Two
days later, when Jack returns to the Aptos Coffeehouse, he spots the guitarist
perched on his milk crate across from the Safeway. He’s singing a song that
Jack has never heard, but there’s something about it that agrees with him, a
rootsy blues grind that sounds like an approaching locomotive. The man sings
over the tracks in a growly voice, lamenting the great distance between himself
and his lover. Jack pulls out his wallet, extracts a bill and crosses the
street to drop it in the guitar case. The man interrupts his next line to say
“Thanks dude” then returns to the song.
But why not? Jack thinks. At least he’s doing something, and he’s not
begging. He walks neatly around the eccentrics gathered outside the
coffeehouse, reassured by his wariness that he hasn’t totally gone soft, and
heads for the door. The college brunette stands at the counter.
“Cher!
Hi.”
“Well
hello!” she says. The extra width of her smile tells Jack that she doesn’t
remember his name.
“Jack,”
he says.
“Jack.”
She’s standing on a small platform behind the register, giving her the stature
of a judge on a dais. “What culinary delights are we pursuing this morning?”
“Do
you have bagels?”
Her
eyes light up. “Do we!” She gestures
to a board listing ten different varietals of the bagel species.
“Oh!
Wow. Let’s go with the pesto, and… could you recommend a spread?”
“Ah.
The roasted red pepper. Definitely.”
“All
right! And a fresh-brewed Sumatra, please.”
“Gotcha.
That’ll be under Heather Locklear. And wouldn’t you love to be under Heather
Locklear?”
The
subtle flirtatiousness, along with the running joke about celebrity sex, takes
Jack to two mornings previous, when he was shouting Cher’s name and mentally
placing her in various acrobatic positions. Two weeks ago, such a thought would
have destroyed him. Today, he drops a dollar in the tip jar, harvests Cher’s
charming smile, and goes off to sit by the window.
He
notes the blueness of the sky over the Aptos hills as the first sip of coffee
warms his mouth. It’s one of those spotless bite-of-an-apple mornings that the
locals would prefer no one knew about, inspired by one of those mysterious
pressure-shifts over the Central Valley.
Jack
has a sudden thought of what Audrey must be doing. Meeting with buyers over
lunch, hosting an open house, planting For Sale signs in the lawns of Monterey.
Bringing a new bag of feed into her pigeon loft, the birds muttering excitedly
at the smell of fresh eats. He’s interrupted by a brand new anxiety: he wants
more of that woman, that drug, and has no idea when, or if, he’s going to get
it. Audrey has hung him out to dry.
“Pesto
bagel!”
Thank
goodness for Cher. He picks up his plate and consumes another of her smiles. If
all this niceness is a show, she’s a fine actress, and he doesn’t care either
way. He’s knifing out some red pepper spread when Ben makes his entrance,
wearing an aloha shirt featuring tiny surfers riding huge, ornamental waves. He
comes to Jack’s table and claps a hand on his shoulder.
“Quick:
what are you thinking about at this very instant?”
“What are
you, a woman?”
“A life
coach. So yes, I’m part woman. Now answer the damn question.”
Jack
reminds himself about absolute trust. “Audrey.”
“I could
have laid money on that. So what are you thinking about her?”
“She has
this narcotic effect on me. But I have no idea when I’m going to see her again,
and it’s very… frustrating.”
Ben spins a
chair around and straddles it. “This is precisely what I wanted to tell you
about. Audrey is a potent force, and it’s tempting to think that she will help
you fix your problems. But of course she won’t. I want you to own your problems; I want you to guard
them jealously, because your problems are the stepping stones to your new
interior self. And once we get the feng shui just right, you, my man, will be a potent force.”
Jack takes
this in for a while, parsing Ben’s meanings. “But I’m doing pretty well,
right?”
A grin
splits Ben’s silver beard. “Yours is the most remarkable turnaround I’ve ever
seen. In fact, your momentum is so great, I sometimes feel like tackling you,
just to slow you down a little. You’re developing a bit of personal power,
Jack, and you’ve got to be careful how you use it.”
Personal power. Jack runs the phrase back and
forth through his head. No one has ever
accused him of having personal power. “Why do I feel like I’m in a martial arts
movie?”
Ben lets
out a horse-laugh and stands up. “You see? Right there. A piece of bona fide
dry wit. Two weeks ago, you never would have said something like that. Now let
me get some coffee, and we’ll dig into this further.”
When he
returns, the conversation is much less structured, much less teacher-and-pupil.
More like that initial session that Jack eavesdropped on. He talks; Ben asks
questions; he talks some more. At the end of two hours, Jack feels tired,
emptied out.
“So,” he
says. “Do we have any new projects this week? Field trips?”
“Yes,” says
Ben. “I have arranged a visitation that will illustrate some of the true
extremes of civil society. Things that will make the Monkey Tribe look like a
Girl Scout troop. Things that might even seem a little threatening. Keep Friday
night open, and see if you can assemble a costume along the lines of fairies
and elves.”
“Umm…
fairies and elves?”
“Yes. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Peter Pan.
Narnia. Tolkien.”
“Wow. Okay.
Umm… Do I owe you anything?”
“What do
you think you owe me?”
“I can’t afford
that,” says Jack.
“The more
jokes you make, the higher my fee. But – something you can afford. I don’t want
to save your life only to ruin your finances.”
Jack writes
a check for four hundred dollars. Ben folds it in half without looking at it
and slips it into his shirt pocket.
“Now,” he
says. “Give me a big man-hug.”
“Ah geez, I
don’t know…”
“Come on,
stand up. It’s an art form, and you’d better start practicing. You’re gonna
need all the affection you can get.”
“Well…
okay.” Ben wraps his arms around him before he’s ready, pinning one arm to his
side. He holds it only a couple of seconds before releasing him.
“I’ll let
you off easy this time. But work on that approach, okay? None of this reluctance. Let’s see some enthusiasm!
Arms out wide. Boisterous! It’s all in the attitude.”
“Yes,
coach.”
“Say hi to
Big Brown for me.”
“Will do.”
“Bye Cher!”
“Bye Ben!”
They both
follow Ben’s exit, and then Cher gives Jack an odd look, as if she’s just
realized the things he’s been thinking about her in other people’s beds. Jack
busies himself with the Wall Street
Journal.
When he
arrives at Big Brown, Jack is dead tired – probably a result of all that
talking. He heads for the great white couch and yanks the red handle, bringing
down the high-def. His intention is to simply power up and watch whatever
happens to be on. He reaches for the coffee table, smacks the remote and
watches as the vertical blinds slide from the far windows. He’s about to smack
it again when he realizes that the usual four-layer pie of deck, sand, sea, sky
contains an additional element: a woman, asleep on the chaise lounge. She has
red hair, brighter and shorter than Audrey's. She wears blue jeans with a broad
black belt and a short-sleeve blouse of floral creams and yellows. Her eyes are
hidden by a pair of Ray-Bans.
Jack is
unsure of the legalities. The deck is so accessible, it almost seems like a
public space, anyway. And why should he care if someone takes a nap on it?
Especially someone so good-looking? On the other hand, he’s pretty certain that
the house-sitter’s code requires some kind of response to trespassers. He takes
a minute to work up a suitably authoritarian aura, then steps slowly to the
sliding glass door. He cracks it open and says, “Excuse me?” But the woman
fails to move. Oh God, someone left a
dead body on my deck.
Jack slips
outside and steps across, reassuring himself that this does not appear to be a
woman who would knife a stranger – and squats next to the chaise. She’s even
better-looking up close. Her lips possess a certain cushiony quality that
certain Hollywood starlets would pay a fortune for.
“Excuse
me?”
She shifts
on the lounge and giggles, still semi-conscious. “Thompson,” she croons, “leave
me alone, randy beast. Must… sleep.”
Finally
Jack has to tap her on the shoulder, praying she doesn’t fly into a deeply
programmed secret-agent ju-jitsu. Her eyes flutter open behind the glasses.
“Oh, I… oh
my god.” She nudges herself up on an elbow. “I am so sorry. When I found that Thompson wasn’t here, I thought I would
steal a few winks and… are you his housemate?”
Jack is
greatly relieved to find that she’s friendly. “No, no. I’m his house-sitter. He’s off in Italy with his
wife.”
At the
precise moment that his lips, mouth and vocal cords are releasing the word
“wife” to the greater world, Jack realizes the identity of his listener, and
realizes also that he has done an awful thing. For five seconds, she stares at
him, expressionless, and although he can’t see her eyes he can tell she’s about
to start crying. She covers her face with her hands and conducts a round of
self-recrimination in a decidedly posh British accent.
“Idiot! I
can’t believe… Stupid, stupid woman! Bloody hell!”
She stops,
like a deer alert to a sudden noise, then stands and looks toward the ocean,
taking off her sunglasses and dropping them to the deck. Feeling like an
accomplice to murder, Jack is scouring his banks for something to say. Brigit
stamps her foot on the deck and screams.
“Shit! Shit
shit shit shit shit! Oh God, Thompson, you fucking…”
She
switches off again, staring oceanward, leaning forward. Jack sees the quaking
in her legs, like a spring about to go off. She lets out a blast of sound,
somewhere between a grunt and a snort, races down the ten steps and sprints
across the sand. Jack does his best to follow, but he stumbles on a shallow
depression and has to scramble back to his feet. A pain shoots through his left
ankle, he’s running with a limp, when he sees Brigit leaping into the water.
Ben’s words – Don’t you dare – flash
into his head, and he splashes in right after. The chill of the water is like a
punch to the solar plexus. He spots Brigit in water up to her hips, readying to
launch herself over the breakers. Jack lurches forward and locks his arms
around her waist.
“Don’t!”
Brigit
flails to get away, sending an elbow against his mouth.
“He’s not
worth it!” Jack shouts. “Don’t do it!”
Brigit’s
anger has discovered a new focus. She escapes his grasp and turns to scream at
him with all her might.
“I’m going
for a bloody swim, you bloody fucking
git! Leave me alone!” When she sees Jack’s bloody lip, the anger drains away,
her hands droop at her sides. She begins to sob.
“I was… a
fantastic swimmer… in school. I won medals, I… I…The crawl, the butterfly, the…
the…”
She’s about
to double over when Jack stumbles forward to catch her. She grabs at his
shoulders to stay upright, rubbing her face into his chest.
“I’m sorry…
I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”
Jack stands
in the water, holding the slaughtered mistress of Thompson Flores, and meanwhile
running an inventory of odd sensations. His lip hurts like hell; his ankle like
double hell. The seawater is seeping into his loafers and giving great weight
to his Levi’s. A strand of kelp is winding around his right calf, feeling
exactly like the tentacle of a great sea squid, the one from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. And
mostly, he’s wondering about the statute of limitations: how long is one
required to comfort a broken woman in the waist-deep October Pacific before
hypothermia becomes an overriding concern?
Jack feels
grateful for all the facilities that have been placed at his disposal. He has
set the large stone fireplace into gas mode, the flames licking their way
between verisimilitudinous metallic logs. He has clothed his patient in a
peach-colored satin bathrobe – not unironically purloined from the wardrobe of
Esmerelda Flores – and placed her at the end of the great white couch under
several layers of flannel blankets. As quickly as she fell asleep, as
peacefully as she’s sleeping now, two hours on, he suspects she took the drive
from Portland at a single shot. Regardless, he feels obligated to stay near; he
had his chance to rid her of Thompson at Depoe Bay, and he failed her. He took
the easy path, the path he always
takes. He wonders how much of his life has been determined and branded by this
tendency.
The length
of Brigit’s sleep is also leaving him bored, so he pulls a pair of cordless
headphones from beneath the coffee table and switches on the high-def. He gets
hooked into a game of Australian rules football, which is entirely confounding
to his Yankee sensibilities yet doubtless a wildly spirited activity. The
stands are full of rowdies in team-color makeup, waving banners and chanting.
He’s greatly puzzled when they begin chanting his name. Eventually he realizes
that this chant is coming from Brigit. He strolls to the far end of the couch
and sits on a footstool. She smiles weakly, her face scrubbed pink from a
combination of crying, long-distance driving and one near-drowning.
“Jack.” She
repeats it like a lucky charm. “I didn’t remember that. When I first saw you.
But just now, I had a dream. There was this enormous devil – classic
stereotype, orange chap, long tail, two rather vicious horns of fire shooting
from his temples. But he turned out to be quite friendly. He made me the most
delicious breakfast: kippers, bagels and lox, currant scones with chutney. And
his name was Jack.”
“So,” says
Jack. “I’m a friendly devil.”
“No. I mean
yes – but that’s not the point. Because I met you at the Devil’s Horns. A very
brief encounter, but you were vastly entertaining, the way you almost got
yourself an individual car wash, and then Thompson…”
She hits
the name like a tripwire – as if she had briefly forgotten Thompson existed –
and loses her speech. She seems headed back toward tears, but instead lets out
a sad laugh.
“Oh God.
It’s such a pathetic story, Jack. But I suppose I do need to tell it to you.”
She chews
on a fingernail, looking pensive.
“Is there
anything I can get you?” asks Jack.
She looks
at him as if he just appeared there, and her eyes light up.
“Hot cocoa.
Might you have hot cocoa?”
She blinks
her eyes in a fashion that warps his heart.
“I’ll… see
if I can find some.”
He does, of
course. Big Brown always provides. It’s in the pantry, next to the coffee mixes
and herbal teas, perfectly logical. He boils a kettle of water and mixes two
mugs, guessing that too much cocoa mix is better than too little. When he
presents one of them to Brigit – now sitting upright and alert – she gives a
look of vague disappointment.
“No
marshmallows? I must have marshmallows, Jack, else I am going to have to leave
you.”
Jack looks
at her blankly. “I could… I could look for…”
“Oh Jack!”
she laughs. “You are a gulla-bull.
That is such a rare quality. I think I like that.”
Jack
laughs, embarrassed. Brigit’s expression flashes back to serious. “That’s how
he fooled you, isn’t it?”
“Pardon?”
“Fooled you
into taking the fall at C-Valve. He told me all about it; actually, it was one
of his favorite stories. He did say that he felt bad about it. Is that why
you’re here? Is he finally making it up to you?”
“I think
so,” says Jack. “Of course, we’re making the large assumption that Thompson has
a conscience. But he’s also paying me back for not tipping you off at Depoe
Bay. I’m really… sorry about that. I don’t think I actually set out to lie to
you, but seeing the two of you really threw me for a loop, and it all happened
so fast. I guess the easiest thing to do was just go along with the program.”
“Oh I
know,” says Brigit. “He’s very…
persuasive, even when he’s not trying.”
Brigit
takes a sip from her cocoa and stares at the fireplace.
“Thompson’s
very… smooth,” she says. “Of course, that’s one large reason I fell in love
with him. I’ve never met a man so capable of handling things. Of handling me.
For a while, we were seeing a lot of each other. It was the most perfect
romance. When we were out somewhere, I felt like one half of one of those
Hollywood power couples – and I never had to call a shot. It was like I was the
visitor and Thompson the Portlander, he knew all the unexpected spots: a
coffeehouse with a string quartet, a cool jazz club on the riverfront, a new
tapas joint in the Rose Garden – a minor league baseball game.
“But then
he just… disappeared. Everything stopped – the emails, the clever text
messages, the funky postcards. Flowers. He used to send flowers to me, a florist – and I loved it. And no
answers to my voicemails, nothing. When it got to a month, I suppose I blew a
gasket. I threw a Hefty bag of clothing into my car and off I went. I tracked
down his street address through one of those friend-search websites and I just
drove on through, twenty hours on the road. All that time to think, and yet the
foolish woman-in-love fails to line up the pieces: that a man in a
long-distance love affair had not once divulged his home address, not even on
one of those funky postcards, despite all the romance, and sex, and that night
on top of the Bancorp Tower when he danced with me, looked out at the lights of
the city and told me that… he loved me.”
The
sentence trails off into another bout of tears. Jack recalls a box of Kleenex
in the downstairs bathroom and goes to fetch it. When he returns, Brigit seems
better. She takes a tissue and wipes her cheeks.
“I swear,”
she says, “despite all evidence to the contrary, there are those who think of
me as an intelligent woman.”
“I’ve heard
that love is inexplicable,” says Jack. He’s surprised to find himself saying
something like that. From the look of it, so is Brigit.
“Have you
been in it?”
“I don’t
think I have.”
Brigit
leans back against the couch, staring through the windows at the dark beach.
After a few long seconds, she snaps into wakefulness.
“Well! I
have been all too intrusive, you have
been a saint, and I believe it’s time for me to get out of your hair. Do you
know any motor inns hereabouts?”
“No,” says
Jack – and for a moment, that one syllable is all he’s got. “You’re not going
anywhere. For the next two weeks, this is my
house, and you are my guest.”
Brigit
looks a little overwhelmed. “You’re… certain?”
“This is
something that I owe to you. I could have saved you a lot of trouble.”
She
processes the thought, indulges in another sip of cocoa, and smiles.
“Thank you,
Jack. I will just take you up on that.”
“Are you
hungry?”
“Oh God am
I!”
“I’ll make
you something. Here. Watch some television.”
He hands
her the remote and heads for the kitchen. This
is straight from Ben’s playbook, he thinks. Take care of yourself by taking care of someone else. He opens the
pantry, hoping for God’s sake there’s something he’ll be able to cook.
Having
previously ascertained that he was capable of boiling water, Jack settles on a
big bowl of bowtie pasta, glazed with olive oil, fresh oregano, basil, and a
sprinkling of grated parmesan cheese. He locates enough produce to assemble a
salad with honey mustard dressing, and steals a bottle of Pinot Grigio from the
winerack. For location, he picks the tiki lounge, which carries still-fresh
memories of Audrey LaBrea. He sends everything up on the dumbwaiter and
positions their table next to the tiki god, hoping that two Duraflames in the
god’s mouth will provide enough heat.
Brigit is
back from fetching her car – last seen in a small neighborhood atop the cliff
trail - and seems better for the exercise. She sits across from him in a thick
red sweater, her blue eyes much clearer than two hours before. She seems
impressed by the impromptu meal – and certainly by the setting.
“Egad,
Jack. I’m afraid you’re making things worse for me – now that I see the
beachfront empire owned by my erstwhile beau. Gracious! I’m sorry. In times of
despair, I tend to hide behind ostentatious vocabulary.”
“That’s all
right,” says Jack. “I used to do the same thing with numbers.”
Brigit
serves herself a heaping portion of pasta and digs in.
“Mmm! This
is so the antidote to my disease.
Very filling. Thank you so much.”
“So why do
British people pronounce it ‘passed-uh’?” asks Jack. “You know damn well it’s
‘pawsta,’ you live much closer to Italy than we do and yet you insist on mispronouncing it. It reminds
me of Texans and Spanish.”
Brigit
takes another bite and covers her mouth as she laughs. “The vestiges of a lost
empire. We may no longer rule the world, but we can damn well mangle the
languages.”
“Ha!” says
Jack, enjoying his righteousness. “Exactly what I’ve always suspected.
Seriously, though, I adore your accent. When I was watching the Devil’s Horns,
you were talking right into my ear, and I thought I was going to melt into the
sidewalk.”
“That’s why
I moved to the States. You Yanks assume that anyone with a Brit accent is
bloody brilliant.”
“And if
male-female relations are any indication, you’ve certainly thrown the kie-bosh
on that notion.”
“Ouch!
Verily thou hast run me through, good sir, as a shish doth skewer a kabob.
But needst I remind thee, knave, thou hast fallen for those self-same
Thompsonian charms.”
“Damn! And
touché.”
“We are but
the detritus of Flores.”
“Well,”
says Jack. “Perhaps someday we’ll exact some kind of revenge.”
Brigit
stops mid-bite. “Did you have anything particular in mind?”
“Absolutely
not. But I’ll let you know if I think of something.”
Brigit
gives him a sly smile, then takes a sip of wine and peers across the water at
the tiny sugar-grains of light from Monterey.
“You’re
different.”
“So
they tell me.”
“No,”
she says. “That day in Oregon, I only met you for a few minutes, but you have
definitely changed.”
Jack
uses his fork to drum a brief tattoo on the table. “I’ve been undergoing some
therapy. Strangest damn therapy you’ll ever see. But it does seem to be having
an effect. In fact, if you’re still
here Friday, you may attend my next session.”
“Your
therapy is open to the public?”
“I
told you it was strange.”
“It’s
a date. And tell me, after dinner, could we try out that hookah?”
“Hookah?”
“Yes.
Behind yon tiki god.”
Jack
walks over to inspect. Sure enough, there it is, Ben’s hookah, freshly loaded
with strawberry tobacco, as if for this very occasion.
“I’m
beginning to suspect psychic powers.”
“In
me? In you?”
“Friend
of mine. And I believe he would be honored if we made use of his hookah.”
“Brilliant!”
says Brigit, and digs up another forkful of bowties.
The
following two days are exceedingly domestic. Jack and Brigit are like patients
at a rehab center, both of them recovering from Thompsonitis. Lacking any
designated regimen, loosed from her moorings, Brigit follows the daily agenda
first set forth by Jack’s life coach: breakfast on the roof, two games in the
amusement hall (granting each Foosball figure the name of some player from
Manchester United), then a long beachwalk in search of skipping stones. Jack’s
ability in this arena has grown tremendously; his sidearm spinners seem like
the products of a Yankee infielder. They continue their hike to the Aptos
Coffeehouse, where they scour the daily newspapers in silence, like an old
couple. Jack studies the sports box scores (his new source of raw numerical
fiber) while Brigit reads the world news reports and lifestyle articles –
particularly anything on gardening. Bored with the afternoon lull, Cher gives
Jack flirty, jesting looks that seem to say, “Where’d you get the hot chick,
bruddah?”
After
an hour or two, they head next door to hunt up ingredients at the Safeway, and
then Brigit (who is, thank God, a better cook than Jack) prepares a dinner for
rooftop consumption. After a brief session with the hookah, they adjourn to the
hot tub for a long soak. No naked monkey-tubbing, however; Brigit has obtained
a discreet one-piece at the local drug store, and Jack wears a pair of modest
baggy trunks.
Having
only the wildly assertive Audrey for comparison, Jack has a hard time figuring
out where this new intrigue fits in. Does he have any trace of Thompson’s
dogginess? Could he actually screw two women in two weeks? (Doesn’t the fact
that he’s even considering it prove that he’s a dog?) But although Brigit’s
comeliness certainly introduces such thoughts, her tragic situation shoos them
away. Before he even so much as held her hand, he would require a direct, overt
and probably thrice-repeated verbal request.
Regardless,
he has already built up a small scrapbook of visions and gestures: the way her
eyes widen just before she laughs, the relaxed way that her limbs fit with her
body, like a dancer’s. The way she taps her thumb with her fingertips when
she’s puzzling something out; how she tucks her right foot under her left thigh
when she sits on the couch. Sometimes he enters a room to catch her gazing
emptily at the horizon, or dabbing at her face after crying, and the sorrow he
feels at her sorrow is as deep as an
X-ray. He swears he can feel her anguish at distinct spots beneath his skin –
the right cheekbone, the left forearm, the right kneecap, the abdomen – and for
this he secretly thanks her.
The
fairies and elves party seems to bring up large batches of Brigit’s UK
upbringing. They spend Friday hopscotching from thrift store to costume store
to lingerie store. Jack manages to fashion himself into a kind of emerald
wizard, combining a satin kelly cape with lime circle spectacles, a fuzzy olive
top hat, a glow-in-the-dark shamrock pendant and a healthy treatment of green
hair dye.
“I
think you’re more like Sir Elton,” says Brigit.
“Fairies
and elves,” says Jack. “And what the hell
are you, saucy wench?”
Brigit
has gone all black leather: hip-high boots with deadly looking studs, a
wraparound miniskirt with a wide silver belt, and a lace-up bustier revealing
cleavage that Jack had not previously been aware of. The capper is a set of
black raven-feathered angel wings that attach to her shoulders.
“Hmmm.”
She taps a finger against her thumb. “Faerie
dominatrix queen? Dark angel?”
“Horny Brit?”
Brigit
swats him on the forearm, but the blow is cushioned by his cape.
When
they arrive at the coffeehouse in Brigit’s black retro ‘Stang, they find Ben
sitting out front in a silver jumpsuit covered in patches from various retail
corporations. He holds a matching motorcycle helmet with two sparkly deely-bob
antennae. Jack attempts to work on his man-hug skills, slapping Ben heartily on
the back.
“Explain
yourself, mentor.”
Ben
stands, the jumpsuit making a noise like a sheet of paper being crumpled. “I may be a NASCAR driver from the Third
Realm. After that, your guess is as good as mine.”
“NASA’s
first openly gay astronaut,” says Brigit, taking Ben’s gloved hand.
“Duchess
de Sade!” says Ben. “You are a schoolboy’s vision.”
“Thank
you. Did um… Did Jack explain me?”
“Oh,
Jack tells me everything. And I do apologize, on behalf of the male gender, for
your pains.”
Brigit
gives the emerald wizard a glance. “Well you didn’t necessarily have to tell
him everything.”
“Actually,
I did,” says Jack. “That’s our deal. Shall we head out?”
“Let’s
shall,” says Brigit. “That’s how they speak in Fitzgerald novels. ‘Let’s
shall.’”
Brigit
handles the serpentine curves of Highway 17 as any retro Mustang owner should,
and soon they’re descending into the half-million low-intensity streetlights
marking off the Silicon Valley. Jack feels the call of his neglected home as
they pass mere blocks to the west, driving north toward Sunnyvale. They arrive
at a neighborhood that looks absolutely normal, a strip of ranch-style tract
homes, circa 1970, across the street from a softball field, lights blazing. The
third house in is a white two-story with mocha trim, the front walk lined with
candles in sand-weighted bags.
Jack
leads them in and spots a young woman in the hallway, talking to a friend. The
woman is dressed in a pantsuit made from wispy black material, and Jack
realizes that you can see right through it. Also, that the woman is wearing no
underwear, just one beautifully shaped derriere free to all gawkers. She turns
to greet them, revealing a set of similarly framed breasts. How does one talk
to a nearly nude woman? Does one acknowledge the nudity? Or pretend that
everything is absolutely normal?
Fortunately,
Ben is there to intercede. “Blackberry! How are you?” He steps up to give her a
kiss and a pat on the fanny. “You look smashing! And so much to look at, too.”
“You look like the Silver Surfer,” says
Blackberry.
“That
is such an improvement on previous
interpretations. B.B., this is Brigit and Jack, virgins both.”
“Well!
We’ll take care of that soon enough. We’ve got a table of snackables through
the kitchen there, and a keg of microbrew out back. Have a great time! I have
to set up the Boudoir.”
“Ah,
the Boudoir,” says Ben.
“It’s
just not a party without the Boudoir,” says Blackberry.
“Break
a leg.” Ben laughs as if he’s told an enormously funny joke. Blackberry sashays
down the hall, bouncing at pivotal points.
They
follow Ben into the kitchen, which is packed to the gills. Navigation is
problematic, for half the women are wearing wings and, being mortals, are
unfamiliar with matters of clearance. A third of them have exposed breasts,
which is causing all the men to walk in a distracted fashion, and people keep
bumping into each other, which is clearly what they want to do anyway.
The
male contingent leans toward various incarnations of Pan (the ultimate horndog)
along with a generous application of Robin Hood caps, a tremendous variety of
codpieces, and three sets of exposed Castro Street buttocks.
Brigit
whispers in Jack’s ear, taking him back to that first meeting in Depoe Bay.
“It’s
a bit like the Ren Faires I used to attend as a teenager. Only, gone a little
porno, I suppose. I have never seen
Peter Pan in assless chaps!”
“If
you think about it,” says Jack, “it was pretty inevitable.”
Ben
leads them into the dining room so he can offload his tray of deli meats. The
room is so crowded it’s essentially a massive dry hump, and the food is
inspired: white chocolate truffles, strawberries dipped in pecan praline sauce,
slices of bruschetta, potato skins with bacon and melted gorgonzola cheese. The
three of them load up their plates and pursue a draft of fresh air coming from
the back steps, feeling like they’ve been spat out by a whale. Brigit beelines
for a wooden bench at the edge of the patio.
“Stay
here,” says Ben. “I’ll gather up some brews.”
“This
is wild,” says Brigit. “Omigosh. Look at that
couple.”
Jack
glances behind them at a small grove of trees encircling a porch swing. An
older man in a harlequin outfit sits with a younger woman, her zaftig physique
covered (in spirit, at least) by a veil-like drape resembling something from a
harem.
“It’s
funny,” says Brigit. “They look absolutely bored,
which is about the last thing one should feel when one is 80 percent publicly
starkers.”
“I’m
betting the woman has never done anything like this in her life. Notice how she’s
dipping a toe in the water by trying out her exhibitionism where she’s visible but not accessible. The bored look is just part of her cover. The guy, on
the other hand, actually is bored. He
wants to join the party but is being held hostage by his wife’s timidity.”
“Wife?”
“Big,
sparkly wedding ring. The kind you buy for your younger, sexier, big-boned
second wife.”
“My!”
says Brigit. “You are a wizard.”
Jack
enjoys the admiration, but is using most of his energy to not stare at Brigit’s
bustier, which does not seem to be held up by much more than friction and good
wishes. A cup of ale floats into her outstretched hands, blocking his X-ray
vision.
“So
what’s the tale here, Flash Gordon?” she asks.
Ben
hands Jack the second ale and takes a satisfying quaff from his own.
“These
are all folks from Burning Man, which is a temporary community built up and
taken down in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert for a week each summer. For that one
week, these folks live on the playa, fight the heat and dust storms and pursue
what some might call an arts festival, filled with fantastic structures and
statues and displays of engineering. And then, at the end of the week, they
burn an enormous effigy of a man – whence comes the name – and hoot and holler
and carry on like it’s Mardis Gras. The festival also offers a rather extreme
pursuit of libertarianism – it’s an adult community with few rules. Nudity is
not only allowed but encouraged – especially in consideration of the heat. One
of the more infamous events is Critical Tits, a mass bike ride featuring five
thousand topless women. The lack of rules foments a certain hypersexuality.
I’ve witnessed a man receiving a blow job in a crowded bar, couples fornicating
on the open playa, a burlesque show featuring men wearing three-foot Styrofoam
penises. Taken in the right light, it’s rather liberating. But this is
tonight’s lesson. As much as I enjoy these Burner occasions, I tend to see the
artistic aspects being overwhelmed by the sexual – sex being such a powerful
drive. I wanted to show Jack some extremes to which he might not want to attain. At the same time,
the knowledge that such extremes exist – right here in Sunnyvale! – makes it
easier to see the eccentricities of a group like the Monkey Tribe as rather
moderate. I tend to think of a lot of my Burner friends as freaks who have
found a safe arena for their freakyness. Ah! Now for some action.”
A
thin man in an ass-revealing thong appears at the far end of the lawn,
accompanied by a big-boned athletic woman in a pair of skin-tight leather
shorts and matching halter top. The two of them go to a metal garbage can,
stamped with decorative punctures for art and airflow, pour lighter fluid on
the wood inside and set it on fire. The man pulls out a chain with small globes
at either end, dips the globes in a small bucket filled with liquid, then
lights them in the burn barrel and starts to spin them in changing orbits over
his head. The woman follows suit, and soon the two of them are inscribing
flaming patterns into the dark air. Jack notes two women standing nearby, fire
extinguishers at the ready.
“Lovely!”
says Brigit. “It’s our own backyard circus!”
“Here,”
says Ben. “What this show needs is a little jungle fever.”
Jack
is surprised to find a djembe at his feet. Ben sits before a junior conga and
begins a rapid beat. Jack follows his lead, the lessons of the Tribe kicking in
quickly. He carries the beat as Ben fires off some variations, then jumps to
the high ceramic pitches at the rim of his instrument to toss out a few brief
solos. Two players means less wandering, more responsibility, but Ben is a
solid player, and the ride is easy. They keep at it for ten minutes, until the
spinners begin to tire. Ben gives Jack a nod and leads him into a finishing
quartet of slams, which the spinners are more than happy to follow, hurling
their double globes into the air and catching the chains just before they hit
the grass. Jack is surprised to find the scattered groups of the backyard
giving them a rousing applause. The spinners dip their globes into buckets of
powder.
“We’re
a hit!” says Ben, breathing hard. “And Brigit’s enjoying herself, too.”
Brigit
is standing next to the bench. A red, fuzzy-looking man with devil’s horns
stands behind her, reaching around with both hands to knead her breasts through
her bustier. Brigit’s head is back, her eyes closed. The devil-man notes his
new audience and says, “Hi. I’m Muggy. Professional groper. Are you with this
young lady?”
Jack
stands somewhere amid three points: shock, disappointment and taking this
fucker down with a flying tackle. “Umm… yes,” he says. Almost simultaneously,
he has a starkly reasonable thought: after Thompson, Brigit deserves any
pleasure she can find, and should not owe anything to anyone.
The
satyr calls out “Soggy!” A curvaceous pink-haired green ogrette skips over,
sporting holes in her top where her breasts protrude.
“We
have a rule regarding couples,” says Muggy. “Where one is groped, two shall be
groped. Keeps the peace. Arise, young buck, and take your medicine. I can
attest to Soggy’s talents.”
Jack
looks at Ben, then at Brigit, who opens her eyes long enough to give him an
encouraging nod. He stands, removes his cape, and feels Soggy’s long nails
running slowly down his back.
“Don’t
worry,” says Soggy, in a surprisingly girlish voice. “I won’t go anywhere
beneath your clothes, and you just let me know if I go too far. But if you
don’t, I will go too far.”
“Okay,”
says Jack. She kneads her way down his back until his muscles relax, which
makes it easier not to flinch when she squeezes his buttocks like she’s testing
casabas at Safeway. He surfaces, just for a moment, to realize that being
molested by an ogre in a backyard in Sunnyvale is, in fact, a deliciously nasty
sensation. He glances sideways to see that Muggy is kneeling behind Brigit,
running his fingers along the hem of her panties, and thinks of Ben’s theory,
freaks finding arenas for their freakyness. Soggy is on her knees as well,
tracing a hand along either of Jack’s inseams until they meet at his balls,
which receive a thorough rubdown.
A
few minutes later, Muggy and Soggy have shifted their ministrations to the
harlequin and his timid exhibitionist. Jack and Brigit sit on the bench
arm-in-arm, victims of the same train wreck.
“Bloody
hell!” says Brigit. “I hope I didn’t go too far, but it just felt so good! And
despite all those naughty things he was doing with his hands, he seemed more
like a Boy Scout doing his good deed.”
“Considering
what Soggy was doing, I’m pretty sure we’re even.”
Five
seconds later, they burst out laughing. Brigit looks toward the house and says,
“Where’s Ben gone to?”
A
crowd has gathered at the sliding glass door; Jack spots Ben’s deely-bobs
rising from the center. He takes Brigit’s hand and leads her over. When they manage
to find a gap in the crowd, they see that the room has been piled high with
cushions, like a seraglio. Blackberry has now shed every thin stitch and is
positioned on her hands and knees, administering a thorough blow job to a
dark-skinned man in front of her as a thin, enormously endowed white man plows
her from behind. A third man, fully clothed, prowls the vicinity with a video
camera.
Ben
spots Jack and Brigit and snickers. “I think I’d be into live sex shows, too,
if I had a tool like that.”
After
dropping Ben off at his Miata, Brigit drives them to Big Brown. She’s been
silent most of the way home, and Jack’s afraid that the night’s adventures
might have upset her. Once they enter the house, however, she turns and plants
a kiss on him that grows over the minutes into animal regions. She breaks off
suddenly and gives him a look of crazed intensity.
“You
know, Jack, that I am bloody fucked up, and idiotic, and angry, but once that
satyr got me going I have got the nastiest
idea, and I’ve been squirming all the way home just thinking about it.”
She
gives him another kiss, this one more tender and thoughtful.
“You
see… Jack. I don’t want just sex. I want more than that. I want revenge. The
idea of shagging a fellow victim in Thompson’s bed, surrounded by all those
sweet little photos of his wife and children. Well…”
She
leaves the thought unfinished and turns her big blues on him. For a moment,
Jack doesn’t realize that he’s been asked a question. His hesitation turns her
expression to one of anxiety, as if she has grossly misaimed her proposal.
Jack
laughs. “Of course,” he says. “Of
course.”
Brigit
claps her hands together like a cheerleader. “Oh goody!” Jack grabs her around
her black leather waist and kisses her neck, silently thanking Audrey for his
newborn assertiveness.
“One
thing, though,” he says. “Could you leave that outfit on?”
“Oh
ye-e-es,” she says, and bounds up the
stairs. Jack locks the front door, turns off the whitewater and races after.
Photo by MJV
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