Chapter 106

Tate Benedict was correct: Meredith Anderson, aka Shawna Young, was no dummy. She wasn't the best student in her high school class but she was close. Just as she was not the best athlete in her school but she was near the top.

She agreed with Tate that a group of starlets had little reason to offer to spend time with her. They had been very polite and, if she were honest with herself, they were nothing like she expected them to be. One by one, Meredith was introduced to the rest of the group. She was surprised to find out that almost half of the large group weren't performers at all, but simply friends who came to meet with Ben and to offer support to Rita, who she found was actually named Rebecca.

"It is later than what we expected, but we'll probably all go hang out at the apartment complex where most of this group lives," Rebecca said. "You're welcome to join us. Look, I know this is awkward and it wasn't supposed to be this way. But, well, what we found when we looked at the problem was nothing compared to what it meant to Tate and Ben. These girls were exploited, pure and simple."

"Did they really expect different?" Meredith asked. "I mean, we all know coming in that women in this industry are sometimes treated like crap."

"True," Leslie answered. "But this is worse than having a jerk call you a 'fuck pig.' These assholes have taken what little control they had over their lives."

Meredith nodded. For perhaps the first time, she understood.

"I get it," she said. "The women here have so little control over what they do that something like this is magnified. Look, I sifted through the database. I know suicides and overdoses are rampant. I've read biographies and I've even chatted online with performers. It's too simplistic to say that this Rabbit Hole is solely responsible for the deaths. It helped it along; I don't discount that. But this is a lonely business. That's one thing that every female I chatted with made clear. It is a business where everywhere you look is someone ready to take advantage of you. It's a business where you have no friends. You often don't have family support either. I think someone should really do a thorough forensic autopsy of these performers before you immediately jump to the conclusion that they died because of where they worked."

Leslie and Rebecca exchanged glances then turned to yell for Adam. Adam walked over, his face neutral. He could tell the new girl felt uncomfortable around him, so he stopped as far from her as he could and still hold a conversation.

"Meredith has a good idea," Leslie said, repeating what the girl had just mentioned. She turned to Meredith to see if she had anything else to add.

Adam considered the idea and realized it was a valid one.

"It falls right in with what we've discussed, Leslie," Adam said.

"That's the other thing this group provides," Rebecca said. "I've been isolated in Las Vegas for my whole life. Cassie and I decided we wanted to make a splash with our new web sites and we called this guy. Have you seen my site?"

Meredith nodded, surprised that Adam was the guy who appeared in videos with Rita Looker. Adam looked, well, better. He was more fit and seemed to be less hairy. She doubted he had black hair on his chest, considering the hair on his head was light.

"I'm did my first boy-girl scene last week," Rebecca confided. "We're not releasing it until June. But I did a scene with Cassie and Derrick last week. It was great. But you know what was better? I came out of it with friends. You look and see Walt over there. He is the one with curly hair. He treats me as well as he does Erin. Erin is the tall girl with black hair. She is Sean's sister. Sean is the other guy. The girl with him is his girlfriend, Rachelle. The girl beside Walt is Mary. That's his girlfriend. They don't do videos. Erin and Trinity don't either. But you would never guess that by the way they act around me. They treat me as a friend. It doesn't matter what I do or with whom I do it. They like me. I like them. It's something I have never had in my life."

"You're likeable," Adam said, smiling at Rebecca.

After a few more minutes of conversation, Meredith decided it was safe enough to spend some time visiting with the group she had just met. They seemed like normal people and she was taking her own car.

Rebecca offered to ride with Meredith to show her how to get back to the apartment complex. Ben gave both young women $200 in cash and he offered to front Meredith money for a hotel room for three days. She assured him she had money enough to rent a room and he could just pay her back. Adam overheard the conversation and wondered if Meredith had any idea what a hotel room in Los Angeles for a weekend would cost. He knew he had no idea but he figured it would be close to a thousand dollars per night.

Ben gave Adam a look that suggested he had the same worry. Adam smiled to let Ben know someone would make sure the girl had a place to stay and that she wasn't stuck beneath a freeway overpass.

There were a host of cars headed down the freeway from Van Nuys. Allie, Sarah and Karlie were in Adam's car. Leslie and Trinity had come in her two-seater. Rebecca had driven her car to campus that morning to sit in on classes with Adam and Shelly. Walt and Mary had come in the SUV and Rachelle and Sean had come in her new coupe. Of course, Meredith had her vehicle, which left Shelly to drive Rebecca's car. Adam sat in the passenger seat and was thankful they were still at the apartments and not at the new place. Parking was going to be a bitch once they landed out there.

"She's hot," Shelly announced as she navigated Rebecca's Navigator toward the freeway. Adam nodded. He was wondering how everyone he knew had such nice cars and he was still in a 10-year-old Buick with 200,000 miles on it. "She'll warm up to you once she gets to know you."

Adam blinked.

"I don't blame her for being wary," he replied. "Jesus, I can't believe the number of people willing to hang out with us minutes after they meet us. Hell, in Missouri, you might invite a stranger into the house to use the phone if he was desperate but you didn't invite him for dinner and let him stay a week."

Shelly laughed. She had considered the same thing but had come to a conclusion.

"Well, most of them you've already fucked," she said, giggling. "I mean you fucked Sarah and she started following you around. You fucked Allie and she started following you around. Just the thought of having you fuck her led Karlie to move in. You fucked Rebecca and Leslie, next thing you know they won't leave. Trinity hangs around hoping you'll slip up and fuck her. Even the ones you won't fuck anymore stay with us hoping you'll get confused and forget you won't fuck them. See, I have this all figured out."

"Which still doesn't explain why Meredith is coming home with us," Adam said. He was blushing from Shelly's explanation and he thought he found a fatal flaw.

Shelly glanced his way with a smirk.

"Well, there is one part I left out," she said, moving her eyes back to the road. "For some kinky reason, Allie, Sarah and I get off on watching you fuck these other broads. So we keep inviting new ones over. One day you're going to come home to find 12 different pussies on your bed and we won't let you rest until you do us all."

"Will you stop embarrassing me?" Adam pleaded.

"Nope," Shelly said, reaching over to pinch his leg. "I enjoy the hell out of that, too. Wait until I tell the others what sort of reaction this got from you. So, are you going to invite Betsy Hamilton over to the cookout Sunday?"

The change in direction caught Adam off guard.

"Huh?" he asked.

Shelly started to speak in a slow, halting voice, accentuating each syllable of her words.

"I ... said... , 'Are ... you ... going," she started.

"I heard what you said," Adam interrupted. "I was wondering what it had to do with what we were talking about."

"Oh, that's easy," Shelly said, grinning again. "We've only got 11 girls counting Meredith. Betsy will make an even dozen."

Adam groaned.

"I'm kidding – probably," she said. "Seriously, we've got 30 minutes until we get home. Why don't you call her, let her know we're having a cookout and invite her over."

"Should I invite Jason, too?" Adam wondered.

"Let's see how he and Cassie hit it off tomorrow," Shelly suggested. "She said he was really quiet when she drove him home. She wondered if maybe he was pissed off at being lectured to about how to do a shoot."

"I didn't get that impression," Adam said. "I think he's just a little shy. I mean, Leslie can be sort of intimidating, if you're not used to it."

"She is 4-foot-11 and 85 pounds!" Shelly said.

"I mean her personality," Adam replied. "It's a little larger-than-life sometimes. Jason is a country boy from West Virginia. Most folks from places like that tend to speak three or four times a year whether they have something to say or not."

Shelly laughed again.

"Just like you until we cured you of the habit," she giggled. "Oh, well, we'll ask Leslie when we get back. Why don't you give Betsy a call?"

Adam hardly expected Betsy Hamilton to be at home on a Friday night. He figured his group of loser friends were the only ones to do something that lame. However, the girl answered on the second ring.

"Uh, hi, this is Adam Walters," he said. "I'm trying to reach Betsy Hamilton."

There was silence on the phone.

"How did you get this number?" a woman's voice asked. Adam was confused.

"She gave it to me," he said haltingly. "I mean, I spoke to her earlier in the week and told her I'd call her to let her know if we were having a get-together."

"Tell her your screen name, Nimrod," Shelly said from the driver's seat.

"Oh, this is Derrick Driller," Adam said. "Or she knows me as Derrick Driller. Oh, crap, maybe you could ask her to call Derrick Driller again. That would work."

The silence turned to laughter.

"I'm sorry," the voice said. "Did you say your name is Adam? I'm sorry, Adam. This is Betsy. I just didn't recognize the number or your real name."