Daniel Price - Slick

“Yeah. I guess.”

Of course Big Bank had been recording from the moment she arrived. His tape would be heard by several of us, including Hunta. Big Bank had insisted on it. There was already a big cloud of mistrust inside this operation, most of it centered over me. Wisely, he wanted to keep his own skies clear.

“All right,” said Gail. “It’s on. You ready?”

“Yeah.”

“So what’s the story?”

“You want a story? I’ll tell you a story. It’s all about a woman.”

On tape, I could practically hear Gail smile. “What’s her name?”

________________

Your name is Harmony Prince, and these are the facts as you recall them. On Saturday, March 11, 2000, you attended an open dance audition sponsored by Mean World Records. You succeeded in landing a small role in one of their videos (“Chocolate Ho-Ho”).

On April 5 and 6, you participated in the video shoot at a production studio in Glendale. This was when you first met Jeremy Sharpe, aka Hunta. He didn’t seem to take any special interest in you until he noticed the scar on your right thigh. When he asked you how you got it, you told him of your fateful “run-in” with the Los Angeles Police. From that point he seemed very interested in you. He conversed with you as much as his schedule allowed. At the end of the second day, you and he exchanged phone numbers. He promised he would use you for his upcoming video (“Bitch Fiend”), but the shoot came and went without you even knowing.

But at least you made it into Mean World’s database of fine young things. At least once a month you received a mailed invitation for some sort of bash. You ended up attending two of them: a Fourth of July barbecue and a November tenth gala to celebrate Huntaway going platinum. Both shindigs were held at the swank estate of Byron “Judge” Rampton. Both times you spent at least an hour talking to Jeremy. You were never completely alone with him; nor did he ever try to get you alone. At the November tenth event, you noticed he spent a lot of time touching you, but you didn’t take it as an overt sexual gesture, especially since he was stoned out of his mind and touching everyone.

Then came the Christmas party.

This time you weren’t invited, you were hired. On December 11, Marjorie Bunce, the Mean World publicist/event planner, offered you four hundred dollars to grace the label with your presence. The terms were simple. Put on sexy hip-hop elf-wear. Dance from ten to midnight. Mingle from midnight to two. Then stay or leave as you see fit. At a hundred dollars an hour, the job was a holiday miracle. You would have done it for the buffet.

On Friday, December 15, your roommate Daryl “B-Naste” Lynch dropped you off at Le Meridien Hotel at 9:20 P.M. Upon checking in with Ms. Bunce, you joined your fellow dancers in the designated changing room. By 9:50 you and the rest of the elves were assembled in two-by-two formation by the main door to the ballroom. Five minutes later, you got your entrance cue.

Already things seemed off with this party. You’ve seen inebriated people, of course. You’ve even seen inebriated Mean World people. But tonight the revelers seemed really out of control. Chairs were being thrown. Bottles broken. Women groped.

Jeremy was hardly above the fray. From your dancing spot, you watched him cup the breast of R&B sensation Felisha, immediately triggering a brawl with her husband. By the time you looked back, he was arguing with the Judge. You’d never seen him so crazy before. You figured it had something to do with his wife.

At 10:20, he approached you with a wide neon grin. You even smiled as he held you by the hips and danced with you for a minute or two. Once the song ended, he asked you to come sit with him on a nearby couch.

You can’t, you told him. You’re supposed to dance until midnight.

He waved it off. “Naw, fuck that shit. Nobody care. Come on.”

You can’t….

“Come on, Harmony. I ain’t seen you in months. Come talk to me.”

Actually, it had only been a month. But you were flattered that even in his zonked-out state, he remembered your name. You joined him on the couch, well in view of at least a dozen others.

For Jeremy, catching up was a one-way street. Over the next fifteen minutes, he buried you under a mountain of personal angst. His father still didn’t respect him, despite his success. His wife resented him because of his success. His friends kept using him for his money. The Judge kept confusing him out of his money. And his critics kept bashing him, either for trying too hard to sound like Tupac or for not trying hard enough. He was being hit from all sides and nobody understood him.

All along, you listened and nodded like the well-trained hostess you were, increasingly aware of the strong hands moving up and down your arms, then your legs. Admittedly, you didn’t mind. For five nights a week, you were hit up, talked up, felt up by toads. By every comparative standard, Jeremy was a prince. He was all sweet and sad and funny, and damn, the way he looked at you. The way he looked! By the time he said “Let’s get out of here,” at 10:30, you were under his spell.

It wasn’t until he returned from the concierge desk, hotel key in hand, that you came to your senses. You knew what he wanted. How the hell were you going to tell him? How the hell could you — a fawning, near-naked, cheap-flesh party elf — explain to him that you were saving yourself for marriage?

That was your dilemma as you quietly rode up the elevator, as he kissed your neck and whispered into your ear that he hasn’t stopped thinking about you since the day he met you (which was crap, of course, but such wonderful crap). As soon as the elevator opened, you wanted to run, but still you followed him, all the way to the door of Room 1215.

At last, you cracked. You can’t, you told him. You can’t do what he wants you to do. In broken, clumsy phrases, you explained the whole abstinence thing. He was more stunned than anything else.

“Hold up. Wait. You saying you a virgin?”

No. You never said that.

“So this a religious thing.”

You never said that either, but it was easier just to nod your head and go for the simple story. You looked away. You cried. You apologized for being so stupid. But then his hand clasped your shoulder, and he gently turned you around. Suddenly he was more sober than you’d ever seen him before.

“Hey, it’s all cool,” he assured you. “It ain’t about that.”

You wiped your eyes. Really?

“I swear,” he said. “I just wanted to, you know, be with you. There are lots of ways I can be with you. Shit, we could lie down and talk. I don’t care. Right now I just want to be with someone who ain’t using me or judging me. Look, just hide out with me. Just for a little while. Please?”

Once again he managed to extinguish all your fears. Right there in the hallway, he held you close and stroked your hair. As you nuzzled against his strong chest, you thought you’d found a true prince indeed. You teased yourself with a sudden crazy vision of the future, one in which he leaves that shrew wife of his, marries you, and takes you all around the world. You compiled a list of things you would do with him in that hotel room, being the sweet guy he is and looking the way he does. Jesus. You’re only human.

At 10:45, in Room 1215, you and Jeremy kissed. You kicked off your pointy elf shoes. You fell into the bed. You began to walk him through your list. It was a good list.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for Jeremy. He was still drunk. Still stoned. Still strong. As soon as you felt what he was doing—

“Stop. Please.”

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