Author's note: Just a fun little tale for the
Crime & Punishment 2023 Story Event
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Based on the 750-word story
A Writer's Groupie
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~~~~
Only ten people waiting in line. Yet that was more than any of the previous book signings on the tour. Chalk it up to the bright May day with the promise of summer in the air and thoughts of summer reading—target readership for a thriller author like me.
In 1977, when my first mega-hit debuted, they lined up out the door—frothing to get a signed first edition by new author Maximilian Oaks, the edgy 26-year-old new master of crime and suspense. Even five years ago, twenty or more would have been waiting. Now it was 1999—the brink of a new millennium—and my writing style had become dissected, analyzed, emulated and parodied to death.
Once, my novels blanketed the end displays of every chain and indie bookstore, covered the tables of every airport gift shop and topped bestseller lists instantly. Now they had become a punchline, a source of eye-rolling and exhausted sighs from reviewers and the few talk-show hosts who still booked me.
Slender fingers with perfectly manicured nails slid three copies of my new novel across the table.
"Who should I them make it out to?" I said, not looking up.
"Make them out to Lovely," she said in her smokey voice. "The same as the last times."
Her again. I gazed up into those bird-bright, laser-focused eyes behind huge, nerdy glasses. She placed both palms on the table and leaned forward, her cashmere top revealing much more of her pillowy breasts than at the previous signings.
"Wow," I said with a forced smile. "You again? We really have to stop meeting like this."
"Oh, I'll meet you anywhere." She drew a fingertip along the back of my hand. "Your hotel room, maybe?" An intriguing Jasmine perfume crossed the table to fill my senses.
I kept a polite expression. "Uh, that's very flattering, Miss..."
"Lovely," she said.
"...er, Miss Lovely. I'm a little old for you, don't you think?"
"Oh, no. You're ageless. Like your works."
Her hungry gaze raked me from bottom to top. I was thankful the folding table I was seated at hid the effect she was having on me.
My eyes fell to that cleavage again, then I checked out the rest of her: She was mid 20s and stacked. The perfect hot librarian archetype with her tortoise-shell glasses and pencil skirt. She even had her dark hair pinned up with a yellow pencil. I pictured myself pulling it free to let her tresses fall then kissing that smooth, elegant neck.
"Anyway," I said, frazzled and hastening to sign her copies, "I'm flying out tonight to my next stop."
She tsk-tsked me. "You're so naughty, Mr. Pappalardo. Tonight, you're staying at the Fairview on Rogers Drive. Room 412. You drive out tomorrow morning." She leaned even closer and whispered, "Lend me your room key and I'll meet you there. I... I have some ideas about your next novel you might like."
Shoving the signed books back to her, I said, "Dunno what you're going to do with all your copies, Miss, but here you go. Have a good evening."
She bundled them into her arms like beloved children, then fixed me with her eyes, looking hurt, looking angry.
"Thank you, Clarence. I can call you Clarence now, right? These will be worth so much money when you're dead."
~~~~
"I'm telling you, Roger—she knew my real name, where I was staying and everything. This is the third time she's shown up at a signing. Three cities, three signings. Hundreds of miles apart."
I was sitting on the stained and greasy bedspread of a motel on the highway out of town—the only place I could book after fleeing the Fairview. Even the phone receiver was greasy.
"Max, you've had fans before. You should welcome it. Kind of like old times, right?"
"Dammit," I said, "this one's not like the others. She's obsessed. And at every signing she gets more pushy. Now, you're my publisher. I expect you to protect me."
Roger's long sigh told me what was coming.
"Look, Max. Like I told you, book tours just don't pay off anymore. If you weren't covering the travel and meals, we wouldn't have agreed to it at all. You're not the draw you used to be. You're stagnant. In a rut. And no amount of promotion is going to change the fact that you're old hat. And now you're asking me for... what? A bodyguard? A secret service detail? A gang of ninjas?"
Roger was born an asshole, but he had performed miracles of marketing over the years—booking talk shows, talk radio interviews, signings, seminars, and somehow got my third novel "Dark Soul, Darker Heart" added to college writing courses around the country. Still, he was a cheap bastard.
After relentless badgering, Roger agreed to find some rent-a-cop in the next city.
Even the shower water felt greasy, but standing under the hot water followed by the warmth of a whiskey helped me relax.
Roger was right—there had been obsessed fans before. One lady cornered me in a parking garage, wrapping around me like an octopus with her tongue in my ear before I could say hello. She was large and unwashed with the makeup and fashion sense of a clown whore. Yes, I did have to sock her in the face to get her off: the rest of her was too well padded.
Once when signing in a bookstore attached to my hotel, a smoking hot Latina in leopard-print lycra asked if I signed body parts then palmed me her room key. I took the offer. She was passionate, imaginative, and so flexible. It was a night I'll never forget—later, the gonorrhea made sure of that.
Getting a dial-up connection to AOL though the hotel's flaky phone system took a few tries, but I needed to check email. Besides masses of spam, there was only a solitary fan email and a new issue of a writing newsletter I subscribed to.
I had hoped to find new photos from my secret admirer. For three years, she had sent nude photos twice a month like clockwork, but her last message was two months ago. One part of me felt relief, but a much darker part felt disappointed. The naked pictures were of the same woman, her face cropped out or masked by a black oval. Full-body photos, close-ups of breasts, erect nipples, a wet pussy by itself or being entertained by fingers or toys. She had more curves than a highway through the Alps: full, high breasts, wide hips, toned ass and legs long and strong enough to welcome you to paradise or crush you to death.
Then there were the more inventive pics: pleasuring herself with hardcover editions of my novels, holding the Time Magazine with me on the cover to her breast like I was her hungry child, a point of view of her legs spread on either side of a television, fingers thrust in her pussy, the interview of me with Letterman on screen.
Somehow, she had even found a life-sized cardboard cutout of me Roger used for my early book promotions. She sent photos of her riding it cowgirl style or with the face between her legs.
Every email came from a new Yahoo, Hotmail or other disposable address. My publisher's legal department insisted I delete them and block the senders, but secretly I saved the photos. All of them were on my laptop, though the 20GB was running out fast.
Draining the rest of the whiskey, I opened the draft of my work in progress, determined to put in an hour or two.
It was garbage! It started as something fresh, but I had fallen back on the same tired tropes, the same basic plot just with different settings and slightly different characters. The formula worked for 20 years, selling millions, but I was as sick of it as my readers. Yet I couldn't break free. Every attempt to go in a different direction, to recreate the magic and risky writing that flowed from me when I was 26 fell flat. I was in a rut so deep I couldn't even see the sky.
After an hour of desultory edits and re-wording, I gave up, stripped off and got into bed. The sheets stank of bleach and I sank into the too-soft mattress like a jungle explorer in quicksand.
Getting up, I fetched my laptop, propped it beside me and beat off to a slideshow of my secret admirer, imagining her face, her voice and picturing all the things I longed to do to her.
~~~~
The next city was a five-hour drive distant. Sleeping late, I arrived at the bookstore just in time to take a piss, splash water on my face and help the local handler set up the table.
A thick-necked gentleman stuffed into a thrift-store suit introduced himself as Timothy. Gruffly he explained Roger contracted him "until 11pm and not a second later, got it?" I appreciated the shoulder holster peeking from under his jacket, but said I thought it unnecessary.
"Ya never know with the crazies these days," Tim said, eying the thin crowd. "Just do your thing and I'll do mine."
Halfway through the signing, I saw "Lovely" at the end of the line, three more copies of my novel in her arms. A quick word to Tim and he approached her. She shouldered past and lunged toward me, throwing a folded paper on the table.
No-neck got her in a hold and began dragging her away.
"Those are ideas for your next novel!" she screamed, twisting and fighting. "Let's discuss them! I can help you! Please!"
~~~~
The hotel lobby had shag carpeting and threadbare "harvest gold" couches in a circle around a glass-and-brass table. My room featured paisley wallpaper with foil backing. I almost wished I had kept my seventies leisure suit to change into for the hotel restaurant which I was certain would be just as up-to-date.
Tim no-neck had scored a corner booth in the dingy restaurant, the vinyl seats sticky and torn. As a dining companion he left much to be desired. He bragged about his feats in the forces then undercover in Vice. I nodded and feigned being impressed, but when he started going on about "bitches these days" and "goddamn coons" I asked him to sit at the bar to better survey the room.
Later when the waitress served my after-dinner coffee, "Lovely" slid into the booth beside me.
"Hiya!" she said, her eyes piercing.
No-neck was no longer at the bar. In fact, I couldn't see him anywhere.
"Your goon is snoozing among the buckets and mops," Lovely said. "If I guessed his weight right, he'll rejoin the world in about six hours. Amazing how easy it is to lure guys like that with slutty talk and the promise of a blowjob."
I looked for anything to use as a weapon. If only I'd ordered the steak.
