that I needed college like I need to grow another six inches.'
'You know very well that that has been a bone of contention with your mother and myself for a good long time now. She thinks that just because you're such a beautiful girl that that's all you need and all there is to it. Well let me tell you something young lady, she's wrong and you are going to find that out. It takes more than a nice figure and a pretty face to get on in this world and you're not going to find the answer to life in Hollywood. That is the absolute truth. You're kidding yourself.'
'Maybe I am, but that's what I want to do and you and mother are not going to talk me out of it.'
'I'm not trying to talk you out of anything I'm just trying to give you some direction'
This conversation was resumed on and off like a marathon ping pong game; the final score was Lisa and her high school friend Jeanette driving off in her Thunderbird the day after graduation with Lisa's parents standing at the door of their suddenly empty home shaking their heads and waving feebly. 'I hope she's going to be all right,' her mother sobbed.
'She will, she will, dear,' her husband comforted her, 'I know my own daughter.'
After an uneventful cross country drive that brought them only one flat tire somewhere in Wyoming, Lisa and Jeanette arrived one dusky Friday evening in Hollywood. They checked into a Sunset Strip motel and after a short nap and a shower they went out to eat. At the Hamburg Hamlet they spotted a few well known television and movie personalities, one of whom spotted Lisa and chatted the two girls up; whisking them and their check away when the last coke had been drunk.
In the parking lot the actor said to Lisa, 'That's some dusty looking car you've got there,' his eye balls tearing at her clinging white shirt and short skirt.
'I told you we just drove across the United States.' As they followed behind him in the Thunderbird bursting with excitement, his sleek sports-car wove in and out of the Canyons. Jeanette 'turned to Lisa and said, 'It's you he's really interested in so maybe I should take the car back to the motel and you can call me when you want to get back if he doesn't drive you.'
Lisa was choked with embarrassment at her friend's candor. Her mind fished frantically for something to say that wouldn't sound foolish but she couldn't manage much beyond, 'Oh, come on now you know that's not true and besides I don't want to be up there with him all alone.' Jeanette shrugged and they drove the rest of the way in silence.
His house was all palm fronds and pillows on the floor and a big, bouncing English sheep dog that answered to the name of Morris. The lights went out, the candles flickered on and from a hidden speaker soft music creeped forth. 'Scotch?' he asked his teeth flashing artificially in the half light.
'Just coke is fine,' they said in unison.
When he went into the kitchen for the cokes they looked at each other and started to snicker. Inexperienced perhaps but dumb? No, not Lisa and Jeanette. The cliched situation they found themselves in made them laugh. The way that Blaze Scott ('What a bullshit name', they agreed) was coming on to them was right out of Hollywood B movies, B for bad. When he came back into the room he was dressed in nothing but a pair of swimming trunks.
'Going somewhere?' Lisa asked easing their initial shock at seeing this well known beefcake star flaunting his body and his equipment before them like they were a couple of dumb Hollywood starlets.
'Yeah, I thought we'd all go for a midnight dip in the pool. OK?' 'I left my swimming suit back at the motel.'
'Me too.'
'Well who needs a swimming suit?' he asked.
'Then what are you wearing one for?' Lisa came back.
That got him. Blaze Scott stood there and scratched his tousled blonde, movie star head and said 'Uhh I never thought about that,' looking like King Kong trying to find his way out of New York.
'Sit down and make yourself comfortable,' Jeanette said with a sweep of her hand, 'anywhere really, it's all right. We don't want you to stand on ceremony.'
'I hope the pool is heated,' Lisa said burying her face and the trace of a smile in her coke filled glass.
The girls knew straight off how vulnerable this cocky and conceited actor was; it was written all over him and they were out to get a few laughs even if it was at his poor, dumb expense. He had plowed into them like a real hitter and they were now enjoying the feeling of toying with his fragile ego, his inflated 8x10 glossy vision of himself.
'So you girls come from Connecticut huh?' he asked.
'That's what we told you. We're not about to change our story,' Lisa said sarcastically.
'I suppose you ask lots of girls to take midnight dips in the nude with you Blaze,' Jeanette said with a straight face.
His mouth dropped open and again he was at a loss for words. He hadn't bargained on the conversation veering in quite the direction it was going.
'Well I, Uh… '
'You know you should keep some extra swim suits around just in case you run into shy types, like ourselves,' Lisa said shaking her blonde mane, turning the full beauty of her gaze upon him and looking like an experienced twenty-five year old instead of an eighteen year old high school graduate.
'Maybe I should.'
'We've seen just about all of your movies,' Jeanette said again with a straight face.
'Oh yeah,' he said rising from the dark cloud that had momentarily settled over him as the girls chided him. He was on more solid ground now; he always found it pleasant and easy to talk about himself and his work'. 'Which was your favorite?' he asked.
'You know I can't remember the name of that movie,' Jeanette said with a frown that looked like it was for real.
'Yeah it's funny that I can't remember my favorite movie of yours either,' Lisa said duplicating the look upon Jeanette's face.
'The Highriders? Death in the Medina?' he offered.
'Um no.'
'Uhh I don't think so either.'
'The Last Kiss? Gunfight in Sonora?'
'Not either of those… '
'Time and Again? Desperate Days?' he was sounding worried to the girls; he was running out of movies.
'What a pain that we can't remember, but please don't take it personally we've got rotten memories,' Jeanette rescued the conversation and his chipped ego.
'Yeah well there have been a lot of them, I forget most myself. You know how it is,' he said waving his drink casually, spilling over half of it onto his bare leg. The dog lapped noisily at his shins.
'That's a friendly dog you've got there.'
'Morris? Oh he's great.'
'Were you planning on fucking us both?' Lisa asked shoving her tits in his direction, causing the buttons to strain dangerously against the thread.
'What?'
'I said were you planning to fuck us both when you invited us back here this evening?'
'Hey now wait a minute I just.,.'
'You can't blame us for asking now can you?' Jeanette said.
'No but I mean like… '
'Well were you?'
'Well I thought about it' he said grinning like a little boy.
'Well would you like to?'
'Now that you mention it I would!' he exclaimed, pleased with himself for having come out and said it.
'Well you can't!' Lisa said.
'No way!' Jeanette added.
'Hey girls if that's the way you feel it's all right with me you know I'm never hurting for companionship. Why I can pick up that phone and get half a dozen of the most beautiful girls in Hollywood up here in half an hour and I
