by Rye Hart
“Good for you, dear,” says the woman of the pair. “Variety keeps everything revving.”
Lacey gives her a high five while I drop to my knees and quickly snatch up the colossal vibrator to hide Owen 2.0 back into his box.
“But I have to warn you” says Lacey, “You’ve got to beware of its powers. It’s not going to be a substitute for a real man forever. But it’s more than a match for all these weenies who would rather flip a coin than give it to you the way you deserve.”
The thought of coins make me gulp down another drink. I don’t want to think about Owen at all. Lacey’s definitely right about one thing, though: I’m bored with my journalism job and would do just about anything to escape the local beat for a while. Maybe Owen 2.0 is just the ticket.
As soon as Lacey leaves (the Maître D in tow), I go home with my consolation prize - determined to treat myself to a night of…well, I guess I would just have to find out.
***
After my meeting with Lacey, I go home and fire up Owen 2.0. Once I get over the whirring noise—the contraption sounds like it’s about to take off from a launch pad—and as I dial it down to its lowest, least-intimidating setting, I’m able to induce something like pleasure in myself. But Owen keeps intruding on my fantasies. This is one of the problems with being so inexperienced: I don’t have a wealth of mental material to draw from when it comes to pleasuring myself, and I’m not that good at inserting men I have never been with into the scene. The Maître D, for instance, or anyone from True Blood.
Later that night, I have weird dreams. Owen is chasing me around, begging me to take him back and begging me to look at his latest coin, something from Prague. When I wake up, I feel extremely hung over.
I glance at my bedroom clock and gasp. I only have an hour before I have to be to work. Given the commute—two trains and three blocks on foot—it’s going to be a hell of a sprint. I jump in the shower and jump back out before my hair can even start to get wet. I get into my clothes so fast that it’s like I’m doing it to win money during a challenge on a game show. Breakfast isn’t the most pitiful it’s ever been—which was once a handful of croutons and pickle chips—but neither is it sumptuous. It’s a dry bagel that I chomp through on the elevator down to ground level, leaving brittle flakes and crumbs in my wake. Oh well, I pay a ton and my place sucks, so they can clean up after me.
I manage to make it into the meeting room two minutes late. I’m one of the only ones there, which means either everyone else is late or I made a mistake and there’s no meeting today. Turns out it’s the latter.
My boss, Trinity, looks up and says, “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Sam here to…wait, what exactly are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be covering the firehouse thingy? No, scratch that - that was someone else. Let’s talk. Readers are complaining that we’re not entertaining enough and drying out. Let’s come up with new ideas, and I don’t want to hear about anything you’re already working on.”
This dizzying display of confusion and managerial expertise at an end, I sit and put my purse down.
“So how’s it going?” says Trinity. “I can tell you’re bored so don’t bother lying to me. I just want to know what’s boring you.” She picks up a pen and starts chewing the cap while locking her eyes onto mine.
“Well, as long as we’re being frank,” I say, trying to come up with something to say. “I guess I’m bored by…everything?” I hate the rising note at the end of my sentence. I used to be driven, like all youth. Jesus, listen to me, I’m only twenty-five and I make it sound like I’m just counting the days until my retirement. But it was true. “Yeah, basically everything.”
Trinity puts the well-chewed pen down and crosses her arms. “So what’s going to make it better? You’re one of the best writers we’ve got, but it’s clear we’re not challenging you enough, or using your assets as best we can.”
Trinity continues to chewing the pen cap before she finally raises her head.
“So I’ve got some good news for you, cub reporter of mine. It just so happens that there’s a job, far off the local beat, that nobody else wants to do.”
“Oh, this sounds wonderful. Please tell me everything,” responding in a cynical tone. Was this what it had come to? She offers me a job that no one else wants?
“Don’t say it like that. This is good stuff. It won’t win you a Pulitzer, but let’s face it, that’s not really what we do here.”
She’s right. Our tabloid, The Inner Eye, is just a notch above The National Inquirer and about ninety rungs down from everything else. We write for people who think that David Icke’s lizard people sound outlandish and too stupid to even discuss, but who clamor about news of Bigfoot and the Illuminati. Pulitzers are most definitely not in our foreseeable future.
“It’s in Washington,” she said.
“Oh! Is it a political story? Why wouldn’t anyone want that?”
“Because it’s not a political story and it’s not Washington D.C. No, I’m afraid I speak of good old Washington state, the northernmost part that’s still habitable.”
“North of Washington is Canada and it’s almost all habitable. It’s not like the world stops at the top of Washington.”
“See, this is why it should be you! You already know half this shit.”
“I don’t even know what shit we’re talking about. I just know where Washington and Canada are.”
“I like you. I always have.” Trinity picks up the pen again, but doesn’t chew it this time. She scratches something down on a notepad. “There’s only one problem.”
As I see, there are far more problems, one of which is that I still have no idea what she’s talking about. “Which is?”
“You’re going to have to take Jarom.”
“Oh God. No.” Jarom is the tabloid’s main photographer. He has an insanely slobbering crush on me, which would be sweet if he wasn’t literally slobbering all the time. Well, maybe ninety percent of the time. Jarom wouldn’t be a bad looking guy if he could figure out how to keep his mouth closed. But when he’s deep in thought a silver ribbon of drool usually finds its way out onto the surface of whatever he is standing or sitting over.
“He’s our best photographer. When I told him you were taking the assignment he insisted that it be him. Frankly, I think the thought of you out there all alone makes him feel protective. Like he’ll be able to keep you safe. You don’t really want to deprive him of that, do you? Besides, how often does a guy like Jarom get to feel like a man? I mean, come on.”
“First of all, I absolutely do want to deprive him of that opportunity. Second, I haven’t agreed to take the story on, mainly because I still don’t know what it is. Third, it’s not my job to make him or anyone else feel like a man.”
“I think he’s got a little crush on you,” said Trinity, and she wiggles her eyebrows. “And if you don’t take this story I’ll totally fire you.”
“No you won’t.”
“No. I probably won’t. But I want you to take it, because there’s a problem. The state says they’re going to cut down a bunch of forest so they can build a sanctuary for endangered animals or something. But to do so they’re going to displace a ton of other animals that already use the forest for their sanctuary. Go out there and find me an angle.”
“Isn’t that already an angle?”
“Just in case that peters out,” says Trinity, “there’s something else. Something even better, and this is why I was so surprised that none of these babies here wanted to take it.”
“Go on.”
“There’s a rumor that an ex pro MMA fighter is living in the woods out there, and someone finally saw him. I personally think he’s hiding some kind of dark secret. Why else would someone leave a cozy multi-millionaire lifestyle with fans all over and women practically throwing themselves at them?,” says Trinity. “Regularly. We’ve got a contact out there. So I told this guy that I would send our best reporter and photographer out to get a shot of it and write it
up. While, of course, doing whatever can be done with the animal sanctuary thingy.” Trinity holds her hands up, framing an imaginary photo between them. “I can just see it. Inner Eye captures ex-fighter!”
“I’m supposed to go out there and capture a professional fighter?”
“Ex-professional fighter. But it doesn’t matter. Your job is to go see what’s out there and write something good. I don’t care if you find anything or not. I don’t expect it to get all Blair Witchy out there, but you never know. Sounds like there really are some strange things going on out there.” With that, she opens her desk and pushes an envelope at me.
“What’s this?”
“Those are your tickets. I’m going to let you give Jarom the good news.”
“Wait, you’ve been planning for me to go all along - and you’ve just been giving me the impression that I had a choice?”
“Afraid so my dear. I knew this was the right job for you and you wouldn’t disappoint.” With that, she picks the pen up, starts chewing on the cap again, and I am dismissed.
I walk out, a little heated but also a little excited. This would be the most interesting story to hit my desk – and it could make headlines even. Before I let myself get too excited, I go down the hall to Jarom’s office. When he sees me at his window he lights up like a Christmas tree ornament.
Oh God. I can’t do it.
I promptly proceed down the hall to my own office and send him the most cursory email in history. “We have an assignment that came up out of nowhere. All I know is that we leave tomorrow. Please see Trinity for details.”
I move fast, but I’m not even out of my office when Jarom appears at the door. What kind of name is Jarom, anyway? Sounds Amish, but he doesn’t have a beard. But maybe he can’t grow a beard.
And he’s a cameraman. I’m pretty certain they don’t use cameras.
In any event, I am unprepared and annoyed when he bows deeply and says “I have never been so excited for anything.” He stares into the middle distance and I know what’s coming. He disappears within a daydream. Soon his mouth opens and I all but shove him out of my office before he can get anything on the floor.
***
That night I skip drinks with Lacey although she does insist on a recap of my first night with Owen 2.0. I tell her its intensity was matched only by its fury on the Richter scale.
“I’m not a bit surprised,” she says.
I hear a murmur in the background under her voice.
“Is that the maître D?” I say.
“Ugh. I wish. Different guy. Seemed like he was going to be fun, and he was. Once. Now he can’t leave fast enough. Hey, don’t you give me that look, I told you what this was!” she yells at the man who I only assume is on his way out of her apartment. “So what’s new with you, otherwise?”
“That’s why I’m calling. I’m going to be out of town for a couple of weeks.” I give her the rundown.
“This doesn’t surprise me at all. I was reading my horoscope and I saw a couple of things that didn’t make sense for me, but I was pretty sure they were right for you.”
“We’re not born under the same sign.”
“Yeah, I know, but since it’s all bullshit anyway I figured I could do what I wanted with the info. Well, I think it sounds like an adventure. And just to prove it to you, I’m going to come out and visit you in a week. You know what? I bet you’ll find all kinds of lumberjacks out there that you can bang. Oh man, they are so hot right now. Every catalog has some guy with a beard and flannel on the cover right now. They’d look like idiots on the street here, but in real life? Yes please. Yeah, I’m coming to visit you. Don’t think you can keep them all to yourself.”
“Please do. I could use your company. How should I handle Jarom?”
“Either full force or at arm’s length. If he can’t persuade you, don’t try and persuade yourself.”
That wouldn’t be a problem.
CHAPTER TWO: HUGH MADDOX
If you want to remove all traces of masculinity from a man, plunk his ass down in the middle of a big city, then just sit back and watch. Pretty soon he’ll be covered in silk ties and satin doublets, ordering cous cous for every meal and thinking that getting a callus on his hand is as bad as leprosy.
This is exactly the opposite of what I’m doing right now. There are storm clouds rolling in. Out here, at my cabin, you can see more sky than you ever knew existed. It’s both exhilarating and desolate in a way that you can’t appreciate until you’ve seen it.
Solitude is almost everything to me.
Almost.
Unfortunately, what I consider solitude most people would consider isolation. It took me a year out here to realize that I didn’t even have a mirror. When I finally saw myself again I was pretty much the same: 6’4,” buzzed brown hair, blue eyes, broad as a barn door, and sporting a beard that was headed for Grizzly Adams territory.
When I was about to leave New York for my Walden-esque sojourn into the wilderness, I considered going to Alaska. Nothing big like Juneau or Fairbanks, but somewhere kind of off the grid. I had been reading a relocation website that literally said, ‘People who will do best here are those who tend to thrive in harsh climates more closely resembling third world countries than the continental US, and who can adapt to situations where the rules are unwritten.’
Sounded like the Deadwood of the Wild West, just with more snow and Eskimos. I was all set to go, having left the rough and tumble world of professional mixed martial arts, where I had been the welterweight champ in the biggest league before departing under circumstances of pain and loss that were mysterious to everyone but me. Everyone wondered, but it was no one’s business but mine.
Still isn’t.
There is a rumble in the distance. The Vikings would have heard Thor’s hammer. I just hear a ferocious melancholy that sounds like the world is growling along with my own heartache. Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong millennium. I would have been right at home on some ancient battlefield.
With no true company here other my own, I’m far better off than I ever was in New York. Those damned fights. Fucking double crosses and shady deals. They were people I was never going to see again because of what had happened.
Darkness and death. It was enough to… well, it was enough to make a man leave an extremely lucrative profession with his banked millions, go out into the middle of nowhere to escape his secrets, and do what I was doing.
It’s my business. Mine. Maybe this isn’t the most glamorous, high-octane life, but that’s no longer what I need. I need this.
I split another log and add it to the pile as another roar of thunder echoes across the valley. Once the rain starts I’m going to be trapped in here for a while, which suits me fine.
I’m already trapped, when I feel honest enough to admit it.
The week before I was supposed to come to Alaska, an email came through from an old friend who had gone into the military. He decided to give up the family cabin that his father left him when he died. His siblings didn’t want it and my friend decided to stay in Okinawa where he was stationed. All I had to do was say the word and he would relinquish the deed to me. Of course, I could afford to get a decked out luxury cabin with a sick view overlooking the mountainous landscape, but a small reclusive cabin in the middle of nowhere was just what I wanted.
I knew the place. It was as desolate as Alaska, and nearly as far away, on the Washington and Canada border in the northwest. It was miles from town and, while the rules weren’t quite unwritten up there, they weren’t spelled out on stone tablets either. I took the offer in a heartbeat, told my agent I was leaving town and had no plans to ever return or fight again, and got the hell out of dodge.
Now I’m here at my own place, which has everything I need, except a woman. It has turned out that meeting ladies up on a mountain top, miles away from anything except trees, deer, and the occasional flyby from a helicopter, isn’t the easiest business in the world. Neither is being fuc
king celibate or lonely for years, but I am doing what I have to do, for now. I’m lucky that I like my own company well enough.
Sometimes I wish I was different, but I’m not. I’ve never been used to doing things the easy way.
CHAPTER THREE: SAM WASHINGTON
When I meet Jarom at the airport he has three suitcases that I assume are full of camera equipment – but I quickly remember that practicality isn’t his strongest asset.
“I can’t ever figure out how many clothes to bring so I kind of wind up bringing everything.” This trip is going be shit balls of fun.
On the flight I watch the movie Gladiator. Talk about men! Owen and Jarom were not part of this dying breed, the breed of the ancient Greeks and Romans and warriors was so far gone that, short of a time machine, very few of us women had a chance of ever meeting one. What would it be like to see one of them in their glory?
I think about what Lacey said about the lumberjacks on the covers of the magazines and a small shiver of anticipation goes through me.
As for the ex MMA fighter, I still don’t know much. Apparently there’s a cabin out in the middle of nowhere in a small town called Wahay. And sometimes, when the wind or moon or whatever is just right, you can see the ex-mixed martial artist in the trees, chopping wood, or doing karate chops, or something.
The whole thing was a huge mystery. Why would he have left the perks of his career behind to go to the edge of civilization? Couldn’t someone go mad in such isolation?
Regardless, it was nice to be out of town, knowing there was no way to run into Owen. And I had Owen 2.0 in my suitcase; a fact that I’m sure would dismay Jarom to no end.
We land and take a cab to our hotel, which is less than ten minutes away. Then we rent a car and drive into the hills outside Wahay. When the pavement gives way to dirt, the dirt gives way to trees, and we have to get out. Trinity forwarded me a map that will supposedly get us within earshot or eyeshot of the mystery cabin. It seems like we could have just asked around in town a little, but Trinity insists that Jarom and I got in cold and report exactly what we see and find, novices in the wilderness. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was out here in a monster costume, ready to scare us into some good copy and photos.