There was a conference room in the office building where every week Devlin would meet with his senior staff, the so-called Three Merry Wenches. That was the theory. In practice, Devlin hated meetings and, as a consequence, the furniture was as cheap as he could get away with—a plywood conference table in three sections and the kind of mass-produced chairs you find in state school staff rooms. The three women would show up, one of them usually driving in specially, only to have some skinny fluff girl pop her head round the door to say that Devlin couldn't come because 'something had come up.' 'Now I wonder what that could be?' said Phyllis dryly and the other two had laughed. By the third time Devlin cancelled, it stopped being funny. Sitting round a cheap table on crappy chairs which threatened to collapse under them was no one's idea of a good time and Phyllis and Dolores had suggested they scrap staff meetings.
Gladys thought otherwise. She saw to it that three sturdy conference chairs were brought in and she took the lead that Devlin wasn't there to give. Phyllis and Dolores both resented this, but they couldn't say that the meetings weren't productive and sometimes even fun. To call the three women kindred spirits would be inaccurate, but being fat in a world which worshipped Thin did give them a sense of shared suffering. All three knew what it was like to be subtly mocked and passed over for people dumber than themselves. All of them had difficulty in relationships, mixed feelings of longing and contempt towards men and an intimate knowledge of loneliness which they hid under a hard-boiled exterior. They also shared a sense of irony at how satisfying work in the porn industry sometimes was. Phyllis once said: 'The last thing I wanted was to work in a place full of thin women, but being in charge of their paychecks is sweeeeet!'
It wasn't only paychecks that were affected. Under the Three Merry Wenches, contracts had been nipped and tucked until actresses needed the equivalent of a royal decree from Devlin to get anything. Pregnancy was virtually abolished and any loopholes which may have resulted in actresses being given any kind of consideration for motherhood were closed. 'Get an abortion or get fired,' said Gladys who had organised champagne for that particular meeting and the Three Merry Wenches had clinked glasses to toast the new regime. Having never had children themselves, they all found it deeply satisfying moment.
But on this day, there was no champagne on the table. Gladys was sipping a black coffee, Phyllis swigged from a bottle of diet coke and Dolores bottled water poured into a glass.
'Why don't you drink from the bottle?' said Phyllis.
'Like you do?' said Dolores in her flat monotone.
Phyllis glared and was about to say something when Gladys spoke.
'Ladies, we have a problem,' she said. 'I heard there's a rumour going round the studio that one of the fluff girls has tested positive for HIV.'
Phyllis snorted in disgust. Dolores kept her expression neutral and took a drink of water to cool the warm satisfaction she felt inside. Her plan to get back at Shirley 'Let-me-show-you-my-ass' Goober had worked after all.
It was a simple enough plan.
A couple of days earlier, Dolores had put a doctor's old report of a girl with HIV into Shirley's file and left it on a chair in the studio café for someone to find, preferably one of the male actors. If she was lucky, they would see the letters HIV and panic without seeing that the names and dates on the papers were different. By the time it could be explained as a clerical error, the damage would be done—Shirley's name would be associated with HIV and no one would want her around, especially Devlin. However, after leaving the folder in the café at lunchtime, Dolores spent an agonising afternoon in suspense, waiting in her office for an angry porn actor to storm in at any minute who never came. At the end of the working day, Dolores went back to the studio café and found the file pretty much where she left it. She put the paperwork back where it belonged and drove home feeling a gnawing resentment towards God for protecting that skinny cock-sucking slut.
But someone had seen it.
Indeed, as Dolores drank her glass of water, it occurred to her that this was going to work out even better than planned. With all the paperwork in its proper place, there was nothing connecting Dolores with the rumour. That dumb little fluff girl was going to get what was coming to her and Dolores didn't even have to take the heat for a clerical error. She sent up a silent apology to the Almighty for having ever doubted His wisdom.
'Well, it's hardly surprising, is it?' said Phyllis. 'Those tramps would fuck anybody.'
'It's kind of their job,' said Gladys.
'Which some of them enjoy a bit too much.'
'Whatever, Phyllis. We still need to nip this situation in the bud.'
'That's simple enough, surely?' said Dolores. 'Get rid of the girl.'
'I would if I knew who it was,' said Gladys.
Despite the water, Dolores's throat went dry and the warm glow in her gut was replaced with an icy chill.
'You don't know who it is?' said Dolores.
'That's what I said,' said Gladys. 'Are you sure that's water you're drinking?'
'But the rumour has to be about somebody.'
'Does it? The story I heard is that someone saw a fluff girl's medical file lying on a chair in the studio café. The person who opened it remembers seeing "HIV positive," but doesn't remember the name on the file.'
'Who's that stupid?' said Phyllis.
Dolores could think of someone. She had a very bad feeling about this.
'Apparently, it was one of the actors,' said Gladys. 'Guy with a moustache and mullet haircut.'
'Not Roger Ramrod?' said Phyllis.
'Could be.'
'But he's an idiot!'
'He's a man.'
'Yes, but even for a man, he's an idiot! Who's going to believe him?'
'Are you kidding me?' said Gladys. 'These people exchange bodily fluids for a living! Which of them is going to take a chance on this?'
There was an uncomfortable silence as the three women digested this.
'Does Devlin know?' said Dolores.
'Not yet,' said Gladys. 'But if this doesn't get resolved by the end of today, I'm going to have to tell him.'
'Why?'
'Because if the rumour is true and there is someone out there with HIV, we need to shut the studio down until everyone has gotten tested. That's going to cost thousands. The alternative is to risk half the actors getting HIV and suing for millions. Even if we won in court, we'd still be finished.'
'What I don't get,' said Phyllis, 'is what a medical file is doing on a chair in the café.'
'If it even existed,' said Dolores. 'Roger could be making it up.'
'Why would he do that?' said Gladys.
'He could be getting back at a girl who hurt his ego.'
'So he starts this rumour as revenge?'
'It's possible. Men are bastards.'
'But then he forgets the name of the girl he's taking revenge on?'
'He's a stupid bastard.'
