The Arrival

Check-in at the Doubletree in Houston is extra special on NBA All-Star weekend. First there is the loud parade of women, fresh from their flights into George H. W. Bush airport, some wearing supersize Velcro rollers in their hair, many in the Official Groupie Travel Outfit (hot pink sweat suit, silver high heels, knockoff Louis Vuitton bag). There are the fights at the front desk—"no, we ain't payin' no $400 a night; no, that ain't what you said on the telephone!"—between large pissed-off women and the cowering staff bearing nametags, chocolate-chip cookies, and a list of special additions to the in-room dining menu (buffalo wings and jalapeño poppers). On All-Star weekend, guests of the Doubletree are asked to sign a "no-party policy" form ("If we learn that a party is in progress…we will reserve the right…to IMMEDIATELY evict the occupants"). At the lobby bar, an enormous sign has been erected: welcome nba all-star fans. A few feet beside it, a plaque: firearms are prohibited on these premises.

It will be here, in the lovely Doubletree Hotel, that the working girls will set up camp for the next three days. By working girls, we don't mean hookers, though these will infiltrate the Doubletree as well. (It gets a little tricky, because the working girls and the "working girls" tend to dress alike. The standard outfit this weekend: a Band-Aid—sized denim miniskirt studded with rhinestones slung low enough to flash ass-cleavage, knee-high shiny white boots, a silver belt that appears to be made of hubcaps, a midriff-baring top that shows off belly tattoos, and enough fake bling and chains to tow a Hummer.) We mean working girls—the hundreds, thousands, who in their real lives have actual jobs, dreary thankless jobs, but in their fantasy lives get to be NBA groupies. All-Star weekend is their mecca. They save all year for this. They put in for their vacation time early. They spring for hair extensions and new boots.

And with a little bit of luck, they might even get to blow a basketball player.

They tumble out in carloads, talkin' shit and demanding respect. One particular group—four ladies from New York—stands out instantly. Because they are already having a blast. They have no time for fights with desk clerks; they gotta get their case of Goose up to their room. "I can't believe we're actually here!" says the ringleader, a New York City cop named Renee. "I'm pinching myself." Though, with any luck, she'll get someone else to do that for her.

The Hierarchy

There are groupies, and then there are Groupies. The first divide is those who will admit it—and those who won't.

As a general rule, the girls who are actually scoring—with real basketball players—(a) don't identify themselves as Groupies (if you've blown a player, you have somehow been elevated, at least in your mind, to a much higher status) and (b) don't give interviews. Talking about it is the quickest way to cut off your supply. Or worse, to lower yourself in the Groupie Hierarchy.

"The worst are the Gutter Groupies," says Brenda Thomas. She is a tall, thin woman of a decent age (48) who is all legs and poise and attitude. We meet several weeks before All-Star weekend over a too precious breakfast at Philadelphia's Lacroix restaurant at the Rittenhouse Hotel to talk about blow jobs and basketball players. Brenda is the reigning Groupie expert, thanks in part to a juicy novel she wrote, Threesome: Where Seduction, Power Basketball Collide, which she whipped off after spending five years as the personal assistant to Stephon Marbury. Marbury, as well as his wife, was none too thrilled with Thomas's literary debut, in which a vast assortment of (allegedly fictional) women spend a great deal of time on their knees, in service to the NBA.