Chapter 21: Skyward
October had arrived and rows and rows of bikes were chained up alongside the boardwalk for The Huntington Beach air show. I wasn't about to lock up my Trek in that cluster fuck and tried to find a break in the crowd of bodies so I could slowly pedal out. Taking off on my bike was meant to be an escape from everything in my life and it suddenly felt like an escape from something even worse. It was a mob in 3XL shirts to hide unmaintained guts, who carried chairs, tents and Costco party coolers. As much as I wanted to watch Blue Angels crack open the sky as they buzzed the shore at six-hundred miles an hour, I decided to skip the jets, head towards Surfside and quietly draw inspiration for my work solely from October's southern sun. Whenever I'd see pictures of movie stars lounging by the pool in big sun hats, I'd imagine days like this. It baked the skin just right, and I had a lot in the works and needed the kind of headspace only a bike ride in perfect weather could deliver.
The EA company in Mission Viejo had stopped calling. My contact had been a marketing guy named Benny. EA had been my biggest client all year and when I checked in Benny said they were going in a different direction. I'd filled up three sketchbooks with thumbnails just to get their initial attention, I'd brought in Javier to help with 3D renders for splash screens of the last logo, and put in so much overtime that the huge EA check probably broke down to fifty bucks an hour. But the point was to secure more business, and Benny made it sound like we had. and then,
no
, they are going in a different direction.
An air-show jet screeched overhead so close I could see the sky shimmer through its invisible exhaust. The sound almost made me take a spill—a long reflex inducing rumble of turbo jets, like God almighty was hocking up a loogie. If only I could come up with a logo as powerful and iconic as that sound I'd nail EA's next account.
I knew the project was "Scorched Raven" and had decided to work up ideas for it even though I'd lost their business. Like high stakes poker, if you're already in for fifty bucks on a low confidence hand and someone raises you a five, you make the bet just to see it through. So my sketchbook was in my backpack, and I was going to have sketches to tease Benny with by the end of the day. I was convinced I still had a chance. He'd take a second look. Benny wasn't a bad guy.
Surfside had a triangular island right by Anaheim Bay. I kicked it in the sand and watched the sailboats tacking and fussing with sails to travel in a dying wind. I sketched out jets from images on my iPhone, trying to incorporate the word Raven into them somehow. I kept coming back to the body of a Blue Angel jet with black feathered wings. I liked the idea but it was too busy even in the most simplistic form, so I kept going, trying different angles. Then I drew a picture of a cooked raven like it was a chicken and scribbled out' "SCORCHED".
Suddenly hungry for chicken, I thought about calling Camille to meet me for lunch. But she'd gone into the office. Pen Perot had finally thrown her a book suited to her talents. A cult leading preacher had slept with young girls in his congregation and one of them was speaking out. I could only imagine Camille was clawing her nails down the digital pages. She was focused, she hadn't posted to her Instagram account in four days. I then pulled up her Instagram on my phone, an urge to see if anyone had left a comment of interest. Before the page even loaded I shut it down. Five minutes had passed since my last doodle of a cooked raven. I put my pencil to the page and started drawing the profile of a jet. I wondered how it would look with a beak. Like shit? Yup, like total shit! I speared my pencil into the sand and slammed my sketchbook closed.
Fuck it! Fifteen minutes! Fifteen minutes of perfect headspace to deal with what really occupied my brain. and then maybe I could do better than a fucking fighter jet with a beak.
The truth was I'd grown preoccupied with making another movie with my wife. Ever since Camille and I went up north with Kaden and drank up our passion alongside all that damn wine—fucking to a porno,
fucking like the porno
, Kaden asleep in the neighboring room—I'd grown obsessed with filming her in the role of the ambitious valedictorian hustled into sex inside a boy's locker room. But there was more behind my movie idea than stealing the plot, because what truely made it so fucking hot that night was Kaden watching the porn, reading into the valadictorian's character, comparing her to my overachieving wife, and flirting with Camille as hot moans and explicit images of big cocks in wet pussies lit up the room and flooded our ears. Despite never penetrating her it was still such an overt sexual ordeal I couldn't get it out of my head.
I was obsessed with blurring those lines again. I didn't just want to make a hardcore film starring my wife, I wanted to show it off. I wanted my buddies to witness what a nasty freak she could be, and I already had a pretty good idea how I'd premiere it. The beauty being none of them would ever know they feasted their eyes on Camille's sexy ass getting smashed, I'd keep it all anonymous, maybe a mask. That's the part I'd need to convince my wife of, that was going to be the hard sell. Much, much harder than wooing over EA.
I watched sailboats leave the channel and I plowed my feet into the sand and fished out my phone. She picked up, sounding like she'd rushed to the tune of her ringtone. I caught her returning from a run and fresh out of Pen Perot's office shower. "Honey-Sweety-Pie," she answered with vibrant, bouncy energy. Pet names were not her thing so it was a total surprise and instantly calmed my nerves.
"What's got you in such a good mood?"
"Graham, if you can believe it."
"Graham, I thought he was ancient history?"
She explained getting into work, checking her email and finding an apology from the stuntman. It was one of many he'd sent to all the actresses and women featured in and involved with his book. In his apology he also disclosed donating a big chunk of his proceeds to a women's arts and theater college fund and was publicly challenging Pen Perot to do the same.
I found a break in her energy and I scanned the beach and made sure nobody was listening. "I want to make another movie."
"
OK...
" Her voice lowered to a whisper. "But you always want to make movies, why are you asking me about it now." I heard the door to her office close again and her volume return to normal. "Why are you asking me
here
?"
"This one's a little different."
"
Hummmm
, how do you mean
different
?"
I decided to ease into it and said, "Well, I thought it might be fun to do costuming. You know, like you could pretend to be a valedictorian."
She was silent when I finished, and I asked, "
Thoughts
?"
"Are you just trying to get me into a school girl outfit?"
"Yes. But I'm also borrowing a little inspiration from the movie we watched with Kaden." My dick throbbed just mentioning that night. "Remember that?"
"Ummm...
wow
! But if memory serves, weren't there two guys in that scene? Let me guess where this is going."
"
Oh
? You think you know where this is going?"
"You're offering me a freebie, right? As long as you can film it."
Involving another guy in the movie and double-teaming her was not at all where I was going, and she referred to it as a "
freebie