The Fictional Man

by Al Ewing

  “I... I suppose so. Yes.” He didn’t know what the correct answer was, what she wanted from him exactly, but she grinned a little wider and grabbed the carton of cigarettes off the countertop.

  She pulled one of them out and looked around for a lighter. “Now you’re getting it.”

  “Am I?” He looked towards the door again. He could still leave any time he wanted. “You’re avoiding the question.”

  “Am I?” She smiled, finding a plastic lighter and flicking it into a flame, puffing the little tube into life and then breathing out a long plume of rich, carcinogenic smoke. “You know, a lot of the authors, the creators – on the scene, I mean – they’re mostly just your average tops. They like the trappings of it, they like the play, the control, but the things they get off on about it are the same things they could find at your standard BDSM night.” She tilted her head again at Niles’ reddening face, smirking. “So the stories I get put into by them are kind of samey. There’s a lot of, uh, author insertion fanfic, if you know what I mean.”

  Niles knew what she meant, but he decided to tactfully ignore it. He shifted again, trying to move his coat so it covered his groin better, and nodded vigorously. “Oh, there’s no excuse for writing yourself into your own novel. It completely breaks the narrative.”

  She smiled at the answer. “It’s fun enough, I guess. I can get into it.” She took another drag. “But it’s not the same. I want to meet an author who just, you know, wants to be an author, not a top roleplaying an author so he can get to be a top...” She laughed. “That’s what I thought you were. You just seemed to be so... into it. Like I said, I figured you were playing a scene. But you kept checking me out, so I figured you might be available. And you kind of projected the whole I’m-a-writer thing really well – much better than the guys I usually end up with.”

  “Well, I am one,” Niles said. “You still haven’t told me why.”

  “I haven’t?” She laughed. “I figured I’d made it pretty explicit.”

  “Well, yes, obviously it’s, um... you know. A... a sex thing.” Niles blushed crimson, feeling increasingly flustered. “But why? What do you get out of – of being a Fictional, of all things?”

  “It’s not about being a Fictional. It’s about being fictional. Imaginary.” She fixed him with that cool green stare, blowing another plume of smoke. “I want to be a figment of someone else’s imagination.” The way she said it felt almost like a challenge. “I want to be narrated. I want every thought in my head to come from a typewriter. I want to be somebody’s ideaof what a woman is, how a woman thinks. Someone’s little Mary Sue.”

  “Is... is that your name?” Niles asked, flustered by the speech, her confidence and aggression when she’d delivered it. It probably wasn’t the first time. “Mary Sue?”

  She snorted. “What do you think my name is?”

  “Well, I don’t know.”

  “You’re the writer, Niles.” She stood in front of him, holding the cigarette between her fingers, looking right into his eyes. There was a flush in her cheeks. She whispered the question. “What’s my name?”

  Niles hesitated for a second. “Danica,” he said, without knowing why. “Danica Moss.”

  She nodded. “How do I talk? What do I wear? What colour’s my hair?”

  “Red. But you dye it that colour.” Niles wondered what on Earth he was doing. He didn’t want to hear one of her fake accents, he decided. “Californian, from Santa Monica. You wear...” He was worried if she left the room the spell might break. “Right now, you’re in a t-shirt and jogging bottoms.” She looked faintly disappointed at that – slightly peeved, even, as if he was playing too safe. “And you don’t smoke,” he added.

  Immediately, she reached behind her and stubbed the cigarette out on an empty plate. She kept her eyes on him, expectantly. “Danica...” she prodded, after a moment’s silence. “Next word?”

  “Danica Moss...” Niles started, then paused. He had an idea what was expected of him, but no idea what to say. Suddenly, it came to him. “Danica Moss said she would buy the flowers herself.” He had no idea where the Virginia Woolf came from. But it was a start.

  “I’ll buy the flowers myself,” she said, quietly, to herself – Danica said, he thought, the blasphemy of it appalling and delighting him, making his cheeks burn and his heart hammer. She was looking around the kitchen now, as if he wasn’t there at all.

  “That would be the last thing on the list, she thought –” Niles said, improvising. He watched her nod to herself. “She had a lot to do first, before the apartment could be in a fit state for guests, and not much time to do it in.” An anxious look crossed her face – Danica’s face – but she didn’t move. Niles nodded. “Um, the first thing she had to do, was... ah...”

  He paused for a moment, surprised to find himself actually thinking the story through. Danica – that was her name now – glanced expectantly at him out of her corner of her eyes, her cheeks still flushed. “Start that paragraph again,” he said, curtly, and she nodded imperceptibly.

  “She was a fashion buyer by profession, and a number of high-profile clients would be descending on her that evening for a dinner party. No, strike that. Cocktail party.” A dinner party would mean Danica having to clean the kitchen, and he didn’t want to spend time on that. “At which various people would be in attendance,” he considered, wincing a little at the tortured style of his prose, “including her boss... uh... Ms Streep.”

  So he was writing a cheap knock-off of The Devil Wears Prada – a book he had never actually read. He wished he had a moment to look up how fashion buying worked. He wracked his brain for the next line.

  “She decided to go and see if the living room was in a fit state to entertain the guests that she was... inviting into her living room,” he said, and while he was wondering if he’d said ‘living room’ twice during that sentence, Danica obediently walked out of the kitchen. He followed her next door – the ‘living room’ was a small, dark space, with a couple of battered armchairs, a portable TV and the same clutter of old books and films, piled up on whatever surfaces could hold them. Danica was stood in the middle of all this, looking around, her expression blank.

  Niles quickly decided that he wasn’t interested in watching her tidy up. “Danica’s apartment was done up in a shabby chic style, a stylish, um...” – it took him a moment to find a word that would fit – “invocation... of the clutter of daily life. She’d spend thousands on getting it just so, and it was perfect. Ms Streep would be very impressed.” Danica smiled, biting her lip slightly as she looked around, nodding in approval. Niles could tell she was excited, even if her character wasn’t yet – he’d have to do something about that – but the story he was telling was starting to bore him. It was about a subject he didn’t know a lot on, which was going to mean stopping for some tedious research at some point, and there wasn’t much conflict to speak of yet either.

  Also, it needed some sexing up.

  “The handsome polo champion, Mark... um, Steele-Fanshawe...” Niles murmured – yes, he thought, let’s mash some Jilly Cooper in there – “...would be in attendance, and as a ’nineties woman who wanted to have it all” – what? – “Danica was certainly, ah, wanting to look her best for the occasion.” He looked over at Danica – she was still looking around the room, arching her back slightly, running a hand through her hair, visibly being of the ’nineties and wanting to have it all.

  She was breathing harder now. Niles had stopped bothering to hide his erection.

  “Danica walked into the bedroom and took off her shirt,” began Niles.

  Then his phone rang.

  As Danica strutted out of the living room, past the piles of old books in the hallway and into the bedroom, already yanking her t-shirt off in one quick motion, Niles took a look at the screen. TALISMAN PICTURES.

  “Damn it,” he muttered. “Sorry. I have to take this.”

  Danica froze, the t-shirt up over her head, in mid-step, as if someon
e had paused her with a remote. She was wearing a sports bra underneath, and Niles could see the flush of her cheeks had spread over her chest. Niles stared at her for a long moment, then at the ringing phone. He sighed heavily and took the call.

  “Miles!” The voice on the other end yelled. “Baby!”

  “Who’s this?” Niles blinked.

  “Mike Stillman, Talisman Pictures – I’m your studio liaison on the Mr Doll project.”

  “Oh!” Niles nodded, keeping one eye on Danica. She was keeping unnaturally still. “Um, actually it’s Niles. Niles Golan.” He wasn’t making that mistake twice.

  “You sure?” Mike’s voice bellowed. Niles could swear he could hear the man chewing gum. “’Cause I got Miles on the post-it. What the hell – Niles, Miles, tomato, tomato, let’s call the wrong thing off, right? I kid! I kid ’cause I love! But seriously, Niles, what’s the sitch with the pitch? Because we’re really – I want to stress that, okay? Really eager to hear what you’ve got for us. Mr Doll is going to be the blockbuster hit of next summer, and you are going to be his proud papa.”

  “Mike,” Niles said, carefully, “what happened to Jane?”

  “Who?” Mike sounded genuinely confused.

  “Jane Elson. She said she was taking over Dean’s projects.” Niles looked up at Danica in frustration, eager to get back to it. She was still standing in the same place, the same pose. Her arms were wobbling slightly now, but she seemed content to hold the pose forever. Niles decided to finish the call off quickly. “Anyway, Mike, listen, it’s not really a good –”

  “Jane Elson? What the hell does she have to do with it?” Niles heard the man spit his gum across the room – either that or the wet sound was a vein popping. “Listen, brah, no offence, but there’s only one alpha dog up in this bitch and it’s me, okay? I am the guy who is looking out for you. I am the guy with your best interests at heart. All I need from you – all I need to make you our number one guy for this movie, to make you the man who created Mr Doll – is the pitch, okay?” He paused. “So where’s the pitch?”

  “I’m working on it,” Niles said, half-heartedly. Danica was still holding the same pose, and to be honest, it was starting to feel a little creepy. Why didn’t she relax? He found himself looking at the black eye he’d given her. “Mike, I really am in the middle of –”

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Mike seemed incredulous. “What the fuck are you doing that’s not the pitch? Where’s the pitch? Where’s the pitch, bitch? Huh?” His voice grew louder and louder, until Niles was worried his spit might start flying out of the phone. “Where is the pitch, bitch? Where’s the pitch? Bitch? Where is the fucking pitch, bitch?”He was screaming now.

  “Um...” Niles squeaked.

  “Jesus, I’m joking.” Mike’s voice had no trace of humour in it. “Of course I’m joking. Jesus Christ. But seriously, Miles, where’s the pitch? Have you got the pitch? Can I hear the pitch?”

  “Look, Jane said I could take a few days –”

  “Jane’s not here!” Dean bellowed, and Niles heard the slam of a palm hitting a desk made of some valuable hardwood. He flinched, finding his eye drawn back to Danica’s black eye – and why was he calling her Danica, of all things?If Ralph had seen it he would have called the mental hospital. What on earth was wrong with him?

  “Jane is not a part of this project! She has her own projects, like typing up her fucking resume –”

  “Wait, she’s fired?” Niles was astonished. “What for?” Not farm animals, surely?

  “– and you are not part of them! Jesus fucking Christ, are you trying to insult me? Is that what this is, you want me to throw you to the fucking kerb and find someone who will get me the fucking pitch –” Mike stopped suddenly, almost in mid-scream, Niles heard him take a very deep breath. “Okay,” he said, in a calmer voice, “Okay, you don’t have the pitch yet. That’s fine. You’re a busy guy. I’m a busy guy. Jane’s a busy girl, she’s got to clean out her desk because she didn’t get us the pitch on time, because of you. We’re all busy guys. Busy bees in a tree. Just get me something for later today – no, you know what? I’m gonna be generous. Make it tomorrow morning. Get me something for then and we’ll just move on, get past this and make everybody some money. Apart from Jane, I mean. Smell you later.”

  “But –” Niles started, but Mike had already rung off. He stared at the phone for a moment, putting it away, and then looked over at Danica – no, not Danica. He still didn’t know her real name, but she wasn’t Danica Moss.

  Danica Moss didn’t exist.

  “We should stop,” he said, then decided the right thing to do was probably to finish the story. “It was a very nice party, the end.” Instantly, she snapped out of it.

  “Why are you stopping? Lost the flow?” She pulled her t-shirt back on. “It happens occasionally. Especially if you get interrupted.” She smiled. “If it’s any help, you were very good for a first timer.”

  “I didn’t know what we were doing,” he said, weakly, which was true for one of them. He honestly didn’t know what the hell he’d been doing.

  “You were doing fine.” She grinned, winking her unblacked eye at him again. “I was really enjoying being Danica.”

  Oh, God.

  “Um, listen, that call,” Niles stammered, “I – I – I owe someone some work. So I have to go home now.” His voice sounded high-pitched and reedy in his ears, like a child’s, and he knew she’d think he was making some cheap excuse to run away from the situation.

  Which was fine. It was the truth.

  “Hmm. Well,” she said, tilting her head slightly, “maybe I’ll see you at the Victoria. First Thursday of the month, remember.”

  He smiled and nodded, almost tripping over in his haste to get out, back to the car, back to the relative safety of his apartment. She watched him go, her smile fading. Just before he’d managed to fumble the lock open, she called out to him. “Niles!”

  “Um, yes?” He forced a smile.

  “I’m one of your characters now. You should watch out.” She grinned, and there was the ghost of something malicious in it. “If you stop writing me, one day soon I’ll just cease to exist. And then you’ll never be able to think up anyone like me again.”

  He looked at her black eye. “Bye!” he trilled, and left.

  OUTSIDE, THE CAR wouldn’t start. The persistent rattle in the engine had evidently spread to something more important. For a moment, he considered taking it as a sign – maybe he should go back up there, apologise again to Liz, or whatever her name was, see if there could be anything between them. Maybe there could be something between them after all. Maybe this ‘meta’ was something he could get into.

  “There is one thing that bothers me,” the ‘filmmaker’ roleplaying in the latex steam-punk outfit said to the author, as the ‘meta’ play raged all around them. “What you’re doing now, narrating to yourself – does it count as masturbation?”

  “Oh, shut up,” Niles muttered, and started looking up auto repairs.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE REPAIR PEOPLE were very good about rescuing the Taurus, giving him a lift as far as the garage – he could take a bus the rest of the way – and getting back to him almost immediately with a diagnosis. Something very basic had gone wrong with the battery connections, nothing that couldn’t be fixed in a day or so for a couple of hundred bucks – that said, it was very lucky he’d called, as the fan belt was about to go, the tyres were looking very bald indeed, the brake lining was a death trap and there were a number of other minor and major problems which would turn his car into a screaming fireball of death the very second he put his foot on the accelerator. Unless, of course, they were dealt with immediately at a cost of nearly two thousand dollars.

  Niles wondered if this was the moment to shop around for another garage, but they had his car as a hostage now. Besides, he’d never been very good at dealing with that type of person. He’d meekly agreed, looking around the bus to make sure nobody re
alised he was being swindled in front of their eyes and thinking that Kurt Power – the authentic American working man – would never connive a client out of two thousand dollars. Not unless that client was a terrorist, of course.

  When he eventually arrived back at his apartment, there was a largish flat brown package waiting for him in his mailbox, courtesy of eBay – The Doll’s Delight, he supposed. He’d get to it later. Right now he needed a shower, a change of clothes, and a stiff drink, in that order.

  The drink ended up as a vodka and orange, with very little orange to it. He needed the vodka more than the Vitamin C – the events of the past few days had left him feeling frazzled and hollow, tired down to the marrow of his bones. It had been days since he’d had any kind of decent night’s sleep. He’d not had a full eight hours since... well, since he’d seen Maurice and Dean in the diner, really. Before all of this had started. Before he’d somehow managed to burn down his entire life.

  He sat on the couch for a while, staring into the black eye of the television, thinking of the black eye he’d left behind him, and wondering where exactly one got new friends from. Was there an online service for people who had alienated every single person they’d ever met? There was always Maurice, he thought – although Maurice was more a colleague than a friend, and even so, he hadn’t taken Niles’ calls for days now.

  Still, maybe Maurice could offer a contest of some kind. Kurt Power devotees around the world could compete – whichever fans knew the most Kurt Power trivia would become his official friends. Say about five of them for the first round – then, after he’d alienated those five, he could have another contest for five more and drive them away in turn.

  It was foolproof.

  As the author smiled at the five sycophants joining him around the table, a very strange thing happened. Bolstered by such uncritical, unconditionally loving company – like Dr Fischer of Geneva, surrounded by a cadre who would forgive him his every fault – his usual self-regard reached a terrifying critical mass and he began to collapse in on himself, quickly imploding into a smallish black hole which went on to dictate its autobiography, in the manner of The Diving-Bell And The Butterfly, by firing pulses of radiation from its surface in a strict pattern. The autobiography was, needless to say, dreadful.