Submitting work and knowing your audience.

I'm currently in the process of revising a short story to Playboy magazine as a part of their yearly college issue.  They've put the call out to college writers to submit.  Anyone who's ever read Playboy with both hands knows that to be published in the fiction section of their magazine is a big deal. 
I'd originally begun revisions of a story called Deus Ex Machina which is actually a prequel story to my current comic book script.   It's about a young girl who visits Greece on a college exchange trip only to find her host to be Eris, the Goddess of Chaos.  Eris sees the girl as her opportunity to leave Greece and regain much of her lost power. 
My wife had suggested that I might reconsider and submit a story I'd written a few years ago called, The Chronicals of Mr. Fathom. On review I decided to heed her advice.  I'd been gung ho about revising Machina because of it's ties to my current work and because I wasn't happy with current draft.  But her urging reminded me to consider the publication I was submitting to and to keep in mind what had a better chance of getting published.  I'll post a sample of the story here for view, let me know what you think.