“HUMAN HAMMER,” said the massive man, his ebony skin rippling with muscle, “you think you’re such a lady’s man, like you’re some kind of bossanova?”
The man flexed, his bald head showing off numerous veins as if he was having an apoplectic fit.
“Well, you’re not good looking,” he said, jowls peeled back to show off bright white teeth. “You’re ugly! You’re so ugly that if ugliness was from France, you’d be the Great Wall of China!”
“Cut!” shouted the little man standing next to him, wearing a very dapper but modest suit. “Chris-sakes, Jerry, can you not remember your damn line? It’s Casanova, not bossanova! And don’t get me started on…the Great Wall of China? Really? That’s not even in the right continent!”
“I’m sorry,” the big man said, sniffling a bit. “Can we start over Mr. Oberland? I think I can do better this time.”
“Oh, jeezus,” Oberland said, slapping a palm over his face. “Don’t cry, big guy. I’m sorry, all right? Just…just try to read the lines as written, okay?”
The two men were on the sound stage of Reilly Productions, perched on the thirtieth floor of the Buster Building. The studio was nestled between a law office above and a medical diagnostics lab below. They were standing before a large green curtain, a two man crew operating a camera pointed straight at them. The red light upon the top flickered on once more, and the big man tried to muddle through his lines.
Off to the side, keeping their voices very low, Autumn and Steve watched the proceedings. The mood was so solemn, they almost felt like they were in a church.
“This is it,” she said, leaning close and whispering in his ear. “The real deal, I mean. You’re going to be on television!”
“I just hope that two weeks’ worth of training was enough to get me back up to speed.”
“Pfft. You’ll do fine. This is…this is awesome!”
Her eyes shone with excitement, and her hands fluttered open and closed upon his own.
“Calm down…it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s hard enough to work a match, but when you have to worry about getting in the camera crew’s way…well, it can be dangerous.”
“I never thought of that. Oh, sugar, I hope you don’t get hurt.”
“I’m going to get hurt,” Steve said, chuckling a bit as he tucked a strand of her jet black hair behind her ear, “but hopefully not bad. Like I said, most of the time it’s like any other sport: you play injured a lot of the time.”
Autumn hugged his arm tightly.
“I don’t want you to.”
“Shhh, I think they’re filming again. Hopefully I can get a deal where I’m not on the road all the time. I have no idea what kind of contract he has in mind.”
“I think we’re about to find out.”
A man came out of a door adjacent to the spot where Jerry and Oberland were wrapping up their interview. He tiptoed past the scene, then marched toward the couple with his hand outstretched.
“Hello,” he said in a stage whisper, “I’m Chester Reilly, how do you do?”
He shook Steve’s hand, pumping it vigorously and making eye contact. He had a thin face and a long nose; this coupled with his prominent, large ears gave him an almost rodent like quality. A pencil-thin mustache decorated his upper lip, matching the dark color of his slicked back hair.
“Steve—” Steve said, starting to introduce himself.
“Steve Borgia, son of the legendary Deathslayer from Hell!” Reilly said, still pumping his hand. “We’re expecting big things from you, my boy, big things!”
Smoothly, he turned his attention toward Autumn. His eyes went wide, and his thin lips parted in a gasp.
“And who is this beautiful lady?” he said, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips.
“This is my fiancée, Autumn,” Steve said, cocking an eyebrow at the gesture while Autumn giggled.
“Enchanted,” he said, staring at her longingly. Autumn arched her own brow and twitched her nose, a hint of her annoyance which Reilly subtly acknowledged by turning back toward Steve.
“Man, you’re a big guy!” Reilly massaged Steve’s bulky shoulder. “How often do you hit the gym?”
“Three times a week, and I try to get in running and biking every day if I can.”
“He overdoes it, that’s what he means,” Autumn said, brow knit with concern. Her fingers felt at the bandage beneath his shirt, as if she were assuring herself that it was still affixed.
“Three times a week, and you look like that?” Reilly said, shaking his head. “Man, those Deathslayer genetics are just phenomenal. We used to joke that your dad is like a classic car, because he still has all his original parts!”
“He never did any of the off the top stuff.”
“Do you?” Reilly said, his tone casual but a gleam in his eyes.
“Yeah. I can bust a pretty good moonsault, as long as the ropes aren’t too springy. I used to do an elbow drop, but that really hurt my hip.”
“You’re too big for that, sugar,” Autumn said, nose twitching.
“Nah, it’ll be fine. When you land a moonsault you absorb the impact with your whole body, so it’s not that unsafe.”
“I watch wrestling, I know what a moonsault is. Aren’t you afraid that you won’t make the back flip all the way and come down on your head?”
“Sure, but then I might slip on soap in the tub tomorrow and crack my head open.”
“It’s not even close to being the same, and you know it! There will be no moonsaults, no top rope, no diving over the ropes to somebody on the floor. At all.”
“Autumn,” Steve said, smiling nervously as he glanced back and forth between Reilly and his paramour, “you’re kidding! Tell him you’re kidding.”
“You are a pretty big guy to be pulling that stuff, Steve,” Reilly said, winking at Autumn. “Guys built like you don’t need to come off the top rope. You can just fling the boys all over the place like an ape and the crowd will eat it up.”
“What sort of gimmick do you have in mind for yourself?” Reilly asked as he led Steve into his office. The room was spartan, with bare metal walls and a simple desk that looked as if it had been swiped from a teacher at a local high school. A beaten and weary looking desktop computer sat buzzing on the desk, the keyboard lost amid a stack of papers. He bade them sit down in the stuffed chairs before the desk, which were comfortable but for the numerous lacerations that covered the vinyl upholstery.
“Well, when I was wrestling back in the day I called myself the Insane Warrior. I was hoping we could build on that.”
“Ah,” Reilly said, wincing as if in pain. “You see, kid, the thing is, the Insane Warrior was kind of cliché. I mean, how many face paint wearing steroid freaks can the public be exposed to before the whole thing becomes old hat?”
“I never did steroids.”
“Sure, whatever kid…Anyway, I heard about that trouble you had a few months back, with the whole losing your job cause of a fight with a TV hooker.”
“Uh,” Steve said, blushing red while Autumn stifled a laugh, “I can explain that, I’m really not a homophobic or prejudiced person—”
“No, don’t misunderstand me, kid. I don’t want to hide the fact that this incident happened. I want to embrace it.”
“I don’t follow,” Steve said, cocking his head to the side.
“This is what I think: You, Steve, you aren’t Steven Borgia anymore.”
“I’m not?”
“You’re…you’re…” Reilly’s fingers grasped at the air as if he could pluck the words out of the atmosphere. A light dawned in his eyes and his smile grew wider. “You’re Pimpmaster S!”
“Pimpmaster S?”
“Yeah, it’ll be great! You can get some bling, a big fur coat, oh, and you can come out to ‘It’s Hard out Here for a Pimp.’ I got a guy who can do a knockoff so good, you’d swear it’s just like the real thing, but we can prove in a court of law that it’s not!”
“Uh, I don’t know…”
“I think it sounds great,” Autumn said, putting a hand on Steve’s forearm. “Should go over well with that eighteen to thirty-six-year-old demographic.”
“Yeah,” Reilly said, nodding his head, “exactly! And you, Autumn, would you be available to be his ho? I could draw up your contract at the same time I do his.”
“Autumn is NOT playing a prostitute,” Steve said.
“Shhh,” Autumn said, squeezing his arm. “I could do that.”
“Autumn!” Steve said, glancing sharply her way.
“Great! Now, you need a name, something exotic but easy to print on T-shirts and signs…hmm, kind of got an S&M goth sort of vibe here…how about CANDY PAIN?”
“Candy Pain?” Steve said, his blue eyes narrowing to slits. “Are you out of your fu—”
“I think I like it,” Autumn said, digging her nails into Steve’s arm.
“All right,” Reilly said, shuffling the papers around on his desk. “This is what I’m offering. Currently, we run about three shows a week, one of which is televised. You sign here, you agree to appear in all of those shows in a performance capacity. You also agree to any promotional appearances that we might deem necessary but no more than five total appearances, matches included, in any given week. You have to agree to our no-compete clause, which means you can’t wrestle for any other promotion in North America. However, you are free to book yourself in matches outside the country, so long as they do not interfere with the ability of WWL, LLC to conduct its business.”
Steve’s mind swirled with the deluge of information. It was a good contract, one that would give him several days off a week to mend and spend with Autumn. His eyes scanned down to the compensation, and went wide.
“Uh, this says you’ll be paying me seventy-five grand for a one-year contract. Is that a misprint, or…?”
“No, that’s accurate. I told you, we expect big things from you, and I hope you stick around with us after your contract is up, even if you get an offer from the North or the South.”
“Probably wouldn’t work for the North anyway. I want to spend some time with the people I love.”
“That’s great!” Reilly said. He then turned to Autumn. “Autumn, your contract won’t be nearly as generous…unless you know how to bump?”
“She definitely doesn’t bump,” Steve said quickly.
“Okay,” she said, smiling, “I cave. No top rope stuff for you and no bumps for me.”
“She doesn’t bump,” Steve said with vehemence.
“Great in either case. I’ll have legal draw up a contract for her and e-mail it to you this afternoon. It’s gonna be a hell of a ride, kid! Welcome to the WWL!”
As the man again pumped his hand with fervent enthusiasm, Steve could not help but feel as if he were already losing a piece of himself. Only Autumn’s presence at his side made him feel enough conviction to bury those feelings beneath the knowledge that they needed the money, desperately.
Seated next to him, Autumn did not seem to notice his inner conflict. Her eyes were wide, starstruck with the possibilities that their new life might afford them.