Quick reminder and spoiler alert: this is a series of short stories connecting the shared actors between Sex and the City and The Sopranos…and, when I absolutely can’t help myself, another character that actor has played. These will probably only make sense if you have seen both shows…or in this case, all three.

Headhunted

Not long after I learned that I had accidentally set Miranda up on a date with a ghost, Samantha shared some equally disturbing news over sips of sake at the Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar & Grill on Columbus Circle.

“Do you remember my assistant Matt?”

“The rude guy you fired and then fucked on the front desk?”

“That’s the one. Did you ever actually meet Matt?”

“I can’t say I had the pleasure. Why?”

“Well, it seems no one did.”

“How did you hire him?”

“I was literally on the phone with Mitch, my headhunter, when Matt walked into my office. I just assumed Mitch had sent him and hired him on the spot.”

“Did you check out his references?”

“I checked out his pecs,” Samantha purred, “and honey, they were excellent.”

“Wait, didn’t this guy insult like half your client list over the phone?”

“That’s the thing. It was always just me and him, two alpha dogs in heat, caged inside an office suite. No one else ever saw him. He had horrible phone etiquette, even told some wannabe music promoter from Jersey that her parties sucked, but my career never suffered.”

“You have had some terrible assistants,” I nodded, thinking of Nina G. and the one whose leisurely lunch break allowed me to walk in on Samantha blowing the Worldwide Express guy. “I never understood why you kept him around for a whole week.”

Samantha inspected her flower cocktail ring. “He called me a boo-yah hottie and said he wanted to make sure I got the respect I deserved without having to get my nails dirty.”

“That reminds me: I still owe you a manicure for that time you fished out my diaphragm.”

“Oh, honey, I wrote that off a long time ago. We all know how terrible you are with money.”

“I am not.”

“Please. Have you paid Charlotte back for the down payment on your apartment?”

“I dedicated my book to her!”

Samantha smirked. “Did you pay her back?”

“She put me on a payment plan,” I said quietly.

“And I’m obviously paying for drinks and those secret-menu appetizers tonight. May I continue?” Samantha looked out across the rooftop bar toward the park. “He was always talking about someone named Matthew Bevilaqua, and maybe I wasn’t paying attention because I thought his own name was Matt, but it was actually Sean Gismonte. Matt Bevilaqua was his roommate and partner back in Jersey.”

“Were they gay?”

“That was definitely implied, but he was able to perform when I wanted him to, so no complaints there.”

“Good for you.”

“He did tell me they spent a lot of time hanging out in their underwear together, though, and Matt called him Jizz,” Samantha looked momentarily pensive. “You know, short for Gismonte?”

“If you say so.”

“So when I submitted all his I-9 information—because I am, after all, the sole proprietor of my own PR firm, Samantha Jones Public Relations—I got a call from my accountant that the information he provided was wrong.”

“Because his name was Sean Gismonte and not Matthew Bevilaqua?”

“Because he was dead.”

Now I was getting scared. I couldn’t help but wonder: are we so desperate for a decent date that we have started to unearth the undead? First Miranda and now Samantha had experienced this strange new phenomenon. Is the island of Manhattan in such short supply of suitable men that we have to import the recently deceased from New Jersey?

By the time Samantha had straightened all this out with her accountant and Mitch the headhunter, Matt/Sean had long since ghosted her. Sam learned that Sean Gismonte had been mentored into the DiMeo crime family by none other than Christopher Moltisanti, friend of Samantha’s tantric celibacy guru Brendan “Siddhartha” Filone (RIP). Both Sean and Matt had their stockbroker’s license and once beat the shit out of a fellow cold-caller.

“Three months before he walked into my office, an assassination attempt gone wrong resulted in a gunfight that left Moltisanti alive but in a coma. Jizz was found shot through the head.”

“Talk about bad head,” I opined, but Samantha gave me a withering glance.

“He was still strapped into his seatbelt, hanging out the passenger side of what was presumably his best friend’s ride,” Samantha nodded knowingly. “But the driver fled the scene.”

“Obviously Bevilaqua?”

“He said Matthew Bevilaqua always made him do the talking, which might be why he was so verbose working my phone lines. He also brought me a bunch of stockings as gifts; said he had loads of them.” Samantha took a deep breath. “And speaking of loads, the strangest thing happened after I fired and fucked him.”

“Something weird happened after you had sex with the ghost who worked as your assistant?”

“He squatted right in the corner of my office and…defecated.”

And just like that, I learned that Samantha could literally fuck the shit out of a man.

I stared at her for a moment. I had to admit, I was a little impressed, if also completely disgusted. “Is this a new fetish?” I finally asked her.

“Could be adrenaline? Irritable bowel syndrome? Who the fuck cares? All I know is I had to recarpet my office and find a new assistant.” Samantha drained her sake and poured us both another.

“So where is he now? Still floating around doing his unfinished business on other people’s floors?”

“My guess is he gigged as a plumber and joined the Fatberg Five, that task force that dislodges calcified waste from the sewers, before disappearing on his honeymoon to Italy.”

It sounded like Matt/Sean found his calling in the afterlife. I was tempted to make a bunch of body-waste puns, like when I dated that politician who wanted me to pee on him, but I was too stunned to utter a single quip that would glibly summarize my friend’s headhunting sexcapade.

Neither of us had much of an appetite when the waitress arrived with our pu pu platter.