[standalone] On the occupational hazards of being a writer [2/2]
Part 1 and author's notes here.




6. Your life is no realer than your stories

Two hours later I was in an all-night taqueria in San Dimas, sipping a virgin mango margarita, waving a tortilla chip around in a highly unsafe manner, and regaling the waitress with tales of my completely fictional kid brother in showbiz who'd invited me to a party at the Paramount headquarters at short notice because they were having a Robin Van Hoek lookalike contest and he thought I'd win. (I do look a lot like Robin Van Hoek. There was even a story making the rounds for a bit that we were the same person. But no. Would I be writing all these books if I had the clout and money to get them animated? We've even been photographed together, at the kickoff party for that dear doomed Supernova project. Erazzi, the bastards, published it with the caption 'Separted at birth? Award-winning director Robin Van Hoek and award-winning author Alex Macaphee shake hands at the Supernova gala. We think Macaphee is on the left.')

She wished me well and gave me free fried ice cream. I left her a tip five times the cost of the meal. I'm as glad as anyone of the widespread dissapearrance of tipping, but once in a while it's a nice gesture, and it makes me feel good to make someone else feel good. There's probably some kind of moral failure in it.

The next stop was a dance club catering to the young, hip, and cybernetically enhanced. I was not the only one present with gray in my hair, but I was certainly the only one who hadn't put it there on purpose. I danced with the abandon only availible to those for whom forty is a nostalgic memory, and generally had a good time. Around five AM things started to wind down. Around five-thirty I was sitting in my car, staring at the last cream coffee from my fridge, debating whether to drive over to the Tesco's and get another pack, or give up and sleep. My phone rang. It was my agent.

"Alex, you fucking heartless bitch," she began. A good sign. "Did you know I've got an eight-thirty meeting?"

"Good morning to you too. Did it occur to me you might be waking me out of a sound sleep? And if so, did you consider it a bonus?"

(My agent and I aren't friends, but we're ancient and honorable enemies.)

"Hhhhmph. Did I?"

"Well, no."

"Right. I havn't had any sleep, so I don't see why anybody else should get any. I was up all night with your latest. And now I'm going to have to drag it into the eight-thirty meeting with Del Rey and try to make a coherent pitch on no sleep when I've just finished the damn thing. Did you time this on purpose? Have some deep plan for this one?"

"Why, no, dear, I'm just fine, not sick at all, just busy. How about you?"

She sighed heavily. "I know last time I did the blurb you threw a hissy-fit. Look, can you mock up oh, two hundred words and flash it to me? Otherwise I'll look like a nitwit at the meeting."

"Sorry. Can't get at my computer." I surreptitously popped open the cream coffee on the dash and tried to drink some without gurgling, which is harder than it looks when you have a phone in your other hand. I could have tried to write the blurb on my phone, true, but frankly I've never gotten the hang of minikeys, and not being deaf, have never bothered with speech-recognition software. My ideas don't flit off in a breeze. If I don't write them down, they hang about, putting their feet on the tables and drinking all my good beer. Metaphorically, obviously, I don't keep beer in the fridge.

My agent twitched. She never turned her camera on - well, neither do I - but I could almost hear it. "Where the fuck are you, Alex?"

"San Dimas."

"That's a hundred miles from your house! What are you doing there, chrissake?"

"Dancing like an idiot. And recuperatng. Call me back when you've cursed out Del Rey for their stupid print terms and sold it to Valley House without an editor's review, kay?" I hung up without waiting for an answer. She'd done something similar last time, only with Tor. Okay, so I go through a lot of publishers. It keeps them on their toes, and it makes the series covers more interesting.

(For those of you keeping score at home, she eventually sold it to Kodansha. Yes, Kodansha, as in the manga giant. With illustrations by Lucienne Weinmar, which I find amazing on a level only just short of 'We've perfected an AI ghost of Yoshitaka Amano and we're going to use it to make the illustrations for your book!'. It's called 'What The Bartender Said', it'll be out in time for Yule, and I should probably give that its own post, shouldn't I? Botheration.)

Cameron didn't say anything until that afternoon, when I'd wandered into a movie theatre and was watching something animated and unmemorable. When he did it was under his breath. I could almost convince myself he wan't speaking aloud. "Are you happy yet?"

More or less, I told him. I think things are going to work out.

"So do I get the story you promised me?"

As soon as I get home.

*

I got home a few days later at midnight, and my car didn't even turn into a pumpkin. I had a grocery bag of new hardback fantasy from the San Dimas library (all hail the Bear Card!), another grocery bag of groceries, and a few bottles of Catain Morgan rum, the kind with the pirate on the label. I wasn't aware of the last until I went to get the groceries out of the trunk. I stared at them for a moment, with the words I Don't Drink attempting to take coherent shape in my head. Why was there alcohol in my trunk? I didn't remember buying it.

"You bought it for Eddie," a voice suggested. "He said he'd never had spiced rum. Remember?"

I was tired and strung-out enough just then than nothing registered as odd about this. I stuffed the bottles in the grocery sack and carried them in. I had a brief moment of panic when I realized I'd left the fireball on. The air inside wasn't that much warmer than the outdoors, but it was warm enough to whiff out at me as I opened the door. This is product of my upbringing. A cultural gap. I know there are some readers on this board who are as old as me, but the majority are in their twenties. If they remember the days of energy savings, it's vauge and disjointed, in the way early memories always blur. They wouldn't understand why I turn the fireball off when I leave the house. Don't I want it warm when I get back? And this is a smarthouse but I'm too paranoid to enable the remote functions, so I couldn't call ahead and tell it to turn the fireball on. They shamelessly build houses out of cinder block for the looks, never mind the insulating properties; they build them with open sides that only slide shut when they sense rain, and keep a big conditioning unit in the middle, trying valiantly to heat or cool the surrounding country, given enough time. They drive their cars serene in the knowledge that wherever they go, someone will loan them a plug. They drive like maniacs. Why not? They don't have to save gas.

You, that is. You all do these things. I don't. When I was a teenager raising my cousin Edsel, we kept a lousy little space heater in her bedroom, and I slept under a pile of blankets five deep, because we couldn't afford to heat the rest of the house. I worked out meals weeks in advance, but I baked on impluse, whenever it was cold and damp. We covered the windows with blankets from December to February. I learned to drive in a gasoline car, and it was drummed into me early that you never started fast, you drifted to stops if you could, you parked on a downhill and let gravity handle the start.

I still do these things. I don't cover the windows now, and I heat my whole house, but the sight of a lamp left on in an empty room makes me twitch, and I turn my computer off when I go to bed, even if it takes two whole minutes to dehibernate.

And now I probably sound like an old fogey, telling the damn kids to get off my lawn. Not that I have a lawn.

Somehow I got into bed in one piece. Cameron let me. He knew I was in no shape to write that night; I'd been having a wonderful time, and while I'd gotten a few good short story ideas, none of them were his. He was up talking with Tiphys half the night, though; I could hear them in the back of my mind. When I tried to push closer, they shut me out. Yes, my characters can do this. I suppose I could override them if I tried, but like I said, if the inside of your head is all the privacy you've got you should get to keep it. I woke up early the next morning, panicking as to whether I'd remembered to put stuff in the icebox; but I had, so all was good. From the kitchen I could see Eddie's dad's little convertible heading down the road, with Eddie's dad in it, in a stupid bowler hat which didn't suit him at all. There was a suitcase in the seat beside him. I wondered idly where he was going. I had coffee and leftover apple cobbler, and then sat down and turned my computer on. Twenty-eight messages, twelve from my agent; it took about an hour to deal with them properly.

This board was full of fun stuff I didn't have the concentration for. The news wasn't anything I hadn't heard in San Dimas. On a whim I did another random page on Fictropes, and got 'Omnicidal Maniac'. It didn't seem relevant. I tried again. 'Almighty Janitor'. I didn't have any characters with the right setting to run into one of those, so I went to close the site.

At this point the single most treacherous voice in my head spoke up - the voice of my inspiration. Yet, it said.

What?

Yet. You havn't started a new world in five years. It's past due.

I could. An idea was already floating to the srface of my mind.

Then, Captain Cameron exploded. I don't quite mean it iterally. But I coud hear him scream, "WHAT?!" and feel Tiphys's soft protest, and then he expanded so fast and so forcefully that my fits banged on the desk and knocked my coffeecan off before I realied I hadn't done it myself. With a certain amount of vicious glee Cameron caught the can, lobbed it at the bin like a baseball pitcher, then shut down all the sites I'd opened, one by one. Click. Click. Click. I hadn't thought my fingernails were long enouh to make that noise.

I asked him what he was doing. I couldn't decide whether it made it better or worse, that I got to watch this time.

"I'm keeping your promise." He said it aloud, in my voice. Nobody to hear, but I still found myself fretting. "You promised me a short story at least. As soon as Uenojibwe was done. I'm taking it." As he spoke he stood up and headed for the kitchen, opened the icebox. Not much in there right now.

The funny thing was, I wasn't frightened. Not a bit. All I could think, honestly, was There was a Stephen King story like this, wasn't there? He couldn't kill me, couldn't do me any serious damage, even. He couldn't pretend to be me for very long. I knew him, and Captain Cameron was too brash to pass to my old friends - much less my boards. Yes, dear readers, I stand before you and declare that I am confident the voices in my head couldn't take over my life, because you'd know the difference. Not that I post here constantly, or even every month. But it would show up in one. I don't do first-person, so you don't know all their internal voices, but they're all distinct.

(They call me a Young Adult author sometimes. Good thing they can't hear my characters thinking. I do have more young readers than old, but my protagonists are as likely to be middle-aged as young. Can I help it if I write short books? Brevity is a virtue. But most YA books I've read are simple and have bittersweet endings, and I can't abide either. Hard choices are for people; characters should have adventures.)

Captain Cameron rummaged for a bit. He found some cheese crackers I'd forgotten about, eyed them dubiously, put them back. He flipped through my books. It was getting dark outside. Given the hour it had to be a storm. I wondered what he was thinking. He stared out the window for a bit, then muttered, "Candles", and starting flipping open the cabinets.

Bathroom closet under the towels, I said. If you burn down my house recall how long it took me to start working again last time.

"Why are you being so helpful?"

Would it do me any good not to be? I know you're not the sort for wanton destruction, I told him. Internally I was fretting about the broken arm. He resented it, he'd told me so, even though he'd been graceful and stoic on page. Would he have enough control to send the pain to me while he was in charge of the body, if he took it into his head to get revenge? But I doubted it.

He found the candles, and the bath salts Edsel had sent me as a gag gift for my last birthday. He was humming softly. He started drawing a bath. It made a sort of half-cocked sense; he had always visited the bathhouses when he had time in port, and why not enjoy a body while he could? I brooded.

He lit the candles and climbed in, still humming. He kept holding my hand up and looking at it speculatively. I kept half an eye on him, and called for Tiphys. Did you have anything to do with this? I asked her.

I told him not too, she said, I told him it was a terrible idea and I'm sorry, things shouldn't have turned out like this. He doesn't want it forever. Just a few weeks.

I wasn't inclined to let him have it that long, but right then, there was nothing I could do.

*

Eventually he climbed out. He'd been far too interested in my feet. I'm no good at feet, anyway. I never bother describing them. Uenojibwe is the only one of my characters who's explicitly described as having toes; most of them could be running on wheels for all I specify. He wandered into the bedroom, dripping gently, and began poking through my closet. It was raining, hard and heavy, the kind of rain you get once or twice a year down here and for two months solid up in Salish. He dug out some slightly faded cargo pants and a green corduroy tunic I'd bought two months ago on a whim and not worn yet, and threw them on. They fit uncomfortbly. Cameron is taller than me, and good with sizes, and so even as the cuffs brushed my hands he kept trying to tug them down his wrists. My wrists.

He was thinking of going out. He toed on some sandals and began muttering 'keys' under his breath. Cameron's habit of chanting when he's looking for something had never before struck me as annoying. "Don't try it," I told him. "You can't drive."

Cameron sniffed at this. "As if you'd know," he said aloud, and walked out. He didn't turn off the fireball, or lock the door. Nor did he seem to care he was getting soaked. Well, I was getting soaked, technically. My car was parked under the only tree on my leasehold. He climbed in, turned it on. Tiphys whimpered. He's mad, she said, he barely knows how to drive. Cameron didn't bother with a seatbelt, just pulled out with a terrible fake gear-grinding noise. Somehow he got us to Barstow uninjured, though. If it had stopped there I might have forgiven him.

Looking back that day could have been dangerous. He didn't seem inclined to try much. The storm was mostly over by the time we got into town, and he spent a while sitting in a park, just staring up at the sun. A small child came over and asked if he was okay, and if he wanted to play copters. He laughed aloud, and declared that he did, that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to play copters, that he hadn't had a good whirl in years. Technically he never had, but I kept silent. They whirled their birds over the lawn for most of an hour, and attracted an audience, mostly of other small children and their bemused guardians.

He was better at copters than I had ever been. It didn't seem fair.

It should have been summer. I would have given him summer if I had to rearrange history books to do it, but I wasn't in charge anymore. He wandered through the cold streets until he spotted an open bar, and he went in and ordered a mocha shot. I reminded him I didn't drink. "I do," he said, under his breath. The bartender looked at him sideways and went to the other end to chat with a man who looked like a regular, nursing a soda-with-cream.

Dusk was already coming in. He finished the mocha shot, had another, wandered out. There was noise coming from a door half a block away. It was flung open; a man and a woman, both giggling and dressed in Early Futuristic, stumbled out. They stopped for the woman to back the man against the doorframe and kiss him; someone inside the house cheered.

Cameron got the strangest smile. He strode away puposefully. I wondered if the drink was affecting him. I couldn't feel it, inside, but who knew how these things worked?

There was a boutique still open on the corner beyond, one of those places that obviously was somebody's living room in a previous life. He went in. The saleslady grinned bashfully at him. He winked, and began to feel all the clothes. Silk, wool, cotton, knubbly fleece. I didn't know why. Unlike toes, I do fine tactile work.

"Just checking your work," he said. I hadn't realized he was listening. "You did great." Abruptly, he pulled out the thing he had his hand on. It was a loose silk shirt, painted silk, oranges and reds, stunningly beautiful, and more money than I had ever spent on a single garmet. "I like this one," he continued at standard volume. "Might as well indulge."

"Oh, do you want to try it on?" the saleslady volunteered. "It is nice, isn't it? We don't sell too many from that artist, she's a bit bold for the locals. Even though she is one. Local, that is." She was blushing a little. Captain Cameron obviously charmed her. And, well, why not? He was supposed to be charming.

"Not necessary, dear lady. It seems large enough to accomodate two of me. Fortunately I like my clothes that way, else I should have been forced to hang it on my wall. My compliments to the artist."

Of course he used my credit card, and of course the biometrics matched. I found myself wishing the Privacy Protection Party had won a few more lawsuits back in the day. He probably couldn't have forged my signature.

It really was a pretty shirt, but that didn't make me feel any better. What does he think he's doing? I askd Tiphys. He's not even trying to pass for me. Someone's going to notice. I was going to call Edsel tomorrow night. She knows me inside and out. And he can't write worth a fuck.

He's just having a fling, she said sadly. You know how Cameron plans. He never thinks more than a few minutes ahead. He does what seems best at the time.

I knew all too well.

*

Cameron found the car without difficulty, and headed back at a marginally less madcap pace. It was full dark when we made it home. Eddie's lights were on. He was sitting in his window, with a computer. He waved at us as we went past. Back in my house Cameron changed into the new shirt, then grabbed the bottles of rum.

It was right then that I knew, and decided. He'd bought them. He must have; I would have remembered, otherwise. He'd taken over without asking, without apologies, without my even quite knowing. He was too dangerous. Self-defense, really.

Cameron walked over to Eddie's place, humming softly, and knocked. Eddie answered the door almost instantly. He was in an old college sweathirt and jeans. He looked mildly flabbergasted. "Alex? What're - uh. Nice shirt. Why the rum?" He was twisting his hands together, rubbing at his knuckle; I found myself noting the mannerism in case I had occasion to inflict it on someone.

"Just thought I'd come see what you're up to. You were saying you'd always wondered what spiced rum tastes like, and I saw some on special, so . . ." Cameron tilted his head and smiled. Seductively. "What are you up to?"

Eddie ran a hand through his hair. "College essays. I've narrowed it down to three places, but it's still annoying as bugfuck." He grinned, blushing. "Just finished number two, fact. I was gonna knock off and try again tomorrow. Fresh eyes, and all. C'mon in." He waved us through the door, and wandered into the kitchen.

His house - well, his dad's house - was nicely decorated, a lot of handmade stuff, sturdy furniture. It bothered me I couldn't come up with a better way to describe it. Yes, it bothered me at the time. Dont take it for dispacement activity; I do that sort of thing all the time. It's an occupational hazard. Everything is research. Narrators aren't always dispassionate, but the best ones are, so you learn a certain distance and you think of the best words for things as they happen to you, and you save up memories and crow when you can use the good ones.

Cameron beamed as he followed Eddie in, and started fliping through cabinets. "Where's your dad?"

"Oh, he went off to San Francisco to convention. He'll be gone all week." Aparently Cameron's flirting had worked, because the next thing Eddie said was, "So I've got the house to myself. Plenty of privacy. Glasses are over the sink." He emerged from a drawer brandishing a bottle opener, with a beaming smile.

"Good," said Cameron, and kissed him.

Eddie sqawked in suprise, but he didn't seem upset. The bottle opener made an interesting clattering noise as it fell. They relaxed into the kiss and it lasted a long time.

When they broke apart Eddie was breathing hard. "Not that I'm complaining," he began, "but didn't you say you weren't looking? Not right now, anyway, and, uh, I babble when I'm nervous, don't mind me."

Cameron flashed a smile as he turned to fetch the glasses. "So I changed my mind," he said. "Sorry if I'm coming on too strong. Hmm. Which colleges are you going for?"

Eddie was glad for the distraction. He took the excuse to discuss his decisions at length, while Cameron made encouraging remarks and they migrated from the kitchen to the living room. By the end they were sprawled on the giant pink sofa, with my feet in Eddie's lap. If he noticed anything odd, he didn't say. I'd told him I didn't drink, but he admitted later that he'd clean forgotten it at the time. So the rum Captain Cameron was merrily pouring down my throat ws no clue.

I'll let the rest of the evening be. It was fun for them, and very romantic, and I'd just as soon not think about it. Around one in the morning they finally gave up on the flirting and went to bed. Eddie was very sweet. I got the vauge impression he hadn't had sex since his divorce, but Cameron didn't ask then and I've never asked since. It had been a few years for me, so it hardly mattered.

When he fell asleep Cameron rolled over and stared at the celing. It had little homefab bird models hanging off it on bits of wire. They had a middle-school look to them. I suspected this had been Eddie's room since he was a little kid, and he'd never gotten around to taking them down.

Probably, Tiphys interjected. They're pretty, though.

Yeah.

I knew then that I'd have to take my chance right away. I'm sorry, I told Tiphys. If I wait, he'll never let me back in.


7. Your stories are as real as your life

Tiphys sighed. I understand, she said. He brought this on himself. As long as you don't try to replace him with a doppelganger.

Never, I promised. I don't do that sort of thing, but trying to tell her that wouldn't have helped. So instead I reached out into Captain Cameron's warm, thoughtful haze, and grabbed his perspective, and twisted.

I can't explain it any better than that. My body gave a sort of half-concious jerk as he tried to fight me, and then lay there uninhabited. We were on the deck of the Teratorn. It was high up, over the mountains. I could make out roiling clouds below. Tiphys stood against the mainstay, one hand on it as it creaked in the high winds.

"So," Cameron said to nobody in particular, and tossed his head. "My little holiday is over?"

"Yes." It wasn't me who spoke. It was Tiphys. She bit her lip as she let go of the mainstay and walked over to his side. She wrapped an arm over his shoulders and they half-turned, looking over the sidewall. It really was an incredible view. Mountains poking up from the clouds, the morning sun reflecting off the billows. Peaceful and calm. "You were made a little too reckless, I think. Too eager to grab and careless of what you left. I loved you for it, but I've always been a fool."

"I loved you too," he said. "Even if you've always been frigid and terrified. What a pair we were, eh?" He paused, and gave a melodramatic sigh. "Alex? Is the past tense accurate?"

"Yes." I could have said a lot of things, but I will instead say his right now: whatever else went wrong, however much he messed with people and went haring off on whatever mad tangent occured to him, Cameron took the inevitable with grace and dignity. I didn't bother apologizing. "It's been fun," I said instead. "Thank you for that."

"I regret nothing." Cameron grinned. I could tell that he meant it.

Tiphys quietly told him, "You were a good partner." She turned the arm over the shoulders into an embrace, and they stood still for a long moment. Then she calmly, almost casually, shoved him over the side.

I hadn't expected that. I'd been steeling myself to do my own dirty work.

They were holding hands. Somehow I worked it out faster than physics. I didn't bother crossing the deck - I was just there, holding Tiphys by the waist, and she cried out as his hand slipped from hers. He didn't make a noise, just tumbled away, coat flapping, hair waving loose in the crosscurrents. It only took a few seconds before he dwindled and vanished in the clouds.

Tiphys was struggling, but not very hard. The balloons were still creaking somewhere high above. None of it seemed quite real, which was appropriate given that none of it was.

*

Back in Eddie's room he'd woken halfway up. He was making curious mumbling noises at the way I wasn't moving or responding to him. First things first. I called Orytalthin Ten to look after the Teratorn, sent Uenojibwe to make my body look inhabited, and moved Tiphys to Madam Sarilillia's. The good madam was shocked at our appearance, but made the curtsey of worshipful respect to me, as she always does and I know I can't stop her doing. I told her that Tiphys had been through a deep shock, that she needed stimulants and caresses and a sympathetic shoulder. The good madam promised to supply them personally. So that was alright.

I took myself to Uenojibwe's place then, where the air was warm and still and the clouds were comfortably overhead and there were colors all around and the noise of birds.

I'd expected to feel bad for killing Captain Cameron, and not even giving him a dramatic death scene. I hadn't expected Tiphys to do it for me, or lose her composure so badly. She'd been trying to fall. She'd understood the necessity, but still not wanted to go on alone.

Ah, character development!

Eddie was snoring gently now. I shut my ears to the outside, and I went over to the hammock, curled up, and tried to figure out what the fuck I was going to do.

I must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing I remembered, I was waking up in my own body. It was still dark out. Uenojibwe was hovering around the edges of my conciousness, so I muttered something reassuring and sent him to check on Tiphys. I had some writing to do, most likely. The idea that had sent Cameron over the edge was still hovering at the edge of my mind. Lurking, almost. Right. Time to grab it and hold on. I had a feeling this one was going to speak aloud from the beginning. So be it; maybe trying to keep the stage so apart had been a bad idea.

"Who are you?" I asked the idea.

She hesitantly said, Nobody in particular.

Hah. No, really, I continued. I could tell I'd have to be gentle with this one. I'm curious. What's your name? What do you do?

I'm Dulcie Lacrymin and I'm a lab assistant at the Draconym College of Paranormal Arts and that's nobody important, she gushed suddendly. I dropped out ten years ago. They hired me because Professor Whipporwhill felt sorry for me.

Really? And what does a lab assistant do?

Well, Dulcie said nervously, I keep the labs in order and the sheilds working and the supplies stocked, and I help students with their experiments, only really I practially do them for them a lot, not that they're not bright, but the professors here really expect too much . . . I keep the formal records too. But those get edited. My diary's more accurate.

Ah hah. And do you care if I read your diary? I asked. It was just barely possible that Dulcie would turn out to be a first-person narator.

Go ahead, she said with dignity. But I said more accurate, not accurate. I lie to my diary.

Of course. If I was going to do a first-person story, I might as well do it right. I could see her now - glasses, frizzy hair, dressed in ten-year-old blazer and school tie. I liked her. She had spirit.

And, of course, she was about as different from Captain Cameron, in personality, backstory, and setting, as could be imagined.

*

When I woke up again it was properly daylight out. Eddie was snoring gently, sprawled out across the bed. Most of the sheets were wrapped around his legs.

I could hear someone moving about in the living room, humming and tapping their feet. For a moment I assumed it was Eddie's dad. Then I remembered he was at the con. Unusually cheerful burglar? Not likely this far out, but the idea was enough to make me keep very quiet and still and hope not to be noticed.

No such luck. Shortly afterwards the bedroom door banged open and a tall Asian-looking woman in a neon-pink tunic stuck her head in and caroled, "Eeeeeddie! I come bearing - oh Sorry." She blushed. "I'm not interrupting sonething, am I?"

I am too old to perturb. I shrugged and said, "Just my beauty sleep." She giggled.

Eddie, meanwhile, had come awake with a start and was performing the ancient ritual greeting dance of Where Did My Underwear Go. "H-hi," he managed. "Wasn't expecting you, certainly not at this hour, weren't you in Mexico?"

"I got done early." She leaned against the doorframe. I gathered the sheets and tried to look dignified. "Who's your friend?"

"Alex Macaphee. Alex, this is my ex-wife Brenda, who I totally was not expecting, sorry, sorry -'

"Don't concern yourself, " I said. "Pleased to meet you, Brenda."

Brenda nodded. "He told me about you, but I didn't think it had gone this far. Good luck. You'll need it." Her grin took any sting out of the comment. Eddie was glaring at her, but very fondly. He'd found his shorts and found, well, a tee, certainly not the one he'd been wearing last night, with tie-dye and the logo for some band I didn't recognize. Brenda pulled out two bottles from behind her back. "Here," she declared. "You can toast."

"Huh." Eddie wandered over and took one, frowning. "Ichi finally got the vats working?"

"Yep. Bottle of red, bottle of white. He gave me a bathtub full, so I'm spreading it around."

(And that is why I call them Brenda and Eddie. A certainl Billy Joel song started playing in my head at that point and did not leave. You didn't think they were really called Brenda and Eddie, did you? I'm not admitting to anything. They both have very unique first names, in fact, and I like to blur these things even on a more-or-less private board. And I'll probably keep referring to them for a long time. Brenda's a sweetheart and we keep in touch. And Eddie, well, you'll hear shortly. This is all good practice for the unreliable narrator trick which Dulcie expects me to pull for what might turn out to be a dozen books at the rate she's tossing out ideas. She refuses to tell me how she either left or was kicked out of the student body, is the only problem, and I'm sure it's relevant. In keeping with her Almighty Janitor status, it was certainly not for incompetence.)

Eddie beamed rather desperately. "Lovely," he said. "Why don't we stick them in the fridge?" He took her by the elbow and hustled her off before she could catch her balance. It was a rather transparent attempt to give me time to get dressed. I took full advantage of it. When I got out they invited me to hang around for breakfast, but I made my excuses and went back to my own house as fast as was polite.

*

In a situation like this there was only one thing to do: call Edsel. Unfortunately, Edsel worked days. I took a long bath instead, and started making some notes for Dulcie, and waited. I found myself trying to figure out the time difference between here and Salish, which worked out to zero, of course. At some point it occured to me that I hadn't eaten anything since the leftover apple cobbler yesterday. I made curry, which was at least good for my concentration.

I told Edsel everything. She knew about most of it already.

*

Fast-forward again, to now. March. I've been lurking and now you all know why: I was busy with Dulcie, and still mourning Cameron.

Edsel said the only thing to do with Eddie was be perfectly honest; either he'd believe me or he'd be offended and end the friendship, but either way I wouldn't be forced to keep up Cameron's lie. I told him, and amazingly enough, he believed me. I was grateful enough to be rather soppy. Somehow we came to an understanding. We're together now, even though guys are not my usual thing, and it works surisingly well. Eddie is tremendously easy-going and he puts up with my neuroses with as much grace as Cameron. He was accepted at California Bay in February.

This led me to make what is probably my biggest misguided romantic gesture since the Truffle Incident: for the first time in my life, I have bought a house. Not rented, borrowed, or inherited - bought. I'd only gone to Monterey looking for a nice rental, but I found this hideous Neo-Organic pile from the thirties, mossed over and neglected, and I fell in love. It was only five million, so I paid cash. My savings account feels rather echoy these days. Thankfully Kodansha gave me a lovely fat advance on 'What The Bartender Said'. And Dulcie's first book is, well, mostly written.

Eddie loves the place. He took one look, burst out laughing, and declared that it looked as if it had been built by High Elves. "It's like Fear and Loathing in Lothlorien!" Therefore, we named it Loathelorien. Registered it as a forwarding address, too - if anyone wants to send chocolates or special editions or fine South American tea (hint hint), it's Loathelorien, Monterey, Monterey, 5512-3663. It's still a mess of boxes and half my furniture is somewhere between here and Barstow, but the fireball is here and Eddie is here, so the rest is negotiable.

Tiphys is better, mostly. I offered her Orytalthin Ten as a new partner, since they'd gotten on well enough. She said no. I offered to build her a hero to spec. She said no, nor did she want to work alone. I said it seemed a pity; she deserved more.

Maybe, she told me. But I'll take a poetic ending when I can. I'm content with what you've written, and what happened to Cameron would have to be papered over with a lie.

So, there will be no more Golden Teratorn stories.

*

8. Feedback

Me, well, I'm doing pretty well. I'm on happy pills, but so are lots of people my age, and I'm not on any of the other assorted medicines so many seem to be. I have a house, a nice boyfriend who lets me exposit at him and thinks it a compliment, and I have you. It's good to know that such a pleasantly mixed lot of clever and creative people think my books are worth reading and worth talking about. Assuming, of course, that any of you made it this far.

The thing is:

See, I can't turn it off. Any of it. I can't stop getting ideas, and I can't not make something into a story. What was this - ten thousand words? I could have given you the relevant parts in three paragraphs. But instinct took over, and I took days on it.

And now I'm afraid you'll be put off, as if every one of you hasn't read a million words of mine. And Golden Teratorn fans will be upset.

Well, this is a board. You can reply. I'd say something clever about the insecurity of the average writer, but the fact that I still get a thrill from someone saying they liked my work probably says it all. Feedback junkies, all of us. It's addictive, and why fight it? Both sides are inevitable. I can't stop writing, and I'm sure none of you could stop reading.

So, take this with my blessing; I bled enough for it, metaphorically. It's the dramatic ending Captain Cameron will never get in the books. It's a true story. I got a little joy from it, in the end. Maybe there's more to be spread in the telling.


Slainte mhath,
Alex Macaphee,
Loathelorien, March 28.