“Jake, er. Mr. Nugent has scads of appointments all day, all week in fact. What’s the name?”
“Spëk. Dr. Marta Spëk.” Why hadn’t the guard made a call? That would be efficient compared to this lunatic repetition.
“Aha, hello, we were wondering what you’d look like. I’m Lora Wilkes.” She cackled then, a sound like no other that suggested a perturbed parrot and a cartoon witch. Marta felt tempted to ask how closely she matched their predictions. Of course they’d want to guess. Fair is fair, she admitted, and after all she’d spent plenty of time charting the probable Hollywood excesses of her soon-to-be colleagues.
“A pleasure to meet you.” Marta held out her hand, feeling stiff, under scrutiny, and overdressed. Lora—whose firm ample bust looked to be the product of elective surgery—had swiveled her chair toward another woman whose computer screen display caused an eruption of laughter. Marta intuited that this crew was familial and boisterous, if unprofessional; while workmates, they’d still likely go out for dinner and drinks or catch a movie.
A composed and altogether more insular environment existed within the Dark Tower—a monastic one minus a hearty sense of community and surgical augmentation. Marta had informed few of her colleagues about summer plans and had heard nothing from anyone else except holing up with business as usual—grant applications, conference appearances, journal essays, reviews, and chapters for forthcoming books.
“Hold on a sec, love, I’ve got to get this. Newsflash: LA is king and he knows it.” She tapped a hasty reply on a phone’s glass surface. Lora glanced up and gestured toward the executive’s partially open door. “The meeting of the minds is right that way! Have a seat right there, and we’ll set it in motion. Hang on.”
THE GRANDVIEW GRIND
1.
Jake deemed his driving suitably aggressive, ratcheting several notches above average. Harshly judging license holders with an incessant need to yammer while ignoring basic rules of road conduct—“They’re called signal lights, you fucking moron”—he kept calls to a minimum. Restless and pent up today, he tapped the phone’s glass surface at red lights and traffic snarls.
He planned to stop for fifteen minutes in a suburban park after shutting up shop for the day; and he’d already posted “Quick Service?”, an ad listing relevant statistics and a time guesstimate. If that produced negligible results—and Jake could predict from past experiences that zilch was almost a given—he would search pay sites to better the chances for success. The number of his active online profiles fluctuated, sitting at an economical mid-range at the moment. Periods of duress or boredom rocketed the number from zero to three, though never—almost never, in truth—higher.
Like the law of diminishing returns, flux existed; and Jake took for granted that the course of his hankerings would normally run into peaks and valleys. As he charted the situation, he was human, humans belonged to nature, and winter/spring, ebb/flow and wax/wane represented cosmic principles, as fundamental as life and death. Simple. It all added up, most times at least.
In those rare episodes of self-doubt when comparing himself unfavourably to colleagues—contented with a home-cooked pot roast dinner and several hours of prime time talent contests on the heels of a celebrity infotainment segment with a 30–second clip about a hurrying figure in black sunglasses checking into a clinic for sex addiction treatment—Jake’s normal-because-natural theory seemed filled with Swiss cheese holes. He faltered, seeing his too intimate commonality with back-in-rehab Americans, literally scabby off-Main prostitutes bartering orifices for tiny rocks of crack, and park denizens he’d catch sight of during a late night’s ramble. The guilt by association discomforted him.
The doubts surfaced infrequently, and proved ultimately therapeutic. For their duration, Jake thought over his would-be degeneration logically, backing steadily away from the cliff’s edge. Perspective had its uses. Side by side, he judged, no epic divide stood between 24/7 nights of TV with Honey Bear, the cubs, and a bowl or two of microwave popcorn and the codger at a department store toilet playing with a limp tool and waiting hours on end for action. They were the same species of pleasure-seeking, give or take, and each capable of sinking into the dull and imprisoning habit of going through the motions: the tubby, sedated, and glazed-eyed couch potato family laughing in perfect time to laugh-track cues and the inflamed, bat-eared satyr: flip sides of the same coin.
The main difference? One had acquired lower pariah standing than the other.
Anybody ever alive was born with the same potential; Jake never doubted it. Appetite for pleasure, a truth of existence, wound through strands of DNA. Who could argue with that? The billions—trillions, maybe, if you threw in porn—shelled out by generations of moviegoers gave jury-galvanizing testimony.
At a handful of off-the-wagon scenarios Jake had concluded that management presented the only true challenge. He possessed a ferocious sweet tooth that he kept in check because of the looming potential to become an insatiable urge, the fix a trial and error discovery. Allowing an overload holiday now and then throughout the year—a feeding frenzy of pastries or sex, and, years ago, the typical range of nightclub intoxicants—was surefire, he’d learned, a gratifying hedonistic release that while addressing the commands of brain chemistry didn’t totally cave to its every demand. For the rest of the time, Jake found a routine walking of the proverbial dog kept systems in shape but well rested and less prone to ripping up the furniture.
If asked, he’d confidently assert that self-denial actually served as a salve on the fears of others—uptight puritans! And based on mirror time during visceral mornings-after, he’d also admit frequent indulgence came at too steep a price. The body had set limits. And he wanted no part in the ballooning beer-batter midriff and drooping man-breast phenomenon of peers. Or worse. As for waking with a pounding headache next to a stranger in a messy unfamiliar room: the bloom was long off that rose. One remedy of pungent medicinal shampoo and hurriedly buzz-cut pubes had led to a nervous dread of bed bugs and other skin crawlers. Better to skip the nosebleed or headache or artless exit-eyeing conversation and sleep in the laundered oasis of the bedroom for which he made regular mortgage payments.
Balance, everything in moderation, know your limits, those tried and true maxims floated up whenever Jake found himself up late at night—groin humming the urgent tune of its constant fervour—and prepared to drive somewhere for unknown exploits and, with luck, eventual gratifying spurts. Pace yourself. Avoid remorse.
2.
As Jake slowed at the Pet Superstore and Big Box Factory Outlet intersection he saw the flow of traffic streams merging. No surprise there, the story nearly identical Monday through Friday. He checked the phone. The first response to “Quick Service?” contained no photo and two words: “Ur stats?” Jake deleted it. He’d like to smack any guy who asked dumb-ass questions, especially when he posted the answer as clear as day. The second and third replies exhibited similar asinine traits. Waiting for the green light, he irritably powered-down the tempting screen. Pursuit exasperated him some days, he’d readily admit.
Approaching the studio grounds, Jake began to prioritize the day’s meetings.
He expected a few department heads to report in; otherwise he’d be closely tethered to office phone lines. There would be plenty of time to check back online. Ads had a pastry’s shelf life and responses would dry up shortly in any case. After that, producing results meant posting another—different words, same idea—or covert perusal of a site where he’d reactivated a profile. True, he could always drive to the park on the way home and throw the dice. All of it looked like work, though in separate guises.
Getting laid without effort did happen, though rarely, and men were considerably easier to locate than women for obvious reasons. Women never parked their cars near highway rest stops and waited, pants unzipped, in search of lusting monosyllabic strangers in ball caps; nor did they wander in solitu
de within the shade of forests and loiter near public toilets.
The persistent idea that they might circulated as fantasy fodder that men whispered to themselves and, in his dad’s time anyway, printed in magazines. In the actual world scenes like that wouldn’t be realized unless involving a hefty financial transaction, or else extensive pleading—“Please, honey, just this one time, please. You’re a hitchhiker and I pick you up and rape you at the side of the road, c’mon it’ll be fun.” Jake felt that even though he understood female reluctance, the whole situation was regrettable—he’d like porn fantasies to come to life, at least some of them. C’est la vie, he thought.
When the wisdom of being fearful did cross his mind he snorted with relief to be a guy. He’d never expected violence despite hundreds of sexual contacts and shivered with nervous excitement in places his assistant or sister wouldn’t dare visit after sunset: the bungee jump thrill of danger related to engaging in illicit activity, not bodily harm.
The adventuring rush was particularly acute to him with no name exchange—the drunken woman he chatted up at a lounge and eventually led to the toilet stall for a quick exchange—in order of frequency: tongue-deep kissing, handjob, blowjob, fuck, muff dive—or the wordless figure in the murky woods who’d drop to his knees or yank down grey sweats in proud exhibition of hard prick or ass. Striding full of secret knowledge, the return to the car or crowded room following the frantic rushed tussle—face flushed, greasy mouth wiped, hastily tucked clothing emanating faint earthy scents—elicited a singular pleasure. Jake never tired of it.
Quests for high-rev experience were nothing new to Jake, the germ as old as memory. Childhood forecasts for distant adult vocations included digging up the bones of dinosaurs, becoming an Egyptologist, a cat burglar, an assassin, and a spy. Those goals took him through elementary school. He considered the practical high school years when publicizing dental school plans as an aberration resulting from daily pressures—“Think in the long term, Jakey” (Dad) and “Try to be realistic, Jakob” (Mom). As for the vision of residing in Paris while slaving to make his name as a fashion designer? The briefest of phases.
3.
Home-shot thumbnails of Jake’s towel-wrapped torso currently joined descriptive numbers and words on Mascskorpio and Muscgymdude, to-the-point generic names chosen for two commercial sex site profiles to point out relevant material—that his upper-echelon physique and disposition sought gratification with similar bodies that measured up. Why be coy or falsely democratic, Jake had thought when inventing these guises. Between the two profiles he expected to line up a few suitable options; he’d keep the programs running for an hour and comb through the mail then. Aware that the search might be fruitless, Jake’s gut said go. Failing that, he could try another site. The choices online grew weedily; any one could be revived with a few screen taps.
Normally Jake preferred to reserve his juice for a bigger bonanza and rarely wanted the sort of expedient assisting to orgasm he’d find in a park—stand, gesture, unzip; be back on the road in short minutes. The compressed efficiency of hasty sex had its natural merit—like sneezing it demanded no time and blasted out the pipes, equally crude and effective—but Jake felt partial to sex as sport; in part, the spark resulted from being immersed in unknown conditions and improvising to control the outcome. It didn’t pan out every time, of course, but the successes stacked up considerably, a refreshing splash over sporadic stings of failure. Today he was wound up; a quick park session made sense. Fully cognizant that five minutes of masturbation would unscramble the circuits, he resorted to that only in dire circumstances—even a quarter-adventure had greater appeal than the warmth of a solitary hand.
He rubbed his eyelids at the last of what seemed like hundreds of stoplights that morning. Dehydrated a tad, he suspected. Following work and dinner yesterday he’d stopped by The Recovery Room. Dark-paneled and lit with ultra low-watt bulbs amplified by a feature wall of beveled mirrors, the place was a magnet for a professional crowd that drank from the celebrated cocktails menu. Fashionably cool, it would have been called yuppie years ago. The men there checked expensive watches often and laughed with toothy, faintly predatory smiles, watchful of their pretty, carefully-tended women—whom they regarded as integral parts of their social profile.
At the bar Jake had met, shaken hands with, and sized up Antony, “no H, man.” Cleanshaven with shaggy hair as black as Jake’s, he was shy despite the outgoing appearance, a guy who lacked—and desired—the wolfish aggression of the other men. Jake responded positively to the man’s soft give and pictured Antony’s reluctant mouth accepting his tongue and, later, the slow and progressively deeper thrusting of his dick.
Antony, “in finance, but breaking into real estate,” introduced Jake to Krysta—“That’s with a K and a Y,” Antony said with a grin, igniting Jake’s hope—a freckled day trader with fair hair and a small frame blessed by an ample, gravity-defying rack.
The couple talked about work evangelically, as though they believed real estate and day trading were revelatory, soul-feeding subjects. Jake began to feel that he’d stumbled into the convention of an accounting cult. What the fuck, he thought. Young and active, they ought to have more to spout about than condo prices, interest rates, and the housing market’s crazy rollercoastering.
“What do you two do for fun?” Jake decided that the conversation would benefit from shepherding. “Besides hanging out here with the beautiful people, that is.”
“Krysta and I started snowboarding last year,” Antony replied.
“Cool.” Jake looked around. Maybe this venue was a shade too indirect for his drives tonight. Or, he’d shown up before alcohol had lowered inhibitions.
“And we’re really getting into traveling.” Krysta’s perky addition confirmed the couple’s von Trapp wholesomeness and that, disconcertingly, they couldn’t follow his lead. “We went to Jamaica in February! It was great!”
Jake had pondered alternate options.
Bored with the glacial proceedings, he said, “Excuse me for a minute. Beer.” He pointed downward, intending the physical detail to direct their eyes and to signal a reluctance to keep on with the office lunch room chit-chat. He emptied the green bottle in a gulp.
The walls of the bathroom were covered in hexagonal brass tiles and dark weatherbeaten-effect planks.
Antony came in as Jake soaped his hands. “Man, it’s like yawning. Now I have to go too.” He faced the wall above the urinal, scanning a page of game scores tacked behind glass.
Jake waited at the black stone sink. Testosterone and impatience edged him toward reckless disregard. “What do you two have on for later?”
“Later?” Antony seemed surprised. “It’s a weeknight.”
“Oh, I see. I was hoping to get some tonight.” Jake smiled widely, inviting this new acquaintance to join a conspiracy.
Antony approached the sink. “Oh, I see. You mean us. No, man, you’re way off base. Jeez.”
“Oops.” Jake figured the situation didn’t need defusing, but kept his tone confident. “I misread you, the both of you actually, man, no sweat. Forget it. I just thought—” If something did happen, there was no chance it’d be tonight. Alone and with a few drinks in his bloodstream, though, Antony might cave.
“‘I just thought’? What made you think anything?” Within Antony’s indignation, Jake caught an undertone of curiosity.
“A vibe, that’s all. Hard to define. Don’t sweat it. My mistake. Obviously I’m not a psychic.” The words he’d initially planned—“We could take turns on Krysta, then maybe you’d let me tap that too”—remained stowed away. Limits existed: Antony didn’t look like a fighter, but you could never predict a guy’s reaction when intuiting his ass and territory were threatened. “I’ll see you around, man.” With no handshake option, Jake nodded a goodbye.
Jake pulled open the door and made a beeline for the exit. He knew when to conc
ede defeat. Approaching the rain-beaded car he’d mumbled, “Everything in moderation, Jakey.”
4.
At the studio’s main gate Pat tipped her cap and leaned into Jake’s cabin. “Howdy, hoss. You’re like clockwork.”
“Hi Pat, it’s the All Bran.” They bantered easily. “Any problems at the corral?”
“As far as I can tell everything’s running smooth as silk.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
“She’s a beaut. New?” Pat slid a hand along the hood and returned to the side mirror. She’d been a teamster before taking the semi-retirement guard job and took an interest in all things automotive.
“The finest in German engineering, I’m told. The dealer’s a buddy and let me have it for a week’s trial run.”
“Sweet.” She whistled. “Maybe you’ll let me take her out for a spin later? I’ll give you my professional opinion.”
“For sure, Pat. Come by the office on a break or after your shift or something to grab the keys. Just promise: not a scratch.”
“You got it, boss, not even a bug smear.”
“See you later then.”
“Welcome to the compound.” She waved Jake through.
5.
Lora greeted Jake with a hug and a short stack of messages on paper—blue for American callers, pink for locals. “Nothing’s in crisis so far, Boss Man,” she said. “Good morning to you.”
“To you too, my dear.”
Lora called their close working relationship plant-fungi mutualism. A biology major back in the day with a still breathing and high-minded, if typically highball-authored, ambition to hunt down pharmaceutical greenery hidden deep within the Amazon Basin, Lora willed selective blindness to stiff mortgage payments and a firm intolerance of all winged insects. She relied on Jake’s talent for latching on to new shows; and Jake, who preferred the flower and bee picture for their symbiosis, never took the awesome organizational capabilities of his right-hand assistant for granted.
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