by Willa Okati
Lisa, general woman-of-all-work, his chief Personal Assistant, trusted associate from the old days, occasional cowriter, and ass-kicker without compare for In Outré, equally out of her depth, answered on the last possible ring before diversion to voice mail, her husky cigarette voice deepened to a growl this early in the morning. “Whoever you are, make it damn good, and be on your way with coffee and bagels before I hang up.”
There was a God. “Lisa, did anyone slip me anything during yesterday’s story brainstorming session?”
“You mean the one through which you sat like a fish out of water with your mouth hanging open and your eyes glazed over? If someone had popped you a tab, how would I have been able to tell?”
“Cute.” Harper jigged his foot in an uneasy rhythm. “Lisa, what would you say if I told you there’s a naked man eating toast in my kitchen?”
“Huh.” He caught the unmistakable sounds of early woman discovering fire, also known as Lisa lighting her first menthol slim 100 of the day. “I’d say it’s about time, and then I’d ask if he’s hot.”
“He’s naked. In my kitchen. I have bigger things to worry about.” God would strike him down for these lies. Lisa still didn’t need to know about Harper’s reaction to the nude stranger’s, er, assets.
Then again, tact wasn’t so much in Lisa’s daily lexicon. “Wait. You honest-to-God do have someone over?” Lisa laughed. “The plague of locusts is next up if Harper finally got some.”
“Hey!”
Lisa inhaled. “You’re cranky for the morning after. Something wrong? He one of those guys who looked a lot better under bar lighting, or was he a bad lay?”
“No! And I didn’t lay him. Or bang him. Or whatever you want to use for a euphemism.”
“Bang. I like that one. Raw. Make a note.” A metallic clink signaled the ignition of a second cigarette. “Huh. So you got banged instead. Crucial difference. Sorry. I never pictured you as a bottom. Live and learn.”
“You’re not listening to me.” Harper peeked around the corner.
Still in the kitchen, Rory ran his finger around the inside of the nearly empty jam jar, scraping up the last bits of sugary strawberry. His finger looked no less tempting when he sucked the digit again, and Harper was only human. He gave in to the urge to glance between Rory’s sprawled thighs, and at the… Good God. Harper coughed. Eight inches? Nine? Uncut. Thick. Erect. A silver barbell under the hood, glittering merrily at Harper.
“Yeah,” Harper said, swallowing hard. “He’s hot.”
And…gone. Pip! Out like a light, like he’d never been. Harper’s jaw dropped.
“Great. What’s your problem, then?” Lisa rattled on, oblivious. “Point your heels toward Jesus and let him bang you again.”
“I didn’t bang or get banged by him in the first place, Lisa. I didn’t bring home anyone or get brought home. He was here when I woke up, but I swear to you I spent the night alone, all night long, trying to come up with In Outré outlines that didn’t read like deranged See ‘n Says. I fell asleep with my face on the keyboard and lost everything when my computer burned out.”
“Oh.” Pause. “You stupid ass. You didn’t make backups? We can’t write all of that again! What are we supposed to do ‑‑ wait. Jesus Christ, Harper, you’ve got a naked stranger in your kitchen eating breakfast? Why are you talking to me? Hang up and call 9-1-1!”
Harper licked his lips and stared at the empty spot on his counter where his naked stranger had been seated moments ago. He paced his way to the spot and touched the faux-marble to find it cool, no traces of body heat.
And yet the jam jar, licked clean, lay on its side. The naked man had left a message spelled out in toast crumbs. A simple message, as such things went, and one that fully convinced Harper he’d lost his mind.
HY, HRPR!
Looked like Harper’s muse couldn’t spell. Or possibly didn’t believe in vowels. At this point, Harper wouldn’t have trusted himself to say definitely one way or the other whether black was black or white was white.
Harper waved his hand through the absence of Rory, who hadn’t walked away. Who had simply disappeared as if he was a trick of the light or a figment of Harper’s increasingly disturbed imagination.
“Hi yourself,” he whispered. “Lisa, I ‑‑”
“Morning, handsome,” Rory said in his ear. Like a Cheshire cat in reverse, Rory faded in from his voice to his firm, lean body draped over Harper’s back. “Miss me?”
“Lisa? I’ll take care of calling whoever needs to be called.” Or maybe not. They’ll cart me off to a rubber room. I am so screwed. “Actually, you know what? Don’t worry about me, um, I don’t see him here now ‑‑” Not a complete lie, as Rory was behind him. “I bet I was dreaming, I’ll see you on the set this morning. Gotta go, bye.” Harper clicked the phone shut.
He turned, dislodging Rory and retreating with his back to the kitchen island. Rory chortled and leaned nakedly on the refrigerator, crossing his legs at the ankle. He eyed Harper from top to bottom. No one, no matter how distracted they might otherwise be, could miss the frank appraisal and all-male appreciation in his gaze.
“Anyone ever tell you that you suck at dissembling?” Rory asked.
Harper tried discreetly to feel behind himself for something he could use as a weapon. What did a guy need to win a one-man battle of wits against a figment of his imagination? Whiskey? Lots of whiskey?
“Not that you’re going to find anything more threatening over there than yesterday’s junk mail, but you might as well know baseball bats and such don’t work too great on my kind. Physical assaults will just wear you out, and I’ll bounce right back,” Rory said casually. He examined his fingernails and chewed off a fragment of cuticle.
Harper froze midreach. “Are you reading my mind?”
“Pfft. I am your mind.” Rory made a face and waggled his hand. “Sort of. After multiple repetitions involving a crapload of patience on my part, you do finally accept that I’m your muse, right?”
Harper licked his lips. He fully expected little cuckoo birds to start flying around his head at any second. “For the sake of argument, I’ll agree.”
“That’ll do.” Rory gestured as he spoke, underlining and emphasizing and elaborating. He had slim, strong fingers, nimble and quick and sensual despite the ragged nails. “Most of me is just me, myself, and I. Same way as a vase is made of pottery, glaze, paint, that kind of thing. An empty vase, though, is just empty, you see what I’m saying? It waits to serve a purpose and gathers dust until someone shoves a few roses in there.”
Bizarrely enough, Harper thought he understood. “So you, what…”
“I exist in a way that matters only when an artist needs inspiration. When the creative block is strong enough to attract extra-normal attention, I get tapped and I come to life. When that artist’s masterpiece is completed, I cease to be. Simple. Well. Not that simple. There’s a whole union thing; I don’t pay attention to many of the bylaws, but you get the gist.”
“Don’t muses generally stay locked up in people’s heads?”
“That’s the working theory.”
“Great. Stop eating all my food and get back in my head.”
“It’s kinda painful once I’ve taken actual corporeal form, but if you want me to try ‑‑”
Harper knew Rory was the type of guy ‑‑ muse ‑‑ whatever ‑‑ who was going to say something like he’d try, dick first, to see if that fit and if it did, they’d move on. Most likely to his balls.
Rory waited, smirking.
Harper glared.
“You done denying my existence yet?”
“No,” Harper snapped. “Not even close. This is impossible, and therefore you’re not real. You don’t exist. You’re chicken asiago.”
“I’m what, now?”
“Or maybe pad thai! I had a buffet lunch the day before yesterday. How should I know?” Harper grabbed his coat and flung the slithery leather weight over his arm. He flipped open his laptop c
ase and began stuffing in memos, mail, his handheld recorder, and a blank spiral-bound notebook, ranting as he packed: “Want to know what I am? Late. That’s what I am. And I don’t have a single damn synopsis or breakdown or even an excuse, thanks to wasting what little time I did have on talking to a figment of my imagination.”
“Jeez, calm down.” Rory crossed his arms, eyeing Harper with a mixture of wariness and amusement. “Breakdown, I don’t know about that…looks like you’re in the middle of one just fine on your own ‑‑”
“Not a nervous breakdown ‑‑”
“Synopsis, though, those I can do.” Rory looked around the kitchen, turning in circles. “You got a pencil anywhere?”
“No.” Harper found his shoes under the breakfast table and stuffed his feet in, leaving the laces undone. “And you’re naked. In my kitchen.”
“That’s what bothers you most? Jeez; you should have said. Methinks you’re too uptight. Nudity is very freeing, and I’m all about the free when I’ve got a body to roam around in.”
Somehow, Harper didn’t doubt that. The muse’s ‑‑ the naked man’s ‑‑ Rory’s ‑‑ blatant sensuality couldn’t exactly escape his attention. Rory inspired him, all right, not with In Outré concepts, but with the notion of mapping out every last ridge of muscle and square inch of creamy pale skin with his tongue.
Harper groaned and tried, unsuccessfully, to quash his rising libido. For one thing, he didn’t have time, and for another, he was going crazy and Rory did not, could not possibly exist. Schtupping a figment of his imagination was a step down from RealDolls or their blow-up plastic counterparts, and if he was going to go fuck himself he had a good working right hand to get the job done without benefit of hallucinations.
“You’re thinking so hard I can almost see smoke rising from your ears,” Rory observed. “Just so you know, I’m doing you the courtesy of not reading your mind anymore. I get the feeling it freaks you out. See? I’m a good guy, and I can compromise. Now let’s get busy already.”
Harper’s mind substituted many, many pleasant mental images for which “getting busy” would have made a great bit of innuendo. Stop it, Harper, he ordered. “Please get dressed.”
“Sure, if clothes would make you feel better.” Rory snapped his fingers; a forest green Henley and a soft-washed pair of jeans appeared on him, clothing him with modest decency, yet they still left nothing to the imagination.
Then again, with a muse, wasn’t that the whole point? To clarify your dreams and give them focus?
“There,” said Rory, turning around in a slow faux runway model’s circle. “Poof. Happy now?”
Harper couldn’t help but notice, even more so now that it was encased in soft, tight-fitting denim, that Rory had the kind of tight, rounded ass that could stop traffic or bring a horny man on a long dry streak to his knees to worship at the globes.
“Nngh,” Harper said, displaying all the word savvy that earned him a living.
“I could always take ‘em off again,” Rory offered.
Harper had had a rough morning, and blamed what he did next on extreme stress: He grabbed his notebook case and hit the door running with no greater plan than to escape the complete collapse of his questionable sanity.
Chapter Two
No naked men following him? Harper bent to tie the trailing laces of his sneakers and swept the area surreptitiously.
The coast looked clear, the brownstone edifice of his co-op comfortingly grungy. Good old familiar graffiti, misspelled, and no Rory in sight to critique the anatomical impossibilities of the graffiti’s suggestion or to waggle his eyebrows at Harper.
Okay. Fantastic. No…muse…to be found. Outside, with the soothing ruckus of horns blatting and cheerfully shouted obscenities, the sun bright and the air ripe with ozone footprints and coffee and mustard, Harper could almost wonder if he’d imagined the whole thing.
The Magic 8-Ball in Harper’s head told him: Uncertain. Ask again later.
Harper checked the near-automatic work he’d done on his shoes and noticed he’d managed to toe his way, without looking, into one blue Converse and one yellow. Paired with a navy suit jacket and jeans. No tie. He’d forgotten to comb his hair.
Could be worse. Maybe he’d look like a trendsetter, or at least a wannabe. Better than that “guy who dressed in the dark” or “nut job,” although that last might be accurate.
Still hunkered over, Harper checked his hip pocket for the BlackBerry. Ha! Found it. He hit speed dial for Lisa as he stood, gathering his paraphernalia back under his arm.
“Lisa here. Leave a message. I’ll get back to you. Or, you know, not.” Beep.
“Lisa, hi. It’s Harper.” Harper did a subtle ‑‑ he hoped ‑‑ one-eighty scan. “April Fool’s, or something like that. It’s not April, I know, but why not share the joy all year round?” He coughed. “That is to say, sorry for freaking you out. Some jokes are probably best left uncracked. I’ll see you in the studios, and you can kick my ass there.”
End call. Harper pushed aside a probing finger of guilt over his lie. Lisa worried. He shouldn’t have touched base with her in the first place, and as it seemed more and more likely out in the brightness of the real world that he truly had hallucinated Rory, he felt guilty for freaking her out.
Damage control, check. No naked guys ‑‑ Harper looked to the left, and then looked to the right ‑‑ 100 percent check. Late to work? Double check.
Subway tokens in his pocket, where he thought he remembered leaving them. Aha! Triple check. The day might be looking up.
One last check for random, naked strangers, finding none, and Harper made tracks for the nearest station, where the craziest thing he would run into was a bag lady who claimed to be immortal.
Harper kind of looked forward to seeing her again. Her kind of crazy he could deal with.
* * * * *
The subway spit Harper back out three blocks from the television studios, the fresher city air a huge relief. Immortal Ida made refreshing company, but her hygiene on a crowded car left a lot to be desired in the way of soap.
He checked his watch. Only half an hour late. He might escape with most of his hide intact. Did he have time for a coffee? He hadn’t actually drunk any of the pot Rory, um, his imagination had brewed for him, though of course his imagination couldn’t have fixed coffee, so… “Oh, forget it,” he mumbled.
Downtown, caffeine vendors set up shop well before dawn. Good old reliables. Coffee like your grandma used to make, if she’d used roofing tar. Harper summoned up his best, least crazy smile and approached his usual. One of his favorite stands was open for business and not too crowded, manned by a goateed type with a perpetual suspicious twist of the lips.
“Hi!” Harper tried to project friendliness. “Good morning. I’ll have the usual, thanks.”
The goateed vendor squinted at him. Harper read the body language and could almost see the cartoon question mark over his head quickly replaced by words they’d have to spell with asterisks in newspapers.
“Sorry. You must see a lot of people every day, huh? Seriously, you don’t recognize me?”
The vendor scowled.
“Okay.” Harper gave up. “A large coffee with extra cream, no sugar.”
“Grunt,” said the vendor, finally taking up a cup and scribbling on the side in heavy black marker.
“Shame I didn’t put any money on it. I’d have bet my nuts you’re the kind of guy who loves him some cream.” Rory popped out from behind the vendor, smile broad, bright, and horrifying.
Harper flinched. He would later, he decided, deny yelping. He didn’t make a noise that sounded anything like a scared little girl, nope, no sirree.
The goateed vendor shot him a dose of hairy eyeball and snorted wetly. Yeah, right.
“Just make the damn coffee,” Harper snapped. He dragged his hands through his hair, then hissed through his teeth to his pet hallucination, not gone, damn it. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Ro
ry’s forehead wrinkled. “Following you.”
Which, Harper guessed, was as dumb a question as Rory’s dubious tone indicated. “Right. What else would a muse do?” He reached for his coffee.
He missed. The vendor had a death grip on the paper cup. “Three-fifty.”
“He’s a tough one, huh?” Rory studied the vendor. “Yeowch. That’s a scary tattoo you have on the back of your neck there, pal.”
The vendor shot Rory the finger.
Harper, who’d started to reach for his wallet, stopped. “Wait a second.” He pointed at Rory. “You can see him? He’s really there?”
“Three-fifty,” the vendor repeated.
“Of course, he can see me. I’m as real as you are, Harper. For a writer, you have very little grasp on suspension of disbelief.” Rory clucked his tongue. “Pay the man, and let’s get moving.”
“Three-fifty,” the vendor enunciated.
“All right, already.” Harper thrust his hand in his pocket, reaching for his wallet ‑‑ and encountered nothing. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Uh-oh. Someone forget his wallet?” Rory asked cheerfully. He leaned on the side of the coffee cart. “Let that be a lesson to you on the importance of trusting your muse. If you’d drunk what I made for you, we wouldn’t be in this mess, would we?”
“There’s no we. I’ve got some money here somewhere, I ‑‑”
The vendor made the cup of coffee vanish. Harper refused to: a) swear, b) lip quiver, or c) launch a kamikaze assault. “Look. I buy coffee from you every day, and I know you remember me. I will pay you tomorrow. I’ll come back this afternoon and buy enough coffee for the production team. Just give me this cup. Please?”
“Grunt.”
Harper’s fingers twitched in time with a tic in his cheek.
“Jeez, Rambo, calm down. I got this one.” Rory turned a sunny smile on the vendor.
“You have money?”
“Uh, no. I just corporealized this morning. Haven’t had a chance to hit the ATM yet.” Rory made a face at him, and then turned the full force of his charisma on the vendor. “What do you say? One freebie. It’ll go to waste anyway now it’s been poured, and hey, I’ll vouch for him. He’ll be back to pay you. Hand to my heart.” He held up two fingers, Boy Scout style.