Chapter 14: The Real Housewives of Midgar
Chitose Lafferty had not been able to keep her good fortune to herself.
Ever since she'd exchanged forty thousand gil, cash, for the ancient, dog-eared copy of Barely Legal, Harvest Time Special! magazine, she'd been full to bursting with excitement and the desire to boast to everyone in the Keepers of Honor fan club dedicated to Angeal Hewley.
But that wouldn't be prudent. It would be all over the nets in mere days if she told too many people.
Of course, she'd perused it to her heart's content as soon as she got home. She also made digital copies, so she could admire them after the magazine itself was safely encased in acid free tissue and archival quality packaging to preserve it forever. But after a few hours, she was again consumed with the urge to tell someone about it. And who better than some of her closest friends, the ones who shared her interests and her social status, those few who were also members of the Keepers of Honor?
She'd called four of her very best friends and invited them over for a late night supper, the very ones she knew to be discreet. She promised them a surprise certain to delight them all, in addition to the enjoyment of expensive dinner fare and an abundance of high quality wine and spirits.
And so at eight in the evening, five wealthy and stylish trophy wives all gathered in the Lafferty townhouse's theater room and availed themselves of a variety of dishes inspired by Costa del Sol cuisine: chilled almond soup, fried cuttlefish, clams and noodles, spinach and chickpea stew, rice and cinnamon pudding, and a number of other Costan delicacies.
Naturally, Chitose had made sure to include some Banoran dishes made with dumbapples, like the pork tenderloin with apple topping and fruited salmon salad. Her friends would assume it was a nod to their shared obsession, but she hoped it would enhance her own surprise later in the evening.
It was all laid out on a side table, and everyone helped themselves and sat in the front row of leather-upholstered theater chairs, each pair sharing a convenient coffee table. The next hour was spent in convivial conversation with good food and excellent wine. The chatter grew more spirited as the meal progressed and the alcohol disappeared.
Finally, when everyone was done with dinner and the champagne and dark chocolate truffles were served, Chitose's best friend, Katina, asked the question on everyone's minds: "So what's your big surprise, honey? Why the party?" She gestured with her champagne flute at the assembled company. "What's going on and why so secret?"
In answer, Chitose winked and picked up a remote. With a press of a button, the lights dimmed. Another button, and the velvet curtains rolled away from the wall-sized screen. A third, and the digital projector came on, displaying Chitose's surprise: a projection of her best digital photograph of the centerfold, larger than life and leaving nothing to the imagination.
Chitose smiled more widely as she listened to the gasps and outright shrieks of surprise, admiration, and jealousy.
"Oooh," said Katina, eyes glued on the screen through her overlong, spiked bangs. She tittered. "No wonder you were so cagey."
"So it's real, after all," added Zara, flicking her thick ponytail of tightly curled hair from her shoulder to her back. Her dangling gold earrings tinkled. "I always thought it was a myth."
Daisy downed all her champagne and asked, "Where did you get it? I've never been able to find a digital copy online, and I've been searching for three years!"
"You must let us all make copies!" said Zara. "You simply must!" Daisy, Sharon, and Katina voiced their agreement loudly.
"I love the expression on his face," Daisy gushed. "Wow."
Katina added, "Yeah, it just screams 'do me,' doesn't it?"
The others giggled as they made their own commentary, none of it ladylike.
Chitose waited until they calmed down, and then told them, "It's even better than you think! I have a real copy of the actual magazine!"
Sharon hummed thoughtfully and rubbed her chin, her artfully lacquered and gemmed nails glinting in the dim light. "I was kind of wondering if you just had a well-done photo-manip here, but if you've got the goods..." she said, the skepticism clear in her tone.
"How did you get a copy of the magazine?" Daisy was much less skeptical than Sharon.
Chitose leaned forward and lowered her voice to a confiding tone. "It was so exciting. A real cloak and dagger affair. Intrigue, my friends, intrigue! There was this working class lady who called me up out of the blue, because I was listed as the club president and my contact information was online, and we arranged a price and a place for a covert meeting..." She proceeded to regale her rapt audience with all the gory details, which she described with florid language and made out to be quite melodramatic. Her friends leaned in, too, and ate it up. They all loved a good yarn about clandestine capers. It added so much spice and romance to life.
When she finished, Daisy asked, "But how did this Mary person get the copy in the first place?"
"I have no idea," Chitose said, "and I didn't ask. That might have soured the deal. The fact that she wanted cash only was suspicious, though."
Sharon snickered at that and asked, "So, can we see the original?"
"Still skeptical, dear Sharon?" Chitose asked, but she'd been prepared for such questions. "You'll change your tune." With a little laugh, she got up and left the room to retrieve the plastic-bagged magazine from her bedroom. When she returned she held it up for all to see like the trophy it was, and grinned at the renewed gasps of jealousy and admiration.
"Take it out of the plastic!" Katina squealed. "Let's really see it!"
"Nobody touch," Chitose warned. "I want to keep its condition as good as possible."
She carefully removed the protective covering, opened the magazine to the centerfold, and laid it out on a central coffee table. The women all gathered around, their hungry gazes taking it in.
"Michael Stevens is such a boring, mundane pseudonym," said Daisy idly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "He really should have spiced it up."
"The picture looks a lot better on the glossy paper than on your projection, Chitose," Zara remarked.
"That's because the photographer or the editor used that soft lighting to add sex appeal and romance to the shot. It doesn't do as well when magnified so much," said Katina, gesturing at the theater screen that still displayed the picture.
"Either is fine by me," said Daisy. She giggled. "He looks very fuckable in that pose, even if he was only eighteen."
A few titters and agreements followed that statement. Sharon spoiled the exhilarated atmosphere by saying, "Better check your math. He was only fifteen when that picture was published."
A chorus of simultaneous protests followed: "No!" "Can't be!" "He must have been at least seventeen!"
"His official bio says he's twenty-two right now," Sharon insisted, lifting a cynical brow. "That magazine was published seven years ago. He was only fifteen."
"That's a very mature looking fifteen," observed Daisy, tapping a finger against her lips.
Sharon shrugged. "He must've started hitting the gym young."
"Well, the age of both consent and majority is either fourteen or fifteen in most of the world, including Midgar and Banora," said Chitose, feeling somewhat like a creepy old lady despite the fact that she was only twenty-seven years old. "People that age go to war to kill and die. He's a veteran, in fact. And the magazine's name should have given us a clue that he was pretty young, but no matter what he was a legal adult at the time."
They all looked at one another dubiously.
"Oh, come on, Liam would be laughing his ass off at us for having any qualms at all," Katina said of her husband and folded her arms defiantly. "Men look at pictures of young girls all the time. Why should it be any different for us? He was a legal adult. He knew what he was getting into."
"And that would have been before he got juiced up on mako," Zara said. "He always had that physique! It's natural, even if his muscles aren't quite as big as they are now!"
With a smirk, Sharon dryly put in, "And I guess mako doesn't affect the size of other assets, either. Unless the family jewels have gotten even more prominent since that picture was taken." High pitched shrieks erupted from the group.
Guilt and scruples set aside, the giggling started up again and shifted into high gear as the five seasoned society ladies acted like schoolgirls with a crush.
"I wonder if what they say is true, and you can get mako addiction by sleeping with a SOLDIER without protection," tittered Zara.
"You know, I once shocked my doctor by asking that very question," said Daisy with a grin. "He said he'd have to look it up and get back to me. But you know what? He did get back to me! He said it was probably a myth."
"Oh?" asked Chitose.
"Yeah, he said that Shinra has some super-secret process for stabilizing the mako in SOLDIERs. It's all very hush-hush and nobody seems to know the details. My doctor said that otherwise SOLDIERs would need to get mako infusions all the time on a regular basis, because if it weren't stabilized in their bodies they'd constantly be losing it."
Sharon threw her head back and laughed so hard her whole body shook.
"I don't get it," said Katina. Chitose nodded, feeling like she was missing something important.
"That's because you're not as crude as our lovely friend Sharon," Daisy said. "Think about all the bodily functions, not just sex. Your body is always replacing its tissues just from normal daily wear. And then there's peeing, pooping, spitting, barfing, bleeding, tears, sweat, losing skin cells, trimming your nails, blowing your nose..."
"Eeeeeew!" Chitose and Katina chorused together, then started giggling again.
"They'd certainly be losing mako all the time, every day, from their systems for sure," Sharon laughed. "But how do we know they don't get regular mako infusions? Say, once a month or even once a week? The process is secret, after all. Who knows what really goes on?"
"Like, maybe they all make a puppy pile and share their fluids with each other so they don't lose as much!" squealed Zara in glee. "That way they don't need mako infusions as often!"
"And Angeal loves dogs, right? It says so in his bio. A puppy pile for sure!" Daisy snorted, unable to contain herself.
"Imagine Sephiroth and Genesis and Angeal all together like that!" squealed Chitose. "Oh, Gaia, to be a fly on the wall in that room!"
"You're confusing puppy piles with orgies," Sharon remarked with a fake supercilious air. She guzzled an entire glass of champagne and poured herself some more.
"It's Shinra's super-secret process for making SOLDIERs!" Daisy howled, falling into convulsions of mirth. "A rite of passage for all new Third Classes!"
The champagne and porn-fueled laughter and speculation continued late into the night.