THE DAYS AND NIGHTS of an NBA groupie. “One thing that has become more common since the Kobe case, says Brenda, is the bodyguard-chaperoned encounter. Watching isn’t new. But these days, for a player to have his security guy or his boys hang around to watch isn’t just kinky, it’s smart business.”

Plus, condom etiquette: “Smart NBA players—well, okay, even dumb NBA players—know to use their own: There have been too many love children born of a condom that, oops, had a hole poked in it to make that ‘mistake.’ ‘You’d be amazed,’ says a former Fly Girl I met in Houston, ‘how many women I know who actually do that. Because let’s face it, if you get pregnant, your life is made.'” This is the kind of thing Michael Higdon is writing about.

UPDATE: Reader Julian Ferry emails:

I wondered as I read the article, what class of folks can afford the time and money to jet around the country with cases of top shelf booze, just hoping for a chance to party with NBA players and rappers?

A bus driver, a police officer, a subway conductor, and a 911 operator…..

Public employees!

Heh. Yeah, that’s an angle I should’ve caught.