Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

CHAPTER 6
“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself,
you see.”
—Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
In just one year, I had gone from the newest member of Hef’s Party Posse to the one with the most
seniority. Tina, Vicky, April, Lisa, Candice, and Carolyn had all gone their separate ways. In their
place was an entirely new cast of characters: Bridget (my sole friend), Daphne (a pretty, cunning girl
who quickly became one of Hef’s favorites), Dianna (Hef adored her because she had the helpless
“damsel in distress” act down pat), Elizabeth (one of Daphne’s sidekicks who was low on the totem
pole because Hef found her shrill and demanding), Whitney (at 30, the oldest girlfriend and Hef’s
least favorite because he considered her “pushy”), and finally Amber (a seemingly sweet as sugar,
quiet girl who defected from side to side when it came to the battle between the Mean Girls and me).
While the girls were different, some things never changed. With the exception of Bridget, I was
no more successful in making friends with this group of girls than with the last. To make matters
worse, since none of these new girls were being given the Playmate pictorials they so badly wanted,
they therefore weren’t kept busy with photo shoots, video shoots, and promotional appearances like
the last batch of girls had been. With all the extra time the new girls had to spend at the mansion
counting their frustrations, the claws were perpetually out.
The Wednesday and Friday nightclub outings, which had seemed so exciting to me when I first
joined the group, became dreadfully monotonous, not just to me, but to all of the girls. On
Wednesdays, we would go to Concord or the Standard Lounge, and on Fridays, we would go to the
upscale, but not star-studded, Barfly on Sunset Boulevard. Since there were no celebrities to be seen
at Barfly, the girls hated it and referred to it as “Barf Fly” behind Hef’s back. Each night out would
begin with a limo ride to the nightclub, with Hef passing out his “thigh opening” Quaaludes to the
girls in attendance. I still refused them, but many girls didn’t. The evening out would always end with
the girlfriends trying to convince Hef to go home a little earlier than usual. He usually insisted on
staying out until 1 A.M., but on the rare occasion he agreed to leave early, we all breathed a collective
sigh of relief. Daphne, Dianna, and Elizabeth would beg Hef to bring us to cooler night spots instead
of “Barf Fly,” but he was loath to change his routine. Also, his cachet on the nightclub scene had
subsided over the past year. He had been going out so often, he was no longer a novelty, and he was
too high maintenance (always bringing a huge group and always demanding the best booth in the