Amping Up the Volume

I called my buddy Diggler after the porn actor character in that movie Boogie Nights. I met him when I was working as a graphic artist at Playboy, and he was in marketing. He called me Samples because I was always asking him for any new promotional items he might get. I can’t help it; I’m a collector, well, some people say hoarder. He mocked me because my requests were usually over the top, I admit. It was, “Can I have four hats? What about five posters? Please?” He just rolled his eyes, but he’d always come through for me.

He had the most outrageous parties at his house in Santa Monica. For one very memorable event, he got the idea to amp up the mood from the movie Jackass, which we loved, by hiring dwarves to walk around his kitchen countertops, blow flames, and pour drinks. It was so wild. I’m not sure how he found those guys, but I guess in L.A. anything is possible.

His place was packed that night. Multicolored lights were strung across the ceiling, which gave the framed Playboy posters on the walls an eerie glow. Dwarves grabbed liquor bottles and tossed them in the air, giggling when they didn’t catch them and smashed onto the floor. Hot chicks—a blur of flesh and stockings—danced to the speeded-up bass of house music, and one girl in a leather miniskirt and six-inch stilettos caught my eye. She smiled at me and I joined her on the dance floor.

A few songs later, sweat beading on my back, we moved to a couch in an area that was a little quieter and talked. She was an administrative assistant and an actress and had even been in two commercials. Nobody could ignore the chemistry between us, so, of course, we started to kiss. But seeing people watching us out of the corner of my eye, I realized this wasn’t the right place.

“Wait, wait,” I said. “Let me find Diggler, I mean, Andy. Just one minute.” I ran around the party until I found my friend sucking from a gigantic bong. “Hey, uh, do you have anywhere more private where two people could go?”

“Oh, Samples!” He chuckled, then sighed like he did when I asked him for more promotional items. “My roommate is away for the weekend. You could use his bedroom, first one on the right upstairs. He wouldn’t mind.”

We quickly moved up the stairs to the bedroom and got naked. I was finger blasting her when four drunk dudes walked in.

 “What the fuck is going on? Are we having an orgy? I mean, you’re in my fuckin’ room.” A huge guy grabbed at Jessie, and his bros laughed and fumbled for her too.

 “Sorry, dude,” I said as Jessie and I grabbed our clothes. Evidently this was Wayne the roommate. “Andy said you were out of town for the weekend.”

 As Jessie was trying to put on her clothes, the guys kept grabbing for her.

 “You’ve got it started now, dude,” Wayne continued. He pawed Jessie’s back while his friends darted their hands in between her legs and laughed. Jessie screamed.

 “Wayne!” Diggler ran up the stairs two at a time and faced his angry roommate, who was practically beating his chest like a gorilla. “Sorry, dude. I thought you were out of town.”

 “So my room is open to whoever?” Wayne roared. “If there’s an orgy going on in my room, I think me and my buddies ought to be part of it.”

 Jessie and I had pulled on our clothes by this time and were trying to make our way out of the room. Wayne had moved to the staircase and tried to grab her as she squirmed past him. This guy wouldn’t stop! I was way smaller than Wayne, but I used the element of surprise to tilt the scales in my favor, grabbing his shirt out of his pants and yanking him back and forth like a puppet. The movement threw Wayne off balance and he stumbled down the stairs. His friends stared at me as if to say, “Are you crazy?” and scurried after him like scared mice.

Yeah, you guys are trying to play up like you’re going to gang bang her. This is what’s going to happen. You’re going to be humiliated. And they sure as shit were.

But they left something for us. Diggler’s date, who wasn’t even there for the confrontation, had left her purse downstairs. The next morning she opened it up and found that it was full of piss up to the top of the bag—all over her phone, her wallet, lipstick, everything.

So, no, I didn’t get any of those gold Playboy pens.