Dead Sexy: Second Endings 1 Read online

  “I’m researching my next illustration. It needs to show how viruses can plug into cell walls.” I gestured with my hands, trying to mimic the action that would happen when receptors engaged.

  That sounds like you need to focus, I’ll come back. He seemed very understanding.

  “Thanks, I do need to focus on this,” I said.

  He nodded in understanding, and was gone. I wasn’t fully convinced that I hadn’t had a mental break, and that I wasn’t talking to my new imaginary friend. Peter? I first asked in my head, and then out loud, “Peter? Peter?”

  I tentatively looked around. I couldn’t “see” him. I needed to take a break from work before I mentally snapped, if I hadn’t already. I went to the restroom to splash cool water on my face. It took a few times of rinsing before I felt human again. Staring at myself in the mirror didn’t help.

  Is that what a crazy person looks like? I mean, there are always comments floating around about how crazy redheads are, and with my freckles, blue eyes, and bright orange hair, they don’t get much more redheaded than me. Back in my cube, I pretended to work. Regaining my focus on the research took some time, but I was finally able to get my energy back aligned to the task at hand. I could not shake the thought that Peter was real and not simply in my head.

  I got used to his presence pretty fast. Within a week, Peter pretty much hung out with me constantly, either at home or at work. Every time he showed up, I would leak a little. The eyes would fill up. A few blinks was all it took to calm things down.

  The biggest difference between daytime Peter and dream-time Peter was a lack of sensory input. When he visited during the day, I couldn’t hear his movements, something I fully experienced in dreams. Since I couldn’t hear him, he really could sneak up on me. I think he actually enjoyed that. I tended to jump. I was being spooked by a ghost. Ironic or expected?

  The problem with Peter was he could control how my brain saw him, and he was flirty. There was a comfort level hanging out with middle-aged Peter that I didn’t have when he decided to show up looking younger. Older Peter was calm, and didn’t interfere. I could focus and work; I could banter the flirt right back into his court. I tended to get giggly and stupid when he showed up looking like Johnny from Trouble Trouble. He got a little flirty and I went full fan girl on him. My five-year-old’s crush would slam right back into me and I would constantly blush, and stammer, and be generally stupid.

  You’re crying.

  “Shut up.” I focused on the onions in front of me and tried to ignore the fact that when I closed my eyes, Peter was distractingly gorgeous. His skin was taut, and there was something about his neck, and that chin. He had never shown up quite this hot before.

  Not looking my best, I was in the middle of my food prep for the week. That meant being dressed for chores and involved chopping onions and peppers, making a big pot of rice, and prepping a few crock-pot meals. Crock-pot meals were in the freezer, the rice was on the stove, and the onions were in front of me.

  I still needed to hard boil a bunch of eggs. The kitchen in Mike’s condo is long and narrow with appliances on one side, and a long island counter with bar stools on the other. I worked at the counter.

  I already had one onion chopped and stored in a mason jar, the rest lined up in front of me waiting their turn. Peter sat on one of the bar stools on the opposite side of the island and leaned over watching me chop. The first onion had already started me crying, then Peter showed up, and I leaked even more.

  In typical early twenties male fashion, Peter decided my leaking was fodder for picking on me. He had shown up a la Johnny from the show with his silky blond mullet and stone washed jeans. I was defenseless against him. I honestly knew why I was defenseless, even with the dated clothes and bad hair, he was beyond cute, straight into dead sexy, and I went giddy.

  You have a cute little nose.

  A blush burned my cheeks.

  You’re blushing.

  “Shut up.” I blushed harder. I know I turned an even brighter shade of red, and that it ran down my cheeks onto my chest, and probably all the way to my toes. I put the knife down in exasperation.

  He leaned farther over the counter and tried to look down my shirt. You’re blushing as far down as I can see. He laughed.

  I clasped my hand to my chest, plastering the V-neck to my skin so there was no gap to look down.

  He tried to bop me on the nose. I could almost see him while my focus was on the chopping in front of me. The tears in my eyes welled up again. Interesting, I leaked if he touched me.

  So, Gillian, Gilly, Gil. Is your last name really Denver?

  Yes, like the city in Colorado. I answered in my head, conscious that Mike might come home at any time and see me talking to thin air. I tried to refocus on the onion. I wanted the vegetable in thin half circle cuts, not my fingers.

  I was thinking more like that actor Bob Denver.

  Why? No relation that I’m aware of. Or is everything with you somehow connected to TV and Hollywood? I asked.

  Gil, like Gilligan, as in Gilligan’s Island. Bob Denver played Gilligan, and your last name is Denver and your name is pronounced Gillian like Gilligan. He cocked his head to the side regarding me.

  I can’t say that I’ve ever had that connection made before. That was a blatant lie. I had. As a kid more than enough people called me Gilligan. It was not a nick name I was particularly fond of, it was a close second to being called Red. If I knew you and I liked you, I’d accept being called Red. Random people calling me Red, or Gilligan, irked me. Other nicknames that annoyed me included Wendy, Pippy, Carrot Top, and Pumpkin Head. I never got the cool redhead nicknames like Pepper or Ginger or Rusty.

  Gilligan, he bopped me on the nose again. My eyes were closed so I almost actually ‘saw’ the action this time.

  I wanted to glare at him, give him my weary, why-are-you-torturing-me-look. I couldn’t glare, because I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t glare, because I was blushing like a stop sign. I pointed my face at him, so I could see him in my brain. He smirked at me.

  Cut it out with the nose bops. You keep making me tear up.

  That’s the onions, Gilligan.

  Really, you’re gonna call me that now? Pete. I emphasized the shortened variation of his name. David hated being called Dave. I thought the nick-name might annoy Peter. It didn’t.

  Pete works for me. What would you rather I call you? Red?

  I glared into the empty space where he sat. How did he know? He was doing that on purpose. Maybe during one of our previous conversations I admitted to not liking being called Red. Or maybe he had been around enough redheads to gauge that response. Either way, as he toyed with me, I did my best to shoot daggers from my mental eyes.

  Ok not Red, he said in defeat.

  My focus returned to processing my onions. The timer on the stove beeped, and I grabbed a fork to fluff the rice. Once cooled, I would transfer the rice into a refrigerator container. The onions were almost done. Once the eggs were boiled, my weekly food prep would be complete.

  I guess you can call me Gilligan, just not Red. Please not Red, I pleaded, whining. I couldn’t begin to describe how much I hated being called Red. Too many bad memories. I’m serious, okay Peter? Not Red. I felt the joy leave me thinking about the hell of being called Red as a kid.

  His tone was sober as he confirmed, not Red.

  Peter continued to hang out with me as I finished chopping. I enjoyed my time with him, but the back of my mind tickled with the all mighty “why.” Why was Peter hanging out with me? Did he need something from me? Why me?

  When it was time to move on to my next get-ready-for-the-week chore he abandoned me. I guess folding laundry and watching TV were not as entertaining as watching me chop onions. Too bad, he missed being able to comment on my underwear.

  3

  My best friend, Trina, and her precocious toddler, Sophie, were already making headway into a basket of fries and a bowl of ketchup. A tall iced coke waited for me.
I plopped myself into the booth and dropped the stack of notebooks I brought.

  “What’s all that?” Trina asked.

  I pushed one of the spiral notebooks toward her, opened it. Tapping at the page I said, “Read.”

  Trina squinted at me, but asked no questions. She began reading.

  I bounced on my hands and watched. My gaze would jump from her face to the page, then back to her face. She read five pages of my chicken scratch handwriting before she looked up.

  “This is good, Gil. When did you decide to start writing?”

  I waggled a finger at the notebook. “Keep reading, it’s about to get hot. At least, I think it’s hot.”

  Trina returned to the notebook. Her eyes bugged out a bit when she got to the part I wanted her to read. I needed to know if the sex scene I put down was steamy or too much like a wet-dream fantasy of mine.

  She looked up. “This is Peter isn’t it?” She swiveled the notebook back at me and tapped at a sketch of a superhero quality man with broad shoulders, a modern take on that nineteen-eighty’s mullet. Underneath, I had a close up of his eyes.

  “Uh huh.” I nodded.

  As my one true bestie, I confided in Trina about my dreams with Peter. As an energy worker and crystal healer, she accepted my stories and helped me to figure out how to deal with Peter. She was the metaphysical-yin to my scientific-yang.

  “I might need a cold shower after this,” she said returning to the story I had written. “I guess it’s a good thing I can’t see him for real, ’cause I might blush.” She closed the notebook and pushed it back to me. “That’s hot. Where did that come from?”

  I was still bouncing, excited to finally be able to share it with her.

  “I know what Peter wants. This just started pouring out of my fingers. I know he’s somehow feeding it to me. It feels like I can’t write it fast enough,” I explained, or thought I had explained.

  “What does Peter want, Gil?”

  I turned to the back of one of the notebooks and gave Sophie a pen so she could scribble while we talked. Trina pulled out another pen for Sophie. She had two colors to draw with, and was completely occupied.

  “He wants a do-over. He feels like he really messed things up the last five to ten years or so of his life. So,” I paused dramatically, “with his help, I’m recreating his life from the point he thinks things went wrong. I’m going to write a book. I know so much about what needs to happen. Things Peter has said are coming together, and I’m going to switch it around. He once told me he fell in love with the wrong woman, and he made some bad choices as an actor. So, he’s going to become Johnny Urban. Johnny Urban successfully makes the transition from child protégé pop-star to action-hero. The story is after that point, but he’s got that history as a singer so I can have him serenade the girl.

  “I’m writing it the way Peter wishes things had happened. Like, instead of turning down a smaller role in a bigger movie to take a bigger role in a smaller movie, he’s going to take that smaller role. Johnny Urban will own that part and character so completely, everyone notices, and bigger parts start coming in. In the middle of this career surge, he’s surrounded by beautiful starlets, and dates a few of them but never anything serious.

  “He meets this girl. Completely not the Hollywood type. And he keeps seeing her day after day at this bus stop. She is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. I’m not sure if she’s heard of him or not. I kind of like the idea that she’s not a big movie watcher, so doesn’t know who he is. Or maybe she does know and isn’t a fan-girl type. Anyway, they talk, and they become friends. Eventually, they start dating, blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda. What do you think so far?” I was excited, and desperate for some feedback.

  “I think you need to breathe!”

  I guess I had been going on non-stop. I felt charged. I knew what Peter needed, and with his help, this was really easy. I had never considered myself much of a writer before, but the words were rushing out of my fingers. I needed to practice my typing skills—I wrote by hand faster than I could type. At some point, I would have to transcribe all those pages.

  So far, I had filled one and a half spiral notebooks with the story of Johnny Urban and Michelle Cole. I knew exactly what needed to happen. Johnny Urban would meet and fall in love with a woman not in the film industry, and not a fan. She was going to be interested in him because he made her laugh, and not because of his fame.

  He would still be injured, but instead of ignoring physical therapy and getting back into acting too soon, he would actually take time off to properly recover, and start a family. I knew that was one of Peter’s big regrets, he didn’t have any kids. He had told me it was something he really missed about Trouble Trouble, the cast felt more like a family than a group of people who worked together.

  He wasn’t from a big family, and only had one brother. They had been close as kids, but grew apart as adults. By writing it out, I could help Peter repair that relationship, give him a bigger, closer family. Create, in fiction, a world he would have been happier in.

  “Well, I can’t wait to read more. What genre are you going for? Chick lit? Romance? General fiction? Erotica?” Trina laughed at that last one.

  “I think it will be romance, a nice contemporary romance. That way I can focus on the relationships that seem to be the most important. I don’t think I could write it if it was suspense and action heavy, or even a mystery. I have no idea if I’m any good at weaving all those pieces together that you get in really thick fiction. You know, the kinds with lots of characters and they each have a storyline that somehow feeds into to bigger picture. I don’t know if I can do that bigger-picture fiction, so far this smaller focused storyline with a few key relationships seems to be working.”

  My lunch arrived and I stabbed the salad I ordered. Why was I trying to be healthy today? “I have all these little ideas and scenes in my head. I have to change his look, I don’t want anyone reading it to instantly think of Peter Keith, but I still need it to be Peter. I can’t picture him with dark hair in my mind, so maybe I’ll make him taller and give him blue eyes. But, he needs to keep the blond hair.”

  “Maybe they’ll think it’s the character from Trouble Trouble instead.”

  “Yeah, I did use the name Johnny. I needed for there to be some connection. I almost considered using his name, Peter, or even Keith. I’m writing this for him really, but he wants other people to see it. That means I really am writing this to see if I can get something published.”

  “Is that something you want to do? Write his story and become a published author?”

  “Why not? I have all these other stories in my head. Things I mostly thought I would someday either animate or create a graphic novel of. Why not try my hand at just writing? It could be fun.”

  Trina nodded as she chewed. “So, what do you get out of it? You’re helping Peter, what is he going to do for you? Or is he just a muse?”

  “He promised that he would help me get one of my ideas written out. I’ll help him with his story, and then he’ll help me with mine.”

  “And what’s this idea of yours?”

  I had been holding this idea in my head for so long, it was a relief to finally tell someone and not have them think I was a random weirdo. Trina knew I was a creative weirdo. My hands flew as I spoke. “I’ve wanted to do a graphic novel. Science fiction, a worlds collide, Martian invasion type of thing. Okay, so this one time, when my hair was longer, and, okay don’t get grossed out on me. When I wash my hair and it pulls out, I would get the hair off my hands by putting it on the shower wall. Sometimes, I would forget to clean it off afterwards, and it would dry stuck to the shower wall. I started to notice shapes in the strands of hair. What if there were hidden messages in the hair?

  “So then, I thought what if I meshed the secret messages in the hair with the invading aliens? I think it would be cool. It would have to include psychics and talking bugs. It never really went anywhere. Peter said it was an interestin
g idea and he would help me do something with it.” I was beyond animated describing this surreal, dreamlike idea to her.

  Trina was my opposite. Calm and collected to my frantic enthusiasm. “That is an interesting idea. And you said he’s willing to help you develop it?”

  I nodded with fervor.

  “Seems like a fair enough trade.” Trina nodded. After a few bites of food, she asked, “How are things with David?”

  David and I were in that comfortable with each other phase of the relationship, spending weekends together, and one or two mid-week dates. Then she told me all about her latest fiasco with the mother-in-law. I listened and lived the family life vicariously through Trina, taking mental notes on how to deal with my future mother-in-law. I liked David’s mother. I think we would get along just fine in a mother-daughter role. David just needed to catch up.

  4

  When I got home after work, I was eager to get back to writing. I had already spent every non-work minute doing so. Peter’s story was taking on a life of its own, and I wanted to see where it went next.

  Mike sat watching TV when I came in the back door. I tossed my keys onto the counter and stared at the television before making my way up to my room.

  “Hey Mike,” I said as I began climbing the stairs. “You watching football again?” I didn’t understand the game, and Mike seemed to not care about any specific team or the scores, yet he watched it a lot.

  “No, I’m watching the locker room. It’s so homoerotic.”

  I laughed. “It’s only homoerotic because you’re a homo and you find it erotic.”

  “You are not wrong there, girlfriend. Just look at all that beef cake.” Mike pointed at the screen. I tried to see it from his point of view. Big sweaty men wandering around in assorted stages of being geared up and undressing. Okay, that caught my attention. Thighs, tight butts, and, ooh, one of them walked passed the camera in just a towel. Dang, the man was built like a comic book hero, all muscles, shaped like an inverted triangle, and with that Adonis belt V.