I?m shown to the room before he arrives. It?s supposed to be romantic, reflective, but really it?s just a workplace courtesy. I shower, sure, and fluff the pillows ? but mainly I arrange the camera and review my notes (and set up the Special Subscriber Video Link). The suite?s been specially equipped for it; the hotel that now caters to this sort of thing. When the Total Interview first appeared, its initial shock was something like a social Hiroshima, the appearance of an apple in a retroactive Eden. It was a new sin, with all the thrills that new sins entail. Hotels questioned whether they wanted to associate themselves too quickly. And then, by the time they decided they wanted to, this place had snapped up half the market. I?ve done about seven of these things and been here half as many times. I?ll tell you one thing ? it certainly beats the desk in the agent?s office, although more stars than you would think of actually preferred it that way. At any rate, the Total Interview is old news at this place; you can tell from the way the staff treats my arrival. I could be just another weekend tourist from the way the greeter greets me, or the doorman schlepps in my bag. I?m just another journalist ? although I know my subject will still get the treatment when he finally arrives.

The bellboy summoned to assist me arrives all a-flutter ? clearly a new recruit. He practically squirms beneath the straps of my bags. ?You the Interviewer?? he asks, and actually blushes when I nod. In the early days, this might have embarrassed me. Then, it was bad enough having to do the deed and type it up afterwards, let alone have everyone look you over before, their curiosity and desire coating you like smoke. But I?ve mellowed since then. In fact, nowadays the excitability is welcome. It?s better than the indifference which makes the growing norm.

The elevator pings my floor, the suite door opens before I even buzz, and a hand thrusts out, impatient to be shook. I hate it when agents do that. I also hate it when they look like this: tan-suited, honey-haired, mouth blazoned with a smile beatific as an icon?s and just as fixed. She should be my height, but has a four inch advantage thanks to leather fuck me pumps ? in the spirit of things. Behind me, the bellboy does everything but whistle, and soaks the air with hopeful lust. I tell him to take in my things, and he trips over himself to comply.

Once he?s gone the agent gives me the tour. Supposedly the Interview room is decorated by the subject him or herself, but after a few infamous incidents (bedside tigers, bondage mannequins, the tableau vivant of a really extreme Japanese woodcut) agents took over. In my case this is kind of a disappointment; my subject?s last Total Interview took place on the back seat of a Harley, and I know this woman is not that inventive. And yes, there?s something coherent and subdued about the suite that suggests a hired opinion. The lone leopard-print pillow, for example, and the waist-high folding screen. A scattering of scented candles. The kind of picture you?d airbrush a little and put in a magazine. But isn?t that, when you get right down to it, exactly what we?re going to do?

I don?t know how the Total Interview started but it was a masterful idea. I mean in the end, you don?t really care about a movie star?s personality or opinions, do you? Really, if you?re honest with yourself, you just want to visualize that god or goddess with you, in bed. And the Total Interview was created to give you that. The Total Interview Gets It On, and Gets It Over With (?!). And honestly, I think I writes up so much better than the bland chatter interviews used to be.

We enter the sauna, the agent and I, terrycloth toweled and turbaned, to ?relax.? Business-speak for ?negotiate.? For a moment I think she should be the Interviewer here ? her face is aggressively sensual, her upper arms embarrassingly perfect. Has she done the deed with him herself? I resist the urge to ask for tips. She drops hints about how she wants the copy; I nod helpfully and sweat.

After I agree to say he?s strong and manly but with a hauntingly gentle side, she goes. I get out and shower, find the thigh-highs, the suggested perfume. Some part of my wants to stay in the sauna, sweating, simply naked beneath my towel, and see what he?d make of it. I suspect he?d just call his agent and sue, and the thought makes me wistful; I regret what the business element has done to the spontaneity of star-and-stranger sex.

I do remember the beginning, and the beginning was pretty crazy. So many jokes about incipient unemployment, as either call girls or journalists found themselves all out of a job. Male stars had performance fears. Women who wouldn?t got catty about women who would. But really, there was never much of a problem. Because, honestly, what had those wearing-a-thong-in-the-shower photo spreads been about all along? And in a way, everyone preferred it. The increasing discomfort with words stars were having, the increasing demands to control copy; the Total Interview took care of that. The Total Interview wasn?t, isn?t, about words or copy or identity in an explicit sense. It?s purely sensual. And it?s subject to change. You can show a thousand and one sides of yourself. The group sex side. The side that foreplays with food. And with Viagra being so cheaply available, older actors have nothing to worry about. It?s all about physical self-expression. And it?s all worked out just fine.

I?m ready now. My earrings glint, my bust is semi-visible, I?m buoyed by the full bar at my back. The door knocks. Walking forward to answer it, I find my mind slipping toward the inevitable event to come. In my mind my whole readership is listening when I start crying out his name.