Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 3 - Venus Besieged by Andrews, Austin Page B

work on the screenplay— another
equally hard-to-explain story, I thought.
    "Do
I go ahead and make the nun a therapist and the housewife a hooker?" I
asked Callie, sighing as I spoke.
    "What
happens if you don't?"
    "They
pay me Writers Guild minimum, thank me, and tell me good-bye. Since they've
optioned the story, they can hire someone else to be the writer and—"
    "Someone
who will happily make the nun a therapist or a wildebeest, for that
matter?"
    "Yes,
so I might as well give it a shot," I said, and Callie shrugged as if that
kind of change was infinitesimally important in the scope of things.
    Knuckling
down, I knocked out ten pages...not the opening ten pages, but the ten pages
midway through the screenplay when the two women have their first physical
contact. Callie was at her computer when I finally looked up and read what I'd
written out loud.
    "So
the way I've got it worked out is the hooker is lying on the therapist's couch
and the therapist is sitting beside her, legs crossed, her notebook in hand..
.kind of bookish and interesting but professional. And the hooker in the midst
of answering the typical therapy questions suddenly says, 'You've got nice
legs. You could have been a dancer.'
    "The
therapist looks down, shy, and starts to speak but the hooker says, 'Or a
hooker. Men like nice legs. Long legs that disappear up into the...unknown.'
She runs her hand over the therapist's calf and then up her thigh and stops as
she says, 'Men like adventure.' She lets her hand drop to the couch and leans
back as if she meant nothing by it and is merely ready for the therapist to ask
her the next question.
    "Of
course now the therapist is totally confused and has trouble collecting her
thoughts, and she ends the session abruptly, saying 'I think our time is up.'
    "The
hooker says, 'I have ten more minutes.'
    "And
the therapist says, 'I'll make it up to you next time.'
    "The
hooker smiles and says, 'That's what I say to my clients.'"
    I
looked up at Callie. "So what do you think?"
    "It's
sexy and provocative. You've developed a sophistication beyond what I thought
you'd be able to do with it. It's really good, Teague."
    "But
I didn't have her say cunt or pussy?"
    "Why
would she?
    "Because
she's a hooker!" I shouted, imitating Barrett, and Callie laughed.
"Jacowitz wants lurid language. Now that I think about it, I remember
Barrett telling me about the studio rumor that he's into S&M."
    "Jacowitz?
The guy I met with the nerdy glasses and the battered briefcase? He looks like
Willie Lowman in Death of a Salesman"
    "Rumor
says he likes to get naked and have a woman in spike heels walk across his back
and flagellate his buttocks with a riding crop."
    "I
understand pain and pleasure, but not how one evokes the other."
    "Yeah,
like having a vasectomy and a lap dance in the same half hour. I'm so glad you
like the pages. I'm sending them off to Barrett."
    With
a ping, the e-mail with the ten pages attached was on its way. "Gone. My
dilemma is now sitting on Barrett's laptop, let's get back to yours," I
said, referring to the shape-shifter.
    "Looking
at this chart," Callie said, "I know the woman is besieged, but I
have this calm feeling when I think about her, as if she's alive but time could
be running out."
    "I
know, but being alive is a bit tricky when you fall over a canyon ridge into a
2000-foot free fall before you hit the jagged bottom. The vultures almost have
enough time to pick you clean before your bones ever bounce off the
riverbed."
    "Teague,
that sounds terrible!" Even Elmo was sobbing, a sign that my mental
imagery had made him need a bathroom break.
    "He
hates heights," I said, hooking him up to his lead. "We'll be right
back." We headed out into the dusky evening, not straying far from the
cabin.
    I
looked left over my shoulder, right over my back, up to the treetops, and down
to the ground searching for something, anything that remotely looked like a
wolf. Though Callie said the wolf was a human, I still didn't