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
". I couldn't gather my thoughts quick enough for her and she cheekily surmised, "And this extra hunk would be
Kaden
? You
really
want to go there,
huh
?"
My mouth went totally dry. It felt like my tongue would crack if moved. "
Would you
? Are you saying you'd actually be down to fuck him?"
"Sweetie-Pie," she began, yet again with a pet name, and while not entirely serious she wasn't saying it mockingly either. "Sweetie-Pie, if that's what does it for you then of course I would." She left a final pause for me to get out of it before going on and completely shocking the air out of my lungs. "Then I guess I'd better start shopping for a costume."
As sweat beaded up on my forehead she spoke again, "
Shoot
, I have an incoming call, let me call you right back."
"Wait, wait, wait..." I finally returned to my senses just as she tapped to end our call, and my phone switched me back to my home screen. I dropped the soulless device in my lap. Holy shit, my head was spinning. Her voice had ticked up when she so quickly agreed to fucking Kaden. I wasn't prepared for that. I just wasn't ready! In fact, I was still processing one part of that night at the hotel in the wine country, and that was the sight of Kaden's tall, ripped body between her legs. When Kaden had been on top of her, his ass clenched and his crotch crushed against her naked pussy, it had become all too real for me. I'd mentally played it back so many times since it happened, recalling her deer-in-the-headlights-look exploding with unmitigated arousal and imagining it just a little more wanton and intense on each reimagining, until I was unable to recall what her actual reaction had been. And maybe it was just nasty talk during sex, but Camille admitted she'd been expecting him to shove his big cock inside her.
And, if I'm being completely honest, it wasn't the near sex experience that I found the most troubling. What I still tripped on was how easily she'd chalked up Kaden's behavior to alcohol and just kidding around. By the time we'd climbed into his Camaro for the hour's drive back to the Dandelion Inn, it was like nothing had ever happened. Even that's not accurate—she'd seemed more comfortable with him than she'd ever been before, and had leaned between the Camero's bucket seats the entire drive for a nosy heart-to-heart with him.
At the start of the drive he'd asked us if he should break it off with Jane. I'd shrugged my shoulders, but my wife came in hot with a personal perspective. She'd reached forward between us to turn down the explicit rap in Kaden's playlist and then related how there was a time when every guy she met thought he was going to marry her. She'd held her hand out, displaying our wedding band. "It really was ridiculous," she'd reiterated, "so I refused to date one guy at a time."
"Sweet Camille got around, huh?"
She'd slapped his big shoulder. "You're such an asshole. But you aren't wrong."
She'd run her fingers through my hair. "But as the guys I was meeting up with got a little older and a little more understanding, I realized I could lower my guard and try to date someone exclusively."
"Was that Alex?" Kaden had looked at me, and then I'd looked back at her, wanting to know the answer myself.
"There were a few candidates before Alex, and that's good, because I was a real bitch to them." She'd laughed in preparation for what came next. "After a long period of never getting too serious and just kinda hanging out with guys when I felt like it, it was kinda hard to just stop. I was definitely an awful girlfriend. One of them even called me a stupid whore on his way out."
"Whoa,
