Midway through the second run-through of her twenty-ninth year and sixty-one days into her Gwyneth-inspired macrobiotic diet, Calliope awoke naked in the deli of the Pavilions on Santa Monica to the magical sound of clapping.

Now our Calliope was not just any muse, mind you. She was the future muse of masturbation for horny boys and men and more women than would care to admit and even the most militant vegetarians in love with their own reddening meat. She was Calliope Tabrasa.

When interviewers would ask, their face a paint-by-numbers portrait of puzzlement, why Calliope Tabrasa--in other, unspoken words, why such the odd first name, such the ethnic last name--she'd reply, the expletive added later as her temper and her infamy grew, "Four fucking words: My parents were hippies." No one ever got a word more out of her. Her parents filled many a tape. But no one really wanted to know why she was named Calliope Tabrasa. They wanted to know why Calliope Tabrasa had done what she'd done to become the Calliope Tabrasa.

I will tell you.

It began because he tasted like sausage. Pepperoni, to be more exact. To be as specific as possible: his cum had an aftertaste of pepperoni. Even after binging on a mixed handful of Tic-Tacs and Altoids (they'd collided in the particle accelerator of her purse) immediately after the audition, even after brushing her teeth once she'd reached her apartment, even after brushing them again before bed hours later, she could still taste it. Now she could even smell it. And the burning cheese and the baking bread. She fell asleep dreaming of pizza glowing in the mouth of a fiery furnace.

This was the eve of her big break in LA. Tomorrow she would read for the producers. And she was ready to wow them, even if there was a woman in the lot, just as she had the director, a certain Mr. Call Me Taz, Baby, Because I'm A Devil.

Getting this part would be the sweet salve for two solid years of stinging and scarring rejection.

First, she'd lost the role she'd wanted since she first heard whisperings of it while schlepping her way from Off-Off-Broadway to Off-Broadway. It was a lead in the musical based on The Vagina Monologues called Vagina Cantata. She'd been called back three times before some LA bimbette who could read a TelePrompTer and look good while holding any manner of artillery expressed an interest. Special Forces Barbie wanted to spread her wings or so Calliope had heard from a former roommate who'd made the cut. And Calliope could easily imagine them plucked and shaved, flapping around the small, hairy dick of the producer.

When she lifted herself off the bathroom floor the next morning and as she sat on her hungover knees, watching last night's spewed fury swirl away, she decided the only way to take Broadway was to take El Lay first.

Instead, the City of Angels, that ever-metastasizing concrete gin blossom of on-ramps and off-ramps built over prehistoric tar pits, deflowered her. The seduction was slow; the seizure swift. After one month of auditions and call-backs and two months of read-throughs and rehearsals, her strut upon the stage as Vladimir in a Valley Girl-themed production of Waiting for Godot at the Mark Taper Forum ran only a week. Just long enough for the reviewers to yip and bark and tear into her like a pack of coyotes with a kitten.

It seemed that the closest she would get to Hollywood now would be to crawl atop one of the letters wedged in the dry dirt of those infamous hills and leap to her death. But Calliope valiantly pulled herself once more from the bathroom floor and flushed. She marched through the Valley of Head Shots and Hand Jobs. She walked on here and she stood uncredited in a crowd there. She was anonymous again, but she had her SAG card.

Through it all, she smiled and nodded as men with rampant nose and knuckle hair, with bad rugs and improperly applied concealer, or men with shoe-polish-black or warm-butter-yellow hair and skin as honeyed and taut as a suckling pig on a spit, or the occasional skeletal harpy of undeterminable age and origin told her to dye this, augment that, drop the last name (too Latin, said some; too Slavic said others) and, if she ever wanted the camera to linger a little longer on her exquisite corpse than it had as Dead Cheerleader #7 in Terminal Slayage, lose some weight.

Fast.

She smiled and nodded till her cheeks throbbed and neck burned. She smiled and nodded till she grew sick of being anonymous in a land where everyone acts as if somewhere a camera is watching.

So Calliope took out her credit card. She took herself to the salons of beauty, tanning, and cosmetic dentistry. She took herself to Tae-Bo. She took off the weight. And from the ashes of a 5'6" 120-pound brunette had risen a 5'6" 98-pound blonde with a dazzling grimace she flashed to the next dozen casting directors and producers who promised her instant fame if only she could loose just a few inches--from her frame now, not her waist. Hollywood, it turned out, was more than a dream factory. It was the last magical refuge of the dwarf king.

A third time she pried herself from the cold tile's embrace and flushed her pride away. She vowed to undergo one more round of calls before fleeing back to the sanctity, the sanity of Off-Off-Broadway.

And so, that very morning she had entered Taz's office for a private read-through in a tasteful pair of flats. A few pages in and she took off a few more inches as she dropped to her knees and took up fewer inches still.

Tonight, as she drifted off to sleep, she chanted the same line out loud while she counted pepperoni slices leaping a breadstick fence: Tomorrow my luck will change.

Tomorrow she would land the role she had been promised today. A recurring role on the runaway teen hit, Passionville. Calliope was to be Charity Riordan, the childhood friend of the lead "teen" (over pillow talk under Taz's desk, she'd learned she was two years older than Calliope) ingenue, Morgan Lane. Charity was to come spend the final week of summer with Morgan and her tight-knit, crisis-prone family. In a series of jump cuts between Morgan braiding Charity's hair before bed and soft-focus flashbacks, the viewers would discover that Charity was also the free-spirited daughter of a widowed pastor and had fallen in love with a bad boy with a heart of gold, Camden Crowley, the son of the leader of the notorious biker gang that ran drugs in the hills outside Passionville. Charity's father, Pastor Mike, had recently brought the troubled youth to the Lord and the boy had nearly died a fiery death after torching his own father's meth lab. Camden had said no to drugs, and now his father, Waco, was hell-bent on saying no to Camden's life. Meanwhile, Camden had been torn between fleeing with Charity on his bike for La Cañada or standing his ground against Waco. Either way, Camden wanted to marry Charity. But Charity was bound for an Ivy League school. On an athletic scholarship. She was a basketball or a tennis or an equestrian ace.

As he zipped up, Taz, now the director in Calliope's unfolding drama as well, confided the fucking writers were still screwing around on some of the "minor" details. Regardless, Charity was coming to Passionville. And Charity would be, could only be (!) played by no one else but her. Calliope Tabrasa. The bad Valley girl--Taz had seen Waiting for Godot he revealed while buckling his belt--with the mouth of gold.

Tomorrow…

"Is that TV's Charity?" a well-trained voice without a hint of accent asked.

Calliope let her eyes focus. She was somewhere too brightly lit and cold. Her nipples were hard, which wasn't all that unusual except she still wasn't certain where she was. Last she remembered, she was falling asleep. Now she was somewhere too bright and cold and blurry. As she strained to see ahead of her, she realized why her hardened nipples threw her. She couldn't feel the limp pressure of the sheets, or a shirt for that matter. She reached up to touch one and not a shred, not even one thread, of cotton stood in her way.

She was naked in public.

Her nipples stiffened till they hurt. Was this a dream? Was she back on Off-Off-Broadway? That infamous production of the Trojan Women where she and all the other women of Troy were naked and wore blackface and looked like washed-out zebras by curtain call from all the sobbing and sweating?

"Excuse me," the voice said more forcefully, yet still as professional and polite. "You're Calliope Tabrasa? You play Charity Riordan on Passionville, right?

"Well, I haven't gotten the part yet," she demurred. "Wait. Who are you and how do you know all that? Are you a friend of Taz?"

"Taz doesn't have any friends," the voice laughed. "But I do work for him. I'm David Michael Jacobs."

Calliope had never heard of a David Michael Jacobs.

"Camden. Camden Crowley."

"Omigod. Camden… David, hi!"

The voice laughed even harder than before.

"What? Did I say something wrong? I'm sorry I'm having trouble with my eyes. Well, that and I'm naked."

"Never apologize for that."

You're as smooth as your six-syllable name, she thought. Calliope started to flash her grimace.

"Sorry. I was laughing because you sounded just like your Vladimir when you said, 'Omigod.' Like totally, Estragon. Waiting for Godot is a major bummer."

Her grimace was overtaken by a wince.

"You saw that."

"Sure. What can I say. I love the classics."

"Oh."

"Well, my boyfriend does."

"Your boyfriend?"

"Yeah. I know, I know. Don't ask, don't tell. Especially when you're a teen heartthrob who's been on the cover of Tiger Beat seven times. But since we're gonna be swapping a lot of spit I thought you should know. Just don't tell anyone else. Okay?"

"Sure," she said, trying to sound as understanding as she could for a Doris Day who was naked in public and unable to see her future Rock Hudson.

"David?"

"Yeah, Calliope."

"I can't seem to see. Can you tell me where you are? Where we are?"

"You're standing next to one of those refrigerated bins filled with chicken, a few feet from the deli counter. And we're in the Pavilions on Santa Monica."

"We're in a supermarket?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"The Gelson's in Century City was closed. And the boys are much hotter here."

"No, no," Calliope interrupted. "Why are we in any supermarket at all?"

"I thought we could rehearse for tomorrow's read-through."

"In a supermarket?!"

"Sure. The lighting is much better."

Oh, this has got to be a fucking dream, she silently insisted.

"Scoot over a few inches and walk forward. You'll run smack into me."

She did just that. And when she walked smack into something smooth and hard and colder still, her blurred vision snapped into focus. Calliope felt like a television that had taken a whack to the side of its console.

"Cold," David Michael said.

"Yes, it is," she answered to the empty deli behind the softly humming counter.

"Colder," the disembodied voice replied.

She peered over the counter. No one. Nothing. She turned around and the same was behind her. No one. Nothing but empty aisles of stocked shelves quietly listening to a Muzak rendition of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love".

"Ice cold."

"David, where are you?" she asked with a sharp edge of agitation, honed by the imagined late--or probably now very early--hour, the cold air on her naked skin, and the increasingly irritating voice coming from nowhere.

"Down here."

She turned back around and looked through the counter's glass front. Piles of cold cuts, like oversized poker chips of flesh, stared placidly back at her.

"Warmer."

"Warmer?!" she shouted. "Where the fuck are you?!" she said as she looked behind the cold cuts.

"Red-hot!" the voice croaked, no longer sounding like a Hollywood heartthrob but a frog with gas.

Inside the case before her, ramrod straight, stood a sausage. It was thin, long, and very red. And it winked at her. Actually, she thought, it didn't really wink at me because it doesn't have any eyes. Well, no wide white irises with a pupil of any possible color. Like on a person or a cartoon. The sausage looked instead like Freddie The Flute on H.R. Pufnstuf. Except this was a real-live stuffed skin flute.

"You're not David Michael Jacobs," was all Calliope could say when she finally got the satellite feed from her brain synced up with her mouth.

"No," answered the tiny talking mask carved into a sausage. "He's a dick batting for the other team. I'm the meat stick of your dreams, babe."

"My dreams?" she hooted. "Hardly."

"For an actress, you don't lie very well."

"What?! Fuck you!!! You're the one dildo I don't have to listen to in this town."

"Dildo," he cackled. "Kinky. I like that. But what a waste of my seasoned talents. And we both know that's not what you want."

"What I want is to wake up."

"Like hell, babe. You wanna piece of me bad."

"Salami isn't on my diet."

"Salami. I'm insulted. I'm pepperoni."

Calliope heard her breath catch in her throat.

"Yeah, honey, that's a sound I like to hear a woman make."

"You're such a fucking pig."

"Actually, no. Technically I'm soy. I'm vegan pepperoni."

"Vegan pepperoni. I've never heard of such a thing."

"Hooray for Hollywood, eh, babe?!"

Calliope felt flushed and hungry and so confused.

"Let me handle this, doll," a new voice said.

"Elizabeth? Is that you?" Calliope turned around waiting to see the body that went with her agent's raspy voice.

"No, hon, just using a voice you'd recognize. Down here."

Calliope looked down at her feet and the surrounding patchwork of linoleum tile.

"No, hon, up a bit. Read my lips. Up here. That's my girl!"

"Omigod!" Calliope shrieked as she realized her vagina was talking to her.

"That's goddess, doll. But you can call me Betty."

Calliope nearly fell against the curved glass of the case until the image of her tits stuck to the cold clear surface like a tongue on a frozen pipe pushed her back onto her fallen arches.

"What's happening to me?" she wailed.

"We're going off your diet, darlin'," Betty laughed. "One more sleepless night listening to beans and bok choy rumbling overhead and I was ready to pack my lips and leave. Bring it on, you wannabe sausage!"

"Please don't stick me in the pussy patch!" chided the pepperoni. "Not that. Anything but that!"

"Fuck that, pizza face," Betty hollered. "I'm not horny. I'm hungry. What goes in ain't coming out!"

"What are you going to do? Gum me to death?" The pepperoni ribbitted with laughter.

"Just watch me, hot rod." Betty let out a small pssst and whispered, "Hey, doll, brace yourself. I'm taking the girls out for a night on the town."

"You're doing what?" Calliope whispered back.

"I'm baring my teeth, our teeth, sweetie. Don't sweat it. It won't hurt you a bit. But it's gonna kill that overgrown hotdog!"

"Teeth," Calliope shouted.

"Teeth," the pepperoni screamed.

"Let 'er rip, girls," Betty howled.

After everything Calliope had heard about teething from her two sisters with their six children, she expected a terrible white-hot searing as her flesh was torn open. Instead, it felt like she was growing a hard clit after clit around her labia. They were dazzlingly white and fang-shaped and just as sharp. She shuddered as she felt each new one appear.

"Hold your hand out, hon."

"What?" Calliope muttered, happily distracted.

"Just hold your hand out and you'll see."

She did and wrapped her fingers around the chilled slab of imitation meat.

"I look bigger up close, huh?" the pepperoni rumbled like a purring frog. "I'm the real deal. A foot-long."

"You'll be less than average in a minute, soysicle!" Betty growled. "Now cover his mouth with your thumb and bring him to Mama. Wait, wait. Get him warmer with a bit of foreplay."

Calliope pushed the tip of the long pepperoni against Betty's slick and swollen lips. She nearly dropped it as she reeled from the sudden wave that jangled out from deep within her vagina to the ends of all her nerves. The pepperoni, though muffled by Calliope's thumb, shrieked in time with her body's pulsing. She swore she could taste it. The more she rubbed the more distinct the tangy burn of pepper grew. Round and round until she was salivating and Betty, always the freer spirit, was drooling.

"Now," her cunt and its teeth clacked. "Feed me now!"

Calliope shoved the still-chilled tip into Betty's mouth. Betty bit down and Calliope swayed, almost toppled, as the teeth dug into the hard, cold meat. From under her thumb, she could hear the muted, hysterical cries of the pepperoni. The contradicting sensations of the small icy bit of sausage thawing in her warm juices and the confusing, alternating pangs of guilt and omnipotence as the tipless pepperoni sobbed, "I'm melting… melting," against the unique but indifferent whorls of her un-opposable digit thrilled her. Its rigid bravado was gone. It softened as it pleaded for its life. It was moist from its own molecular transformation from cold slab to hot link. It lubed itself as it slid in her palm, frantic to get away from her voracious maw.

Through the smacking of her lips and the grinding of her teeth, Betty groaned her one-word command, "More." Calliope fed it to her with relish. As much as Betty could tear off, could cram into her mouth, sloshing, overflowing, with half-chewed chunks of shrieking pseudo-beef and her own spicily scented saliva. With each new chew, Calliope came. She sang--vowels, mostly O's--as her vagina smacked and hummed and burped and gnashed and swallowed until there was not even a fleck of processed peppercorn left.

The security video would only show Calliope from behind, waving a small dark object and then inserting it between her legs, while the first Pavilion's employee on the scene stood by motionless. Mortified, mesmerized. Minute after minute. Facing Calliope, facing the camera. Eventually, it would be learned that his name was Gregg and he was the reigning All-American hottie at the Pavilions on Santa Monica. Highlights and muscles and a caramel-colored tan made the old-fashioned California way: while hanging ten. (Out of the waves, he hung eight.) A wet dream from the loading dock to checkout. And one of the few heterosexuals. Which isn't relevant to his hotness but is to the queer twist in Calliope's story once the rest of the chorus had taken their places around the leading lady.

First two more boys approached the naked woman talking to a sausage between her legs. One whispered to the other and they cracked up. Neither snapped Calliope or Gregg out of their reveries. The two called the rest of night shift to come and see the fresh tuna steak grilling some sausage in her barbie. And running they came--some nearly sliding into the others as they skidded to a halt. Not because our Calliope was naked. No, because Gregg had unzipped his pants and was stroking his own meat. And when Calliope bucked and shimmied like she was riding some wild and unseen runaway beast, Gregg jerked faster and faster. And as Gregg watched Calliope, the others watched Gregg. And one by one, the trousers dropped and the deli became a smokehouse for all manner of meats.

As for the clapping that awoke Calliope, it did happen. She did awaken naked in the deli of the Pavilions on Santa Monica to the magical sound of clapping. But, truth be told, it was probably for Gregg. His was the shot seen round the world. But you had to look very hard through the grainy gray dots to see his smaller gloopy white dots.

Yes, dots. For every minute, from the moment Calliope strode into view at 3:59 a.m. until the moment the cops--called due to policy and not outrage once the security company's monitor had zipped up at 4:43 a.m.--escorted her offstage at 4:49 a.m. to charge her with shoplifting one stick of Mama Soya's Veggeroni, was caught on camera. The charges were dropped at 10:02 a.m. after several cavity searches had failed to retrieve the missing meatless meat. And while the story of the odd arrest of a struggling actress down on her luck and a possible pepperoni sausage topped that day's 5 o'clock news, the security video had been copied and re-mastered five hours earlier. It was streaming on websites worldwide by 12:01 p.m. and had become an Internet classic, crashing server after server by 12:59 p.m. Before the 6 o'clock news, prurientgaze.com had logged its millionth hit and Betty had called with her first offer. Betty the Agent that is, not Betty the Beaver as Calliope's cunt was hailed once subtitles and transcripts of Calliope's dialogue were added. By day's end, Gregg was doing gay-for-pay in a video called Double Bagging and Calliope was signed to a recurring role on Showtime's Queer as Folk.

Calliope played Candace the Fag Hag and Our Lady of the Raging Strap-on. She bedded nearly half the cast on and off-screen. Showtime wasted no time to splurge for a billboard near the Pavilions on Santa Monica that was rumored to have made Angelyne's well-sculpted face fall. The fags of West Hollywood--as best they could, the dears--ate it up. Then Showtime ran a faux product endorsement ad in countless print and television markets. It was Calliope, nearly naked, sculpted and stylized and brushed to perfection, with the very same brand of vegan pepperoni in one hand. Beside her in bold black print: Got Beef? Get Better. Beneath her, Showtime's logo and the airtime for Queer as Folk. She was booked for the cover of People, Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, Vegetarian Times, The Advocate, and Maxim after the first day the ads appeared.

Before too long and before one of her new cast mates could kill her for upstaging them, she left. The dream offer had arrived. The one role we were born to play.

And when Calliope and I strode out for the curtain call of the first performance in her year-long sold-out run of Vagina Cantata, it was New York that finally got down on its knees, as LA had the year before, and ate us out.

Turnabout is such fair play.

And nothing leaves you feeling fuller than a Broadway gang-bang eight times a week.

Well, after DPP. Double pepperoni penetration. Now that'll really get this vagina to sing.