This trip through outback Australia was supposed to reconcile those differences. Re-establish our common ground, rekindle our relationship. I liked to think it was working. Away from the petty annoyances of our shared lives and mundane routine we would reconnect our friendship and our love. Our Friday night sex was as predictable as his Wednesday night Star Trek re-run. And when I snapped at him over the laundry, when he growled at me for the umpteenth time about the misplaced car keys, or when our debate about Sunday night take-out turned into daggers drawn over Indian versus Thai, we both knew we had to do something. Twelve years of married life has to count for something, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?
We both came home with travel brochures the next night, and for a week we fenced around the destinations. He suggested Turkey, I parried with India. He talked about Russia, which would be a frozen wasteland in November, and perversely I held out for Iceland, which would be floating on the ocean like a giant ice cube. He moved south and in rapid-fire succession came up with Chile, Peru, and South Africa. I countered with Japan, New Zealand, and Bolivia. We were at stalemate. The gaudy brochures were stacked in toppling piles on the coffee table, spreading over the floor like a shiny, multicolored sea. And we fought bitterly and venomously over what was supposed to cement our marriage.
When he came up with Thailand, it was all I could do to stop myself shooting off a snide comment about the sex trade.
My shoulders slumped. Suddenly it all seemed so petty, so silly. Slowly, I extended a hand to him as he sat in a defensive posture on the couch next to me.
“Jer-bear.” I used the pet name I hadn’t voiced in years. “Let’s start again. Let’s pick somewhere together.” He grasped my hand and gave me a tentative smile, and I knew it would be all right.
We made love that night, a slow meshing of our bodies, the ritual undulations of the dance that we hadn’t bothered with in a long time. Our Friday night bonk didn’t count: a few minutes exercising of the bedsprings, a quick release for him, then he’d dutifully bring me off with his fingers. No, that night we made love as it should be done; slowly, wanting to give pleasure, not just scratch an itch. I went down on him for the first time in over a year, stretching my mouth over the rubbery contours of his cock, so familiar but so strange for the absence. I sucked him, insinuating a finger up between his buttocks to tickle his rectum, something I’d never done, only read about. His surprised tightening and then his groan of appreciation told me it was welcomed.
He didn’t quite go down on me; his mouth just hovered over my inner thigh as his fingers pushed their way up inside me. But my climax was sharp and intense, full of the heady rush of feeling, the pooling of heat deep in my belly.
The next day we went to the travel agent together.
Hand-in-hand, we perused the brochures lining the shelves, and then we booked a flight to Adelaide, Australia, and reserved a Toyota Landcruiser, fitted out for three weeks’ camping.
Of course we argued again after that. We fought on the plane, quietly and viciously in our seats at the back, hissing at each other in an attempt to keep our disagreement from the other passengers. We fought again in Adelaide, when the hotel didn’t have the king-size bed we’d requested. And we argued vehemently when we saw our vehicle. The rusty old Toyota was smaller than our full-size SUV back home, yet we were expected to live within its battered shell for three weeks.
But when we turned north toward the Flinders Ranges and wheeled through the wine country, our differences were forgotten. We saw the strange landscape burning in the late spring sun and the narrow strip of bitumen leading off like a promise into the distance, hazed and floating in the strange muted light of this place.
Jeremy stopped the truck in the middle of the road, and we grasped hands over the gear lever. It was partly for reassurance; this was all so strange, so new, and, if I was honest, thrilling. I don’t know how long we might have stayed there, but a pickup truck swerved past, honking. The aboriginal driver yelled something, and a beer can bounced off the Landcruiser to roll around in the middle of the asphalt. We looked at each other and laughed.
“I guess we’re one tinnie from Adelaide,” I said. The great Australian measurement of outback distance: one can of beer per hundred kilometers.
“Well, it’s a four tinnie drive to Wilpena Pound from here,” Jeremy said, “so we better get moving.”
We had no plans beyond exploration. The distances drew us on inexorably towards Australia’s center. Leaving the purple ranges behind us we pushed forward across a land as flat as Kansas.
Small things held our attention. I spent an hour in a dry creek studying the patterns of bull ants as they marched across the shifting sands, trying to match the colors to the paint charts in my head. Burnt ochre, titanium white, sienna. Jeremy watched a parade of processionary caterpillars, nose to tail, proceeding in an unbroken line across the road. Chrogaster lunifer, he said, an Australian Notodontid.
Jeremy found a book on geology abandoned in a pub and chanted the names of the rocks as I drove. Argillaceous and calcareous slates, metamorphosed schist and gneiss, sandstone, limestone, granite. The unfamiliar words became a poem, and I’d chant along with him in a singsong voice, banging the rhythm on the steering wheel. He also had a book on desert flora and fauna he’d purchased in the information center at Wilpena Pound. Entranced, he’d turn the pages for hours as we rested in the evenings, our backs against the dusty shell of the truck, the land spread like solitude in front of us.
We soon learned to camp like the locals, stopping beside the road, pulling in behind stunted drooping gum trees, or granite outcrops. Initially we were worried, but no one ever bothered us. All too soon we were in the heart of the outback, way beyond the black stump. Still following our noses, we turned onto the wide dirt Oodnadatta Track.
William Creek, population four, had a light aircraft parked in the middle of the road outside the pub. The pilot was downing a beer inside.
“G’day.” The barman wore the universal uniform of the outback male – shorts and singlet. Bare sunburned arms and thick stubby legs. He slapped two beers down on the counter without being asked. “Which way youse headed?”
We looked at each other. “To Lake Eyre,” said Jeremy. It hadn’t been discussed, but Lake Eyre, the great salty inland sea that covered much of the center of Australia, seemed a fitting place to go. Jeremy had read aloud to me about its dry saltpans and sand. Rivers that drained to Lake Eyre never made it to the ocean.
The barman craned his neck to see out the door of the bar. “One of them rental vehicles,” he said. “She’ll be right, mate.”
We looked at each other in bewilderment. The rusty old truck had done us well so far. We’d even grown rather fond of it. “Right for what?” I asked.
“You’ll be going out the back of the pub, into the lake that way,” the barman explained. “There’s water in the southwest corner of the lake, first time in . . .” He scratched his head, and took a long swig of his own beer, “. . . maybe twenty years or more.”
I sensed Jeremy’s excitement. He leaned forward on the bar. “How far?”
“Only ’bout a hundred kays or so. But she’s rough. It’s a three tinnie drive.”
Actually it was a four-tinnie, two potty-stop drive. We set up camp behind low dunes just as the sun was setting. We seared steak on the camp stove and washed it down with more beer from the William Creek pub. The wind sprang up, a light circular breeze that stirred the sand at our feet, rustled the thick dune grass and tickled my skin like a lover. To the east were the dry saltpans of the lake. I couldn’t see water, but I fancied I could smell it. The air was fresher, not the crackling desert air of the Flinders Ranges. A flock of cockatoos wheeled among the clouds of insects, their cries harsh in my ears.
We made love that night, sweating in the stuffy camper, our skins sticking clammily together as Jeremy lay over me, pumping a steady rhythm that made the camper bounce and sway. At the first shudder of my orgasm the clack and clatter of s
mall insects paused for a suspended moment before resuming, louder than ever.
Jeremy dragged me out at first light and handed me a mug of coffee and a hunk of bread slathered with peanut butter. He waited impatiently as I ate, then threw the dirty dishes into the truck and, taking my hand, led me out onto the lake.
We walked slowly, holding hands like lost children. The cracked saltpan became softer, the air stiller – so silent that the world seemed to be holding its breath. I looked back and saw the dunes already starting to shimmer in unreality. When my feet started to sink, I pulled off my shoes and left them. I could pick them up on the way back.
And then we were out there, so far that the Toyota was indistinct, so far that the light hurt my eyes. The horizon was gone, diffused into the sheen of the lake, absorbed into the sky which floated like a parable above our heads. Jeremy walked by my side, stooping to study the life he found. My eyes were on the absence of horizon, on the floating white light that filled my vision. Titanium white? There was no color and all color. In our solitude there was only light.
When we happened upon our abandoned shoes again, we realized we were lost, circling aimlessly. Out here in the few inches of bloodwarm water, there were no footprints, no landmarks to help us navigate. Just the great, white light.
Jeremy looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “I think it’s that way,” he said, pointing in what appeared to me to be a random direction.
“No.” I was positive he was wrong. “This way.”
We stood locked in stalemate. “If we had a coin, we could toss it,” Jeremy murmured.
I revolved slowly, searching the light for clues. Nothing. We were alone and lost; the light swelled around us in a subtle diffusion of color. And so I reached for Jeremy at the same moment he leaned towards me. Our arms closed around each other, a haven of comfort, and our lips met, tentatively seeking the familiar.
He kissed me slowly, a melding of lips and tongues that we knew well. His hands reached down inside my shorts, cupping my buttocks, pulling me against him. I wasn’t surprised that he was already hard, pressed between us rigid through the thin cotton. He was already seeking between my legs, his fingers raking the hair, probing the wetness inside me. I felt a shell pink flush rise.
I pulled off my T-shirt and bra and let his mouth close over my nipple. I wove my fingers through his hair and threw my head back. Through closed eyelids the white burnt my eyes, the brightness creating floating patterns of threads. He stroked me harder than normal, fingers insistent on my clit. The pressure and friction bordered on discomfort, but the light encompassed us now, seeping through our skin, illuminating our bodies from within. It was the light that mattered.
Our clothes were gone. Jeremy’s skin shimmered, the harsh sun bleaching him to his bones. Titanium white, skin pale. We were down in the water now, on our sides, hips sinking into the yielding lake bed. I raised my thigh, he slipped in between; no more foreplay, no more skating, gentle movements. He fucked me hard, gripping my buttocks, forcing me up against him, holding me as if he feared he would split me in two. Open-mouthed he panted into my face, pushing his way up me. I clenched hard, feeling the smooth sides of his penis advance, retreat, thrust forward, withdraw. And I came hard, a fierce strong orgasm, shuddering around him, milking his cock with muscular walls as he pressed his way further inside me, white heat within me, white light around me.
The mud of the lake bed clung like cement. A heavy, pale mud, it streaked our skins, matted my hair. Yellow ochre, streaked sienna. We picked a direction at random and started walking toward where we hoped the truck was. It wasn’t visible; there were no features to guide us, so we just walked into the shifting distances, trusting that we would get there. The soft, slippery lake gripped my feet, sucking me in. The mud dried to powder on my thighs and cracked on Jeremy’s chest.
I stopped to examine the desiccated corpse of a water bird half submerged in the salty water, its gray feathers caked with silt. Poking it with a toe, I watched with detached interest as a couple of the small shield shrimp moved in the ripples I created. Their chitinous casing well adapted to their harsh life.
Beside me, Jeremy paused, his eyes straining for a horizon. I waited for his worried words. We were totally alone, lost in the bleached landscape.
“See that darker patch on the lake, Petra?” he said. “Who would have thought the wind was indigo white?”
When Calls Ed Wood
Tom Piccirilli
The cats were up in the pomegranate trees again wailing their scrawny asses off next door. They did it at least twice a week, but by now I’d grown used to their prolonged screeching. It reminded me of ambulance sirens in New York and even made me a little homesick.
Monty’s place had two main floors, an attic and a mother-in-law apartment around the rear. The landlord and his wife lived in the house proper, but they were always on the run in Mexico from drug dealers they’d burned in East LA. Monty Stobbs stayed in the attic, and I lived out back directly below his window. He wouldn’t waste time walking down all the stairways and would just call me on my cellphone.
I’d left New York after having a couple of shows presented off-off Broadway. They were both well-received by critics but didn’t draw enough of an audience to stay afloat for long. Monty Stobbs had been hustling the same backers that the director had been hustling, and he’d invited me to come stay with him in Hollywood to write him a screenplay.
I wasn’t naive enough to believe it might amount to anything, but for the first time in my life I was desperate enough to fall into the starry-eyed Hollywood trap. I was being evicted and my wife had left the year before. She’d taken the kid, the dog, and the goldfish, but she’d left me with a case of crabs. The fuckers were so big I could identify them well enough to give them names, and after the cream started to work and they died off, I fell into sobbing fits. So there wasn’t much holding me in New York.
The script had started off as a joke, which is bad in Hollywood. Nobody at the major studios has a sense of humor, and the small production companies are always looking for the next Ed Wood, something so awful it’ll be a hot property in video units and when it shows up on late night cable. Manufactured cult films.
The script was called Critter From Beyond the Edge of Space and the pages smelled like beer. I’d drink myself into oblivion every night trying to figure out how I’d gone from writing my historical novel about the Trail of Tears to this piece of shit in front of me.
My phone rang and I picked it up. “What?”
“Listen, you need to rewrite a little.”
“Monty, why don’t you just shout out the window, you’re using up minutes.”
He said, “Put in some big-titted sorority girls.”
“There’s already four milkmaids and the Swedish Women’s Volleyball Champions, for when the bus goes off the road outside the haunted house where the alien is residing.”
“I know but we need sorority girls too.”
“How many?”
“Let’s say three to be on the safe side. Can you do it?”
“Sure.”
“We’re going to start filming tomorrow.”
It was the sort of thing I should’ve been expecting but Monty slid one by every now and again. “The hell are you talking about now?”
“I found some backers and we’re going to get enough footage to bring to a production company and get a budget. I’ve got our actors coming in tomorrow to film a few scenes.”
“I’m holding the only copy of this unfinished screenplay, Monty. What kind of actors are these?”
“The best kind, they do whatever you tell them. One more thing, put in a bathtub scene.”
“We’ve got two shower scenes already.”
“Yeah, but Zypho the alien is gonna take a bath with one of the girls. Toss it in.”
There was a time I would’ve shrieked louder than the cats next door about something like this, but I couldn’t rouse myself enough to care much. I glanced over at the unfini
shed manuscript of my novel and fought back a sigh. “Sure.”
When I was frustrated I usually went upstairs to the kitchen and baked. My grandmother had taught me how to cook before I hit my teens. I’d seriously thought about going to gourmet school and becoming a chef. On days like these I really regretted some of my life decisions.
Most screenwriters would’ve just drank half a bottle of JD down and been done with it. I made two apple pies and a lemon meringue with crust so light it nearly floated out the window.
My cellphone rang. “Hello?”
“Are you baking again? Knock that shit off, Betty Crocker, and get to work!”
I went back to my desk, sat at the keyboard, and in twenty-eight minutes I’d added three sorority sisters who were in a van coming back from feeding the homeless when they were sideswiped by the bus carrying the Swedish Women’s Volleyball Champions, just outside of the haunted house where Zypho the man-eating alien had crash-landed.
One of the sorority girls has been going through dumpsters behind ritzy restaurants trying to feed a homeless family of five, and that’s why she needs a bubble bath. Rich girl learns all about the harshness of poverty. Washes the street off her skin but not her soul. Further symbolism and morality lessons ensue before Zypho eats her brain.
Sleep was rough in coming. I was irritable, nervous, and the pies hadn’t taken off the edge. Finally I drifted off. In the morning I got up early and ran downtown to make copies of the script. Who the hell knew how many people Monty had coming to the house. By the time I got back he’d rearranged the furniture, set up the lights and had the DAT and Sony VX-1000 digital video camera out and waiting.
I handed him the script. He took thirty seconds to flip through it and then said, “Perfect. You’re a genius.”
Working for Monty had completely shattered my self-esteem but he was somehow also good for my ego.
Monty said, “All right, these are just establishing shots we’re doing today. Two of the sexy scenes to get the red-blooded assholes at the studios to kick in for a budget. We’ll get the rich sorority girl in the bathtub scene done.” He stopped and put a hand on my shoulder. “Very deep there, man, I like the social commentary. The underlying everyman feeling, the struggle of the masses, the clashing cultural order.”
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