​Sleaze Land – Chapter 4 (Wicked Games) Part 1

Sleaze Land – Chapter 4 (Wicked Games) Part 1
 
 
 
     “The girl who lives in 8G used to be a lovely charming girl, but the girl is a monster bitch monster. The girl is infectious human waste, and she's confused and afraid to commit to the wrong thing so she won't commit to anything.”  Chuck Palahniuk
 
 
 
 
Samuel Paquin got up from his comfy designer chair and shuffled over to the front door, just as his wife had instructed.  Because she was right, they were on in less than ten minutes and he really couldn’t afford to be late.
 
And so, he swung open the door and raced outside to his souped-up fire-engine-red golf cart.
 
And a minute later he was pulling up to the studio him and his wife had built out behind their expensive Spanish Colonial home, that sat nestled in the Hollywood Hills.  Thank God.
 
“You barely have time for makeup, now, sit down,” his wife barked, just as soon as he walked in the door.
 
Compliant as usual, the underwhelming and quickly-aging celebrity plopped himself down in his makeup chair, and instantly his well-trained makeup artist sprang into action, doing her best to reverse all of the outward signs of stress.
 
With a sigh, he asked, “What have they told you about the trials?  Are we going to be the only ones covering it?”
 
“No, stupid,” his wife snapped back from her own makeup chair.
 
“Anderson Cooper is also running his bit on CNN.  Not that they’ll last much longer.  Surely, they’ll fall just like Fox did, now that their shams have all been uncovered.  I mean, honestly, no one is gonna top the Sunset Tribune now,” his much younger wife said, with all the confidence of one who never actually bothers to look at reality.
 
“Five minutes,” Jan, their assistant, reminded them both gently, as she’d already had her head bitten off one too many times that morning.
 
“This is it, darling,” Adam Paquin told her husband.
 
“This is how we rise above the coming flood that’s going to sweep all across Hollywood, carrying all those disgusting materialistic snobs with them.”
 
Which made Sam smile brightly.  Because quite honestly, his incandescent wife never glowed more than when she was feeling righteous, and Sam really did like it when she glowed.
 
“You’re right,” he told her, as he looked around the four-million-dollar studio she’d paid for out of her own pocket.
 
“We are going to float right above the storm.  In fact, we’re reporting on it, so we can turn it however we want,” the short man with the long reach said, with more confidence now than he’d felt in a very long time.
 
“Now you’re catching on!  This is a huge boon for both our careers.  This is where we truly set ourselves apart from the rest.  This is how we become billionaires!”
 
“Two minutes,” the assistant said, with a bit of dismay evident in her voice after having just listened to that whole tirade.
 
“Come on darling, it’s time we show the world just what the Paquins are made of.”
 
 
 
      "One hate crime is committed approximately every hour of every day in this country."  Anna Paquin
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

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