by Greg Bear
“Gaah,” Peter said, and got up to put the dishes in the sink. Carla had never shown a creative or surreal talent before. He found the images disturbing; he could imagine them very clearly.
He scrubbed a pan for a while, feeling her eyes on his back.
“It was so real,” Carla said. Her thoughtful look returned. “You were getting up to go to the bathroom. I rolled over in bed and watched. You dragged these deflating women after you, and something dark swooped down and ate them, just like that. Picked them off of you. You didn’t even notice. God, I remember it so clearly now. Wasn’t that a weird dream?”
Peter had gotten up twice to go to the bathroom. Lying next to Carla without moving had not been easy, but he could not remember dreaming about sex.
It’s why you don’t remember most dreams. They get eaten, like Lydia’s cast-off emotions.
Peter jumped as if stung by a wasp.
Carla jerked in sympathy. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Peter said and turned to look down at the scrapings in the sink, trimmed edges of crisp egg white. He poked it all down the drain and reached to switch on the disposal.
“Damn, I’ve turned you off,” Carla said when the grinding ended. “Isn’t that just my luck.”
Peter rinsed his hands. He was not turned off. Of all things, behind the numb expectancy of more weirdness to come, he was even hornier than he had been before.
Carla sidled up behind him.
“May I?” she said, and took his shoulders and turned him around. “I need a good guy, just to balance things. Let’s get sacred, Peter.”
As they made love, Peter could not help thinking that what he had, whatever he had, was contagious. It didn’t matter. Everything was so frantic and sharp through his entire body, he felt as if he were sixteen again and could go all day long. He had been without a woman for six months. Peter Russell, without a woman. For six months. He had not gone without sex for that long since he had lost his virginity.
That was it, really; that explained it all.
CHAPTER 19
THE WIND CHIMES sang below the bedroom window, waking him from a doze. He looked at the red letters on the bedside clock. It was two in the afternoon. He felt totally refreshed.
Everything began from this point. Sex had always made him feel that way. Looking down on a naked woman had always filled him with a sense of wonder; privilege and lust and something that stood a little further aside, telling him of his value. Peter measured himself by the joy of his women.
He rolled over.
Carla sat up in bed. She sighed and smiled. Her smile revealed a little more tooth and gum on the right side, and that made her extraordinarily beautiful. “Is it true, a woman once asked you to come over to her house and teach some teenage boys about oral sex?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Amazing.”
“That was in the sixties,” Peter said.
“Still, it’s pretty gutsy. Did she have, like, permission slips from the parents?”
Peter pushed his pillow up beside hers. “I don’t know,” he said. “She thought it was her civic duty. Teaching young men to keep their women happy would help them stay married.”
Carla watched him. “I need someone to keep me happy, and it will never be you. Though you do cheer me up.”
“Thank you. I think. You cheer me, too.”
“I was afraid, from the look in your face, when I told you—”
Peter twisted and pressed a finger lightly against her lips. Carla did tend to spoil good moments with chatter. A minor flaw, but he was enjoying this new beginning too much.
She nibbled the tip of his finger. “I bet you taught them well. But, how did you, I mean—show them?”
“Flash cards,” Peter said, making a broad sweeping gesture. “Anatomical charts. I wore a cap and gown.” He swung a stiff arm, pulled down an imaginary map, and pointed out the highlights. “Labia, vulva, clitoris, fetching water by the high road, swinging donkey by his ears, bringing honey home for tea.” He pantomimed with nimble fingers, then reached to demonstrate. Carla looked shocked and squirmed out of reach with a giggle.
Peter raised his head. “It was years before every porno film in Christendom showed young people how to give head.”
“Did the boys get married and stay married?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I feel so much better,” Carla said. “Thank you so much. And now I have to go.” She got out of bed and picked her clothes from the top of the hamper, where she had left them the morning before. She regarded him intently as she slipped on her black fishnet hose. “Hush,” she said.
“What?”
“You’re thinking too loud.”
“Your legs are too long.”
She put on her blouse, then her skirt, zipping it up the front, rotating it, and finishing the zip. Arching one knee, she pushed her feet into the black high-heel pumps, then angled her elbow, giving him a coy three-quarters glance and running fingers through her long black hair.
Peter smiled.
“Well?” she said.
“Come back to bed,” he said.
“You couldn’t, and I shouldn’t,” Carla said, smiling sweetly. She blew him a kiss. “Say good-bye in here,” she instructed primly as she walked through the bedroom door.
In the living room, sun poured through the big window onto the back of the couch and made a yellow wedge across the floor. Carla stood by the front door. He went to her in his robe and leaned forward to kiss her with equal primness.
“I would still like my glossy,” she told him, all business now. “I’m out of copies.”
“Boyfriends?” Peter asked.
She made a face. “Agents and filchers. Some were boyfriends. Isn’t that perverse, taking souvenirs?”
“I guess,” Peter said.
Carla unlocked the door and opened it. Peter heard another woman’s footsteps. “Sorry,” Carla said, stepping back.
Helen came through the door and swept the room with her eyes, swept up Peter in his robe, swept Carla up and down the whole length of her. She smiled and did not look in the least upset.
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Peter?” Helen said as Carla murmured something and backed through the door. “Don’t run away mad in the heat of the day!” Helen called out after her. Then, closing the door, she took a breath and added, “Just run away.”
HELEN SEEMED TO be enjoying his discomfort. She sat on the couch with her arms slung back and contemplated Peter, with his hands stuck deep in the pockets of his robe, standing in the middle of the living room.
“Still no beer?” she asked.
“Still,” Peter said. “Where’s Lindsey?”
“In school, dope,” she said. “But tonight’s the night. I very much need your services. I’ll be bringing Lindsey over about nine. This could be the one, Peter.”
“New guy?”
“I’ve been seeing him off and on for a year. We’ve cleared away some blockages, he’s needy . . . Tonight, he might even carry a little velvet box.”
“Congratulations. Good luck,” Peter said.
“You’ll be here?”
“Helen, I haven’t seen my daughter in months. I’d love to have her stay over.”
“Because sometimes I never know.”
“I’ll be here.”
“You won’t be off at Salammbo running errands for Michelle and Joseph?”
Helen was convinced there was something between Peter and Michelle, that he was betraying his aging boss. She had met Michelle once, three years ago, and had been instantly suspicious. But then, Helen had been suspicious of every woman in Peter’s sightlines.
Yet she had been the one to cheat and walk out in the darkest hour of their lives. Not without excuses, of course. Madness and grief had taken their toll.
“Not tonight. I have work to do here. Will she need dinner?”
“I’ll feed her first.”
“I’l
l be here,” Peter said, gritting his teeth.
“A little old for you, don’t you think?” Helen asked, pointing her nose at the door. “Pretty, though. What’s her name? Is she a model?”
“No, yes she is, Carla Wyss, and yes. She can’t find work, not the kind she wants.”
“Nor the men, I’ll bet,” Helen said. “But you’ll do in a pinch.”
Peter needed to stay on good terms with Helen. She seldom showed outright anger, but she could withhold that which was not hers to withhold—sometimes for months. He had long ago learned that where he was concerned, Helen preferred her negative opinions, and confirming those opinions in any small way humored her.
He gave her a deliberately sappy, little-boy smile. “I yam what I yam,” he said.
Helen surprised him. She looked down at the tile floor and said, “You’re being helpful. I’m sorry. I have no right. I am just so nervous.”
“It’s nothing. Bring Lindsey by. Nine tonight, right?”
“She’s going through a rough time. No surprise. I can’t always cut it. She needs a father,” Helen said, still looking at the tile.
They both turned at the sound of a delivery truck pulling up the driveway. Helen’s car was blocked for the moment. She watched Peter sign for a package from Marin. That reminded him. He pulled Weinstein’s check from his wallet and dangled it in front of her.
“Real work,” he said. She made a surprised, approving face.
“I’m impressed,” she said.
“I’ll write it over to you,” Peter said. “Take out the next two months’ for Lindsey. Bring me back the rest.”
“It might take a week to clear. I don’t have enough in my account to cover it.”
“I’ll survive.” He signed the check over to her. Then, feeling generous, he held up a finger for her to wait a sec and retrieved a Trans from the box in the hall. “Pour vous,” he said. “Free talk, from anywhere, to anywhere on Earth.”
“What’s the gimmick?” Helen asked.
“It only lasts a year. Then, if you’re nice to me, maybe you’ll get another.”
Helen looked at the unit, but did not take it from his hand. “Very pretty,” she said. “But I don’t like strings.”
“No strings. Big promotional rollout. Only the best people are getting them.”
She twitched her lip, took the unit, and slipped it into her purse. Walking through the door and across the porch, she called over her shoulder, “Congratulations on the job. But remember. Lindsey. Your daughter. Nine P.M.”
Peter watched her go. Helen’s car now carried a bumper sticker proclaiming that in choosing between men and dogs, she preferred dogs. Peter refused to believe that he had done that to her; he was pretty certain that despite everything, as far as male company went, he was still the best thing that had ever happened to her.
And, of course, he was the father of her children.
Child.
He ripped open the package and stared at the contents: thick contract on top, letters from Arpad and Stanley, a clipped batch of sketches—of the prison offices, the gas chamber, smiling men and women using Trans. Someone had scribbled professionally drawn banners in silver marker across three renderings of the gas chamber, making a sequence. The banners read: A FEW YEARS AGO, TELECOMS WERE EXECUTED BY WALL STREET. / NOW, THEY’RE BACK FROM THE DEAD AND READY TO WORK FOR YOU! / TRANS
Peter scanned the sequence several times, aghast.
Stanley’s note said, “We have engaged Throughput, a great agency in Palo Alto. They’ll work with you on video design, layout and such, content and script to be mutually decided. We’re very excited.”
Arpad had written, “I am handing it all over to Stanley and you. Glitches with the system absorb my time. These sketches are just some ideas. Bad ones, I think.”
“No shit,” Peter said. On every project, there came a time when you were painfully deflowered. He wondered how much Throughput was going to be paid to bugger him.
Well, maybe he could turn that around. Anything he came up with had to be better. Arpad seemed sensible, even creative; he knew bad from good. Suddenly and perversely, Peter felt reenergized. This was just like the movie business: piling up the manure until a flower popped out.
He was back in the game.
CHAPTER 20
HE TOOK A brass key black with age and unlocked the door to his basement office. The floor and part of a wall at the back of the basement oozed moisture sometimes after a hard rain and he had covered them with plastic. The duct tape holding the plastic to the concrete had failed and the sheet curled sadly. Water had stained a box filled with old newspapers. Back then, Peter had been a pack rat, keeping everything—magazines, newspapers, hoping to search and clip them and put quotes and quips and philosophy into a long-planned collection. That had stopped two years ago.
He hadn’t entered his office in a year.
A big metal war-surplus desk filled the corner of the office. On it perched an old IBM computer and an Olivetti portable typewriter, stacks of paper covered with more plastic sheets. Behind the desk rose a warped wooden bookcase filled with paperbacks, some of them bulging with moisture. The room smelled damp. He opened a window high on the north wall to let in some air.
Against the south wall, his huge drafting table still held a pasteup for a photo comic he had been working on. Dialog labels had come loose and slipped to the metal catch-strip on the front of the table. They made amusing juxtapositions: Hey, this one’s on fire//With all the passion// a boiled onion.
You look like//screaming metal on the highway.
Don’t worry, bub//drop your H’s.
Peter stared down at the old work. Ancient history. He knew he had a pad of television-style storyboard paper around somewhere, out-of-date for sure but still usable. He pawed through musty tablets and blocks of watercolor paper, found the tablet he was looking for, and then cleared the drafting table, scooping the loose dialog labels into a little bag. He slipped the unfinished page into a tall metal blueprint file cabinet in the corner. He switched on the overhead light and the light over the drafting table.
At sixteen, he had fled from Buffalo, New York, away from the horrors of home and high school, to San Francisco. There, he had witnessed the seamy heyday of Haight-Ashbury. The wonder and druggy awfulness—and the sex—had impressed him mightily, teaching basic survival skills that had served him well ever since.
Running out of money, and with his father refusing to take collect phone calls that in any case he was reluctant to make, Peter had dropped his already bogus student deferment and showed up at the Selective Service Office one drizzling November day in 1966. He had been shipped to boot camp at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. With typical army economy, he had then been returned to California to spend two and a half years at Fort Hunter Liggett. A relatively intelligent sergeant who had shared Peter’s taste for comics had enrolled him in the School of History and Journalism, a small program designed to create writers who would counter the cultural poison of hippie protesters.
Peter had found himself surrounded for the most part by the spoiled sons of middle-class eastern Democrats, mostly from New York. Far from considering hippies to be poison, Peter had spent all of his leave time in Berkeley and Oakland. There, he had avoided drugs heavier than beer and pot and had lived with a succession of confused, artistic-minded women in their late twenties. The woman who had sold him his first camera—a used Nikon body with two beat-up lenses—had tutored him in both health food and cunnilingus. The camera had belonged to her fiancé, a photojournalist killed in Mexico. Peter had paid her twenty dollars for it.
He still had that camera somewhere.
In an old apartment in Oakland, in front of a large bay window, she had posed on a couch, an unlikely beauty—lithe, classy, a pale patrician face, large, deep black eyes, frizzy auburn hair, a body somewhere between Klimt and bulimia. Peter’s photos had made her look haunting and luscious.
He had discovered a knack. Soon, he had packed
away a hundred pages from his first novel and started submitting photo layouts. The woman, impressed by Peter’s artistry, his ability to turn “a thin old broad into a classic wet dream,” as she had put it, had brought in a trio of female friends curious about “artful photography.” She had encouraged Peter to practice both photography and lovemaking on them all.
Amazing woman. Amazing time.
She had died in a traffic accident in 1969. That year, out of the army, out of work, and now out of a house, he had wandered into a clandestine movie studio in a Tenderloin warehouse, a windy cavern of darkness and dust interrupted by movie lights. Actors naked beneath open robes, wearing bath slippers and smoking hand-rolled reefers, had wandered through dirty passages between flats shoved together to make crummy sets.
It had been day two of a cheap nudie. For the first time, while the photographer sat wasted and despondent in a corner, Peter had peered through the viewfinder of a sixteen millimeter Arriflex. He had offered to load film, claiming that he had shot movies in the army. He hadn’t. The producer—a small, thin dude who wore a Stetson and called himself Brock Werst—had broken off from a fit of monotonous cursing and coughing and suggested, with not a hint of irony, that maybe Peter could become a grip, maybe he could become a focus puller, maybe he could become a cameraman, how about director of photography.
The next day, the director had been a no-show. Peter had taken on that task, as well. Coming down from a cocaine binge, stanching a perennial bloody nose, Werst had handed over the ten-page script as well.
That night, sitting in a tiny hotel room on Shattuck Avenue, Peter had ballooned the script into thirty pages and sketched storyboards on a Walter T. Foster art pad. He had reported to the warehouse the next day wearing a white baseball cap on which he had scrawled, in Magic Marker, “Direct This” above the brim and “Shove Film” across the back. The actors had loved it, and Werst had laughed and proclaimed, “Shit, you’re the man.”
The picture had been released—escaped, some claimed—as directed by Regent King. His next film, shot the following week, had been credited to King Regent.
