Playing Games

"... I've always admitted it, I'm a man with really nice breasts..."

Rose turned to look at the camera as she said this, catching my eye and smiling as my eyebrows went up almost to my hairline. But I had to agree. She has really, really nice breasts.

"... It's my job to spread deviance to the American youth..."

And there it was. Serena's opening. She pounced on it.

"So is that what you're doing at the mansion out in Malibu? Spreading deviance?"

If Serena expected Rose to be caught by surprise by the question she was sorely disappointed by the Irish beauty's answer, "Possibly. What mansion are you talking about? I spread deviance in a lot of places. You'll have to be more specific."

That may not have been the response Serena wanted to her question, but she was not a novice at this, she recovered her equilibrium easily and pressed her attack, "Okay, specifically the mansion that you share with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jennifer Aniston. The one where you all live as lesbian lovers. The one that has seen visits from more than twenty prominent young actresses, not to mention singers, wrestling stars, playmates and porn stars. I have a pretty comprehensive list available if you'd like me to run through it."

Rose was wide-eyed at Serena's allegations, but not in a trapped, scared kind of way. She looked more incredulous than anything else, "Would I! Oh yes, please do. I have got to hear this!"

Looking a little unsure of herself Serena began to recite the women that were alleged to have been part of the activities at the mansion. When she was finished she looked over to Rose to gauge the raven-haired woman's reaction only to be once again taken aback. Rose was laughing her ass off.

When she could finally speak again she was able to splutter out, "You forgot Britney Spears."

"What?"

"I said, You forgot Britney Spears."

Serena was triumphant, "So you admit it!"

"No, but you named everyone else in the entertainment world, it'd be a shame if you forgot Britney."

"You're denying it?"

"Hell no! That story is so much better than anything else that's been reported about me lately, it'll do wonders for my rep! I haven't had anything out there even half this outrageous since I stopped seeing Brian. Let's run with it!"

Seeing the look of bewilderment on Serena's face Rose started to laugh uncontrollably again, eventually winding down when she ran out of breath, "Now if you'll excuse me for a minute, I've got to get some water. Can I get you guys anything?"

It was evident that Serena was off balance again so I answered for both of us, "No, thanks."

"Okay, I'll be right back."

The break could not have come at a better time. Serena needed the opportunity to regroup. She wasn't sure if she had what she wanted or not. Rose had said she wasn't denying it, but somehow Serena didn't think the suits at CNN were going to take this as the positive confirmation they demanded. And if Rose was not telling the truth, although which truth she was not telling was still up in the air, and they ran the story, then the libel lawsuits would be astronomical, and she could kiss any chance she had of a permanent gig at CNN goodbye.

Rose wandered back in from the kitchen and took a position at the far end of the couch away from Serena while she finished her water. She motioned to me to turn off the camera. The interview was obviously paused for the moment, so shutting down was not really a big deal. The real test would come if Serena wanted to start taping again.

Serena was still reviewing her options, trying to decide what direction she could take the interview in that would get her the information she was seeking. But no matter what angle she considered she kept running into the same wall each time and she was starting to get irritated. There had to be a way to get beyond this and get something useful out of Rose. But how?

Putting her empty glass down on the coffee table, it was Rose who spoke first, taking the decision out of Serena's hands and snapping her out of her daze a little, "So you've got me linked with all those women? I'm supposed to have had sex with all of them?"

Looking down the couch to the woman perched on the sofa's arm Serena replied, "That's right."

"And they keep coming back for more? They bring their friends along?"

"I guess so. Yes."

"Damn I'm good!"

Serena turned back from Rose, the frustration written plainly on her face. She looked over to me for some hint as to how to proceed, but I had nothing to offer so I shrugged my shoulders. This was clearly not going the way Serena had planned. Rose was not supposed to react like this. She should have vehemently denied the allegations while Serena used a combination of known facts and third party statements mixed with skilled questioning designed to get Rose off balance and positioned so that she would either make a mistake, inadvertently confirming the story, or she would be left with no choice but to admit to the claims. Or she could have become evasive, refusing to answer Serena's questions and ultimately demanding an end to the interview. Rose had done neither, had in fact appeared to embrace Serena's charges without confirming or denying. She was treating this as one big PR campaign destined to cement her reputation as Hollywood's true wild child.

It was becoming apparent to Serena that by responding the way she had, Rose had left her with absolutely nowhere to go. Rose wasn't denying the allegations, and by admitting to them, without really admitting to anything, people would come away from the interview not believing the story, concluding that Rose was just being Rose. Intentionally or not, the pale-skinned woman had done an excellent job of stopping Serena dead in her tracks.

There were, of course, additional things that Serena could have used to build her case against Rose and the others. Pictures of the girls together out and about, shopping on Rodeo Drive, going into Joseph's night club in L.A., coming out of Joseph's, going back into Joseph's, more shopping on Rodeo Drive, in short, more than enough to prove that the women knew each other and were very close. And kind of boring. At least when they were out in public. Pretty much the same as every other celeb, except for the complete nutjobs like Courtney Love and Russell Crowe.

Serena also had the statements from people who had been at the various clubs on the nights the girls had been out partying, the waitresses, clerks and patrons who had seen them. People who had witnessed how the girls interacted, how they danced together, touched each other. One waiter at Joseph's had claimed that he had seen Sarah and Love making out in a corner, his description of the event overly passionate to the point of being reverent, but Serena was never able to find anyone who could, or would, corroborate it. However more than a few of the people she questioned had expressed great disappointment at having missed the alleged display.

Then there had been her encounter with the three young men who were the closest neighbors to the mansion. Waldo something Harrington, Franklin and Delbert. When she first approached them they had seemed friendly and open to talking to her, until she started to ask questions about their famous neighbors. Then they got suspicious and defensive and refused to answer even the simplest questions, such as who lived at the mansion. Then they tried to sell her weed, offering some sort of secret blend of theirs and asking her if she liked Mexico. And then they accused her of being an operative for the CIA and told her she had to leave. The whole thing had been entirely too weird to be of any use at all.

Finally, there was the police report filed the night Sarah had been attacked, but that only confirmed that the blonde starlet had been at the mansion, not that she lived there. Although why she had been there alone with Alyson Hannigan was a question that had yet to be answered to Serena's satisfaction. And on that very same night Rose had been arrested defending Love. Remarkable perhaps, but hardly definitive proof.

Circumstantial, circumstantial, circumstantial, weird and irrelevant. That was the sum total of Serena's 'evidence'. That plus a copy of the title to the mansion that she had received from the clerk's office. And all by itself that proved nothing. Except maybe that Jennifer and Brad Pitt's marriage wasn't on such solid ground as they would like everyone to think.

No, she needed this interview, needed an admission that at least some of the rumors were true. Without that she was left with nothing that she could put on the air, but she still didn't know how she was going to get anything out of Rose. What she did know is that she could not give up, not yet anyway.

She tried one last time, "I can prove that you, Aniston, Gellar and Hewitt are close friends, we have dozens of pictures of you together in various combinations, including one of the four of you leaving a restaurant in L.A."

"Can I see that?"

Serena opened her file folder and rifled through the contents, finding the photo and handing it over to Rose, "I remember this. Do you have any idea how long ago this was? This is the day we met up at Checkers for lunch. Look at that smile on Love's face. Hey, can I keep this? I don't think Love has a shot of the four of us like this and I know she'd like one."

"So you admit that the four of you are friends?"

"Well duh!"

"And we can tie you and the others to the house. We know you all spend time there." That wasn't precisely true, only Jennifer Aniston and Sarah could be physically linked to the house, but Serena had run out of options, so bluffing was playing an increasingly larger role in her inquiry.

"And if that is true then it follows we must all be lovers."

"I think I could make the case for it."

"Spare me. Oh sure, maybe if you were doing the story for Extra, or Entertainment Tonight. They don't let anything like lack of proof get in the way of a really juicy story. But you're not. You're here for CNN and they have this annoying tendency to want their journalists to use facts when reporting a story. Facts that have been verified and corroborated by multiple sources. And you don't have that. How do I know this? I'll tell you how. Because I already said you could run with this, that I would not deny anything. But you won't. Why is that I wonder? Could it be that you know that you don't have enough to prove anything? Could it be that your producers won't run the story unless they get concrete evidence that at least some of your claims are true? Could it be that proving that Jennifer owns a house in Malibu and that she and I and Sarah and Love are all friends and we spend time there is not enough? Face it, you've got nothing. This is just a fucking fishing expedition and so far you've come up empty. So why are you still here?"

Rose had been pacing while she was talking and when it became clear that Serena was not about to answer her anytime soon she moved over to the windows, staring out over the cityscape and waiting for some sort of reaction from the blonde woman. Serena motioned to me to join her by the couch and I moved over and took a seat on the coffee table.

She leaned in close to me and started to speak softly, "She's right, coming here was a mistake, I see that now. I should have started with one of the others, no one would take these allegations about Rose McGowan seriously, it would just be written off as yet another wild story about her. Especially if she's the one confirming it."

"Maybe, but you had to start somewhere, and Aniston has way too much clout in this town. She'd be able to shut you down with one phone call."

Serena nodded at that and we sat for a couple of seconds while she thought about her next move, when she suddenly said "Gellar. I should have started with Sarah Michelle Gellar. She's got a rep as a stable person, and rumor has it she's got quite the temper. I bet she would have reacted more predictably... Hewitt! She's the one. I need to confront Love Hewitt."

I shook my head in answer, "That may be so, but if there's any truth to these rumors I'd say that's a missed opportunity. No way you're going to get within a hundred yards of her now that they know you're on to them."

"Then what do we do? I can't let this drop just because Rose outmaneuvered me."

"I don't think Rose is done just yet. Why don't we see what she does next?"

Serena accepted my suggestion without further comment, and waited for Rose to come back from the windows, while I returned to the camera equipment.

Rose had not been staring out the window just to pass the time, while waiting for the conversation going on behind her to end. She was thinking furiously. And her thoughts were running very much along the same line as Serena's. The blonde would not give up just because she didn't get what she wanted that day. She'd try again, and next time she'd go after one of her friends, Sarah maybe or... Love. Serena would go after Love next. Now that was something that Rose could not allow. But how to stop it? She and Sarah could not be with the adorable brunette every second of every day, no matter how much fun it might be to try. So how to stop Serena from cornering Love on a movie set, or out for an audition, catch her off guard and get her to admit to something that could be disastrous for them all?

By giving the blonde reporter what she really wanted, but in such a way that she could never use it, that's how.

If lions could smile they'd wear one very similar to the one Rose had on when she turned back from the windows to face the journalist sitting on the couch. She had chosen a course of action, and as it had so often in the past, this course required Rose to use her vast array of skills at seduction. And all those skills would be brought to bear on one single prey. The only decision remaining was whether this prey was to be played with or eaten. However, for Rose the two were often the same thing.

Rose moved away from the windows and back over to the couch, taking up a position directly behind Serena. Leaning over she brought her mouth next to Serena's right ear to speak, "Let's say for arguments sake that your claim is true. Every word of it. I really do live in a mansion with Sarah and the others and I really did have sex with all those women. Hell, why stop there? Let's say I've had sex with over a hundred women..."

Rose had moved her left hand onto Serena's shoulder and was gently massaging the blonde.

"... maybe even two hundred. All of them young, and sexy, and very, very horny, and each one of them nastier than the last. Can you imagine, after spending all that time, after all that experience, after taking all those women to new heights of ecstasy, after dipping my tongue in all those tight, dripping, hot, tasty pussies, after bringing all those women to a screaming, shuddering, heart-stopping climax... Can you imagine what I could do to you?"

Unnoticed by either Serena or myself Rose had moved her hand off the taller woman's shoulder while she was talking and had snaked it down inside the blonde's open blouse, coming to a stop between Serena's breasts. At the word 'imagine' she moved her hand to the right and cupped Serena's right breast, getting a low moan of pleasure from the blue-eyed woman. Rose kept her hand there for many seconds, not doing anything with it, just letting it rest on Serena's tit, allowing the blonde to grow accustomed to the touch of her warm flesh.

And then in a heartbeat it was gone. Rose stood up and removed her hand from Serena's blouse while the blonde tried to pretend it had never been there in the first place. Serena got up from the couch and went to stand by the fireplace, her arms crossed in front of her chest. Rose watched her silently for a moment then turned toward me and winked. It was go time.

Rose stretched and yawned widely, her tits stretching the material of her tube top almost to the breaking point. When she was finished she turned and started to move over to join Serena by the wall, trailing a finger along the back of the couch as she walked.

Coming to a stop a couple of paces from the older woman Rose said to no one in particular, "I'm bored. This interview's no fun anymore. I know! Let's play a game!"

Serena looked up at that, "You want to play a game? Sorry, I didn't come here to play games with you."

Rose closed the remaining distance to Serena and lifted her right hand to play with the buttons on the blue-eyed woman's blouse. Serena stiffened when Rose approached her, but she relaxed somewhat when the shorter woman's hand skipped down to a button just above her navel.

Rose continued to move her hand down Serena's body until she was playing with the hem of the blonde's skirt before responding at last, "Lady, all we've been doing since we started is playing games of your choosing. Now we're going to play one I like. And you're going to play with me."

"You're pretty damn sure of yourself, aren't you? What makes you think I'm going to stick around to play your games?"

Rose shrugged as if the answer to the first question was obvious, replying to the second instead, "You're young. You're single. You really want to know what's going on at the mansion. I've had my finger in your pussy for the last 30 seconds."

Serena gave out a small yelp at that and her head snapped down as she started to slap Rose's hand away. I had been following the entire exchange and even I hadn't seen Rose's hand move under Serena's skirt so my head did its own sudden drop as my eyes sought confirmation of the dark-haired woman's claim.

Only it wasn't true and Rose started laughing as she avoided Serena's swipes, lifting both her hands to her shoulders and wiggling her fingers, demonstrating for both of us that her digits were free of any fluids. Damn. I would've paid good money to see Rose licking Serena's cream from her fingers. Even more if I could help.

Rose was laughing, I was mildly disappointed, and Serena, well Serena was confused again. The look on her face was part relief and part terror. Relief because she was happy to find out that Rose had only been bluffing, and terrified because she had believed, if only for a moment, that Rose really had been fingering her. But the worst part was that when she realized that Rose was bluffing, her first feeling was one of disappointment.

When Rose stopped laughing she continued as if there had been no interruption, "Besides, this is the only way you're going to find out what's really going on in Malibu."

Serena was intrigued by that and her head came back up, "What are you saying? You'll answer my questions? Why now?"

Rose closed in on Serena again, pressing her body against the taller woman's and pinning her to the wall beside the fireplace, answering the last question first, "Because I want this over. I don't want to be constantly worried that you're going to blindside me or one of my friends with these allegations every time we go out. So here's the deal, you play my game, by my rules, and beat me, and I'll give you what you want. For real this time."

Serena opened her mouth to ask another question and Rose pressed her mouth to the blonde's hard, catching her completely off guard with the kiss. At first Serena was too shocked to do anything but after a few seconds she began to struggle, trying to free herself and remove the unwanted invader from her mouth. After another few seconds Serena's struggles lessened and she started to respond more favorably, and by the end of the kiss she was as fully engaged in the effort as Rose was.

As quickly as she started Rose ended the kiss and moved away from Serena, leaving the blonde gasping for air by the fireplace, "Ah buuuh."

Rose had a smug look on her face as she again announced to no one, "I am good!"