by Mark Carver
“Robyn,” he said as he rose to his feet.
Robyn sighed and flopped down in the chair across from him. “Sorry sweetie,” she said distractedly as she fiddled with her purse. “It’s LA, what can I say.”
Cameron nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. He was a bit surprised by her outfit. It was a drastic contradiction to her austere apparel the last time they met: now she wore a clingy black mini-dress with a swooping neckline, high-heeled knee-length boots, and a pale red shawl to cover her shoulders. Cameron couldn’t help thinking she looked like a high-priced hooker.
But hey, this was LA.
Robyn exhaled deeply and composed herself. “So, show me the goods.”
She leaned forward, giving Cameron a glimpse of the goods that her dress barely concealed. He swallowed nervously and began digging through his satchel.
“I saw that guy you told me about,” he said as he handed her a portfolio containing several headshots. “He’s got a really good eye.”
“That’s why I sent you to him,” she said dismissively. She peered closely at the book, flipping each page quickly.
“I like these,” she declared, “especially the black and whites. Makes you look dramatic.”
She tossed the portfolio back onto Cameron’s sofa, and leaned back and crossed her legs.
“So let’s get to it, Mr. McConnell.” Her eyes narrowed at him from behind her designer glasses. “I told you that this isn’t usually what I do. I work with actors, actresses, musicians. You are my first sword maker, and I must admit that I’m intrigued, but I want to know what your expectations are.”
Cameron threaded his fingers together and searched for the right words. “Well, I’m not entirely sure myself. I just want to be more than I am.”
Robyn leaned forward again. “And what are you?”
“I’m a sword maker.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing.”
“So what then?”
Cameron let out a long slow breath. “It’s not enough.”
Robyn nodded slowly. “Good. That’s the way it starts. I see it everyday. And I’m going to help you, for two reasons: I’m a nice girl, and I don’t think it will be too hard. I had my assistant look up some of the people in your industry, and no one seems to have too much of a media presence, except for one guy - what was his name? Shane something...”
“Shane Calhoun.”
Robyn sensed the edge in Cameron’s voice. “Yes. It seems that he’s quite the rising star. I don’t know anything about the quality of his work, but the point is he’s putting himself out there and cultivating opportunities for visibility and exposure.”
She looked directly at him. “Is that what you want?”
Cameron nodded.
“Good,” she said with a smile. “I think this will be a breeze. And from what I gather, you’re already a pretty big deal in the ‘geek circles,’ as Toby put it. I think you just need a bit of a push in the PR department.”
“So when do we start?”
Robyn wagged a playful finger at him. “Hold your horses, sheriff. First things first. We need to get the little matter of our contract taken care of.”
Cameron felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. He hated contracts. Of course they were necessary, but he got burned pretty badly once in a business deal and he had been leery of them ever since.
“Sure. Let me have a look.”
Robyn glanced at the elevators. “I don’t have it here. It’s in my suite, upstairs.”
Cameron’s eyes widened. “In your suite?”
“Yes,” she answered, rising to her feet. “Let’s go have a look at that contract.”
Without waiting for Cameron’s response, she turned on her heel and walked towards the elevator, her hips swinging playfully with each step.
Feeling like a dog on a leash, Cameron stood up and followed her.
CHAPTER 11
Toby shoveled a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth and succeeded in getting most if it in. A dirty napkin lay next to his plate and he used it to dab at his mouth, though he missed a large chunk of egg stuck to his lower lip.
After taking another bite, he glanced up at Cameron sitting sullenly across from him.
“Hey man, you going to eat that bacon?”
Cameron kept his eyes on the table and shook his head once, and Toby snatched the bacon strips from his plate.
“So why the long face?” he asked as he folded the bacon and stuffed it into his mouth.
Before Cameron could answer, Toby continued, “You look pretty worn out. You hit the clubs or something? Spend the night resting your head in a valley between the pink-topped mountains?”
Cameron looked up at him and wrinkled his brow. “What?”
Toby chuckled, his laughter muffled by the bacon. “Don’t play coy with me. What’s a single guy with a wicked face tattoo going do to in LA? Hmm, let me think...”
Cameron’s eyes fell down to the table again. Toby reached across and smacked his shoulder.
“This is why you need to get out more. The world can be your honey pot, Winnie. Speaking of which, did you find that coffee place all right? The one where you were going to meet Robyn?”
“Yeah, I found it.”
“And what’d she say?”
Cameron shrugged. “She threw out some ideas.”
“She’s a bulldozer,” Toby said, pointing his finger towards Cameron. “She can double your fan base in a week.”
“But she said it herself, I’m not her usual kind of client.”
“Doesn’t matter, the game is the same. And when she’s through with you, you will be her usual kind of client.”
Cameron sighed and looked at his untouched breakfast.
“Did she give you any kind of dollar amount?” Toby asked, returning his attention to his breakfast.
“Yeah. Couple grand up front, and five percent of pretty much anything I make for the rest of my life.”
“It’s all worth it, man. To tell you the truth, you’re getting an unbelievable bargain. It’s almost pro bono as far as she’s concerned. She won’t even talk to most clients unless there’s at least five figures involved. Of course,” he said with a sly grin as he leaned back in his seat, “you have your amigo to thank for that.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve been banging her for more than a year.”
Cameron gulped a scorching mouthful of coffee and coughed violently for a moment.
“You okay, buddy?” Toby asked, handing him a napkin.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he sputtered as he wiped his mouth. “You mean, you and Robyn...”
“Yeah man. Wouldn’t you?”
Cameron said nothing.
Toby looked off in the distance, his eyes flashing with vivid memories. “Yeah man, she’s a fireball. I met her for a quickie at the Bennington Hotel yesterday afternoon.”
Cameron’s stomach twisted. “The Bennington Hotel?”
“Yeah, we had lunch and then headed upstairs for dessert.”
He laughed wickedly.
“You should have seen the outfit she had on. Remember the last time you met her, and she was wearing that spinster/schoolteacher outfit? Not this time. She had it going on, man. Slinky little dress, FMBs, everything. The guys at the restaurant were practically drooling on their food.”
Cameron’s mouth felt as dry as the Sahara. “So yesterday afternoon...”
“I won’t kiss and tell,” Toby said, looking very pleased with himself, “but I wish I had a camera in that room. We got done around five o’clock. She said she had to meet some people for lunch and then she had something planned for later that night. Otherwise I would have come back to the room and given her a second helping.”
The blood drained from Cameron’s face. Five o’clock...only three hours before he...
“Dude,” Toby said with a frown, “you really need to eat something. You look a little pale.”
Cameron didn’t answer. He just grab
bed the coffee cup like he was afraid it was going to fly away.
“You should have called me,” Toby went on. “We could have painted the town red. I know this sweet little Mexican dive with the hottest senoritas this side of the border, I’m not kidding. I could have hooked you up big time.”
Cameron nodded, though he didn’t know why. He just took a timid sip of coffee and stared vacantly at the table surface. Only three hours…
Toby scraped the last bit of food from his plate and devoured it, then set his fork down.
“This is the start of something big, Cam,” he said, “I can feel it.”
The only thing Cameron felt was nausea.
****
After a long drive through LA’s infamous traffic, he arrived home feeling dirty and grimy.
And used.
He parked at the foot of his driveway and stepped out of the car to retrieve his mail from the mailbox.
A cheerful voice called out, “Hey neighbor.”
His heart was seized by an icy fist.
“Hey Mindy,” he said as he turned around slowly. She was her usual bright and perky self, but today she seemed even more radiant. She was sweating lightly from a morning jog around the neighborhood, and her navy blue jogging outfit clung to her like her own skin. For a moment, he thought of how different she and Robyn were.
Her eyes flickered to his tattoo, but just for a moment. The smile never left her face.
“So what’s new?” she asked, her feet beating rhythmically against the pavement.
Cameron couldn’t meet her eyes. Pangs of guilt pricked his heart and he scowled at himself.
“Not much,” he said in a low voice as he studied his shoes. “Just work.”
“Been getting a lot of weird looks?”
Cameron chuckled dryly. “Yeah. A lot.”
“Well, are you surprised? You do look pretty radical, even for California.”
Cameron suddenly felt annoyed with her being there, bouncing up and down like an eager child, looking so cheerful and chipper and delicious…
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, Mindy, I’ve had a long day. I just fought my way through LA and I really need to chill for a while.”
“Oh, sure,” Mindy answered. “Go get some rest. I’ll catch you later.”
She jogged down the street. Cameron watched her, his eyes roaming her curves. He wanted her to turn around and catch him staring, but she didn't.
****
Cameron slept for four hours, and he woke up ravenous. He stumbled to the kitchen and yanked open the freezer, settling on a snack of microwavable mini-pizzas. As he munched on the piping hot bagels smothered with sauce and cheese, he thought of how much he missed Conan. Even though the dog had only weighed thirty pounds, the house seemed so much more empty without him.
The daylight outside was starting to dim, and Cameron glanced towards the workshop in the backyard. The aluminum structure was tinted with dusky colors that made it seem a little more inviting than usual.
He stared at the shed for a moment, then crammed the rest of the pizza into his mouth and rose to his feet.
The familiar smells of steel and chemicals wafted into his nose as he opened the door to the workshop. He looked at the clusters of swords, daggers, axes, and sabers scattered across the walls and benches. A warm sensation crept over his skin, and he smiled.
A furious burst of inspiration possessed him like a demon as he worked long into the night, working on half a dozen projects at once. When he finally surrendered to fatigue, it was well past midnight. He hadn’t eaten anything, and the energy stored in the mini-pizzas had long since been exhausted. Looking around at all of the work he had done, he wiped his slick brow and smiled with satisfaction. There really was no substitute for the feeling at the end of a productive day.
He headed back inside and took a quick shower, then crept back into the kitchen to scrounge up some food. He glanced at his phone and saw that he had a missed call and a voicemail was waiting. As he rustled through the fridge, he pressed the phone to his ear.
He heard the smooth, syrupy voice and his blood went cold.
“Cameron sweetheart, this is Robyn. Just wanted to check in with you and see how you feel about our…arrangement. I’ve already talked to a few of my people and shown your photos around, and they’re intrigued. I’ll get a small team working on your social media and internet presence. Your website needs some serious help, I’m not going to lie. I’ll shoot some screenshots your way and you can tell me what you think.
“Give me a call when you can. And no rush on the down payment; I know you’re good for it. Take care, sweetheart.”
He could almost see her serpentine smile as she said those last words. He hung up the phone and stared at the open refrigerator. Something inside him told him that he was getting in bed with a tiger.
Literally.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Toby…only three hours before…
He needed food. He grabbed a package of lunch meat, a block of cheese, and a croissant and quickly made himself a ham and cheese sandwich. It had hardly any flavor, and he gulped it down in five bites.
His body was tired, but he knew he couldn’t sleep. He kept hearing Robyn’s voice in his head, kept seeing her icy, intoxicating smile, kept remembering the way she…
Angrily snatching a beer from the fridge, he headed to the spare bedroom that he had converted into an office and woke the computer. The room glowed with an alien light radiating from the monitor, and Cameron impatiently swallowed a mouthful of beer.
He didn’t know what he wanted; he just needed something to distract him. Then he remembered that he hadn’t updated any of his profiles with pictures of his new face. Perhaps he had been unconsciously putting it off, knowing that once it was out there, everyone would know.
Everyone.
As he debated his course of action, he absently logged into Facebook. He stared at the screen in surprise.
He had more than thirty friend requests, and the Facebook page that Chucky had helped him make had received more than two hundred “likes.”
Cameron scratched his head and stared at the number. What had happened?
Then he knew. The hobby shop.
A warm rush of pride flooded his nerves, and he logged into Twitter. Sure enough, he had more than fifty new followers. He felt his heart beat faster with excitement as he searched for #cameronmcconnell.
The screen instantly filled with photos of him snarling and smiling with customers at the hobby shop. He saw Lucas in several pictures, but most were with random fans that he didn’t remember.
As he scrolled through photo after photo, he felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time. He was admired, respected, but not from a distance. He almost never interacted with fans and could count on one hand the number of times he had posed for pictures. But here he was, sticking his tongue out, flashing the metal horns, looking downright frightening with his menacing facial tattoo.
But they loved him. They were in awe of him, but that didn’t keep them away. Sometimes he was barely visible amidst the jumble of smiles, raised fists, and weaponry. It looked like a photo album from a medieval-themed party.
Cameron sat back, resting his hands on his knees. He knew now what he had been missing all this time.
He would call Robyn in the morning. He had a lot of ideas bouncing around in his head, and she was the person who could make them come to life.
****
Robyn wasn’t available to meet until the following Friday, which gave Cameron four days at home with his ideas and his weapons. He worked furiously, hardly venturing out of his workshop except to eat and use the bathroom.
He also didn’t see Mindy that whole week, though he occasionally glanced up at her back porch as he made his way from the shop to his kitchen door. She had a quaint little patio set and she would often sunbathe and read up there, but he didn’t catch a glimpse of her, despite the incredibly gorgeous weather.
He did
n’t know if he was disappointed or relieved. Well, all the more reason to forget about her. Every time he caught his reflection in a mirror, a window, or a polished blade, his heart skipped a beat. He still couldn’t believe that he was looking at his own face, and that the world saw this face, too.
Something was changing inside him. He could feel it. It wasn’t caused by the tattoo…at least not directly. He had felt a prickling of this same feeling after he got his first tattoo, the miniature sword on his forearm. It was a feeling of otherness, of separation from the rank-and-file. But it wasn’t just that, especially since so many of the rank-and-file had tattoos of their own. It was more of a statement to himself, a brand of sorts, proving that his life was his own, to be manipulated as he saw fit.
And now he had proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. He had taken an irrevocable step, cutting himself off from normal society, even the part that had tattoos. No one could deny that a large facial tattoo was an extreme statement. Throughout human history, an individual's identity has been their face, and to change that manifestation is to change the identity it contains.
Cameron could feel the change creeping over him day by day. Every time he caught a shocked glance, every time he saw a child staring in disbelief, that spike was driven deeper and deeper into his mind. He was different than the rest of them. He always had been; it had just taken him so long to realize it. It wasn’t just his enviable job or his carefree bachelorhood. It was him, the barbarian inside that had always crouched beneath the surface.
The tattoo wasn’t the cause.
It was the result.
But Cameron wasn’t going to let himself become self-absorbed and pretentious. He had seen this happen too many times in too many situations.
He was going to harness the barbarian, and channel its energy to serve his purposes.
And now, it seemed his purpose was to wait outside of Robyn’s office while she finished her meeting. He perched himself on the edge of the taupe loveseat, amused at the receptionist’s poorly-concealed curiosity about his tattoo. The girl stole one or two glances at him every minute, and she would quickly avert her eyes amidst a flurry of fluttering eyelashes if he looked at her.
Part of him simmered with contempt. Would she look twice at him if he didn’t have the tattoo? The other part was flattered. She was pretty cute…
The door opened and a middle-aged man stepped out with Robyn, a boyish smile splitting his face. He shook her hand enthusiastically, then turned and marched past Cameron with his head held high.