. That there underaged girls are brought around here, that the famous men at this party tend to disappear at various points of the party, that these two groups of people do things best left unsaid…”

J nods slowly.

“This city’s got some dirty secrets,” she says. “Some of our people have tried looking into similar cases before, and it’s always the same story. Promising leads that, when we follow up on them, mysteriously disappear. I suspect that, even if you’re right, we’re not going to get anywhere tonight. And I don’t know if more work is what I need tonight. It’s been a long enough day already.”

She shrugs.

“You sure you don’t want to at least poke around a little, see what we can come up with?” I ask. “Come on, I know you’re not really an investigative journalist, but isn’t this the thrill of the job? A new lead, bringing justice to the world…”

“I do art journalism for a reason,” she says, slowly. “Unless you’re suggesting that this is the one?”

I shoot her a blank look.

“What, to pivot into a new career path?” I ask, confused.

“That’s what you think?” she asks me, tilting her head.

She blinks a couple times at me.

“Yes…?”

I blink back at her. She frowns at me and sighs.

“I’m going to leave now. You have fun at the party. Maybe we’ll talk about this again someday later,” she says.

“You’re leaving already?” I ask, watching as she turns to leave.

“Looks like there’s already a girl making eyes at you,” she scoffs, glancing at the doorway which we came in the room from, and then she leaves from the room’s other door.

I look at the doorway to the coke room, and see the girl that was ‘making eyes at me.’

It’s Ella Sue.

“J didn’t like you?” she says, walking up to me with a concerned look on her face.

Sean follows behind her, a can of beer in hand.

“I think something I said ticked her off,” I say. “But maybe she just wasn’t interested in digging into the matter.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Ella Sue says.

She looks pretty tonight, in a long black dress with her hair all done up. Her words comfort me a little, and I gave her a smile, telling her that I’ll be fine. I’m not going to take J leaving personally.

“We’ve kept an eye out for you,” Sean says. “I got tapped earlier this evening, a big producer told me about a room by the back. Called it ‘the Exclusive,’ said I’d have a good time there. I stopped by the door with Ella Sue, but the bouncer in charge of the door would’t let me bring her in—said guest list was closed… It all smelled very suspicious.”

“That sounds like just the thing I was looking for,” I say, giving Sean a thankful nod. “Where’s the room?”

“Go out to the pool area. If you take the door right behind the grotto, just keep going straight and you’ll find it.”

“I’ll catch you guys in a bit,” I say, heading for the door.

“Stay safe,” Ella Sue says, reaching out and grabbing my hand.

I nod.

Ella Sue releases her hand, a slight look of worry on her face, and then I walk away.

I walk outside to the pool, where most people seem to be bathing in the nude, drinks in hand as they rave to the DJ set up out here. There are two guys double-teaming a girl in the shallow end, a girl giving a jacked dude some head on a lawn chair, one guy boning another in the grotto, and nobody seems to mind or care.

I walk past them and through the door behind the grotto.

The chamber that I find myself in is eerie. Low lights drift along the hollowed out blue of the cracked clay walls, giving the place a subaltern, desolate feel. There are maybe ten chairs facing one another in a circle, a perfectly still supermodel or actress laying down on each. They all turn to stare at me as I enter the chamber. Ten pairs of eyes watch me as I slowly walk across it.

I dimly notice Morgan and Madison Merrygold among the ten here.

I keep myself composed, ignoring them, making my way through the room and opening the thick wooden door at the other end of it.

I open the door and step into the next, and am immediately hit by a wall of sound: loud west coast hip hop that I wonder how the wood door kept from leaking. The door slams shut behind me.

This room is the one that Sean was talking about. It’s a cramped antechamber, feeling awfully snug with just me in here alongside the bouncer, standing in front of a door that is decidedly shut. The room reeks of expensive perfume and the faintest whiff of sex. I try not to wrinkle my nose.

“You can’t get in,” the man says, folding his arms and staring down at me.

“What gives?” I ask. “I want in.”

“Your name wasn’t on the list,” he says. “I don’t know who you are.”

“My friend’s name’s on the list. He’s not coming in. I can take his place, can’t I?”

“No,” the bouncer says. “Your name’s not on the list. That’s that.”

“I can bring him here. He can vouch for me,” I say.

“Doesn’t matter. He can come in. You can’t,” he says.

I give him a look-over. I’d give myself even odds in a fight. But even if I won, then what? The scuffle would be loud, attention would be drawn, and I doubt that I’d get anywhere after that.

I’m going to get Sean to go inside.

It takes me a while to locate Sean—I catch him and Ella Sue making out in the back corners of one of the champagne rooms, for lack of a better term. I had to stumble in on quite a few other lovers in similar dimly lit rooms to track them down, and I’m not in the best of moods.

“You two don’t check your phones, do you?” I ask.

Sean, startled, practically leaps off Ella Sue.

“We were kinda in the middle of something,” Ella Sue says, pouting at me. Then: “Oh! But what did you find out! You’re alright!”

“They wouldn’t let me into ‘The Exclusive’,” I say. “Apparently, the little club lives up to the name. Sean, can you go in and do me a favour? Have your phone on record, try to take pictures if you can… you know the kind of thing I’m looking for. Just… don’t get caught. Be discreet.”

“I um…” he ruffles a hand through his hair and looks at Ella Sue. She nods at him. “Yeah… I’ll do that…”

“You don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to stay long. Just be there long enough so that we can get a sense of what’s really going on in there.”

“Thanks,” he says, sounding awfully relieved at that.

“I wasn’t about to ask you to sleep with a fifteen year old,” I say, as we step out of the room.

Sean barks a laugh out, catching the attention of some drunk guys getting their hands dirty over some Playboy Bunnies at the back of the corridor, and then the two of us fall silent for the rest of the walk over to the Exclusive Room, the weight of what Sean will likely discover hanging heavy over us.

We walk past the grotto and head into the creepy chamber. All the blazing hot women are still lying down in their chairs, watching me and Sean the instant we enter the room. Their eyes track our bodies as we cross the room. I try to ignore their gazes, their silent judgement. I see Sean steadfastly ignoring Morgan’s gaze.

Sean opens up the door to antechamber, and I try to follow him in, only to realise that we can’t both fit in the space. This seems like a deliberate design choice. I’m **** to let the wood door slam shut, separating us.

The moment it does, a figure jumps out of the seat behind me.

“You can’t go in there,” Morgan Merrygold says, her voice sounding raspy.

I give her a curious look.

“Come on, you want to play with us instead,” she says, laying a hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t you?” her twin says, resting her head on my other shoulder.

They smile nice. Softly, of roses and warmth. Not like the stench of sex across the door. I can’t hear if Sean’s gone through already. But I wouldn’t be allowed through there anyways. I’ve already tried.

“I know you left because you thought twice about it,” Morgan says. “You’re better than that.”

“You don’t want a girl,” Madison says quietly.

“You want the real thing,” Morgan breathes into my ear.

I can’t stop the shivers from going up my spine. They know, and they want me.

With the last bit of willpower, I think the matter through.

“Eric’s in there?” I ask.

“He doesn’t know what he’s missing out on,” Morgan says, her fingernails trailing up the fabric of my suit.

“But he’ll find out about this,” I whisper.

“Do you think I care?” Madison says.

“Then let’s find us a room,” I say, putting my arms behind the blonde beauties. “It’s about time the three of us got properly acquainted.”