CHAPTER 11

IT’S NOT UNUSUAL

Vegas was a never-ending three-ring circus. The story I’m about to tell has become a pretty well-known piece of folklore ever since I was on The Howard Stern Show and blabbed about the whole embarrassing episode on national radio. To get me on the show as a guest, Mark, my husband and manager at the time, told them the smarmiest, most sensational story he could possibly come up with about me. Cut to a few months later and there I was in the green room of Howard Stern’s New York City studio at 6:00 a.m. chugging whiskey to get up the nerve to answer the questions I knew were coming.

I was a fan of the Howard Stern Show. I enjoyed listening to the rude things he said to other people, but I wasn’t happy about being in the hot seat. It was at the height of Howard’s popularity and both he and Robin, his sidekick, couldn’t have been nicer or more gracious. They made me feel as comfortable as possible beforehand, including having “Earthdog Fred” bring me a glass full of “Jack” to steady my nerves. When I arrived Howard said, “Damn, woman. You’re old, but I’d bang you!” Coming from Howard, I took it as a huge compliment.

Ever since the day my interview played on Howard’s show, guys have been approaching me with a smirk saying things like, “Tom Jones, huh?” and I can feel my face grow hot while I smile and do my best to act like it doesn’t bother me. Ugh.

In September of 1970 I took the one and only vacation I had during my stint as a showgirl to celebrate my birthday with my family and friends in Colorado Springs. As soon as I got there, I made the rounds of all my old nightclub haunts, and just to make sure everyone knew I was now a showgirl in Las Vegas, I wore extra-revealing clothes and almost as much makeup as I plastered on for one of my shows. I ended up at Kelker Junction and ran into a friend. The last time I’d seen Joe, he’d painted my bikinied body with Day-Glo flowers and paisley designs so I’d look extra groovy under the black lights while dancing on my pedestal there. He was a hyphenate—artist-construction worker-biker—who I’d been aware of since the age of ten. Back then he was a hot, greasy-haired hoodlum who was dating the big sister of my grade-school friend April. One afternoon, April and I hid behind her parents’ BarcaLounger and watched her sister and Joe make out on their pink-and-red-flowered sofa. Hearing their groans and seeing their clumsy groping and fondling made me strangely excited, confused, scared, and sick to my stomach all at the same time. It was the first time I’d seen anything like that, and it would give me a lot to ponder over the summer break between fifth and sixth grade.

A late bloomer, I was the last girl in my class to get her “monthly visitor.” When my period still hadn’t shown up at age fourteen, my mom assured me that some kind of cancerous tumor must be eating away at my female parts and took me to the doctor. Our family general practitioner—Dr. Paap, I shit you not—announced that I needed to be on the pill to jump-start my period, and I was thunderstruck when my mother actually agreed to it. To her, a former nurse, a doctor’s dictum was equal to the word of God, so she accepted his decree and I left, prescription in hand. Those were the days when it seemed that every adult woman was on the newly liberating birth-control pill, and like the good Girl Scout I still was, it was reassuring to “be prepared,” even though it would be several more years before it would come in handy.

Joe was quite a bit older than me, in his mid-twenties, with longish, curly brown hair and an adorable gap-toothed smile that exposed two dreamy dimples. At one point, he and his English bulldog, Tubby, lived next door to my family in a little cottage behind our neighbor’s house. Joe was cute, funny, and charming, so there was never a shortage of girls coming and going from his place. I’d known him so long that I felt very comfortable around him, like an old family friend. I found out much later that he’d boffed both my sisters. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out he’d done my mom, too. He was that irresistible.

When 2:00 a.m. rolled around, Joe and I wound up at the house he shared with a couple of other bikers from the Sons of Silence. I must have decided it was finally time, because without much fanfare, we ended up in Joe’s bed, repeating the groaning, grasping scene I’d witnessed so many years before at my friend April’s house—and before I knew what was happening, we were doing it. I think. It didn’t feel like much, really. Later, he did a pencil sketch of us that captured that particular moment in time, and that I have to this day.

Having sex hadn’t turned out to be at all like I’d imagined so many years before during my “sexual awakening” in the back seat of my mom’s Ford Fairlane. Where was the rapturous, romantic encounter that Barbara Mason had crooned about on the radio? I sure didn’t hear bells or angels’ voices. I chalked it up to the fact that Joe and I were just “buddies” and knew each other too well for sex to be that exciting, but I had to wonder whether someone’s equipment had malfunctioned, either mine or his, because, honestly, I didn’t feel a thing!

The Peggy Lee song “Is That All There Is” came to mind and played over and over in my head for days afterward. All the deep fear and anxiety I’d had about fucking had apparently been unfounded. Of course, it had been my parents who had put the fear of God into me about sex: pregnancy, disease, filthy, dirty, disgusting, ick ick ick! Down deep I was so relieved to have the whole thing over! All those years of worrying and waiting and being snubbed for being a prick-tease were behind me. I wanted to kick my own ass for putting it off for so long and making it into such a big, scary deal. I was livid that I’d wasted all the incredible opportunities I might have had with the likes of Jimi Hendrix or, who knows, even Elvis!

But back to Tom.

When I returned to Vegas from Colorado, Buddy and Sterling offered to take me to Caesar’s Palace to see Tom Jones, the hottest act on the Strip. Tom was in his prime. His songs were all over the charts and everyone in the country was flipping out over him. I didn’t know much about him and wasn’t a fan of his music, with the exception of “What’s New Pussycat,” which had that swingin’ London sound I loved. He was a lot older than the singers I liked, but I went along to see what all the fuss was about—and I was stunned! With that powerful voice, skintight pants, and shirt unbuttoned to his navel showing off his hairy chest, I decided he was the hottest, most charismatic performer I’d ever seen (after Elvis, of course). I couldn’t believe a guy could gyrate and swivel his hips like that, especially an “old” dude. No wonder women in the audience were throwing their room keys and panties onstage!

I can’t remember how I ended up backstage after the show. Maybe Buddy or Sterling accompanied me or maybe I just used the gate-crashing groupie tactics I’d learned as a kid, but I somehow found myself among a gaggle of adoring fans crammed into Tom Jones’s plush Caesar’s Palace dressing room. I did my best to mingle and look sexy, maintaining a casual “oh-yeah-this-is-just-me-hanging-out-in-Tom-Jones’s-dressing-room-I-do-this-all-the-time” attitude. I kept one eye super-glued to Tom’s sharkskin-encased ass. He made the rounds as my eyes bored into the halo of damp brown ringlets that brushed the ruffled collar of his shirt. He shook hands with the men and charmed the ladies with a peck on both cheeks—so continental! Then it happened. I looked up just in time to see him sauntering in my direction. He stopped right in front of me, giving me the head-to-toe with a lopsided grin. I stared slack-jawed into his handsome face with its straight nose and manly chin shaded in the sun-kissed glow of Man Tan bronzing gel. In that famous husky Welsh accent of his, he asked, “And who are you, love?” I caught a faint whiff of his cologne—English Leather? Jade East? I couldn’t tell, but I knew it was expensive. It was all I could do to keep my knees from buckling under me. I somehow managed to exhale my name and I must have gotten it right because he replied, “Cassandra? Beautiful name for a beautiful lady.” I made a quick backward glance to make sure he wasn’t talking to someone behind me. “Care for a champagne cocktail, then?” he asked, eyes boring into mine. Yes, I nodded. He seemed to turn in slow motion and made his way through the crowd in the direction of the makeshift dressing-room bar, glancing back once to make sure I hadn’t disappeared. I watched his broad, muscular shoulders ripple beneath the thin, white shirt he wore as he disappeared into the hazy, smoke-filled room. In my mind, everything went silent. The only sound I heard was the blood pounding in my ears. My mouth was so dry my lips stuck together, which was probably a good thing. I was so excited I might have let it fly open and announce in some kind of Gomer Pyle voice, “Well, gooooollly! Tom Jones is gittin’ me a draaank!” The flocked wallpaper glowed a fuzzy burnt orange in the gold lamplight of his dressing room. A half-smoked Virginia Slim lay smoldering in the melamine Caesar’s Palace ashtray next to me.

He returned holding two brimming champagne glasses and, with a sharp tilt of his white-boy Afro, motioned me toward a love seat in the alcove behind us. He plopped down next to me, leg resting against mine, and began to make small talk.

“So, you live in Las Vegas then, or you just visitin’?” I was afraid to look at his face. Afraid I might pass out.

“I live here. I’m a showgirl at the Dunes,” I replied, casting my eyes downward to stare at one of his black pointy-toe boots framed by orange shag carpeting.

A slightly tipsy man in a gray business suit swept up to us.

“Hey Tom, great show!” he effused. “Say, would you mind signing a program for my wife? I’ll get laid every day for the next year!” Tom let out a subtle sigh, stood up, smiled, and graciously scribbled his name.

I grinned up at the man and took another big gulp of my drink. Tom topped off my glass from the bottle of Dom that had been delivered to him, so thankfully there were no interruptions in the administration of my liquid anxiety medication. He sat back down next to me and placed a hand on my thigh. I took another hit of bubbly courage. We continued to chat as the night wore on and the crowd thinned out.

“Well, baby, looks like the party’s over,” Tom breathed in my ear. “I’ve just heard the most amazing song today. You’ve gotta come up to my room and have a listen.” Honestly, he could have said, “I’ve got the most gigantic pimple on me arse. You’ve just gotta come up to my room and pop it!” and I would have trotted right along with him. I have to hand it to him for at least giving me the option of saying no.

Just as we reached the door of Tom’s penthouse suite, a husky-sized, frizzy-haired boy several years younger than me came wandering down the hall with a sandwich in one hand and a tall glass of milk in the other.

“Hullo, Da’,” the kid mumbled. There was an awkward moment of silence. Tom’s Man Tan suddenly went pale. He turned his back on him and fumbled with the door key.

“Oh, uh, this is my son, Mark.” Tom said brusquely, gesturing in the boy’s general direction.

“Hi there,” I slurred, giving a little wave as I stumbled over the threshold into Tom’s room. The fact that this kid might have a mother somewhere never crossed my mind. Oops.

I lounged on the horseshoe-shaped couch while Tom slipped a cassette into his player. I heard the song that I’ll forever link with him, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by Roberta Flack. I’d never heard it before, and it turned me on as much as it seemed to turn Tom on—musical Spanish fly.

We began kissing to the slow, seductive song that oozed from the recorder and the next thing I knew, I was in Tom’s bed and he was on top of me. It was pretty well known from the skintight pants that Tom Jones was famous for wearing onstage that he was well endowed. There were rumors he stuffed his pants with socks. Well, I’m here to tell you he didn’t.

Cut back to me on the bottom and Tom Jones on top, banging away. Even though I’d had more than my share of champagne, it wasn’t enough to dull the searing, stabbing pain I was feeling between my legs. This wasn’t supposed to be happening! It wasn’t anything like the time before with Joe.

“Stop, stop! You’re hurting me!” I cried. I pushed him off me and sat up, clutching a pillow to cover my chest.

Tom leapt to his feet beside the king-size bed. I couldn’t help staring at his huge hard-on which now drooped toward the floor, looking as dejected as the expression on his face. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked.

“I’m a virgin!” I blubbered, pointing to the bloodstains on the sheet as evidence. Okay, I know. That maybe wasn’t technically true, but it was the best answer I could come up with.

“Oh, really. You’re a Las Vegas showgirl and a virgin?” He snorted, rolling his eyes. “D’ya really expect me to believe that?”

I felt so ashamed and humiliated that I began to bawl. “I just want to go home!” At least he was gentleman enough to arrange for a car, but he definitely wasn’t happy.

My dream date had turned into a nightmare, but it didn’t put a damper on the excitement I felt. Even though the night had ended on a decidedly down note, during my ride home I couldn’t believe I’d actually “been” with the Tom Jones! When I got back to my place, I woke up my roommates to tell them the news and they were almost as astonished as I was.

Despite the pain, the blood, the humiliation, I still suffered from the delusion that so many young women feel after their first time. Finally—this was true love. Tom and I would be married in a fabulous Las Vegas wedding ceremony at the Little Chapel of the West and I would become Mrs. Tom Jones! That night at work amid daydreams of Tom and me on our honeymoon, it became apparent that no amount of tamponage would stem the tide of blood leaking out of me. Jennifer insisted that after the show I head straight to the hospital emergency room.

I remember my face burning as I recounted the embarrassing details of what had happened, graciously leaving Tom’s name out of it. I was given a shot to numb the area, which was almost worse than whatever went on after that. They categorized it as some kind of “hymeneal injury.” A few stitches later I was as good as I was ever going to be. Oh God, am I really sitting here writing about my cooze?

I quickly recovered from the physical pain, and the very next night, like the clueless kid I was, returned to Caesars Palace after Tom’s show. I was so excited about seeing my future husband that I could hardly breathe. In my mind, I saw myself enter Tom’s dressing room. He would see me from across the crowded room and time would stand still. We would rush into each other’s arms in slow motion and he would shower me in kisses, apologize for the night before, and beg my forgiveness.

But when I entered his dressing room, my rainbow-colored fantasies disintegrated before my eyes and my heart was broken into a million little pieces. There he was, my man, caught red-handed, snuggled up on our loveseat, making out with not one, but two girls—his backup singers, the Blossoms! Before he got the chance to come up for air and spot me, I turned, tears stinging my eyes, and stumbled for the door, completely and utterly devastated. It’s hard to believe, even for me, that I could’ve been that naïve at the ripe old age of eighteen, but although my body belied my innocence, I was still inexperienced, both physically and emotionally.

For the next week I drove all the girls in the dressing room crazy. Between my uncontrollable sobs, I played Tom Jones’s song “I Who Have Nothing” over and over and over again on my portable cassette player, drowning in my own sorrow. After three nights of that, Kathleen, the brassy blonde from Jersey, stomped up to my dressing table. Fuming, she grabbed my player, jerked the cassette out of the machine, unraveling the thin, shiny tape, and threw it with all her might across the room. “Get the fuck over it, awready!” she shouted. And I did.

I wish I could say that was the end of the Tom Jones saga, but there’s a very pathetic addendum to this story. Several years later, I drove from LA to Vegas for the weekend with my best friend and fellow struggling actress, Lynn Guthrie. We managed to get backstage after seeing Tom’s show. At the first opportunity, we wiggled our way through the crowded dressing room to say hello to Tom.

“Hi Tom!” I chirped, setting myself up. “Remember me?”

Just being this close to him again caused the color to rise in my face and sweat to bead on my forehead. The room felt suddenly hot and airless. Tom’s fans pressed in against me from every side, jostling for position.

“Of course,” he sneered, looking me in the eye. “You’re the one with the scars on your back.” His cruelty that night was a lot more painful than the stitches.

Not long after the Tom Jones experience, I realized that Vegas had lost its charm. The thrill was gone. After more than a year, dancing in the show had become a robotic ritual that I was forced to endure two or three times a night. On stage I now stared straight ahead, grimacing a fake smile while I thought of a laundry list of things I had to do after the show—like for example, the laundry. Top that off with the knowledge that my closest friends, Buddy and Sterl, were leaving the show and moving on to bigger and better things in Paris, and I knew in my heart that Elvis had been right—Vegas was no place for a teenage girl. I’d been the youngest showgirl in town, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be the oldest. Now was a good time for leaving Las Vegas.