PLAY MATES

Her parents didn't exactly gel with the other families at school, so she spent the first 10 years of her life going to the Playboy Mansion with her nanny. Writer-director LORRAINE NICHOLSON looks back on a childhood spent swimming in the infamous grotto with her eyes open-long before she knew what sex, let alone a sex cave, even was

- LORRAINE NICHOLSON

THE GIRLS WERE MELTING. It was Southern California, and though it was spring— and though they weren’t wearing much to begin with—it was so very hot. Ice dissolved in syrupy glasses of Pepsi. The smell of Mystic Tan hung heavy in the air. The Playmates, wearing their Easter best, dabbed their brows with foundation-stained tissues. When were they going to announce the winner? Looking out the warped walls of the tent, I could see the manicured lawn and the koi pond. Even farther in the distance, a pair of identical blonds jumped on the trampoline, skirts flying up and over their belly buttons. They didn’t care who won the egg hunt. But because I was 11, I did.

Something had gone wrong, it was obvious. There was never any waiting at the Mansion. Nor, as far as I knew at the time, was there ever any sadness, anger, or pain. But suddenly, the whispers began, passed between artificially puffed lips: The boys had cheated.

The rules for the hunt were well established. If you were under the age of five, you had the right to an accompanying parent. Beyond that, you were expressly forbidden to pool eggs with another competitor, though Hugh Hefner’s sons—my best friends, Marston and Cooper—usually did it anyway. The boys already had an advantage in that they could watch, all week long, as the squadrons of black-vested butlers hid the eggs across the property. But who could blame them? The hottest toy of 2002, the GameCube, was up for grabs.