An obnoxious Valley Girl drawl brayed across the hospital hallway like the sound of Satan farting. Staff shuddered. Patients quailed. Mirrors didn't shatter, but only because the budget didn't allow them to be glass.
"I'm sick of everyone treating me like I'm some dumb bimbo airhead!" Jennifer Love Hewitt flounced along, jugs almost bouncing out of her low-scooped neckline. "That's sooo not true! My IQ is 140!"
"Is that so?" Peter Langowski, her agent, matched her stride.
"Yeah, I had it tested on a website called 'Free-Online-IQ-Test dot biz'. I had to download an antivirus scanner before they showed me my score. Did you know computers can catch viruses? I thought that was only for people."
"Good to know someone's getting ahead of the problem." Peter checked his watch, counting down the nanoseconds until he was free of the Ditzney Princess for another afternoon.
"It's so unfair!" Jennifer said. "I'm actually super smart, but everyone misunderestimates me, just because I'm hot! I'm NOT a has-been! Like, hello? My career is on
fire
. Last year, I was in
The Garfield Movie.
And next year, I'll be in the sequel to
The Garfield Movie.
I even got a part on
Family Guy
--it's this show like
The Simpsons
, but it's, like,
way
funnier."
"A hot streak Brando would envy."
"Who's she? The point is, my career's a rocket and that rocket's exploding on the launch pad!" Jennifer proudly ticked off her professional accomplishments. "I have
two
Golden Raspberry noms. That's one of the most presti-digious awards in Hollywood. And this 'Harvey Weenersteen' guy says I can have a starring role if I privately audition in his hotel room! Isn't that cool?"
"And they say there are no nice guys left in Hollywood," Peter said, checking his watch again.
I swear,
he thought,
Bud o'Clock takes longer to arrive every day.
"...And now I'm here, doing..." She tilted her head quizzically, like a dog trying to learn a difficult trick. "...what am doing?"
Peter ground his teeth. He'd already printed his client's itinerary--for all the good it did, considering he was unsure Jennifer Love Hewitt could read--but repeated it from memory.
"You are working in a hospital, on behalf of Touch of Love. They are a government program that sponsors female celebrities to provide...relief for men in hospitals."
"What kind of relief?" Jennifer Love Hewitt, uncharacteristically sensing a trap, narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
A group of children were scampering past their ankles, forcing Peter to describe Touch of Love in G-rated terms.
"You are helping injured men perform a...bodily function."
"You mean I'm wiping their butts?" She wrinkled up her nose in disgust. "No way! Gross!"
"No, a
male
bodily function. Look at it this way: their spirits are down, and you're raising them."
"Like I'm cheering them up with balloons?"
He glanced down into the cleavage exploding from her dress's dangerously overloaded front. It seemed as deep as the Marianas Trench. The front of her strapless top could barely contain Jennifer's enormous, wobbling jugs.
"Something like that, Jen."
* * *
Peter Langowski followed his client's fat butt as it waggled down the hall.
So, it comes to this.
He did not particularly want his client working for Touch of Love. This wasn't what booking agents put at the top of their resumes. Or at the bottom. Or in the middle. But due to an unfortunate situation (wholly of her own creation) Jennifer Love Hewitt urgently needed cash.
For years, she'd paid her taxes by dumping old clothes in front of the IRS headquarters. "They can sell these on eBay!" she'd explained to her horrified accountant (who had taken an early retirement soon after). "I bought most of this stuff at list price! Some of it's couture!"
In a shocking turn of events, the IRS did not regard boxes of used clothes as a valid form of tax remittance, and were now insisting that Jennifer pay
seven years' of back taxes
using actual money. How inconvenient! Until the coveted
Garfield 2
paycheck hit her account, Touch of Love was the only source of liquidity available to Ms Hewitt.
He prayed Jennifer wouldn't find a way to fuck this up. She couldn't afford to.
Literally
couldn't afford to.
Touch of Love had set up a temporary office at the orthopedics wing of the hospital. Jennifer checked in at the desk, and was told that she would have to complete an entrance exam. Because Jennifer Love Hewitt and exams went together like gerbils and high-speed blenders, Peter filled in the test while Jennifer got briefed in the next room by Touch of Love's chief executive.
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON PRESCRIPTION MEDICATION? Y/N HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ARRESTED, ARRAIGNED, OR PROSECUTED? Y/N DO YOU HAVE ANY FORM OF COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT THAT WOULD MAKE YOU INELIGIBLE FOR THIS PROGRAM? Y/N
Peter dutifully went down the list, ticking the right answers. Which usually meant ticking the
wrong
answers.
"Um, you're not allowed to do that," the assessor said. "Ms Hewitt must complete the form herself."
Peter smiled, ticked the final box, flawlessly forged JLH's signature, folded up the test, and placed it in the assessor's hand.
"I'm sure that if you
look closely
, you'll find everything in order."
The assessor unfolded the sheet of paper. A hundred dollar bill slid out into his fist.
"Mr Langowski..." he said as he pocketed the money, "Ms Hewitt has passed the entrance test with flying colors! On behalf of us all, please welcome her to the Touch of Love program."
* * *
"Our organization is founded on a growing body of
very
legitimate,
very
real research," Colin Drake, acting president of Touch of Love, explained to Jennifer Love Hewitt in an empty classroom.
She stared at him in polite confusion as he spoke.
"Men have a biological imperative to ejaculate, and if they cannot do so due to injury, the resulting semen buildup can have severe consequences. We're talking spermal impaction, epididymal hypertension, the whole nine yards...Miss Hewitt? Excuse me? Are you listening?"
"Yes." She was now playing Candy Crush on her phone.
He grimaced, then resumed his pre-rehearsed spiel. "You're probably thinking 'so why do you need me?' Don't we have some crusty Nurse Ratched type with a rubber glove? Well, at Touch of Love, we believe in making dreams come true! Hospitals should be places of magic as well as medicine! So why not crack open the public pocketbook, take out a lousy few million dollars that I bet no-one's using anything, and hire some attractive actresses? Lots of your peers are doing it, Jennifer. It's an easy payday. Your identity will be protected. All the men have signed NDAs and are disease free. Nobody will ever know. With me so far?"
Jennifer gazed vacantly into space.
Peter Langowski had just arrived, and restated matters in language Jennifer understood.
"They'll give you money if you titfuck some dudes."
"Titfuck them?" She screwed up her face. "Ewww! What if I get pregnant?"
"You aren't having sex with them," Colin explained. "You're only using your...chest to masturbate their penises."
"But...can't I get pregnant from that?" Jennifer Love Hewitt looked at him with fearstruck eyes.
Colin's jaw fell. His expression could be described as
existentially confused
. He seemed to be wondering if he'd wandered into some unethical
Truman Show
-esque social experiment designed to break his sanity.
"Is that a serious question you just asked? Jennifer, *h**ow the goddamn hell would a cock between your breasts get you pregnant?"*
Jennifer smacked the table and huffed.
"You are
so rude
!" she yelled. "Like, geez! Babies drink milk from nipples, so maybe cum can leak through as well and, like, get inside my body. Don't ask me how it works! I'm not a doctor!"
The Touch of Love chief executive clenched the edge of his lecture stand. He squeezed his eyes shut, as though praying for patience.
Welcome to my life,
Peter thought with a stab of sympathy.
"Jennifer. Love. Hewitt," Colin's knuckles whitening on the oak wood. "This is a question I never imagined myself answering, but
no
, you cannot get pregnant from a cock between your breasts. We are a hundred percent certain of this. It is medically impossible."
"Oh. Okay." Jennifer looked like she'd just had a revelation from the skies above. "Wow, I wasted so much money on birth control in high school!"
* * *
Colin handed an itemized list of names to Peter, wished them well, and shoved them both out into the hallway.
"Okay," Peter lifted the clipboard. "So let's work down the list. The first man is--"
"FOUND ONEEEEE!" Jennifer squealed and ran forward, clapping her hands.
She bull-rushed a man seated in the hallway. His arm was in a brace-sling, and his eyes filled with terror as she jiggled toward him like an unusually buxom zombie.
Grinning, she kneeled in front of him, almost shoving her boobs in his face.
"Hi, duuuude!" she hollered at blow-out-your-eardrums decibelage. "I'm super famous actress Jennifer Love Hewitt! And I'll be fucking you with my tits today!"