This Location of Unknown Possibilities (6 page)

The short-term options
, Marta thought,
are simple: walk to the studio or stand and wait for an inbound train and, later, a perplexed and likely curt email
. Calling a taxi would be silly.

She strode to the exit stairway. What kind of cut-rate studio is this, she wondered. Jakob Nugent will probably ask me to split the cost of our no-frills lunch. Or we'll each plug coins into a vending machine and retrieve plastic-sealed sandwiches. She felt stalled. While the effort of the walk might erode her composure, Marta suspected that not arriving at all would be a lapse she'd bemoan louder than the executive and his assistant, her daydream of crucial necessity revealed as being only that.

Grumbling as she trudged along the sodden makeshift path at the road's edge—strewn, she counted, with a narrow range of discardables: cigarette packages, torn condom wrappers, fast food takeout bags, soda cans and beer bottles, Styrofoam containers, trampled clothing, plastic bits snapped off from cars, and panties (panties always, why?)—Marta envisioned herself as the kind of crazed marginal individual who squatted beneath septic overpasses or within the dirty blackberry brambles that thrive on the perimeter ground between commercial buildings.

Hearing the volume of the fault-finding, she pressed her lips shut.
Were these low utterances like a gateway drug—one unexceptional day you begin with a few choice expletives, and soon enough you're pushing a stolen overflowing shopping cart and warning passersby of precarious mental balance by muttering nonsense several decibels louder than what's acceptable in polite society? Marta switched focus to the approaching interview, sealing the portal to abjection.

At the foreground of the blocky mass of white stucco and vinyl-clad buildings a single guard waited on duty, soaking up afternoon sunshine. She'd leaned a stool against the plywood booth that housed gate controls, a computer, and communication equipment. Stray locks tumbled from beneath her police-style cap.

Lora had sent no pass code or specific instructions about a gated entrance. Her name, she supposed, must be on a list.

The guard did not move as Marta approached.

“Good afternoon,” Marta said.

The guard nodded, but remained silent. She didn't remove the mirrored aviator sunglasses when she faced Marta. And though the creased woman appeared to be a child's throw from retirement age, Marta imagined she might be nicknamed “Sarge.”

Marta patted the valise. “I have an appointment.”

“Do you now?”

“Yes. With Jakob Nugent.”

“Lucky for you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Whoareyou?”

“Pardon me?”

“Your name, girly. What. Is. It?” The woman couldn't be bothered to mask impatience.

“Spëk. Dr. Marta Spëk.”

She scanned a computer tablet. “Right, there you are. Be a doll, will you?” She handed Marta a clipboard and tapped at a line for Marta's signature. In exchange for the clipboard, the woman gave Marta a photocopied site map; with an incongruous bubblegum pink nail she etched the path to Building
7
.

“Watch your step, honey. There's always some jackass PA running with scissors or some damn thing. They get younger every year, I swear to you. Little
cucarachas
.” Insectile fingers scurried in the air. “There's a lot of material there, but it's not quite a dress. You know what I'm saying?”

“Thank you for the assistance.” Marta thought the woman should work on her interpersonal skills; sitting through a course on hospitality similar to the one waiters must pass before serving the public could polish that gravel abrasiveness. The guard hadn't been rude, not quite, but close. Crusty. Salty.
Odd. “Half a bubble off,” her father's judgement. In any case the experience had been distressing. That schoolyard bully routine was the domain of overcompensating guards in banks and at border crossings, not grandmothers.

Marta's footfall echoed. Not one costumed extra wandered by; nobody carted fanciful props from one soundstage to the next. Likewise, the dangerous scurrying PAs she'd been warned about made no appearances. The locale appeared deserted, though the mild green of the day suggested a spontaneous group picnic rather than an angry work stoppage.

Paused at the entrance Marta told herself that the sign taped to the window of the entrance of Building
7
—Desert Queen Productions sat over an image of the Great Sphinx onto which Elizabeth Taylor's face as extravagantly eyeshadow'd Cleopatra had been superimposed—was without significance. The graphic designer's little jest bore no relation to the ideas stored in the minds of Jakob Nugent, the director, the studio, or the screenwriter, which if nothing else would not be campy and would have commercial viability or artistic integrity as an ultimate target.
Hester Stanhope, Queen of the Desert
? That would be too ridiculous. The sign signified nothing, likely makeshift and the project of an underling with an excess of free time.

She climbed the stairs to the second floor. Cavernous and unimpressive, the space revealed only functionality and the kind of leased furniture otherwise found in used car dealership offices—dark woodgrain plastic surfaces, neutral metal cabinets sitting on tough indoor-outdoor carpeting, off-white electronic equipment. A residue of latex paint hung in the air.

Unable to locate a washroom where she could change into contact lenses, Marta walked to a woman at the nearest desk; the blonde immediately held up an index finger. Marta waited as she completed the call.

“Yes, what can I do for you?” She spoke rapidly, eyes attentive to far corners of the room. Marta, admiring the delicate coral shade of the woman's lipstick, expected the receptionist to rap the surface of her wristwatch at any instant.

“Hello, I have an appointment today with Jakob Nugent.”

“Alrighty, my dear, that narrows things down to a small army.” She wore a grey T-shirt with scrolling white lettering: “We Must Avoid Deluded Motives.”

“Pardon me?” Marta's exchange with this woman was becoming as awkward as the tussle with the gatekeeper.

“Jake, er. Mr. Nugent has scads of appointments all day, all week in fact. What's the name?”

“Spëk. Dr. Marta Spëk.” Why hadn't the guard made a call? That would be efficient compared to this lunatic repetition.

“Aha, hello, we were wondering what you'd look like. I'm Lora Wilkes.” She cackled then, a sound like no other that suggested a perturbed parrot and a cartoon witch. Marta felt tempted to ask how closely she matched their predictions. Of course they'd want to guess. Fair is fair, she admitted, and after all she'd spent plenty of time charting the probable Hollywood excesses of her soon-to-be colleagues.

“A pleasure to meet you.” Marta held out her hand, feeling stiff, under scrutiny, and overdressed. Lora—whose firm ample bust looked to be the product of elective surgery—had swiveled her chair toward another woman whose computer screen display caused an eruption of laughter. Marta intuited that this crew was familial and boisterous, if unprofessional; while workmates, they'd still likely go out for dinner and drinks or catch a movie.

A composed and altogether more insular environment existed within the Dark Tower—a monastic one minus a hearty sense of community and surgical augmentation. Marta had informed few of her colleagues about summer plans and had heard nothing from anyone else except holing up with business as usual—grant applications, conference appearances, journal essays, reviews, and chapters for forthcoming books.

“Hold on a sec, love, I've got to get this. Newsflash: LA is king and he knows it.” She tapped a hasty reply on a phone's glass surface. Lora glanced up and gestured toward the executive's partially open door. “The meeting of the minds is right that way! Have a seat right there, and we'll set it in motion. Hang on.”

THE GRANDVIEW GRIND

1
.

J
ake deemed his driving suitably aggressive, ratcheting several notches above average. Harshly judging license holders with an incessant need to yammer while ignoring basic rules of road conduct—“They're called signal lights, you fucking moron”—he kept calls to a minimum. Restless and pent up today, he tapped the phone's glass surface at red lights and traffic snarls.

He planned to stop for fifteen minutes in a suburban park after shutting up shop for the day; and he'd already posted “Quick Service?”, an ad listing relevant statistics and a time guesstimate. If that produced negligible results—and Jake could predict from past experiences that zilch was almost a given—he would search pay sites to better the chances for success. The number of his active online profiles fluctuated, sitting at an economical mid-range at the moment. Periods of duress or boredom rocketed the number from zero to three, though never—almost never, in truth—higher.

Like the law of diminishing returns, flux existed; and Jake took for granted that the course of his hankerings would normally run into peaks and valleys. As he charted the situation, he was human, humans belonged to nature, and winter/spring, ebb/flow and wax/wane represented cosmic principles, as fundamental as life and death. Simple. It all added up, most times at least.

In those rare episodes of self-doubt when comparing himself unfavourably to colleagues—contented with a home-cooked pot roast dinner and several hours of prime time talent contests on the heels of a celebrity infotainment segment with a
30–
second clip about a hurrying figure in black sunglasses checking into a clinic for sex addiction treatment—Jake's normal-because-natural theory seemed filled with Swiss cheese holes. He faltered, seeing his too intimate commonality with back-in-rehab Americans, literally scabby off-Main prostitutes bartering orifices for tiny rocks of crack, and park denizens he'd catch sight of during a late night's ramble. The guilt by association discomforted him.

The doubts surfaced infrequently, and proved ultimately therapeutic. For their duration, Jake thought over his would-be degeneration logically, backing steadily away from the cliff's edge. Perspective had its uses. Side by side, he judged, no epic divide stood between
24
/
7
nights of
TV with Honey Bear, the cubs, and a bowl or two of microwave popcorn and the codger at a department store toilet playing with a limp tool and waiting hours on end for action. They were the same species of pleasure-seeking, give or take, and each capable of sinking into the dull and imprisoning habit of going through the motions: the tubby, sedated, and glazed-eyed couch potato family laughing in perfect time to laugh-track cues and the inflamed, bat-eared satyr: flip sides of the same coin.

The main difference? One had acquired lower pariah standing than the other.

Anybody ever alive was born with the same potential; Jake never doubted it. Appetite for pleasure, a truth of existence, wound through strands of DNA. Who could argue with that? The billions—trillions, maybe, if you threw in porn—shelled out by generations of moviegoers gave jury-galvanizing ­testimony.

At a handful of off-the-wagon scenarios Jake had concluded that management presented the only true challenge. He possessed a ferocious sweet tooth that he kept in check because of the looming potential to become an insatiable urge, the fix a trial and error discovery. Allowing an overload holiday now and then throughout the year—a feeding frenzy of pastries or sex, and, years ago, the typical range of nightclub intoxicants—was surefire, he'd learned, a gratifying hedonistic release that while addressing the commands of brain chemistry didn't totally cave to its every demand. For the rest of the time, Jake found a routine walking of the proverbial dog kept systems in shape but well rested and less prone to ripping up the furniture.

If asked, he'd confidently assert that self-denial actually served as a salve on the fears of others—uptight puritans! And based on mirror time during visceral mornings-after, he'd also admit frequent indulgence came at too steep a price. The body had set limits. And he wanted no part in the ballooning beer-batter midriff and drooping man-breast phenomenon of peers. Or worse. As for waking with a pounding headache next to a stranger in a messy unfamiliar room: the bloom was long off that rose. One remedy of pungent medicinal shampoo and hurriedly buzz-cut pubes had led to a nervous dread of bed bugs and other skin crawlers. Better to skip the nosebleed or headache or artless exit-eyeing conversation and sleep in the laundered oasis of the bedroom for which he made regular mortgage payments.

Balance
,
everything in moderation
,
know your limits
, those tried and true maxims floated up whenever Jake found himself up late at night—groin humming the urgent tune of its constant fervour—and prepared to drive somewhere for unknown exploits and, with luck, eventual gratifying spurts.
Pace yourself
.
Avoid remorse
.

2
.

A
s Jake slowed at the Pet Superstore and Big Box Factory Outlet intersection he saw the flow of traffic streams merging. No surprise there, the story nearly identical Monday through Friday. He checked the phone. The first response to “Quick Service?” contained no photo and two words: “Ur stats?” Jake deleted it. He'd like to smack any guy who asked dumb-ass questions, especially when he posted the answer as clear as day. The second and third replies exhibited similar asinine traits. Waiting for the green light, he irritably powered-down the tempting screen. Pursuit exasperated him some days, he'd readily admit.

Approaching the studio grounds, Jake began to prioritize the day's meetings.

He expected a few department heads to report in; otherwise he'd be closely tethered to office phone lines. There would be plenty of time to check back online. Ads had a pastry's shelf life and responses would dry up shortly in any case. After that, producing results meant posting another—different words, same idea—or covert perusal of a site where he'd reactivated a profile. True, he could always drive to the park on the way home and throw the dice. All of it looked like work, though in separate guises.

Getting laid without effort did happen, though rarely, and men were considerably easier to locate than women for obvious reasons. Women never parked their cars near highway rest stops and waited, pants unzipped, in search of lusting monosyllabic strangers in ball caps; nor did they wander in solitude within the shade of forests and loiter near public toilets.

The persistent idea that they might circulated as fantasy fodder that men whispered to themselves and, in his dad's time anyway, printed in magazines. In the actual world scenes like that wouldn't be realized unless involving a hefty financial transaction, or else extensive pleading—“Please, honey, just this one time, please. You're a hitchhiker and I pick you up and rape you at the side of the road, c'mon it'll be fun.” Jake felt that even though he understood female reluctance, the whole situation was regrettable—he'd like porn fantasies to come to life, at least some of them.
C'est la vie
, he thought.

When the wisdom of being fearful did cross his mind he snorted with relief to be a guy. He'd never expected violence despite hundreds of sexual contacts and shivered with nervous excitement in places his assistant or sister wouldn't dare visit after sunset: the bungee jump thrill of danger related to engaging in illicit activity, not bodily harm.

The adventuring rush was particularly acute to him with no name exchange—the drunken woman he chatted up at a lounge and eventually led to the toilet stall for a quick exchange—in order of frequency: tongue-deep kissing, handjob, blowjob, fuck, muff dive—or the wordless figure in the murky woods who'd drop to his knees or yank down grey sweats in proud exhibition of hard prick or ass. Striding full of secret knowledge, the return to the car or crowded room following the frantic rushed tussle—face flushed, greasy mouth wiped, hastily tucked clothing emanating faint earthy scents—elicited a singular pleasure. Jake never tired of it.

Quests for high-rev experience were nothing new to Jake, the germ as old as memory. Childhood forecasts for distant adult vocations included digging up the bones of dinosaurs, becoming an Egyptologist, a cat burglar, an assassin, and a spy. Those goals took him through elementary school. He considered the practical high school years when publicizing dental school plans as an aberration resulting from daily pressures—“Think in the long term, Jakey” (Dad) and “Try to be realistic, Jakob” (Mom). As for the vision of residing in Paris while slaving to make his name as a fashion designer? The briefest of phases.

3
.

H
ome-shot thumbnails of Jake's towel-wrapped torso currently joined descriptive numbers and words on Mascskorpio and Muscgymdude, to-the-point generic names chosen for two commercial sex site profiles to point out relevant material—that his upper-echelon physique and disposition sought gratification with similar bodies that measured up. Why be coy or falsely democratic, Jake had thought when inventing these guises. Between the two profiles he expected to line up a few suitable options; he'd keep the programs running for an hour and comb through the mail then. Aware that the search might be fruitless, Jake's gut said go. Failing that, he could try another site. The choices online grew weedily; any one could be revived with a few screen taps.

Normally Jake preferred to reserve his juice for a bigger bonanza and rarely wanted the sort of expedient assisting to orgasm he'd find in a park—stand, gesture, unzip; be back on the road in short minutes. The compressed efficiency of hasty sex had its natural merit—like sneezing it demanded no time and blasted out the pipes, equally crude and effective—but Jake felt partial to sex as sport; in part, the spark resulted from being immersed in unknown conditions and improvising to control the outcome. It didn't pan out every time, of course, but the successes stacked up considerably, a refreshing splash over sporadic stings of failure. Today he was wound up; a quick park session made sense. Fully cognizant that five minutes of masturbation would unscramble the circuits, he resorted to that only in dire circumstances—even a quarter-adventure had greater appeal than the warmth of a solitary hand.

He rubbed his eyelids at the last of what seemed like hundreds of stoplights that morning. Dehydrated a tad, he suspected. Following work and dinner yesterday he'd stopped by The Recovery Room. Dark-paneled and lit with ultra low-watt bulbs amplified by a feature wall of beveled mirrors, the place was a magnet for a professional crowd that drank from the celebrated cocktails menu. Fashionably cool, it would have been called yuppie years ago.
The men there checked expensive watches often and laughed with toothy, faintly predatory smiles, watchful of their pretty, carefully-tended women—whom they regarded as integral parts of their social profile.

At the bar Jake had met, shaken hands with, and sized up Antony, “no H, man.” Cleanshaven with shaggy hair as black as Jake's, he was shy despite the outgoing appearance, a guy who lacked—and desired—the wolfish aggression of the other men. Jake responded positively to the man's soft give and pictured Antony's reluctant mouth accepting his tongue and, later, the slow and progressively deeper thrusting of his dick.

Antony, “in finance, but breaking into real estate,” introduced Jake to Krysta—“That's with a K and a Y,” Antony said with a grin, igniting Jake's hope—a freckled day trader with fair hair and a small frame blessed by an ample, gravity-defying rack.

The couple talked about work evangelically, as though they believed real estate and day trading were revelatory, soul-feeding subjects. Jake began to feel that he'd stumbled into the convention of an accounting cult.
What the fuck
, he thought. Young and active, they ought to have more to spout about than condo prices, interest rates, and the housing market's crazy rollercoastering.

“What do you two do for fun?” Jake decided that the conversation would benefit from shepherding. “Besides hanging out here with the beautiful people, that is.”

“Krysta and I started snowboarding last year,” Antony replied.

“Cool.” Jake looked around. Maybe this venue was a shade too indirect for his drives tonight. Or, he'd shown up before alcohol had lowered inhibitions.

“And we're really getting into traveling.” Krysta's perky addition confirmed the couple's von Trapp wholesomeness and that, disconcertingly, they couldn't follow his lead. “We went to Jamaica in February! It was great!”

Jake had pondered alternate options.

Bored with the glacial proceedings, he said, “Excuse me for a minute. Beer.” He pointed downward, intending the physical detail to direct their eyes and to signal a reluctance to keep on with the office lunch room chit-chat. He emptied the green bottle in a gulp.

The walls of the bathroom were covered in hexagonal brass tiles and dark weatherbeaten-effect planks.

Antony came in as Jake soaped his hands. “Man, it's like yawning. Now I have to go too.” He faced the wall above the urinal, scanning a page of game scores tacked behind glass.

Jake waited at the black stone sink. Testosterone and impatience edged him toward reckless disregard. “What do you two have on for later?”