Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

Kristina reiterated that Crystal wasn’t good for him, as if to imply his declining health was
somehow Crystal’s doing.
“Oh. That’s awful,” I said solemnly, bouncing my head back and forth from Tweedledee to
Tweedledum, trying to keep up with the story. Friends inside the mansion had confided to me that Hef
had become extremely frail and downtrodden. When the economy had crashed and burned in late
2008, I knew that Playboy must have taken a pretty severe hit. Hef already had financial pressures
gnawing at him prior to Wall Street crashing, so this couldn’t have helped matters.
Kristina tried to explain things to me, saying that Crystal felt really threatened by me and that any
time she heard I had spoken to Mary she “freaked out” because she thought I was going to come back.
Karissa cut in and said that when Hef had heard I was going to be at his birthday party, he took extra
time in front of the mirror getting ready and that this had made Crystal jealous.
“Well, she doesn’t have to worry,” I said calmly and coolly. “I’m definitely not coming back. In
fact, I’m really trying my best to give Hef space and—”
One of the blond beauties cut me off, telling me that Crystal took the panel off my old desk with
the birds and the initials.
Well, that was fast, I thought. Years ago, when I had convinced Hef to let me have a desk
installed in the vanity, I had a professional woodworker from the mansion staff fashion a beautiful
hand-carved panel for the desk drawer etched with the likenesses of my favorite mansion birds. In the
center of the panel was a heart with my initials: HM. Considering Hef’s monogram, HMH, littered
everything at the mansion (notepads, matchbooks, you name it) I figured he could always add an H at
the end to make it his own initials on the off chance I didn’t last.
I have to admit, I felt a little slighted. Pictures of Tina, Brande, and Kimberley littered Hef’s
room for years after I had moved in and Crystal was already throwing fits about any sign of me just a
few months into dating Hef.
“It’s a little early in the relationship for her to be that picky,” I said with a small smile. I didn’t
want to give the twins any false hope that I was going to come back and I wasn’t there to bad-mouth
Crystal, so I stopped talking and wrapped up the conversation.
After lunch I hugged the twins good-bye, wished them luck, and let them know they could call me
anytime. I didn’t know what to make of what Karissa and Kristina had told me. I didn’t feel like they
were trying to sensationalize things; they just had their own way of communicating that didn’t always
make sense to me and no filter when it came to revealing others’ personal details. (While living at the
mansion, the girls even told the Sun that Hef was losing his hearing due to his use of Viagra.)
I have to say, I was a little curious about this Crystal character. Though I kept far away from Hef
and Crystal (in part to avoid replicating how Tina had made me feel after her departure), it still
seemed like Crystal had major jealousy issues. A few weeks earlier, I had run into a Los Angeles
magazine editor I knew socially who told me a story about Hef begging him to retract a statement he
had made about my being welcome back in his life anytime.
The editor threw up his hands and said he told Hef he couldn’t recract it, that he had him on tape
saying it and that he heard his new girlfriend threw a fit about it when it came out.
When it came to being dramatic, it appeared Hef had met his match.