Toby and the Ghost, Part II of—
I AM INTRUDED
UPON
But I must abandon the present tense
to relate a thing that Actually Happened--which is always disturbing--one
morning as I was having her in an unnatural manner. Call it morning. She submitted as usual with a provoking passivity,
a knowingness that appeased the woman in me, perhaps stirred my envy a little,
and I allowed myself to be boosted toward the top by a fantasy that I too was
being penetrated.
And now, oddly, as I glanced aside
from my face-down sheet-clutching inamorata I saw a man gazing at my own tail
as I but a moment ago at hers. He was
handsome--though I must say the physiques of men are of small interest to me
compared to my own--moustachioed and in some kind of period drag--frilly shirt,
tight pants, boots--which, glaring with lust, he removed.
He mounted--my legs straddled
Marcie's, his mine--caressed my not uninterested flesh, took his shah out of
its sleeve and--well, what shall I say?
Effected an entry! There was no
pain--the whole thing was somehow insubstantial--and no weight oppressed me,
but there was the anal-erotic sensation, the impression of accommodating
something from without. Ideal, really.
We finished simultaneously (he and I
that is; Marcie's earthquake can pass with no outward tremor) and when I rolled
down beside her he was gone. The
stroboscopic trance of orgasm usually blanks me to what went before and strands
me thoughtless but there was something about this--
I mean it's all right. Anything goes. Certainly I do. No use eliminating any universes. And given my aversion to pain and what an
actual partner might see as a too-consistent passivity, fantasy may be the best
realm for these encounters. And the least
threatening to my income.
No, what was disquieting about this
episode was its full-bodied insistence.
I hadn't made this happen.
I turned to look at the carpet with
some vague thought of seeing footprints in the nap and there was his boot! One of the boots he took off before he--
I squinted incredulously. Then I leaned from the bed and picked it
up! Limp calfskin! Black.
So real was it that the idea of smelling it repelled me.
I sniffed it anyway. Nothing.
It was cold. No living funk of
leather and sweat. And as the phrase no
living echoed in my inner abyss I dropped it to the carpet and was attacked
by anxieties I could not disentangle.
Someone--something--had been there.
I had had an actual homosexual experience. With a dead person. My fantasies were out of control. I was insane.
I could not even turn to Marcie for
succour--for I am scarcely less fragile than she. What would I have said? She would not have been flattered by my
cavorting with a caprice while in her whatever, let alone with a real presence!
Trembling, perspiring I peered over
the edge of the bed at the boot. It was
gone! I groped madly for it, felt the
rug for impressions.
"Toby?" she said. Me.
I returned to her and took what
comfort I could, my secret locked within me.
But oh, so what! A little fantasy once in a while! Keeps the flower fresh!
And we were in England.
ENGLAND
I glanced toward the window and the
gray light of English day.
That could explain it. Everybody's a sod in England. Sod off they tell each other. Sod this, sod that. It's in the air! One breathes buggery with the fog. Such reveries are bound to be vivid here.
And in England the whole past
bleeds. Apparitions, racial memories, disembodied
voices echoing down corridors--it's part of the atmosphere. Impressionable old me.
Downstairs I could hear Lady
McGeorge playing rock CD's. She sat in
her parlor--if I closed my eyes I could see her--middle-aged, bottom-heavy,
smoking Dunhill Extra-Longs an inch down, one after another. She had read that the harmful part of the
cigarette was after the first inch and her ashtrays were full of stubbed-out
Dunhill Extra-Longs.
She was in love with the idea of her
aristocracy and did determinedly frivolous non-bourgeois things like listen to
loud rock music. Personally, I find the
better sort of people are oppressed by these things, especially during the day
when one is trying to sleep, but just now it was comforting to have her within
earshot.
The house was across the street from
the Thames, and was old.
I confess to a weakness for
England. There's a cuddly quality about
it. Everything's so miniature. And everyone speaks the language, after a
fashion. In other countries one so often
has the impression of idiots babbling at one another. And of course the climate is good for my
complexion.
But that is not why we were in
England.
We were in England because of Haze.
See also Part I,
and Part III,
and
On the blog:
Robert MacLean is a bad poet and an independent filmmaker. His The Light Touch is on Amazon Prime, Tubi, Scanbox and YouTube, and his 7-minute comedy is an out-loud laugh. He is also a screamingly funny novelist, a playwright, a blogger, a YouTuber, a reviewer of films, a literary critic, and a stand-up comic poet. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, lives Greece, Irish citizen. He is of towering intellect but, as is often the case with such people, not that bright.
Foreign Matter
Toby travels with a woman who pays. He's got it made, except that her nine-year-old daughter is smarter than he is. Based on the novel:
“A very, very funny book"—The West Coast Review of Books
“Enormously enjoyable”—Kirkus Reviews
“Fresh and spirited”—Publishers Weekly
Think of:
Proposed cast: Paul Rudd
Toby Tucker gets along as a tour guide,
though all he knows how to do is keep the clients amused. In Venice he
falls for rich bubble-head Marcie but can't afford her style. "To-bee! Let's just live on my money!" Well—it’s awkward but what can one say? He reclines into the good life.
Proposed cast: Leslie Mann
Marcie Harding, sweet, fresh, blonder
than blonde and all heart, is a lonely widow who takes a tour in
Venice. Toby abandons the tour to take her to Rome, and when he
runs out of cash is about to abandon her. He loves her more than he knows.
Proposed cast: Amber Liddicoat
But for Andrea, things would be
perfect. "The child." Toby and Marcie are no smarter than anybody
else; the child is smarter than anybody else. She'd have got rid of
him long ago but her mommy loves him, so she keeps him around to, how
shall I say, play with. When you’re not looking she rotates her head like Linda Blair.
Proposed cast: John Goodman
Marcie’s father-in-law, billionaire
Hazelton Turnbull “Hard Turd” Harding IV, loathes Toby, and loathes
giving Marcie her allowance to feed him. But he loves his little
granddaughter, and there lies the control.
When Haze spends Marcie’s money on a painting for the Harding Memorial Museum it looks like Toby's meal ticket is gone.
Proposed cast Pamela Shaw:
Proposed cast Pamela Shaw:
Johna Nerg is the butch-nightmare artist
whose painting Toby accidentally steps in, sits in and sets on fire.
He really doesn't mean it but she thinks, as who does not, that he's
trying to destroy it—and gets real mean with him.
He has no choice, finally, but to try to steal it. But until the child takes a hand, nothing works.
Light, charming, sophisticated, and the first of a series, each set in a new pleasure zone. Total Moisture, one of the sequels, is set in the south of France:
Foreign Matter is set in Venice and on a Greek island, and is available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Smashwords, and the usual places: Apple, iTunes, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Kobo, Diesel—the whole street.
Pretentious Pictures presents a summer comedy.
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