Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

“Come in here, Puffin,” I said in a happy singsong voice, “I want to show you something!” I
stood up and straightened out my white Juicy Couture jumpsuit when he finally appeared in the
doorway.
“What did you do?” he spat at me. Instantly, I was taken aback.
“I got a little makeover,” I said sheepishly, giving a slight pat to my new hair. Any shred of
confidence I found over the last few hours was quickly evaporating. “I thought you would like it.”
“Well, I don’t,” he hissed, taking a moment to analyze my new makeup and hair. My eyes
immediately darted to the floor. I didn’t know what to say. Of all the reactions he could have had, I
was the least prepared for this one. I stood there, silent.
“Actually, I hate it,” he continued, the words shooting like knives off his tongue. “I hate the
whole look. I hate the makeup and I hate the red lipstick.”
I couldn’t help the tears that began streaming down my face, ruining the makeup I had been so
excited about. I sank back onto the tufted stool. Was this really happening? He had never yelled at me
like this before.
“Don’t ever wear red lipstick again,” he warned me in a low voice and turned towards the door.
I was utterly dumbfounded; it was such an irrational reaction to something so small. Even once he
saw me crying, there wasn’t an ounce of sympathy in his voice; he only saw red (pun intended).
He paused and turned back around to survey my reaction. Deciding he hadn’t done enough
damage, he served me one final blow before storming out of the room: “You look old, hard, and
cheap.”
That was it; end of conversation. But that’s how disagreements always ended with Hef; he
would just stomp off and you were left to pick the pieces of your self-worth up off the floor. I’d
invested every part of myself in Hef and the mansion and had nothing waiting for me outside those
gates. I felt so trapped and so vulnerable to his criticisms. This old man had just humiliated me—and
I sat there taking his ridicule like a child. I curled up on the vanity stool and sobbed for what felt like
forever, in the one little corner of this whole giant mansion that was supposed to be my own. But even
that wasn’t real. It was his world—all of it.
He made no mention of the conversation again. When you’re the king of all you survey, you don’t
really need to say much more. His point was clearly made. For many years his words rang in my ears:
“old, hard, and cheap.”
Who says that to a person they supposedly love?
The whole episode made me feel beyond ugly, as if all the beauty products and cosmetic surgery
in the world couldn’t make me look good. I felt like an idiot for even trying to be beautiful. Maybe I
was just the homely girl who was “lucky” enough for Hef to allow into the mansion. That’s certainly
how his actions made me feel. Needless to say, from then on, I stuck religiously to corals, pinks, and
nudes, never daring to try red lipstick in front of him again.
Just when I was starting to give up hope that I could ever find any real positivity in Hef’s twisted
world, someone new caught my eye. I looked up from my book and adjusted the messy bun on top of
my head that was disguising my poorly received new haircut.
I wonder who that is, I thought. A bubbly Carmen Miranda–costumed blonde sauntered across