by Jack Baran
“Brother Ray, need a ride?”
“If you like.”
“I like.”
Pete takes a right at the piazza, passing the Colony, a Spanish style three story stucco building built in the Twenties as a hotel catering to rich swells up from the city for a weekend of debauchery. Padlocked for years, it’s a struggling music venue now.
He stops at the blind intersection up the road. “They say Dylan had his motorcycle accident right here. Some people think he faked it to get out of the limelight.”
“Did he succeed?”
“It only added to his mystique. Do you think a person my age can change, Brother Ray?”
“What do you seek?”
“To live in harmony, not want things.”
Brother Ray smiles. “That’s progress.”
“But then along comes something I want.”
“Change not easy.”
The pickup bounces its way up a narrow gravel road and stops at the foot of a steep path leading to a modest cabin with a big garden.
“A lot of work living here by yourself, I admire your vitality.”
“Ready to move on. I have occupied this body long enough.”
“Time for a new one.”
The old monk laughs merrily. “You a wicked boy.”
Back at the Streamside, Jamie is on the phone with her son. Jackson has been busted for dealing grass. Her baby is being held at the Ulster County Jail.
“How old is the kid?”
“The kid is 19, an adult, not a juvenile offender. I need to get him out of that terrible place.”
“How much for bail?”
“Two thousand.”
“I’ll do it.”
From its inception, the construction of the Ulster County Jail had been enmeshed in allegations of payoffs and kickbacks; inside deals typical of the way business is done upstate. The scandals caused countless delays. Somehow charges were never filed, nor fines levied.
When the jail finally opened, it was five million dollars over budget, but oh what a magnificent prison, complete with a razor-wire perimeter fence. Here, in beautiful Ulster County amid bucolic surroundings is a hi-tech lockup for Mid-Hudson Valley felons and imported high value criminals.
Pete waits in the cold lobby wondering if he’s doing the right thing posting bail for the kid. People were always getting Jackson out of trouble. The sweet, vulnerable boy did occasional jobs around the motel, a competent worker if you could keep him focused. Painting a unit one day Jackson confided that Jaime, his mother, had a girlfriend.
“Ever meet your father?”
“He was dead by the time I found out who he was.”
The cell phone rings, its Bobby, hysterical. Pete steps outside.
“They fired me, fucking Bergman himself, and it’s your fault!”
“What did I do?”
“After reading the rewrite, he decided I was too old to play the part, said you made the chief younger. I can’t believe what you did. It was me got you the assignment.” He hangs up.
Before Pete can process Bobby’s tirade, Jackson is released.
“Mr. Stevens, thanks man, I would have flipped someone didn’t bust me out of here.”
“Looks pretty nice to me.”
“It’s a prison.”
Pete loses it. “You were arrested.”
“When you first came to Woodstock and wanted to score who did you ask? A sixteen year old kid.”
“I should have known it was my fault.”
“I didn’t mean to guilt trip you, I’m sorry.”
“Your mother is very upset.”
“I scored for her too.”
Pete passes the flashing red lights of a police car ticketing a weekender. “They get you for weight?”
“Couple of bags.”
“How many?”
“Ten Z’s.”
Pete is shocked. “That’s more than half a pound. This is New York State, the drug laws are tough. They can easily put you away for a long time.”
“For a first offense?”
“Fifteen years minimum.” He pulls into the Stewarts. “I need an ice cream,” a quick fix for any problem. Pete orders Rocky Road in a waffle cone; the kid has vanilla fudge.
“Are you a dealer or a musician? Tell me.”
Jackson smiles for the first time. “Got a gig with Harvey Mason at the Colony tomorrow night.”
“Not if you’re in a jail cell.”
They drive in silence listening to a classic second line shuffle on the radio. The boy closes his eyes, digging the music.
“Don’t be stupid and blow your possibilities. You’re talented but it is so easy to fuck up.”
“No more dealing, I promise.”
Pete drops the boy outside the small house where he lives with his mother.
Jamie is waiting, she’s been crying. “I’ll make this up to you, Mr. Stevens.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Pete.”
Jackson hugs his mother.
CHAPTER 6
Pete sneaks into the house and calls Marcus Bergman from his office. “Marcus, Pete Stevens. Bobby said you fired him.”
“After reading the elevator scene, he makes no sense, you wrote the chief younger. I want David Duchovny.”
“I wrote it for Bobby.”
“You wrote it for me. I paid you. By the way, your Condoleezza take on the mayor is fantastic, the scene really pushes the envelope, it’s erotic and funny and the surprise when we hear her inner voice at the end is a brilliant touch. I can’t wait to show the network the changes. Good work, buddy, you nailed it.” He hangs up.
Pete considers the moral dilemma of being the brilliant buddy of a man who fired his best friend.
There’s a loud knock on the door. “I know you’re in there.”
It’s her. “Leave me alone.”
Cleo enters barefoot. “Are you avoiding me?”
“I have major problems I’m trying to deal with.”
“In the dark?” She turns on the light, stares at him myopically.
Why does she have to wear that that fucking boatneck? And her gap tooth smile is getting to him. “I’m starving,”
She follows Pete downstairs. “Are we ever going to work?”
“Tomorrow.” Pete eats a banana in three quick bites, grabs a handful of almonds from a jar and cracks open a Corona.
“You are avoiding me, admit it.”
“Don’t force the creative process.”
“Pete, it’s obvious we’ll never get anywhere on this project unless we get past this sexual barrier you’ve created.”
“Me create what? You said let’s keep it creative; I said no problem, I’m celibate.”
“I say let’s fuck and move on.” She pulls off her top. Her breasts are not huge but they have a lot of personality especially the nipples. “Is Petey wondering if I had a boob job?” She guides his hands to them. “A man with your experience should know.”
Pete’s heart beats faster. He cups them lovingly. “I don’t like the word boob, it means stupid. I prefer melons, but any ripe fruit will do. In my humble opinion, yours are peaches.”
“Will you supply the cream?”
“Cleo, for three years I’ve traded desire for consciousness.”
“So why are you squeezing my nipples?”
“My fingers operate of their own volition.”
“Is that why you have a hard on?”
“Possibly.”
Her voice subtly changes, becomes huskier like in Lost In The Cosmos. “No desire to fuck me?”
“Sex confuses, I seek clarity.”
“I seek creativity.” Cleo unbuttons Pete’s shirt.
He looks at her wistfully. “Once upon a time, I played baseball, basketball. I was an athlete.”
“Not to worry, help me off with my panties.” She sits down on the dining room table, lifts her legs for Pete to slide them over her hips. Without breaking eye contact, she shows off an irres
istible full bush, surprising in an age of wax.
“I thought adult films require shaved pubes?”
“I grew mine back after my last movie. Carlos loved it, called it his private forest, I call it Precious.”
“Precious,” Pete whispers, “you’re beautiful.” How can a celibate geezer resist when his cock is straight as a rod? He looks at Cleo wistfully. “I’m sixty three years old and not in your league, probably never was.”
Her tongue traces the shaft of his penis. “This can be a one time thing.”
“An ice breaker.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re probably a fantasy and this isn’t happening.”
Her juicy lips make a perfect O as they encircle him.
It’s happening all right. Pete needs to slow things down because when she starts sucking his cock things happen way too fast. Get a grip, you don’t want to come. Her mouth is wet, her throat deep. Slow down, don’t come. Her tongue is a slithering snake. Please don’t come. A tremendous force builds inside him. Don’t come. It feels so good. Don’t come. So good! Don’t! So, so good! Don’t come! Of course he does, after all he hasn’t been with a woman in three years, then suddenly a world class blowjob. Still, he feels adolescent losing control so quickly. “Sorry.”
“We’re writing partners, not lovers, don’t sweat it. You’re not the first guy I’ve done who prematurely ejaculated.” She takes a swig of beer.
“No big deal for you, but I feel like an idiot. I never got inside you.”
“So technically you’re still celibate and on the path to Nirvana.”
“You think?”
She nods wisely, sits back and starts to finger herself. “Want to watch me masturbate?”
“What did you call your pussy?”
“Precious.”
“May I have a closer view?”
“Precious loves attention.” Cleo runs her fingers through his hair, taking pleasure in an older man’s cunnilinguistic skills. She comes easily, but it’s a mere warm up. Pete brings her on again, more intensely this time, loving her taste, a mixture of raspberry, lemon and sweat. Again she comes, and again. Her excitement is contagious. Pete is hard in record time. He pauses to appreciate the pulsating landscape spread out before him. She moans when he enters her. This time it’s not over before it begins. Pete knows a few things about making love. He might not be up to celluloid standards, but the connection he makes with Cleo feels real and intimate, and when they finally come, it seems climactic, but doesn’t it always? Afterward, holding her in his arms, he wonders, is she satisfied? Should he ask, could he be certain?
“You’re my first fuck since Carlos,” she says like maybe this actually means something to her.
“I still haven’t kissed you.”
“Next time.” She puts on her boatneck, eager to go to work.
“There won’t be a next time.” Pete leads her upstairs to his office. He turns on a low light.
“Whatever works for you because I don’t need it.” Cleo lies on the chaise, letting Precious breathe.
Pete lights a joint; it’s after midnight. “We need to start with you telling me your story. I want to know everything. Don’t censor, don’t embroider.” He turns on a small digital recorder.
“Where do I begin?”
“Marshalltown, growing up, your family.”
“I almost drowned when I was little, fell in the lake, but I floated. My mother taught sixth grade, and dad sold used cars at the Ford dealership. I grew up in the middle of the Midwest, the perfect place to raise a family. I was a tomboy ’til I started to develop, then I got noticed. High school was the big thing in my town, so was church and Bible study.” She becomes wistful. “I went to the movies every Saturday and after to Lillie May’s candy store. They said Jean worked there before Otto Preminger discovered her in the senior play. I was born the same year she died, 1979, she was my idol. I’m from a family like hers, Swedish origin. We all get together for the holidays, especially July 4th and Labor Day, more than one hundred people playing games and having contests.”
“When did you become a bad girl?”
“I was never a bad girl.”
“When did you have your first sexual experience?”
“I was eleven. My older cousin Hank took me fishing. He was fifteen. He asked me to undress for him, but I had nothing to show. Hank said he loved me.”
“Did he touch you?”
“He gave me money.”
“For touching you?”
“He had strong hands, it made me feel good. I loved Hank.”
“Did you touch him?”
“He used to come on my face.”
“You were eleven?”
She shrugs. “We never did anything bad and we never missed Sunday services at church. We both took a vow to abstain from intercourse ’til marriage. He died in a motorcycle accident, still a virgin.”
“Sad story.”
“Boys always looked at me at school. I was popular but nobody ever said I was stuck-up. They say Jean was stuck up, but I don’t believe it. She was very outspoken about civil rights.”
“So you were popular.”
“I was pretty and proud of my body. In high school, my science teacher was mad about me, we did everything but. Was that sinful? Was I possessed by the devil? He said that giving me pleasure gave him pleasure and I felt the same way.”
“What about your vow?”
“I was saving my virginity for my husband. In the meantime, my friend Judy taught me fellatio. Fellatio is probably the best way a girl can keep her virginity in Iowa. I was still a virgin when I started college. I’m no dummy, won an academic scholarship to the University of Iowa. I was going to be an archeologist.”
“Do you still go to church?”
“No, but I believe in God, I never stopped believing in God.”
When their first session ends, Cleo goes back to her unit, taking the pressure off Pete to get it up a third time.
Puffs of clouds blow over the Downing farm, a red tail hawk circles in the sky. Pete walks slowly towards the kitchen door, enters the house. He climbs the back stairs to the attic. A girl in a Teflon bikini and stiletto heals waits for him in the hazy light. She’s turned away, arms braced against the wall, heat rising off her body.
The phone jolts Pete awake, it’s eleven; he overslept again. Marcus Bergman, up early. There’s no law that he take the call, so he doesn’t.
He stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. How did the geezer have two orgasms last night? The first was a flashback to uncontrollable teenage lust; the second took him by total surprise and was accompanied by an authentic surge of emotion. And what about her, was she acting? Does it matter? Pete turns on the recorder, sips his coffee and listens to Cleo with increasing fascination.
“I met Roy in my freshman year at the university. I was researching a paper on the collapse of Mayan Civilization. We met in the Library.”
“What was he researching?”
“Me. He had a football scholarship and I had a thing for football players. Two days after we met, it happened. I wasn’t prepared for how I felt about Roy.”
“What about your vow of chastity?”
“I had waited long enough, didn’t want to hold back anymore.”
“What was it like for you?”
“Roy was too big for Precious, nearly split me in two. In the morning we did it again, that’s when I made love for the first time. It was heaven. We were mad about each other. Roy loved to take Polaroid’s, sent some to Playboy. They used me for a ‘Girls Of The Big Ten’ pictorial.”
“Nudes?”
“Sexy. It was a turn on. His pictures did the trick. He was a very good photographer.”
“And in bed?”
“Roy could fuck forever.”
“Without coming?”
“He came a lot. We took breaks, but all I had to do was touch him and he’d be hard again.”
Pete turns off the recorder; he can’t
compete with a musclehead ex-football player who fucked and fucked and came and came. For that matter he can’t compete with his younger self and sex had never been a long distance marathon for him anyway.
With Samantha it was about spontaneity. In the morning, he would open his eyes, reach for her and she’d be wet and willing. They were never too tired, distracted or pre-occupied to engage with the other, coming together was easy.
With Heidi, he was convinced she faked orgasm so it would be over sooner, but just in case you might miss it, she was very operatic.
With Barbara it was can you top this? No matter how hard he tried, how inventive he was, when they came, she always wanted one more, one last orgasm, her hand or his. Early on Pete decided he could live with this slight kink.
Last night’s romp with Cleo made Pete realize how much he missed intimate contact with a woman, but she left as if nothing had transpired. Probably nothing had. He turns the recorder back on.
“After Playboy, Roy booked me for the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Issue. While I cavorted on a beach in Puerto Rico, Roy connected with an Israeli film producer scouting talent for his new production.” Cleo acts out the next part of her story, voicing each character. First, the producer. “Maybe you and girlfriend like to be in my next movie?”
Then Roy. “What kind?”
“Late Night Cable.”
“What do we do?”
“Simulate lovemaking for camera.”
“Fuck in front of other people?”
“We have closed set, everything tasteful, top production values.”
“What does it pay?”
“You give me fifteen minutes to half hour of hot sex, ten thousand dollars.”
Desirée resumes the story. “I was an All American exhibitionist and Roy, who had a body like a Greek God, was a sex machine. I agreed if I could hide my true identity. The producer let me wear a blond wig and lots of stylized makeup.”
Cleo is back. “Desirée and Roy won Best Newcomers at the Adult Film Awards.”
The cell phone rings. Again Pete doesn’t answer and again it rings, and again and again until he turns off the recorder and picks up.
“Please hold for David Stone.”
“Pete, I just got an angry call from your producer, he can’t reach you. Sound familiar?”
