AREA 47

SECTION 89:

COURTNEY, Chapter 49

A cross between ancient Hearst’s old San Simeon and a debauched Ruppie’s adolescent muck-heap daydream of heaven.

Courty & Byron Reed ‘did’ the Sportsman Mansion; Past the electronic scanning and defensive measures of the entrance hall.  Get enough somebodies together, and they’re all nobodies; and even superbodies like Courty can relax and fade to gray . . . well, almost.

“Reed, they just announced us over the loudspeakers!  Byron Reed, Producer; and Courty, Supermodel.  That’s gross.”

“You’re just pissed ’cause you didn’t get first billing,” Reed said.  “Guys always get first billing here.  This is the male chauvinist capital of the world.”

“That’s not what I mean.  It’s as if we are what we do for a living.  Announcing our professions at a party . . . it’s crazy.  And they didn’t even get mine right.  I’m a poet and a model.  I’ve got a book out now, too!”

“That collection of short stories you call a novel?”

“Hey, I’m not proud, it’s your idea.  I linked them together with a common theme and character.  I tried it, and it worked.  Simon & Schuster just sent me my second royalty payment.  It’s sold more than 175,000 copies.  Epoch magazine wrote a few paragraphs about it, in an article on the new literature!  And Simon & Schuster also just paid me a $50,000 dollar advance for the long poem I’m working on now, sight unseen.  So I guess I’m a novelist too.”

“Forgive me,” Reed said, properly chastised, giving her a loving kiss.  “You’re a novelist and a poet, and I oughta know it!  What did Epoch say about your work?  People kill to get reviewed in Epoch.”

“I’m the next Jana Tamowitz!”

“Who?”

The next couple was admitted into the sanctus sanctorum: Eddie Eddie & Harlot.  Eddie Eddie was his ethereal, otherworldly shy self; Harlot was . . . well, Harlot.  While holding her would-be lover’s hand proudly and possessively, she squealed across the narrow entrance hall: “Reed!  Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!  Have we got a party, or what?”  Eddie Eddie and Harlot started whispering and giggling to each other.  He was dressed like a prince——literally——epaulets on his brightly colored semi-military costume.  She was dressed in whorish outrageousness that stretched the boundaries of the legal, that rewrote the law books a little as she wore it, that had forced the television crews back at the Grammy Awards to restrict themselves to facial close-up shots of her.

It was an unusual situation for the Agent of Admittance: in one tiny room, the three most famous celebrities in the world.  (Acting had fallen on hard times ever since the President of the United States had become an actor.  It lowered the status of the honorable profession of acting, and took away much of its mystique.  If a mere US President could become an actor, well, anyone could become an actor.  What was left?  Rock Stars & Supermodels.)

The four of them globbed together.

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Harlot thought she must be in heaven!  Here she was, in the Sportsman Mansion, where they had shot a nude layout of her long ago, and then——the ultimate insult——refused to use it.  They said she wasn’t good enough!  Wasn’t good enough??  She had given them good enough!  She had shoved it down their sucking throats.

She had to laugh a little giggle, just thinking about it, while Reed introduced his main squeeze . . . her manager had bought the rights back for those pics long ago . . . yeah, Griff would get up on a coffee table and jerk off at one of his parties to get her naked into his magazine now!  Sportsman and Condo magazines kept sending her outrageously high-priced offers and counter-offers to do nude layouts.  Too late, Griff.  You blew it.  Now I ain’t interested, sucker!

Harlot narrowed her eyes at the airhead with the hair who was with Reed.  Her mind dredged the familiar swamp, and her loins did a little liquid dance inside her hot pants.

Oh Jeez, my knees . . . Byron in a tuxedo.  Whoooh!  I don’t know what he’s got, but he’s sure got it.  I’m here with this Black/Puerto-Rican soprano virgin, when what I need is a MAN!  I wonder if the cover girl can sing?  Is that what he’s after?  She’s famous enough to go Platinum just on rep.  Reed could do it in a snap.  I know damn well he never liked Tina.  He shafts her every time with a lousy Gold.  Reed could’a given her a Platinum record without half-trying.

Then Harlot remembered that she had just won a Grammy!  How could she have ever forgotten?  Female Vocalist of the Year!  Here with the Male Vocalist of the Year!  She didn’t need Reed or anybody anymore.  She had it made.  They could all come crawling to her now.  The thought glowed and burst like a light bulb burning out in an instant of quickflash glory.  Just as quickly, she forgot; her obsessive insecurity nailed her brains to the wall.  It was a long, lonely fall down; and she had never done a decent movie.  Three consecutive bombs.  She kept trying to switch-over to Hollywood, but it just wasn’t working.  All she really had was her voice.  It was all she had in the world.  Her manager had worked some lousy real estate deals that had back-fired; every penny coming in from her albums and the tour and her movies was going right out again.  She was completely tapped out.  She had to beg pocket money.  Fortunately, she was toyetic: her Harlot dolls for kids had stolen Ken away from Barbie.  If her monster album kept going, it would sell 10 or 15 million copies, and she needed every cent.  She desperately needed a follow-up album, a hot one, another monster seller.

Harlot spaced out for a sec.  Eddie Eddie and Reed were talking, joking; Eddie Eddie was being modest, placing his pink-gloved hand ever so tentatively on Harlot’s shoulder: “We’re just your run-of-the-record Grammy-winning vocalists.”

This . . . magazine face, is trying to steal my producer!  His own frigging album is giving me chart competition.  And Byron sings like refried sawdust.  I don’t need this crap!  That has to be it.  She’s his next Multi-Platinum vocalist.  Crap!  Crap!

Without realizing what she was doing, Harlot had stepped up too close to Courty, and was creating an uncomfortable silence for everyone just by her intense, silent look.

Courty said, “I’ll tell you what, Harlot.  I’ll write lyrics for you, if you’ll sing them.”  She smiled, easily.

Harlot blinked, and woke up to reality.  She laughed.  “Where’s the champagne?  Let’s go!”  Eddie Eddie frowned his disapproval, and Harlot giggled and added, “And an Evian for Eddie.”  She kissed him, turning away from Reed and Courty.  “Ummm, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie . . .”  Harlot wrapped her nimble-hipped bod around Eddie Eddie, and demonstrated inter-racial love with all the spin control of a master public relations expert.  When she had his face a nice embarrassed shade of black-magenta, Harlot released him.

“Please Harley,” he said.  “Not here.”

Her eyes lit up.  “Where, then?  Hum, there must be lots of places to do it in this mansion!”  Let Reed hear that!

Eddie Eddie’s frown of disapproval.

Harlot took his hand and turned back to Reed and the coverbimbo.  “OK, lover, let’s go find you an Evian and me a——”  Her voice stalled.  Byron Reed and Courty were gone.

COURTNEY, Chapter 50
 

Copyright 2005 Area 47