Harriet had always considered herself smarter than most people, but now she considered that perhaps she was like everyone else. Was she really doing this? Or was it like some cheap sci-fi story where you’re replaced by the android pod person who looks exactly like you but isn’t? And if she was replaced by an android, how could she think that she was replaced by an android? Wouldn’t they replace her mind too? Or erase her memory or something? Maybe she was in a sci-fi novel and had entered a parallel universe where everything was the same only slightly different because now she was a nymphomaniacal killer. She remembered reading Stewart O’Nan’s novel The Speed Queen, which was about a drug-fueled killing spree in the desert, but she wasn’t really planning to kill anyone or spree—which is a funny word, now that she thought of it—and her flight wasn’t fueled by anything but a weird sense of guilt and panic.
She prided herself on taking responsibility for things. She’d often railed about it in her essays. Why don’t people clean up their own messes? Own up? What’s wrong with the world? But now here she was, avoiding responsibility for Curtis’s death, acting like everybody else. It occurred to Harriet that she might’ve had a case against the hotel. Low railings and a slippery balcony? They’re begging for a lawsuit.
And why hadn’t she felt any remorse? She hadn’t shed a tear for Curtis. She had cried in frustration, in fear, but she hadn’t cried because Curtis was dead. He was, after all, a talented writer, even if he did sell his talent to the highest bidder like a little keyboard whore. She’d been attracted to him and they’d been swapping saliva only a few hours ago and now he was dead and she couldn’t even get misty-eyed. What was wrong with her? And what did these mountains want from her?
She looked over at Sepp. He was asleep, his head against the window, his mouth hanging open. He still didn’t have a shirt on and she couldn’t help but admire his torso. In fact she admired everything about Sepp’s body. He was a stud. Even she could say that. Normally she hated that word. It was Old English for a “pillar or post” and then, because language was controlled by men and so is, by nature, phallocentric, it was used to mean a “horse for breeding” and then, later, to mean a man of “significant sexual prowess.” Linguistically a stud was just a big hard dick. That’s what Sepp had. And he wasn’t shy about using it either.
She thought they’d done a pretty good job of covering their tracks at the Pioneertown Motel. After getting fucked like she never even knew possible, an experience that gave her an entirely new and comprehensive appreciation for the word “fuck,” after having an orgasm that caused her entire body to spasm from the inside out, building from her core until it rippled across her skin in the form of goosebumps, sending tingly bolts of pleasure cannonballing from her fingers to her toes—literally the force of her climax caused her to gasp—and after feeling Sepp roll her over, throw her legs up on his shoulders, and ride her deep while she sucked on her fingers and continued to have orgasmic aftershocks; after all that, they’d cleaned up the room, wiped fingerprints off every surface they could think of, and left as covertly as possible. They even rolled the car down the dirt driveway about thirty yards before starting the engine.
But now what?
Was she just going to drop Sepp off in Phoenix, return the rental, and fly back to San Francisco? Was that it? Mission accomplished?
Harriet wondered if she could trust Sepp. Would he keep his mouth shut? Would he tell the authorities? Could she trust him or did she need to make sure he never said a word? Isn’t that the killer’s protocol? Cover your tracks? Rub out the witnesses? Tie up all the loose ends?
It would be easy to do. She could unhook his seat belt, lean over, open the door, and give him a shove. He’d be roadkill in a matter of seconds and she could go see the Grand Canyon.
Harriet worried that she was becoming a sociopath.
25
Arizona
Sepp tried to decipher the graffiti scrawled in marker on the wall of the bathroom stall. Trip when you ball, deformed babies are amusing. He had no idea what it meant. Was it some kind of sports reference? To the right of that, the words “TUCSON LOVES PUSSY” were scratched into the paint underneath a crude drawing of a giant cock blasting spunk and a pair of cartoonishly hairy balls. That was easier to understand. The city of Tucson, Arizona, loves pussy. Clearly. And, dude, why wouldn’t they? Because here in this freeway rest area bathroom stall Sepp was loving some pussy himself. He was standing behind Harriet, sliding his cock into her, reaching around and stroking her clitoris, as she bent forward and braced herself against the graffitied wall. Sepp felt good. He was back, like back from the dead back, he was back in the game, back in the saddle, and back at it. Harriet had saved him from a life of erectile failure, she was like that mad scientist who reanimates dead things and while maybe it didn’t work on the dude who fell off the balcony, it totally worked on Sepp’s dick. In fact, dude, it was working too good. The sex they’d had in the motel had been awesome and now all Sepp wanted to do was have awesome sex again and again. Cooler still, she wanted to do it again too. That’s why they’d pulled over to the rest area. Sepp couldn’t help it, he had pulled his dick out in the car and she’d taken one look at it and, you know how these things go, they just had to get it on immediately.
Despite all his travels and his Love Express road trip experience, he’d never had sex in a freeway rest area bathroom stall before. I mean, he’d had sex in bathroom stalls, duh, but not at a rest area. It was different, like new and hot, but also there was something more different going on here as he pumped in and out, grinding in tight circles, making her shudder and gasp and moan. He realized that he’d never felt this way about anyone before. She wasn’t a phony actress fame-whore like Roxy or Caitlin. She wasn’t all up in herself; she was passionate about ideas and smart things. She cared about stuff. Maybe it was wrong to help her with the dead guy and all, maybe he’d get in trouble for doing it. But he owed her. She’d saved him. She’d given his penis life again. How could he rat on her now? What if he dropped a dime on her and then he never got it up again? No way that would be worth it. Sepp knew it was wrong to put a price on a human life, but what price can you put on your sex life? It was, like, too much math.
Their thrusting built up speed, his fingers attaining a slippery velocity, moving gently over her swollen clitoris as he pushed deep into her. He felt her muscles clench, her pussy constricting around his cock as she let out a screech and a groan and a shudder and slapped the walls with her hands and shouted “Fuck yes” over and over.
Sepp felt a dull energy shiver through his body, building in intensity, traveling up to the head of his penis which was buzzing, like it was on fire.
Sepp looked up at the graffiti drawing of the ejaculating cock as he came. TUCSON LOVES PUSSY.
26
New York City
Being a book publicist is not an easy job. Every month you’re assigned four or five titles to promote. It’s usually a mixed bag: fiction, nonfiction, self-help, diet books, even celebrity autobiographies. That translates to long hours sitting at a desk answering emails and yakking on the phone, begging reviewers, newspaper editors, bloggers, bookstores, radio producers, and TV shows to take one of your authors and give them a little press; you do, basically, anything and everything you can to get someone, somewhere to pay attention to one of your books.
The stress and monotony of this is broken by editors demanding special attention for their titles and authors calling in a cold rage demanding to know why they weren’t a book club pick or on NPR or in The New York Times or on a fake-news comedy show.
And then, occasionally, an author disappears. In this case leaving a trail of nude photos plastered on every corner of the internet. Even mainstream media outlets showed the photos, but gave Sepp a pixilated penis because the raw stuff was NSFW.
The first sign Brenda got that something was wrong was when she turned on her computer and saw that she had over two hundred emails in her in-box. Then she got the first of
several angry phone calls. This one from a producer from an LA rock radio station complaining that Sepp hadn’t phoned in that morning for a live chat with the DJs. The producer was especially miffed because Sepp had talked to their competition the day before. Brenda promised to reschedule. The second call came later. Sepp was supposed to go do a morning TV show at the local Fox affiliate and then be a guest on Ellen.
It wasn’t that unusual for a celebrity to blow off small things like phoners with rock stations, but a major TV show? Even more worrisome was that she’d arranged for Kathryn the media escort to pick Sepp up and take him to these interviews. Kathryn was waiting at the hotel and had no idea what had happened to Sepp since his agent had taken him back to the hotel after the Playboy Mansion party.
Brenda tried his cell phone but kept getting routed to voice mail. Marybeth confirmed she’d left Sepp at the hotel.
Brenda was struck by the sudden fear that Sepp might’ve taken a bunch of different drugs at the party, gone back to the hotel, and promptly OD’d. Or maybe he’d killed himself. From what she’d heard from the bookstore, he’d acted totally bizarre at the signing yesterday. Taking off his clothes? Crying? Maybe he cracked and jumped off a bridge or something. It’d be a tragedy, of course. Very sad for his family. But it’d be great for the book. She could get all kinds of publicity for that. Once before, one of Brenda’s authors committed suicide and the book stayed on the bestseller list for thirty-four weeks.
27
Arizona
@fatalinfluence Just had the best. breakfast. ever. Scrambled eggs with cactus and chorizo. Fear and loathing on Interstate 10.
…
“What are you doing?”
“I’m updating my Twitter.”
Sepp was confused. “But if you tell everyone where we are . . . I mean, aren’t we supposed to be on the lam?”
Harriet shook her head. “No. I’m writing a piece on you. I’m joining you on your book tour.”
Sepp grinned. “Are you going to write about last night?”
Harriet felt herself blush. They couldn’t pass a rest area without pulling over and fucking each other’s brains out. “Maybe. It’s part of the story.”
As Harriet hit send, the waitress, a young woman suffering from an overexposure to fried foods, came to their table and refilled their coffees.
“Still working on that?”
Harriet looked up at the waitress, then down at the plate. The plate was completely cleaned of food.
“There’s not much left to work on.”
She looked up at the waitress for a reaction. But she wasn’t looking at Harriet, she was squinting at Sepp, her peeling, trans fat–enhanced cheeks scrunching up to get a good look at him. Harriet watched as recognition erupted on her features. It was as if her face had been run through one of those digital morphing machines; one second she was a sunburned frump with a pot of coffee and then the next she was an excited young woman, her face alive with the joy that comes from recognizing a TV star.
“Oh my God. Sepp Gregory. It’s really you, isn’t it?”
Sepp nodded. “It is really me.”
The waitress put the coffee pot down on their table. “You know I tried out for Love Express.”
“You did?”
She hung her head at the memory of her lost opportunity to be on a reality TV show. “I guess I didn’t make the cut.”
Sepp reached out and patted her arm. “The producers missed a good one. I can tell.”
Harriet watched the waitress’s face flush crimson. A bell sounded from the kitchen and the waitress turned and hesitated. “Wait. Okay? Don’t go anywhere.”
Sepp smiled. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The waitress scampered off, moving surprisingly fast considering how slow the service was in the diner. Harriet shook her head.
“It’s amazing.”
“What?”
“The effect you have on women.”
Harriet took a sip of her coffee. It was scalding and tasted like boiled burned tires.
“It’s not me. It’s the fame.”
Harriet thought about that. “Why do people like reality shows? They’re so stupid.”
Sepp smiled. “That’s what I like about you.”
Harriet looked at him. “That’s not really an answer.”
The waitress came rushing back with a dog-eared copy of Totally Reality clutched in her hand.
“Will you sign it for me?”
Harriet stood up. “Excuse me.”
…
Sepp absentmindedly signed the waitress’s book as he watched Harriet walk off to the bathroom. He felt life stirring in his pants again as he eyed her ass moving underneath her skirt. He handed the book back to the waitress.
“Enjoy.”
The waitress grabbed the book and pressed it to her breasts as she squealed.
“Thanks so much! I can’t believe I got to meet you.”
“It is totally my pleasure.”
There was an awkward pause and then the bell rang in the kitchen. She rolled her eyes and bobbed her head in a spastic curtsey.
“Oh well, back to work.”
The waitress retrieved the pot of coffee and skipped off.
Sepp caught his reflection in the window of the diner. He’d bought an Arizona State University T-shirt at the truck stop gift store and was admiring the mischievous little devil on the logo. He poured a blob of cream into his coffee and watched the white and brown liquids swirl together. He figured he should call Brenda and tell her what was going on. Also, he needed his stuff from the hotel in Beverly Hills. Then he wanted to call Dr. Jan and tell her that he was being authentic. At least he thought he was. I mean, how do you know you’re authentically authentic? What if you’re just bullshitting yourself again? But then the feelings he had for Harriet seemed real, more authentic than anything he’d felt before. It wasn’t like on the TV shows. There was no strategy involved, no alliances to be formed, no challenges to win. Dude. This was the real deal. At least, he thought maybe it was.
But what was the next step? Should they do a show together? Race around the world as a team? Should they get married? Host some kind of beach-wedding spectacular? That could be amazing. He’d invite a bunch of ex–reality stars and she’d invite all her famous author friends and literature professors. It’d be like Hotties vs. Nerds only better. They’d argue, come together, argue some more as their families and friends duked it out over seating arrangements and the menu in a series of fun challenges. Then they’d be united in holy matrimony and everything would be beautiful. Love conquers all. And then, when they had kids, they could bring in the Nanny 911 experts to teach them how to be good parents. As his producers would say, it’s a home run.
Sepp pulled out his phone and remembered that he’d turned off the ringer while they were doing it on the hood of the car when they’d pulled into a scenic overlook. That was cool. The sun was coming up and some truck drivers drove past and blew their horns. Sepp checked his phone and saw that Brenda had called six times.
…
Harriet squatted over the little paper toilet seat liner and micturated. Now there was a funny word. It was from the Latin micturire,“to desire to urinate.” Not many people used the word anymore and whenever she saw it in a book she thought the author was trying too hard, doing a lexiconical cartwheel, grandstanding with the vocabulary.
She wiped herself, stood, and pulled her panties up. The rank but not unpleasant smell of spent sex wafted from between her legs. She wished she could take a shower. Or brush her teeth. She made a mental note to buy some condoms from the truck stop gift store. Maybe some lubricant to go with it. She wasn’t sure.
She splashed cool water on her face and studied her reflection in the mirror. She knew it was a cliché. Wasn’t this trope in every single crime movie ever made? If she was following the script, this was the moment when she was supposed to reflect. Look in the mirror and contemplate the choices you’ve made that led you to this momen
t in time. It was a completely heavy-handed, ham-fisted metaphor. And yet, for Harriet, it worked. So this is what it looks like. She was part of a couple on the lam. Like Bonnie and Clyde or Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate. Not that she looked like a killer. Neither did Sepp. He was too handsome for that kind of thing. Maybe they were more like Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway or Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek than the actual killers. Harriet smiled. She might not be able to pull off Faye Dunaway, but she was a perfectly respectable Sissy Spacek. In the mirror, an attractive young woman with a couple of hickeys on her neck stared back. She looked worn out, a little “ridden hard and put away wet” as her Uncle Norman might’ve said, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. She had a glow. Maybe it was her aura, maybe it was an adrenalized sex energy racing through her. She might end up with psychic scars from this experience, but physically, she’d never felt better in her whole entire life.
…
Sepp and Harriet stood in the parking lot by the rental car. Harriet was checking something on her phone. She did that a lot. He watched as her mouth screwed up in a grimace.
“Your book is still on the bestseller list.”
Sepp grinned. “Awesome.”
Harriet looked at Sepp.
“‘Awesome’ is from an Old Norse word meaning fright or fear. When something is awesome it should inspire fear and dread.”
Harriet gave him a stern look. “A burrito cannot be awesome.”
Sepp shook his head. “So you say.” He wasn’t going to let it bother him. It was awesome, totally, that his book was on the list. But he could tell that Harriet was upset about it and since he was her partner now—her boyfriend, even though they’d never really said anything to each other about it—he wanted to make her feel better because that is what boyfriends do. The good ones anyway.
Raw: A Love Story Page 15