Indirection, page 12
part #1 of Borealis: Without a Compass Series
“Why don’t you tell me about that?”
Serenity moved to sit on the bed. She was older than she looked, North realized suddenly. The slight shuffle in her step. The way she lowered herself onto the mattress. “You heard about his dramatic reading in the lobby today?”
“I did.”
“That kind of thing. Scotty was a second-rate writer but a first-class self-promoter. Think P.T. Barnum; there’s nothing Scotty couldn’t turn into a publicity stunt. What happened today, for example. He’ll come back with a conspiracy theory, with suspects, with a tell-all book and then with a fictionalized version. He’ll make a killing off it. Lord, I wouldn’t put it past the man to fake his own death just for the attention.” She grimaced. “That’s in bad taste. Consider it retracted.”
“Do you use any drugs? Legal or illegal, prescription or not.”
Serenity burst out laughing. Her breath carried a mixture of halitosis and the fading perfume of the baby powder. “Oh my goodness. I really am a suspect, is that it?”
“It’s just a question.”
“One I’m not going to answer, I’m afraid.”
“Any stimulants?”
Serenity’s smile thinned and hardened. “No, Mr. McKinney. I’m not interested in playing this game.”
“Someone told us that you use cocaine recreationally.”
“As opposed to medically? Someone’s been talking about me behind my back. Why would I want to hurt Scotty? He’s an obnoxious egotist, but that’s got nothing to do with me.”
“He ripped your latest book apart in public. He said women couldn’t write gay fiction.”
“Do you think he’s right?”
“I have no idea. Shaw’s the writer; you’ll have to ask him.”
“I’m asking you. Do you think women can write realistically about gay men? Or, to put it more broadly: can women write about men? Then switch it up: can men write about women?”
“You can write about whatever you want to write about. I’m more interested in how you felt about Scotty’s comments.”
“It’s an old saw,” Serenity said, shrugging as she leaned back. “Women don’t understand men. Women particularly don’t understand gay men. Women are trampling authentic gay voices. Women are crowding out legitimate gay authors. Women are ruining the genre. Not worth getting angry over.”
“Even after he tore your book to pieces?”
“Can I tell you something, Mr. McKinney? A little bit of insight into the publishing business that you can pass on to your boyfriend. It doesn’t matter whether or not women can authentically write gay men because that’s not what my readers are paying for. My readers are paying for at least five steamy sex scenes, one of which is usually kinky. My readers are paying for me to hit the beats at the right moment: inciting incident, pinch, midpoint, crisis, and climax. My readers are paying me to write what they want to read: daddies this month, piss play next month, tentacles the month after that. My readers are paying for their HEA. Or at least for their HFN. If you can do that, if you can do it reliably, and if you can do it with moderately workable prose, you can have a career. If you can do it fast, you can be a success. Authentic voices? Psychological insight? Those don’t have any bearing on it.”
“It sounds like you agree with how Scotty described romance.”
“No.” Serenity cocked her head. She had shark eyes, dark and cool. From the other room came a burst of happy, excited laughter, and then Shaw made a booming noise—where it fit into the story, North had no idea. “I don’t share his contempt for the genre and its readers, but he’s not completely wrong either. It’s a fantasy. A pleasant one. We all need fantasy, don’t you think? There’s no harm in it, and if you choose the right one, you come back to the real world a little happier, with an itch scratched. That’s the idea, anyway.”
“I understand you and Scotty had an encounter Tuesday night. In private.”
“Ah. There it is. You’ve been talking to Josue.”
“What were you and Scotty fighting about?”
“Nothing. It was trivial. A disagreement.”
“It sounded like more than a disagreement. Things were thrown. Shouting.”
“You already know he doesn’t like my book. He decided to tell me in person.”
“In private? Just the two of you? In his hotel room, while his husband was away?”
“That’s right.” Serenity smiled. “You’re wasting your time with me. I’m the best-selling author in the genre. Do you understand that? I hold workshops, and people travel from around the world to learn how I do it. I didn’t have any reason to want to hurt Scotty. You’re looking at the wrong tier.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Scotty might not have been quite at my level, but we were relatively equal. You need to be looking at the little people. The authors scrambling for his attention, his approval, his blessing. His imprimatur, if you’ll pardon the joke. Scotty might not be able to do much damage to me with his rants and stunts, but a newer author, or one who wasn’t as well established…” Serenity gave a one-shouldered shrug.
“Do you have someone in mind?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. You’re such a good little gay detective. Really well done. Do you know JD Hathaway?”
“She was on the panel. There was some sort of dustup—she wasn’t supposed to be, but then she got on somehow.”
“Somehow, yes. Scotty insisted we include her, and poor Karen got left by the side of the road. And Tuesday night, I saw JD follow Scotty into the men’s room downstairs, right before Yasmin made the changes to the panel. Quite the coincidence, no?”
“You’re sure that’s what you saw?”
“Positive.” Serenity stretched; it must have been intended to be catlike, but her joints popped, and she looked more like an old tree in a strong wind. “Now, let’s get you and your boyfriend settled for some really good stories. I hope you have some sexy ones. My readers love some heat.”
“No,” North said. “We’re not going to be doing that.”
He made his way to the double doors and pushed them open.
“—had the rent boy tied to the hood of his Buick and—North?”
“Let’s go.”
“He’s just getting to the good part,” the man with the teddy-bear slide protested.
“Too bad,” North said. “You can read the rest of the story when his book comes out.”
“Really?” the beagle-faced woman said. “What’s it called? When is the launch party?”
Seizing Shaw by the arm, North turned him toward the door. “Pube-Snatcher Confessions Part I,” North said without looking back. “The first Friday of get a fucking clue.”
“When does part two come out?” That sounded like Teddy-Bear slide again.
When they were out in the hall, Shaw said, “North, that’s genius.”
North groaned as they made their way to the elevator.
“I could be like Watson, and you could be like Sherlock Holmes, and I’ll document all our adventures.”
North jammed the down button.
“Updated for the twenty-first century, of course. And with some sexy times. Because, you know, everybody likes to read about sexy times. I could even include some details, you know, to make them unique. Like, how you like it when I touch that spot between your—” Shaw glanced up and must have seen something on North’s face because he swallowed. “Um, you know what? Maybe I need to do some more brainstorming.”
“Do that,” North said. “Silently.”
Chapter 15
THE ROYAL EXCALIBUR’S LARGEST convention hall was called Pendragon, and Shaw smiled as he tapped the plaque. “That’s kind of cute, right?”
North grunted. “Pendragon is a person, not a place. They need to read a little more fucking closely.”
“But it’s perfect for authors. Pen, you know? And some of them write about dragons.”
“All of them write about dragons,” Heidi said, stopping at the doors next to them. Her T-shirt was a Black Power fist that had been designed to look like the Infinity Gauntlet. “They just don’t all admit it.”
“How are you?” Shaw asked. “Feeling any better?”
“Police and hospital administration are a very time-consuming combo. They told me to drink a lot of water; how’s that for medical advice? It does seem to be helping. I feel more normal, anyway, or maybe that’s just the effects wearing off on their own.”
“How did everyone else seem?” North asked.
“Did I notice any suspicious behavior, you mean? Do I have any suspects?” Heidi smiled. “Unfortunately, everyone acted the same: freaked out. And then, when the freak-out wore off, they all acted annoyed. They’re paying to be here, after all, and they wanted to get back as quickly as possible.”
North just grunted again.
“Have you been to one of these before?” Heidi asked, nodding at the doors to Pendragon. “Things can get interesting.”
“I got the general idea in the lobby this morning.”
Laughing softly, Heidi shook her head. “You’re in for a treat.”
She opened the doors and headed into the convention hall, and North and Shaw followed. A wall of stimuli met them, and Shaw’s immediate reaction was overload. The room was huge, but it was still packed with milling bodies. The smell of sweat, overheated flesh, and wet footwear floated like an almost-visible funk. Voices clamored, competing to be heard. A man shouted out the sales copy for his book. Another man was yodeling. People seemed determined to outdo each other: Shaw spotted several more Lars cosplayers, although so far, nobody else had decided to dress up as Twerpy Twink, while a man who had to be well over six feet tall stomped through the crowd in a leather blacksmith’s apron, with a puffy blouse and hotpants underneath it. A woman was swinging a six-foot-long blow-up penis like a sword; it took Shaw a moment to realize she was fencing with another woman, who carried an identical phallic weapon. A man in a rainbow-sequin ball gown waltzed with an invisible partner. At the closest author booth, a woman was strapped to a Wheel of Death and being spun while men and women threw penis-shaped darts at her.
“Good Lord,” North muttered.
“Told you,” Heidi said with a smirk. “Actually, most of these people are really, really cool. They’re just wild and creative, and this is an outlet for them.”
North opened his mouth, obviously intending to respond at great length to this proposition. Before he could, though, a blast of louder-than-usual yodeling cut him off.
Shaw seized the opportunity. “Do you know where JD’s booth is?”
Heidi cupped her ear, and Shaw shouted the question.
Nodding, Heidi beckoned for them to follow.
The crowd was so dense that there was barely room for Heidi and Shaw to wriggle between people. Shaw wondered how North was going to manage it until he saw North shoulder his way between a pair of men who were holding rainbow tights up to the light.
“Rude,” one of the men called.
“Bitch,” the other shouted, wielding the tights like a bullwhip. “You wish you were Lars, you fucking wannabe.”
North started to turn.
“Oh no,” Shaw said, catching his hand. “Come on.”
“That’s right,” the man with the rainbow tights shrieked after them. “Run away with your Twerpy Twink.”
“Hold on,” North said, trying to disengage Shaw’s grip. “I forgot something back at the car.”
Laughing, Shaw towed him through the crowd.
Pendragon was a maze of tables and booths. The authors seemed to be cut from the same cloth as the readers, and while Shaw saw a few sedate specimens—one woman, for example, was sitting at an undecorated folding table, a single book in front of her, while she knitted what looked like a T-back—for the most part, the authors might have been even more extreme. A woman who had clearly been through a few hundred rounds of cosmetic surgery was wearing a steampunk headpiece that was a nightmare concoction of hypodermic needles, syringes filled with colorful liquids, and leather straps. A man in a gimp suit was signing copies of In the Reverend’s Basement. At one booth, a man wearing a navy blue sherwani was auctioning off a stainless-steel dabba; behind him, a massive poster announced the upcoming release of The Sikh and the Maharaja.
When Shaw veered toward the booth, North caught him by one strap of his tank.
“But I have the same kurta,” Shaw said.
“Great,” North said, yanking so hard that for a moment, Shaw thought the strap would tear. “Put it in your newsletter.”
By the time they reached JD’s booth, Shaw had added almost a hundred books to his to-read list.
JD’s display was, for Shaw anyway, something of a letdown: it had a white table runner, several books displayed on plastic stands, and a massive poster behind her that featured a very well-built man who had lost most of his clothes. At the bottom of the display ran a row of book covers that clearly belonged to the same series: Uffe Goes to West Point, Uffe Goes to the Naval Academy, Uffe goes to the Commandant’s Office. Judging by the covers, Shaw guessed that military life involved a lot of spanking and paddling. At the front of the table, printed in black-and-white on a standard piece of paper, JD had listed a kind of authorial menu: Photographs: $5 – Autographs: $10 – Autographed Photograph: $12 – BUY FOURTEEN BOOKS AND GET THE FIFTEENTH FREE – ALL PRICES AS MARKED – PLEASE DO NOT ASK FOR REVIEW COPIES, THIS IS MY LIVELIHOOD. RESPECT THAT. There was no sign of the dragon books she had made Shaw buy in the lobby earlier that day.
“We’ll have two of the autographed photographs,” Shaw said to JD, who was prowling behind the table, eyes flicking over the faces of passersby.
“No,” North said. “We won’t.”
“It’s a great deal, North. We’ll save three dollars. Times two, that’s six.”
“No.”
“You were just telling me that business is going great this year, and I really think we can afford it. Besides, we have to reward ourselves for all our hard work, or what’s the point?”
“Do you have a few minutes to talk?” North said to JD.
“No,” she said. The fluorescents shellacked her platinum-colored pixie cut with a yellowish tinge. “I’m working.”
“Let me rephrase that,” North said. “We’re going to talk. Right now. Nobody’s beating down your door, and you can’t walk away from…whatever this is, so we’re going to have a conversation.”
JD shot him a furious look, her leathery features twisted.
Shaw tapped North’s arm. “Why don’t you take a break? Look around.” Fishing out his wallet, Shaw added, “Buy yourself something nice.” He held out a dollar bill. “But don’t spend it all in one place.”
North stared at him.
“I’m serious, North. Don’t spend it all on comic books and horehound candy and Necco wafers.”
“I’m taking this dollar because you’re a spoiled fucking brat who doesn’t know the real value of money,” North said as he snatched the bill. “Not because I’m going to—”
“Spend it all on Moon Pies and butterscotch discs.”
North spun around and stalked away. Heidi gave North a bemused look and went after him.
“Sorry,” Shaw said. “He gets really grumpy when he sees all these half-naked guys. Plus he can’t read, so you know, it’s very stressful.”
JD was still prowling, her eyes only occasionally flitting toward Shaw.
“So,” Shaw said, “I really love Pierced by My Dragon-Mate’s Fang: Babysitter Confessionals Volume 12. Like, I’m only about eight pages in, when the babysitter gets bred on top of the playhouse, but it’s really, really good.”
Whatever JD mumbled, Shaw didn’t catch it.
“And I was wondering if you could sign my book?”
“Autographs are ten dollars,” JD muttered, waving a hand at the sign.
“Of course.” Shaw produced a bill, passed it over, and then handed her the paperback. As JD scribbled something on the page, he said, “So, you really make your living this way? I thought for most authors it was more of a hobby.”
“It’s not a hobby,” JD snapped, her eyes coming to Shaw as though seeing him for the first time. “I’m a professional. Does this look like something an amateur would produce?” She grabbed a book and waved it in Shaw’s face. Uffe Goes to the Firing Range. Uffe was straddling an M4 and looked in danger of getting some of his dangly bits caught in the ejector. “That’s the work of a professional.”
“Yes, right,” Shaw said, gently moving the book away from his nose. “But there just isn’t that much money left in publishing—”
“Don’t get started on that,” JD said. She dropped the book in its stand. “People who say that have no idea what they’re talking about. They don’t understand that publishing is a business, like any business. We’re selling an experience; that’s all. The experience happens to come in the form of a book, but it’s still a sale, and sales are the same whether you’re selling an airplane or Tiddlywinks.”
“How do you sell something?”
“You hustle,” JD said. She paused her pacing again and fixed him with a look. Shaw must have passed the test because she said, “You work your ass off, you never stop looking for the next customer, and you don’t take no for an answer.”
“That’s interesting. Serenity said something about selling a fantasy too.”
“Serenity. Mary Angela. They have no idea what they’re doing. They play with their spreadsheets and they talk about their PAs and their marketing consultants, but bottom line, they’re just lucky. They got in when the genre was starting to explode, and they never had to work for their success.”
“Right place, right time.”
“Exactly. Not like me. I’ve had to claw my way up the charts. I’m the only one on that panel who deserved to be there.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Shaw said. “I mean, really? Because I’m sure the convention organizers were very careful about how they selected the authors for the Superstar Panel. I know they picked you for a good reason, but Scotty, Mary Angela, Serenity, and Clarence—well, they all have a lot more—”
