Chapter 14
"I demand a full report of what happened last night." Bill Potters sat stiffly behind his desk and ran his eyes over the three cameramen assigned the duty of covering Sherrie Williams's story. At his elbow lay the Nielsen Ratings, a morning sheet highlighting the ratings for the three local stations. Channel 2's evening news and following rundowns were circled in red.
Channel 2's evening news had done an incredible 25 in a 30 share, it was a landmark.
Ralph cleared his throat. "I have to take full responsibility for what aired last night, Mr. Potters," he said flatly. Neither apology nor regret quivered in his voice.
"We were only following orders," George added quickly, with a quick glance in Ralph's profile. "It was partly my fault too."
John stared down at his hands, a reticent puppet in a show too big for his narrow experience.
"Have you seen the ratings?" Potters pooched out his lips and thrust a sheet with its red circles under the cameramen's noses. "Take a look at that!"
Ralph's eyes flew open. He swallowed tightly. Was he being crowned with diamonds or thorns? One could never read Potters' intent. Beside him, George whistled.
Potters leaned back like a fat cat stretching out before a fireplace. He licked the cream of success. "I've been barking about flat news around this station for months... somebody finally caught on. I want to thank you two..." His eyes fled over John, eliminating him automatically.
"Let me tell you boys a secret. Bad ratings are better than no ratings at all. People love to see the dirt," and here he pointed to his eye. "They love to hear the dirt." This time his ear.
Ralph and George's eyes in unison fell to Potters' lap, fully expecting him to point to his cock. The man had a reputation for the vulgar.
"And Sherrie Williams, what about the person who made the news?" put in John unexpectedly, straightening. His cheeks pinkened with outrage. "What about her career?" Now his lip curled with disdain, and a red cloud of anger levitated him off his chair. He set the palms of his hands firmly on Potters' desk and glared the man in the eye.
"What about Sherrie Williams, you chump? I hope she sues the pants off you, you selfish bastard! He bellowed, turning heads in the news room beyond. "You don't care how you use people...!"
Potters' bloated ego deflated from the grip's needled prick into that very tender part of his psyche. Guilt had chastised him from the inception, but this morning's ratings had yanked him out of that fouled state of mind. Now this smartass little grip had to bring him back to face himself!
Potters levered off his chair and stationed his nose six inches apart from John's. "You little prick, get the hell out of my office and don't ever let me see your chickenshit face in this newsroom again!"
Seventeen hours of sleep had pulled Sherrie Williams loose from a drugged stupor that left her hovering somewhere between reality and shredded nightmares. The aristocratic features, bruised in black and blue splotches, added a puffiness to her high cheek boned features. Elegance had given way to a vulgarity claimed only by the beaten victims. Golden hair had dulled to platinum and thick strands clung to her forehead, glued by black rapist cum.
It wasn't a pretty virgin Bill Potters visited in the hospital later that day.
He watched her twitch in her sleep. The news director stuck a finger in his collar and gulped. "M-Miss Williams-'" He never lost his dictatorial touch that had won him the reputation of being Channel 2's Ayatollah of the newsroom.
Two swollen eyes struggled to open, but the light was bright and her pupils still sensitive to light. She twitched, moved, and winced.
Abruptly, the door closed behind Potters and a stern-faced, buxom nurse slipped in. She set a tray laden with syringes and needles upon the patient's portable table. Slowly her eyes lifted to glower at Mr. Potters.
"You're the news director, I suppose," the woman snapped sternly.
Potters squared his chin and nodded. To him, viewers were numbers, ratings; never faces or personalities. Yet it struck him with pride that she could identify him. A smug grin creased his face.
Eyes raked over his small frame unappreciatively. Delicately, then, the nurse tore open an alcohol pad and dabbed at the news reporter's lithe arm. Next she prepared a needle.
"I'm giving her an antigen to fight any hepatitis she might have contracted from those filthy beasts." With the gentility unseemingly characteristic of Nurse Commings, she pricked the patient's arm and quickly covered the needle prick with a Band-Aid. "I suppose you send all of your female reporters out in the streets to get punched up with heroin, Mr. Potters!" Now she glowered at him openly. "I don't approve of your style of news reportage, Mr. Potters... showing rape on television. Frankly it makes me sick!"
Potters gulped and felt blood rush to his cheeks.
Tutting, Nurse Commings smiled pathetically down at Sherrie's semi-conscious body. "They could have killed her-and for what? They ought to put you behind bars instead of those dirty raping beasts!" she spat. "Now you have a good rest, honey," she whispered down at Sherrie and, picking up her tray, created a cold wind as she brushed past Potters and out the door.
"Wh-what's...?" Sherrie had stirred to consciousness. Dully, she blinked about her. The white walls, the clean smell, the blurred vision of a man who looked vaguely familiar. The sedatives had subdued memory.
Potters leaned over the bed rail and lay a warm, pulsing hand on his news reporter's lithe arm. "You did a good job, kid..."
"Huh?"
"We blew the top off the ratings." Had Sherrie the strength to study the practiced enthusiasm behind the voice, she might have chiseled through Potters' false levity.
And Potters wasn't feeling too good about himself. Nagging doubts from the inception had proven justifiable. Sending a female into the crime infested jungle of the Tenderloin was a stupid move, even though it nudged Channel 2's ratings above Channel 9's. His stomach burned with self-denigration. Clearing his voice, he straightened.
"Sherrie, I have a surprise for you..."
Sherrie blinked open one puffy blue eye, and quickly squinted the purpled eyelid shut. When had they turned on the lights in here? Barely perceptibly, her nose began to twitch. And the smell, an antiseptic smell. In comparison her sweat-soaked body smelled musky with sex, almost, sour. Hair that once hung loose and silken about her apple cheeks, clung foully to her forehead in thick medusa strands. One delicate hand stretched its fingers over the cool sheet. Where were the hot male bodies? Why had they left her?
"'Sherrie...?" Potters leaned closer. Knife stabs of self-loathing pricked at his conscience. "I-I talked to New York today. You're going network, Sherrie, imagine that?" He forced jubilation.
"Network..." Sherrie's swollen lips mouthed the word. What part of a man's body was that...? "Cock...?" Her jaw dropped to mumble out the word. "I want more... cock!"
Potters choked and righted himself. He smoothed his palm over her forehead. "Tell me about it, Sherrie. Tell me what they did to you."
A sob bubbled from the blonde news reporter's lips and she sniffled girlishly.
Potters' mouth went dry, his fingers clutched white knuckles to the hospital bed rail.
Dirty, fucking scum of the earth! Raping the delicate flower in places no woman should ever be touched. His cheeks reddened with outrage.
"Do you think you could identify these crows in court? Sherrie?" He laid his hand on her forehead.
Sherrie blinked. "Yes, I think so..."
Potters straightened and drew in a deep breath. "They got 'em all behind bars anyway. They'll get life in San Quentin for this! I'll make damn sure of that!"
Silence fell as Potters stared at the wall. "You broke the story. The credit's all yours." His heart sank to his knees as he anticipated the hurt that would curdle her blood when Sherrie realized she'd been seen live on the evening news, stuffed with black cock! Good thing he'd finagled the network promotion for her. Sometimes in-laws came in handy! To bad she'd never become an anchor after this, however. She would never live down being seen on live TV as she had been shown. Still, New York was happy to take her as an on the spot reporter, it would even boost ratings temporarily.
"Did you hear me? Your career is just starting, Sherrie." He lied. "You'll be the next Barbara Walters. How does that strike you?"
Sherrie blinked and struggled to focus on Potters' face hovering above her. "Network? Oh, Mr. Potters how can I ever thank you?" Her voice was but a whisper.
And staring down into that angel face, Potters experienced a sense of loss. To not see those puffy nipples harden beneath pink angora when tension sizzled in the newsroom would leave a void; but he'd used her, just as John accused him of, and he must think first of getting Sherrie Williams' career safely moved away from the station before thoughts of lawsuits formed in her mind.
"How can you thank me?" he smiled back. "I can only answer that by saying I'm damned jealous of what those black bastards got from you."
Abruptly he sucked in his breath, for stiff little finger soldiers were crawling in tiny steps down the metallic strip of his zipper to explore the bloated girth of his cock. Nimble fingertips plucked at the zipper tab and gently drew it down with the delicate gesture of unpeeling a banana.
"It's gonna be hard losing you, Miss Williams," hissed Potters as her warm digits dug into the fly of his jockey shorts to stroke the warm tube of his bloated penis.
"It's already hard," she whispered, falling into a deep trance where the world smelled of ripe ambition and musky males.