#tbt RIP Hugh Hefner: My Unlikely Connection

The original playboy himself is dead. Long live the king.

A strange story about the Playboy mogul: back in 2007 I met this girl in a bar. We'll call her SL. She was incredible- blonde hair, great body, gorgeous face, superb fashion sense. From how she held herself I thought if I ever approached her she'd bite my head off, so I never bothered. Besides, I'd heard she was going out with some huge meathead steroid abuser.

SL had a gay best friend, a skinny guy called CH who used to flirt with me. He told me SL liked me, and wanted my number. I didn't believe him at first, but I got talking to SL and found out she'd dumped her boyfriend recently. I realised she was everything I'd never have guessed she was- kind, sweet-natured and timid. We started seeing each other, but both of us were waiting for the other to make the first move. We kissed once in a month of dating, then it fizzled out. We were both quite well known in the town, and gossip had started flying back and forth between the bars we'd visit, and neither of us were confident enough to rise above it. After we ended things we kept in touch, but we both seemed to learn from our respective hesitancy: before long we were seeing other people and having much more success with dating.

We lost touch for a while, but in 2011 SL added me on Facebook. She was still modelling, and still with the man she'd met after me. (The girl I'd got with had long since disappeared.) After a few months it emerged she'd landed the jackpot, as far as her ambitions went: she'd been invited to LA by Hugh Hefner to visit the Playboy Mansion.

During her trip she posted pictures on Facebook of her with Hef himself, with her arm around his shoulder, and with the other girls, sat watching a movie in his home cinema. It seemed like SL and the rest of the girls were being treated very well. SL posted later to say she'd been given a lift to her hotel by Hef's mate Ron, a scruffy-looking 'actor.' She googled him when she got to her room- she'd been riding around with porn maestro Ron Jeremy.

SL dropped off the social media scene a while ago, and I've not had much contact with her. I gather she's moved on from modelling these days. I wish her all the best, whatever the case.