A Starr is Born Pt 5
Reworked by Wendy C from
a story written by Mistress X.

It was a couple of days later when Jerry and I got called into the conference room. Sitting there around the meeting table were the same people from the demonstration in the gym. Nigel, the suits, the writers, plus some other new people.

"Please be seated," requested the Glasses Lady. We sat down across from them and she continued. "We've looked over your ring work and decided you have plenty of potential, and we'd like to discuss your future with NDW productions," It was a stock address if I'd ever heard one. I already had a guaranteed contract with the company that even I couldn't get out of, I'd tried that! "We need to talk about your image, your persona. We feel that while you perform more than adequately in the ring, and your demonstration on the microphone was quite good, other areas need improvement."

"Such as where" I probed.

"Your presentation," she said. "Your body language isn't yet what we're looking for and frankly, your look needs work. That's why we've brought Gabriela in here to consult with you on that," She motioned to one of the new people, a really made up lady with teased hair and about half the Sherwin Williams catalogue on her face. "She's going to be your style coach."

"You're sending me to finishing school?" I questioned.

"It's nothing so formal," said Glasses Lady. "She's just going to help you with appearances. You've made quite a lot of progress on that as it is from what I've seen."

"Say what?" my jaw slackened.

"You already carry yourself in a pretty feminine manner" Gabriela interjected. "But there's still certainly room to improve. That swagger and confidence hasn't carried over and that's something you'll need to have."

I was dumbfounded. I hadn't actually paid much attention to how I moved or to my mannerisms outside the ring. My moves between the ropes were all I'd been focusing on. Had all that really changed too?

"I'll help you bring that out. And I'll help you with your look too. For starters, we must do something with that hair. Are you married to the short length?"

"Kinda," I said. "It doesn't grow very fast anyway. The... the gynospores stunted the growth rate. It's a side-effect."

"Well I think we can do something sassy with it anyway," Gabriela said. "What do you know about makeup?"

I swallowed hard. "Nothing."

Gabriela took some notes and then leaned over and whispered to another new person; a young lady in glasses with long straight hair covered with a beanie. "Oh this is a colleague of mine, Nikki," Gabriela said. "She designed a lot of the ring costumes for the talent, almost all of the women. We consult with each other fairly closely."

"Do you have any padding requirements?" Nikki asked with a low, shy, almost croak.

"Um, knee pads and one elbow pad I guess," I told her.

She took down her own notes and then looked back up at me. "I'll need you to come back in and take some measurements sometime," she added.

"She's not in ring shape yet," Jerry butted in. "She's still got some weight to put back on."

"Yes, concerning that," said Glasses Lady, conspicuously adjusting her namesake feature. "We've consulted with marketing and Gabriela here and we think it would be wise to....... let's say, focus her weight in a........particular area."

"What are you saying?" Jerry asked.

"We're suggesting that Ms. Blake consider some, augmentations," she said. I was paralyzed. "We've already discussed it with her agent, Mr. Cullen. The company would of course pay for the procedure, and offer an increased percentage of merchandising rights, as well as a substantial bonus should she agree. Add that to our increased sales projections due to said alterations, and we're all looking at a considerable bounce."

"Y... y, you... want me..." I stammered, "to get..." I sat there stunned with my hands out in front of me, palms in, hands opened wide.

"It would be a fairly minor change compared to what you've already gone through," she said. "And it could be a boon to everyone involved."

"Would you please excuse me for a moment," I said wearily, and then I walked out of the room.

"What's going on?" I heard Nigel's muffled voice coming through the wall.

"She's feeling a little sick obviously," Jerry's voice reverberated as well.

I leaned over the sink, still trying to spit the taste of puke out of my mouth, and I looked myself in the mirror. Standing there on the other side was a very pale, very unhappy lady. They really thought they could market THAT on her looks? God, no wonder they thought she needed augmentations. She really didn't have the biggest top floor I'd ever seen, it was true, but the very idea that they'd ask that, with everything I'd already been through. It was so.......... out of touch.

"Well I need to talk to her," Nigel said.

"It's the ladies' room," Jerry countered. "Don't be weird."

"Stop me," Nigel said.

"I can stop you," I heard Jerry announce, and then there was a loud bang.

"Knock it off!" I demanded as I re-emerged out into the hall, finding Nigel climbing out of a planter and Jerry standing over him. "I'm not in any mood for this shit."

"Jesus Casey, get this goon off of me," said Nigel, knocking potting soil off of his blazer. "I should sue."

"You're not gonna do that," I told him. It was a definitive statement not a request. "Both of you just cool off."

"I need to talk to you about that deal Case," said Nigel. "It's a good deal."

"Oh fuck right off Nigel," I said, crossing my arms.

"Look, I know, it's hard. It's not what you'd have picked, but that's the name of the game. We both stand to make a lot more money this way and if you don't... we could lose a lot."

"What the hell does that mean?" I demanded.

"It's a loop-hole in the contract," he said. "They have a right to reset the conditions of the contract if you don't meet certain marketing stipulations. We could lose that pay raise if you don't do it."

"God damn it Nigel!" I kicked over the planter and put my hands on my head. "I'm in no mood for this today, I warning you."

"I know," he pleaded. "But it's not so bad though right? Against everything else that’s happened?"

I shoved him aside and walked down the hall back toward the parking lot. "Meeting's over... I'll think about it," is all I could say.

The next morning I woke up and stretched my arms high above my head, arching my back like a cat. My cramps had finally subsided and it felt like finding the pot of gold at the end of one shitty ass rainbow. All things considered I was in comparative heaven.

I poked out into the den section of the bus where Cassidy and Violet were already trotting about, making coffee and raiding the mini-fridge for a quick breakfast. Like me they weren't dressed. Violet was wearing the same lacy getup from before and Cassidy had on a pair of loose pyjama bottoms and a cotton tank top. I couldn't help but give attention to how their breasts moved as she moved about. They were both bigger than me, both “augmented”. There was no sexual interest in my examination. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd been turned on by any part of the female anatomy, it was just, casual, academic.

"Hey," Cassidy looked at me. "You want some coffee Hon?" she asked.

"No," I thumbed toward the back of the bus. "I was just about to brush my teeth," It surprised me how nonchalantly these women paraded around half naked in the same room as a half-naked me. More accurately, I was amazed at how NOT amazed I was. It all had this weird, dreamlike, natural quality to it. "Cassidy" I said?

"Yeah Hon?" she answered.

"Do you..." I began. "Do you think I'm pretty?"

All activity in the bus stopped at that moment. Cassidy looked at me for a brief eternity before she spoke. "Yes Casey. Yes I do," was all she said at first. Her tone was staggeringly matter-of-fact. It was as if someone had asked her if she thought it would rain today. "At any rate you look a hell of a lot better than you have the last few days. What brought this on?"

"I don't know," I blushed. "Just something some image consultant said the other day."

"Oh I get it," she said, pouring steaming brown liquid into a small mug. "Nobody makes you feel uglier than those people."

"They want me to.......... never mind" I said. "They just, I gotta meet with somebody else today. So, you're on your own with practice."

"That's cool," she said, and she took a sip. "I need to spread my wings anyway. But we still gotta work on getting you some new moves."

That day instead of going to the gym, I was directed to another conference room. I’d been told to still wear my workout gear, one of the same leotards I had been wearing. The unease at how they showed off the lines of my body had been fading with each workout. Inside the office I found that the conference table had been moved against one wall and none other than Gabriela was sitting cross-legged upon it. "Hello Darling," she said. "Today I'm gonna teach you how to walk."

"I already know how to walk," I said crossing the room, almost as if to prove the point.

"You know how to put one foot in front of the other," she corrected. "There's more to it than that," She stood up. "Yes, you can get from point A to point B, you even walk like a girl," that statement put a knot in my throat, but I kept silent. "But you move like a mousy little thing. You lack confidence and that's unbecoming of a member of NDW talent," She strode around me, her head held high, her shoulders deliberately back, her hips swaying with every step. "You are supposed to be one of the meanest, baddest, most self-assured women on this planet or any other planet for that matter…… But your body isn't saying it."

I looked down at myself. Oh man, it suddenly struck me how right she was. I was standing like a school-girl being dressed down by the headmistress. My toes and knees were together, my hands were clasped down in front of me, my shoulders were hunched up with my head buried in them.

"Now don't worry," she said. "We're not going turn you into some sort of vixen. I'm not teaching you pole dancing here, that's not your character. YOU are the “pure” athlete. You're not the girl who's up there in the ring because she looks good in a pair of vinyl booty-shorts. You're up there because you're one of the best sportswomen in the world."

My heart actually soared at this. It was a weird kind of relief not quite like any I'd ever felt before. It was like I was eased of a weight I didn't know I'd been carrying, alleviated of a worry I didn't consciously think of.

"But that comes with its own kind of confidence, its own swagger."

"Then why do they want me to get..." I held out my cupped hands in front of my chest.

"If you asked them," she stopped in place. "They'd probably lie to you, but it's because they want to sell tickets and merchandise to teenaged boys....... and 20 something boys and 30 something boys, as well as middle-aged boys. But me, I think you could really use the confidence boost?"

"The what" I demanded!

She sighed loudly. "Look at you Sam Starr. You’re a cute looking girl, no doubt about that. But that's what you come off as……..a girl. You have nice hips, true, but between the regenerative skin, the weight loss, and the self-doubt, you look more like a lost kid. We need a grown, mature, self-confident WOMAN.

It goes beyond the self-assuredness that looking sexy will give and believe me, it will. But that IS a big part of it….... Look, I know about the spores and how they weren't your choice. That was forced on you and I know that was wrong. But I don't think you're reading this the right way. Yes, the spores made you female against your will. FEMALE. Listen to the language I'm using," she faced me and took me firmly by the shoulders. "There's no going back, we both know that. But what YOU get to decide is where you go from here. You can stay the mousy little girl the spores made you, or you can CHOOSE to be a WOMAN."

The rest of the day was spent with me walking circles around the conference room. Every loop I made, Gabriela would correct me on something, then make me do it again and then again the other way around. She taught me different walks, and different stances, and by “'taught” I mean she really explained it to me, like as if I was still a guy looking at me now as a woman. She even produced a pair of high heels, insisting I learn to walk in those, claiming it would help with the rest if I could do that. It wasn't the impossible task I’d been led to believe. Making a slight heel slip every now and then was the worst it got. Soon I could walk around in them but I was sure it looked far from a picture of elegance and grace.

I crawled into my bunk that night a nicer kind of tired. Every muscle wasn’t screaming in pain like most days, my back wasn't a road map of bruises like sometimes, but man did my feet ever hurt. I lay there in my pod thinking about what Gabriela had said to me, and watching the orange twilight rays creep down below the gap in my curtain.

It was like I was trapped in a tunnel, the entrance collapsed behind me, no way back. I could stay where I was, or move forward. This was maybe the first time I could remember when I had a choice doing something, and Gabriela had reminded me that it “was” my choice. I reached into the little alcove next to my bed and pulled out my phone. The screen lit up the bunk as I scrolled through the numbers, and then listen to it ring on the other end, nervously steeling myself. "Nigel Cullen," I said when the secretary picked up. "Nigel? Yeah, it's Casey," I said. "Look I'll.......I'll do it OK?"

Chapter Eleven

"There's a real privilege to working with it," said the doctor as he probed me. "It's like Italian marble, the best material there is." I had flown home to California while the tour went along as planned. Zeeg and Zeeg women in particular were still very much a small minority on Earth, and they tended to use bio-mods for cosmetic purposes, so there weren't many plastic surgeons qualified to work with my rare type of dermis. There was only the one in Miami and a couple on the West Coast. So here I was, standing topless in a doctor's office, my arms above my head, with pen marks all over my chest. "It heals quickly. It won’t scar and has perfect elasticity. You're actually quite lucky," he told me.

"Luck had nothing to do with it," I told him.

"Yes, of course I'm well aware of the artificial nature of human gynomorphs, it was a turn of phrase only. Umm, do you understand the procedure as I have explained it to you?"

"As well as I can," I told him.

"Excellent," he beamed. "We can put you on the schedule for the end of the week."

I walked into my house and it felt almost like an alien planet. Everything had changed so much since the last time I'd been there. Everything was so much bigger than it had been. I walked through my living room, running my hand over the big black leather couch, looking at the scuffs on the glass coffee table where I used to prop my feet.

My feet couldn't even reach it from the couch anymore. Was this place always such a dishevelled mess? How had I left it this way? The couch cushions were hanging halfway off, the carpet was matted, and the only decoration in the place was four month old dirty laundry and beer stains. How had I lived like this? I didn't know why I did it but I spent the rest of the day cleaning up and straightening the place. Even then it was all so big, and sterile.

My home gym was the worst part, it smelled of stale rank and there were my sweat stained workout clothes hanging on the equipment like laundry lines. I momentarily thought about doing a quick workout, but decided it would be too much hassle to switch out all the weights. Instead I sprayed a whole can of deodorizer in there and hung a pack of those pine tree car things from the barbell rack.

By the time I was done changing the sheets on my frankly enormous bed, all I felt like doing was crawling into it. So I stripped out of my outer clothes, lost myself in my silk quilt, and settled into the soft spot in the mattress.

I woke up moaning and feeling sore like I'd never experienced before. It wasn't a good kind of sore like after a really hard workout, or even after a beastly hardcore match. It was a really shitty kind of sore.

"You're awake?" a voice said from somewhere in the room. Focusing my eyes I saw a nurse standing at the end of the bed, much more chipper than the one from Cleveland. I finally remembered I was in the hospital. I tried to sit up but I got a lancing pain in the sides of my chest. "Hey, don't try to move so much. You’re going to be pretty tender for a while," she cautioned me.

Instead I just lifted my head and saw a hospital gown covering the curve of what, from my perspective, looked like a small mountain range sitting on my chest. "I know they don't look like much now," she said. "But wait until you heal up and the bandages come off, you'll love them, I promise. Do you want some pain-killers?" I nodded affirmatively.

"There's my star patient," came the familiar voice of the doctor as he came around the corner, where the door to the room was. "I thought I'd do my rounds and check in on you first up. So what do you think so far?"

"They're bigger than I thought," I croaked hoarsely.

"Well," he said, putting his hands to his sides. "Part of that's swelling, part of it's just a matter of perspective. We were able to go a bit bigger than what's normal for the first time with you because of the unique properties of the tissue. This size compliments your hips better. It’ll balance your overall frame. We discussed this, remember?"

I nodded weakly as the nurse plugged an IV tube into my arm.

"Unless you have any other questions I'll let you res..." he began, but I was already blacking out.

It was a while before I was able to see what my second transformation had wrought without the bandages. They were a little purple and bruised, the swelling was going down, but they still seemed awfully big to me. They weren't melons that labelled me instantly as a porn-star or anything, but they were big enough for one to get by on for sure. I turned very slowly to get another angle, but I tried to keep them from moving around too much, because it would have still hurt and they looked and felt like they could gather some inertia.

Yes these babies were going to be able to move around a lot. They weren't those fake bubble tits you see sometimes that are just these protrusions on the chest. These ones were free and independent. I was going to have to talk to Nikki the wardrobe girl about these because these were going to constitute an unstable load! Though, if she really designed the outfit that contained Angel Madison's twin beasts, it would be fine because I still didn't stack up to her. Cassidy and Violet might be jealous though.

I was medically cleared to get back in the gym a week before the tour came to San Diego, but in lieu of paying for another plane ticket, the company just decided to give me another week off and come to me. It was fine by me, I was happy to have the down time, plus I wasn't exactly eager for my first experience with swelling silicone inside a pressurized airplane cabin.

I walked across the parking lot of the stadium with my bags in my hands looking for the tour bus. I couldn't help but notice I was getting more looks than I once did, my top didn't exactly cover everything the same way anymore.

Cassidy was standing outside under the awning when I found it. "Hey!" she said and hugged me out of nowhere when she spotted me. Though having done so, she seemed to feel some things before seeing them. "DAMN Girl, look at YOU!" she said finally while eyeing me up and down. "I knew what you was doing, but DAMN. Well welcome to the Silicone Squad Girl. Violet is gonna be so jealous."

"Um, thanks?" I said not really sure how to respond.

"I hope them things aren't gonna throw off your balance or anything, because I'd hate to see all that practice go to waste," she said.

"I mean, I definitely feel the weight of them" as I consciously adjusted the new twins. "But I don't think they're going to change my form or anything."

"I was kidding Girl," she said. "Come on Big Sis, put your stuff inside and let's get to work."

For the next month Jerry, Cassidy, and I worked on altering my in ring style, and coming up with a new move set. We decided it would be a good idea to step away from power moves and more into a technical wrestling style, more shoot moves, leverage, and agility. I retained my trademark flying forearm shot, though I had to alter the delivery somewhat, and Cassidy insisted I change my finishing move to a Butterfly DDT.

Bumps were an entirely new experience. Yeah, my old boobs had moved when I bumped already, and they made a front bump more uncomfortable. But now that was multiplied by ten! I really needed better support upstairs. I finally began showing some more muscle as well and started to look like an athlete. Jerry finally gave the go ahead to get measured for my gear.

In the Indies you'd just wear whatever store bought stuff you could cram yourself into, but here in the big leagues your gear was custom made in house, nobody else wore what you wore. I kept practicing with Gabriela too, changing my body language, which she insisted I stay method with at all times, as well as my style. She fixed my hair to be a little more feminine, short though it was, and helped pick my casual wardrobe.

I insisted on jeans of course, but she picked some more stylish ones and expanded my selection of tops to include more tanks and even a couple of halters. She had had a point about confidence too. The better I carried myself, the easier it became, and more naturally I stuck to it, and my mood improved along with it. I let the prescription lapse on my anti-depressants, and didn't renew it. Even when that time of the month came around again, I didn't bother with the quarter of a bottle I still had left, and I was able to work through it better, though it still sucked.

I thrust my foot forward into a toe kick to Cassidy's gut, and she bent forward for the set-up. I hooked each of her arms with my own, lifted them, and clasped my hands behind her back so she was bent down with her head against my ribs, I threw my legs forward and back bumped, she drove her shoulder into my stomach and rolled through onto her back as if her head had actually impacted the canvas, and I climbed on top of her and hooked her leg, rolling my weight across her upper body.

"One, two, three," counted Jerry as he stood ringside, slapping the apron with each count. "That was a good Butterfly DDT, much better, much safer, but I still want to see a little more snap in that toe kick." I leaned against the ropes and nodded.

"Hey, Uncle Jerry," called a deep, but somehow sweet voice across the gym and over strode a rippling tower of perfect musculature, barely contained within a straining under armour workout shirt and a pair of tauntingly tiny gym shorts.

"Hey' Lucas, what's up?" Jerry answered him.

"Hi Luke," I waved my fingers at him.

"Hey Sam," he returned. "So, um Uncle Jerry, I just came out of a meeting with the marketing guys. They asked me to send you two over to them when I got here."

"Sure thing kid," Jerry said, and slapped Luke on the back as he went to his own workout. "Come on Casey, the money wants to see us," he said, and he headed toward the door.

"Sure thing," I called. "Let me just towel off first," I turned to see Cassidy lying on her side in the middle of the ring, with her head resting on her hand, grinning.

"What?" I asked.

"Hi Luke," she said with mocking coquettishness. I gave her a slightly befuddled look. "I saw you hanging them big balloons of yours over that rope to show em off. You’re a fast learner Girl."

"I DON'T know what you're talking about," I told her and I took a towel off the turnbuckle.

"Oh don't even act like I ain't seen you giving the goo-goo eyes to every other guy in this gym," she said getting to her feet.

"You’re imagining things," I insisted.

"Oh, I think you’re the one imagining things," she giggled.

"I have to get to a meeting," I said and hurried off rubbing the towel over my neck and holding a less confident expression than I would have liked.

I found my way to the office, where Jerry was waiting, and we went inside. There we found Gabriela, Nikki, and Glasses Lady, who I'd learned was named Mrs. Carpenter or something. I noticed Nikki was holding a black cardboard box.

"So Ms. Blake is set to re-debut, or rather debut in a couple of months," said Glasses Lady. "We need to get ready with some promotional material. Give her some build-up before her proper introduction. Please go put this on and then meet the photographers in the arena for your first photo shoot," she motioned to Nikki who handed me the box, and I heard some rustling when she did. "The ladies' room down the hall should be available."

I was surprisingly not nervous, as I headed to the bathroom. I guess I shouldn't have been it was something I'd done before. I'd done a ton of photo shoots before, back as the old me and they never bothered me then. I went in the girls' room and put the box on the edge of the sink, and pried it open. Inside was a pair of tall wrestling boots, and a thick opaque envelope. I held up the new boots like they'd just come out of a sewer. "White boots eh?" I complained to myself. Then I picked up the envelope and unfolded it, peeking inside. "What the hell?"

Carpenter and Gabriela were discussing something business when I burst back in.

"What the hell is this!?" I demanded and hurled the racer back crop top across the room at them. I held aloft the little HOT PINK pair of trunks with trails of light pink glitter metallic stars trailing along the sides, like something off of a twelve year old girl's trapper keeper.

"That's your gear Darling," answered Gabriela confused.

"But it's, it's..." I trailed off.

"Yes?"

"Pink. Really, REALLY pink," I sighed. "And I was at least hoping for tights."

"I'm afraid not," said Glasses Lady, lifting the top off the floor. Like the trunks it was made from hot pink vinyl. "We feel your hips and thighs will be more marketable in trunks."

"I had to fight to get them to accept full trunks," Gabriela added.

"And the... PINK?" I questioned.

"We think it fits with the character we're trying to establish," said Glasses Lady.

"What character?" I asked. "Okay, I get why, say, Angel Madison wears pink. She's the captain of the cheer squad mean girl type, it works. But how am I supposed to be bad wearing a hot pink two piece?"

"Bad?" Gabriela said incredulously. "Darling, didn't I tell you? We're turning you baby face."

"F, fa... Face!?" I almost choked getting it out. "I don't know how to play baby face! I've only ever been a heel. I only know how to be a bad guy."

"Well you're not a guy of any sort anymore," said Gabby. "And you're handling that alright. This should be a walk in the park. The truth is we have a dearth of good faces in the women's division. White Tiger is the best we have in that regard, Donna isn't working out well. Another heel isn't really an option right now. It's one of the reasons corporate really wanted to maintain your contract," She took the top from Carpenter and handed it back to me. "Come on, don't keep the photographer waiting."

I sat in the ladies room, mostly dressed. Pink spangled trunks, pink crop top that showed quite frankly, a lot of cleavage, a pink elbow pad, pink knee pads with a bigger version of the same stylized star on them, neon pink wrist tape. I didn't even know they made it in that color. Except for the tape, all of it was really glossy. Vinyl had never been my thing. It looked good on Luke, but I'd always worn spandex, it works with darker colors.

I finished lacing up my boots and held up the last bit. Bright pink kick-pads, with the same star pattern running down the center, like a continuation off of the knee pads. "I don't even kick," I grumbled. After spending way too long figuring out how to put those on I headed out. Walking through the halls like that, I felt naked, worse than naked. It wasn't like there weren't guys who didn’t wear less in the ring, but this outfit screamed “look at me” and I felt like every pair of eyes I passed did.

When I reached the arena proper, there was a whole photography crew, something like ten people along with lights and backdrops down by the ring. I swallowed hard, and went to introduce myself. "Hi. I'm Sam" I said, holding my hand out to the guy who seemed to be giving the directions. "I guess I'm here to get my picture taken”. He looked me up and down, judgment in his eyes then he snapped his fingers at one of the assistant girls.

"Julie, she is not ready," he said to her in a smooth Australian accent.

"She just showed up Mr. Wuhu" she said, before taking me by the arm and dragging me away. She dumped me in a folding chair under a stage light and opened what looked like a tackle box. "I can't stand these conditions," she said pulling out a little brush. "What's your color Honey?" I wasn't ignorant as to what this was, I worked in TV, I'd had makeup put on before. But I'd never been asked for input.

"Uhhh..." I stammered.

"Come on Sweetie, we don't have all day," she said. She knelt down and looked at me in the eye. "You're definitely an autumn."

Without hesitation she slathered powder over my face like Bob Ross made a skyline and then started sponging something on my cheeks. She was back to her box then, and came out with a little brass tube.

"Definitely peach," she said and twisted out a stick of pale pink stuff. "Chin up," she instructed, and physically tilted my head up before smearing the stuff on my lips. "Come on, pucker for me."

I did as I was told, and tasted this weird chemical taste I'd never gotten from any pre-interview powdering before. Back and forth she kept at it, going at an erratic pace. Soon she had me close my eyes, and I felt her brushing something over the lids, then she told me to be very still, and I felt her seemingly drawing on them with a pencil.

"What do you think?" I heard her ask. I opened my eyes to find her holding a glaring hand mirror. Turning my head to get a good look at it I saw something I hadn't imagined. This was not me. Not in a million years would I have guessed I'd ever see that in a reflective surface. She was this, doll in a pink vinyl getup and glossy pink lipstick, her boobs pushed together by the slightly too small top, her eyes lined in black with pale copper shadowing, her cheeks ever so subtly blushed, and she was pretty. When Cassidy had told me that I hadn't really believed her, but there it was, right in front of me.

"Wow..." was all I could say.

"Hey," said Julie proudly. "Give me more than five minutes and see what I can do. Anything else she asked?"

"Umm..." I pondered. "Oh, uh, yeah," I looked close in on my right side. "There's this tattoo. I'm not supposed to show it off. I need it covered up for the photos."

"Relax," said the boss as he strode over. "We were informed about that and we'll remove it digitally," He knelt down and inspected my face. "Yes, yes this will do. Come, pose for me". He dragged me out of the chair heading towards the entrance ramp. "Are the lights for the stage ready?" he called. "Yes? Excellent,"

Up on the stage he positioned me under the videotron and directed me. "Show me some fierceness," he said as he lifted his camera. I slipped easily into one pose I'd practiced with Gabriela after another. He had me copy the same ones time and again, and shot me from different angles. Then we did it all again while he taped me with a video camera. After that we did it all again in the ring, and again in front of a green screen. It was actually kind of fun at first, but after it had gone on for an hour, it started to feel tedious and I just wanted to get out of that outfit.

*

"Mm-hmm, yeah, I'll wait" I said, sitting on the bus den couch the phone to my ear. Violet was sitting on the floor painting my toenails. "Oh, you do? You do? …...Great! Do you do cover ups? ... It's a Nor Cal star.... A nautical star, yes. ….. about, oh three inches. ...... Uh huh..... You're open today? ..... You take walk ins? ..... Great! Bye," I pumped my arm. "Yes! I got to cut this short Vi, I got business to look after. Where are my shoes?"

I took a taxi a few blocks into town and found the place I was looking for. It had taken over a dozen phone calls to find a place that met the specifications I needed. I was almost out of time. I had my first house show tonight and it was going suck as it was. The bell chimed as I walked inside.

"Hello, I called here a few minutes ago," I announced. I looked around at all the framed strips of small pictures. All kinds of things were up there, animals, people, Asian lettering, tribal designs, a lot of skulls.

"Yeah, what can I do for you?" asked a guy in a loose tank top with a nose ring and more random ink than skin.

"Yeah," I answered. "You said on the phone you carry Zeeg-side F?"

He looked me over suspiciously. "Yeah," he said. "But it's more expensive. That's rare, premium ink and uh, you don't look like a Zeeg."

"This isn't some code for a drug deal I'm not aware of is it?" I said. "Look, I've had some bio-mods. It gave me Zeeg skin," I pinched my arm and watched it snap back instantly into place. I turned my right side to him and rolled the sleeve up. "It leeches the ink out. Makes it fade. But it won't go away completely, I need the Zeeg-side F. It's supposed to be the only kind that stays."

"You want a touch-up?" he questioned.

"No, I need a cover-up, on the quick."

He walked around the counter and approached. "Let me take a look at that Mama," then he slipped on a surprisingly classy pair of reading glasses. He looked over my shoulder for a moment. "Hmm... pretty sharp lines," he said. "I might have to get creative. So what are you thinking?"

"I don't care," I said. "I just need it unrecognizable."

"So not another star I guess. Covers up a lot of the shoulder as it is," He produced a cloth measuring tape and laid it over my tattoo. "I think I've got something for you," He went behind the counter and began to sort through something in a low drawer. He crooked a finger at me drawing me closer and then looked at my arm again, comparing it to a card he held. "Yeah, this'll do right here," he said, and he showed me the card.

"That's a butterfly," I said.

"Yeah," he answered. "It's the right size, and it covers the black in all the right places. I have the stencil for it right here. If you don't like it, give me a couple days, and I can come up with something else."

"Dammit, I don't have time," I told him. "I need it done literally today."

He took his glasses off and looked me in the eye. "Today? Well…...Normally I don't like to put on that much black ink in one sitting but........ F doesn't really bleed into the system so it should be safe."

"Should be?" I questioned.

"I ain't no doctor Lady."

"Fine," I said. "Whatever, let's just do this."

I stood behind the curtain in my new pink duds, waiting for my introduction. This wasn't going to be my official debut, this was a house show. It was a small crowd, at a small venue, untelevised. They did these now and then whenever they needed some extra footage. They’d sell a few tickets to a few townies, and let local jobber number seven put a big time promotion pay-check on her resume. A jobber was a wrestler who 'did the job,' and lost. “Enhancement Talent” was the PC term for it.

Real jobbers made a career out of it. Their place was to make the other talent look strong. Now they weren't necessarily jobbers in their own promotions, but if you were being called up from the minor leagues for one match you were doing the job. This match, and a few more that would come along like it, were just to get some back reel of me for usage on the main show. They'd basically be making a highlight reel of me kicking the shit out of some local birds so they could put it on the Videotron and have a record of me. I just hoped they knew how to work.

"And introducing her opponent..." I heard coming from the bass sound-system. "From San Francisco, California..." Uh, I couldn't believe they were billing me from Frisco. "Sam Starr!"

I kissed my fingers placed them to my right shoulder, then cussed out loud because it hurt like a bastard. I headed toward the ring, it was a surreal scenario. A smaller room, tiny crowd, shorter walk. Strangely enough, the most alien part was marching to the ring with no music. I hadn't done that in years. Still, it took considerable concentration to break my normal routine on the way to the ring, even after all that down time. The hardest part was probably being positive with the crowd.
Being a baby face did not come naturally to me, but I tried my best to engage with them and pump them up.

There I stood across the ring from some pudgy girl in an off the rack blue singlet and white boots and knee pads. I'd never worked with her, never even seen her before that afternoon, but now I had to put on a show with her. This was the nature of the game though and I had to play it. Normally, given the circumstances, I'd have made this a squash match. Basically, a squash match is a quick, one-sided affair designed to make one participant look dominant.

The rest of my house matches before my actual debut would be squash matches. However, since I still had my shoulder bandaged I thought I'd take advantage of it. I'd told her beforehand to target the arm, make it look like it was an injury she was taking advantage of. It was cheap heat at which a heel would never get a chance. The only problem was it was actually going to hurt me this time.

The ref was a sort of squat bald guy I hadn't worked with before. He went into his pre-match spiel and then stepped back.

The bell rang and we went straight into the collar and elbow tie up. She took me into a wrist lock on my right wrist, normally you almost always do this with the left arm, but it let me sell the 'injury' without actually hurting my fresh tattoo. Then... she hit me right on it with her forearm. I didn't have to sell that, the scream was genuine. As I was grasping my arm she kicked me in the back of the legs and I bumped; she started stomping at my bandaged shoulder. She leaned down and took me by the back of the head.

"Lay off you bitch," I chastised her, and she lifted me to my feet. She actually pulled my hair and slapped me hard on the shoulder. My first instinct, which I followed, was to clothesline her solidly across the chest, knocking the wind out of her. I didn't want this to turn into a shoot, a real fight, she had a good 25 pounds on me, but if she forced it, so be it. She got to her hands and knees, I wanted to kick her, but that would have been a heel move when she was down, but a stiff double axe-handle to the back, now that was fair game. I sent her back to the canvas and very nearly went for the cross-face but I straddled her back and put her in a chin lock instead. "You gonna play nice?" I demanded. All she did was shriek at me so I cranked back on her head hard and she began to desperately slap at my kick-pad. The ref called the match and the announcer declared it.

"And the winner by of submission, Sam STARR!"

I stood up and rubbed my tender shoulder. "God damn this was a wasted day," I muttered. "What the hell is her problem?" I asked the ref.

"She thinks she deserves the world title," he said.

A buzzing woke me up the next morning. I reached over and picked up my phone. "Yes?" I answered. "Yes. That's me. ... How long? ... Thank you," I hung up and put the phone away then I pulled back the curtain and sat up, leaning out of my bunk. "Huu..." I gasped. Water started rolling down my cheeks, then I began to openly sob.

"Hmm..." Cassidy roused. "Hey, Case, what's the matter?" she rolled out of bed. "What's wrong?"

"Nu... nu, nothing," I gasped. "They, they sentenced him. They put that sick bastard a, away for what he d-did to me-e-e," I was crying openly then and Cassidy just hugged me on the floor. I still didn't know what had driven James to do what he did, or think he could get away with it, I just wished I could never think of him again. I would endeavour to try not to.

After that I had three more house matches, all of which went swimmingly and we'd finally compiled enough footage for my promotional tapes. I was eventually called into the office when the show was in Oakland. Gabriela was there along with an older grey haired fellow with bushy eyebrows.

"Good morning Sam," she said as I walked in.

"Hi Gabby," I greeted her.

"Sam, this is our audio-visual head. He's going to help you with the technical side of your entrance routine."

"Walter," he announced and lifted his hand.

I shook it. "I know," I said. "We've actually met before."

"Really?" he said. "You don't seem familiar."

"I've been getting that a lot," I told him.

"So, anyway," said Walter. "We have a lot to go over. We’ve yet to figure out your lighting, cut together a video package for the Videotron, and pick your entrance music. Have you thought about that?"

"Not really," I admitted. "I do have a question though."

"Yes?" Gabby responded.

"Who decided I should be billed from Frisco?"

*

I spent the next four days sitting in the AV truck with Walter cutting together footage from the house shows and video the photographer had taken, and mixing it with effects packages to create a video to accompany my entrance. Walter, I understand, then spent another week working on tertiary effects and lighting. After Glasses Lady shot down my first eleven music choices, we finally settled on something and I spent the next three days practicing my entrance. The sad part was I knew we were just going to re-cut it all two months after I debuted and when we had some better footage to use.