Chapter 5

“Corinne DeLoie should be in jail! Did you read about the injuries Conrad Brauer suffered when she beat the crap out of him?” The man was outraged.

“Yes. Just who the hell does she think she is?” The second man was just as angry. And since they had their own talk-show, they could say whatever they wanted. It’s a free country, after all.

“She thinks she’s an important person. So what? I’m more important than she is!”

“Yeah, in your own little mind, you pathetic little worm!” Corinne scoffed at the screen. She knew inside she shouldn’t be watching anything about herself, especially this particular show which pandered to the Hollywood Elites and Royalty, but she couldn’t help it. She had to keep track of public opinion, and do what she needed to shape the story as quickly as possible in a situation like this.

The courts had not been kind to Brauer, she reflected. Neither had jail. He was considered a flight risk of the first order, so the judge had ordered him held over without bail pending trial, over the objections of his offensively expensive legal team. Which had exposed the person she’d pounded (so satisfactorily, she thought to herself – even her Taekwondo instructor had been adamant that she’d done the right thing, for the right reasons, but he was less than happy with her for what she’d said to inflame the producer – he thought she should have de-escalated the situation, instead of goading him on) to the predations of an inmate in jail that had a younger sister who had been beaten up by a college professor, and who was a diehard fan of the original book author who wrote ‘Long Way Home.’ He hadn’t done much to Brauer before the guards had pulled him off of the producer, but Conrad had been left a sobbing broken wreck.

“I mean, does anyone think the world is a better place with Corinne DeLoie in it?”

“It would be if she would just do what the director tells her to do. I mean, seriously, what’s so big of a deal about taking her clothes off and having a little fun on screen? Corinne, if you’re watching, you need to stop thinking you are so important and just do the nasty on screen. There are a hundred thousand young women in this country that would dearly love to be where you are, who are more talented and better looking than you are. Your problem is, you think you are more important than everyone else. You’re not. You could be replaced tomorrow, and in a week, no one would ever remember your name or what you looked like.”

Mattson looked over at Corinne in the next media chair over from him in her theater room. He was worried about what the idiot on the show was saying, but the look on her face made him pause. She was unreadable, which meant she was lost in thought. Then she muted the volume from the show and picked up her smartphone and called someone.

“Hey Yola, Corinne. Got a question for you. What is the general sentiment right now about the fight, what led up to it, and me and Conrad?” She must have set it to speaker, because the voice on the other end came through clearly.

“Women and girls aged fourteen to forty-nine seem to adore you, but there is a nasty undercurrent going on out there across the entire male demographic. The effect your pounding on Brauer has had is markedly different and clearly divided down gender lines. Females love what you did to a clearly misogynistic piece of trash, but a percentage of males seem to feel threatened by your ability to defend yourself and inflict punishment on someone that was in a position of authority above you.

“On the nudity and sex, women seem to be divided – half seem to appreciate that you don’t take your clothes off, and the other half don’t see what the big deal is about you stripping down. Men polled seem to be pretty aligned against you, since everyone else gets naked on screen and the prevailing belief in Hollywood and the rest of the explored galaxy are convinced that you get more action than a brothel girl.”

“Fuck.” Corinne seemed to be at a loss for words at the last section. “Why do people care if I don’t get naked on screen, and whose fucking business is it who the hell I am or am not sleeping with? Goddamn moral police assholes.”

“We talked about this a few years ago when you turned eighteen, and I think this is a result of the decision to not refute any statements about your supposed relationships with, well, anyone.”

“I ... yeah, I can see that. It is a no-win situation, right? I tell people I’m not sleeping with someone, and they don’t believe me. I don’t say anything, and they think that is tacit acknowledgment that I am anyways. God, that’s fucked up. So, since nothing I can do will convince people otherwise, I chose to keep my trap shut.”

“If I recall, no one, especially you, thought there was any clear, easy path through that.”

“You’re right, Yola. And I remember that you argued both sides at one point, trying to build out the discussion to see what came up.” There was a pause as Corinne focused on the huge ten foot screen in front of her being lit up by a very expensive 4K projector. The same stupid talk show was now showing some of the hundreds of pictures the paparazzi had taken of her in the company of numerous young male Hollywood actors over the years. On the side was a two-column table in a graphic overlay that showed ‘Slept with’ on top, with one column for ‘yes’ and another for ‘no’. The hash marks on the ‘yes’ side far outnumbered the three hash marks on the ‘no’ side.

“What a bunch of morons. Hey, Yola, connect me to the Abel and Cain show, would you? I know it’s live. Can you have someone get me on there by phone in the next few seconds? And when you get the producer online, tell them that if they cut away to commercial or edit out anything I say, I will file for defamation within twenty four hours. I am recording their show right now.”

“Corinne, that is a really, really bad idea. What are you going to say that won’t make everything worse? Those guys are grade-A douchebags. Nothing in this is going to come out in your favor.”

“Just do it, please. This won’t take a minute. The message isn’t for them, anyways. It’s for their viewers.”

“Fuck. Okay, wait one.” Hold music came over the speaker.

“Cory, this is a really bad idea. Nothing you will say will change anyone’s mind. You know that. What are you going to accomplish with this?”

“That’s the point, isn’t it, Mattson? That is pointless.”

Mattson was about to speak, when the music ended and Yolanda, Corinne’s publicist, came back online.

“You will be live in about twenty seconds. Anything I can do to talk you out of this?”

“Nope.” The clock counted down, and...

“I’m being told the Hollywood Harlot herself is on the line. Corinne, is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me, Abel. This is Corinne DeLoie.”

“How do we know this is really you, and not some fraudster looking for their fifteen seconds of fame? Hell, how do we know that you, if you are DeLoie, aren’t looking to get your own additional fifteen seconds? I mean, your time is running out, right?”

“If you had integrity and were honest, you’d admin it was me, Cain. We met, even though I don’t expect you to remember.”

“Yes, we have met. And yes, I do remember you. So, what can we do for you?”

“Nothing.”

“Wait, what? Nothing? Why did you call in then? Don’t you want a chance to confirm or deny common knowledge about you?”

“About who I am or am not sleeping with? Who are you sleeping with, Abel? I mean, I thought I heard somewhere that your latest fling has horns and a beard, but that might just be a ba-a-a-a-ad rumor started by someone who doesn’t really know anything about you, right? It couldn’t possibly be true. I mean, how likely is it that you are getting it on with a goat? Not likely at all, if you ask me. Nope, I just can’t see that happening. No way. You have way too much to lose by doing that.”

Abel flushed. “There is no way I am having sex with a goat! That is not possible!”

“Yeah, what the hell is wrong with you, DeLoie, accusing my partner of having sex with an animal?”

“I didn’t accuse you of doing anything. I just mentioned that there is a rumor about it, but that I don’t believe it for one instant that it was true. Still, I bet it makes front page news tomorrow over the entire world, right? Of course, no one will ever come out and say they believe it.”

Corinne paused, as she held up a finger and glared at Mattson next to her, who had both hands clamped over his mouth to try to keep from laughing as tears coursed down his cheeks. He turned his head away and buried his face into a throw pillow, but was unwilling to leave the room. He desperately wanted to hear what was being said, and wouldn’t leave the room even if the ceiling was falling in.

“Let me ask you something, Abel. Do you think what I did just now was fair? Was it right?”

“No effing way! God, I can’t believe you did that to me, on my own talk show!”

“Here’s the thing, though, Abel. I have never come out and said one way or another if I am or am not sleeping with anyone. It’s no one’s business but my own. And yet, that has never stopped people in the media from doing exactly what I just did to you. The harsh lesson in all of this is that I will come out right now and say I completely made up the idea of you and a goat. It was entirely false. And yet, people will believe it is possible, and it will follow you around for the rest of your career. Just like me saying that what I am about to say about Cain is totally false as well: Cain is not, in any way, shape or form, having sex with corpses down at the UCLA medical center morgue. Cain is not taking advantage of the fact that his wife is a professor in the UCLA medical school to, every now and then, head out to the freezer and ‘pop a cold one.’”