Sex in the Title (38 page)

“BF? What’s BF? Body Foulness?” Heeb’s guess was based on the hand gesture. Narc shook his head.

“BF is the opposite of FB.

“So what’s an FB?”

“A fuck buddy,” explained Narc, who seemed a tad amused that Heeb didn’t know.

“Oh I see. So BF would be a boyfriend.”

“Word; a BF is really just an FB, but with obligations and restrictions.”

“That’s BS.”

“What is?”

“The fact that the order of the letters makes such a huge difference.”

“I guess,” Narc conceded in amusement.

“But it gets worse. Look at God, live, star, and stun. If you spell those words backwards you get dog, evil, rats, and nuts.”

Narc looked at Heeb as if he were from another planet.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to be a nerdy SOB who elaborates on linguistic BS in the middle of a club called SOB,” Heeb added delightfully.

“Naw, you’re just bein’ a CB right now,” Narc replied.

“What’s that?”

“A Cock Blocker.”

“A Cock Blocker?” Heeb asked, somewhat confused.

“You know, from that Kool G rap song?”

“Oh, because we should be focused on ladies rather than linguistics.”

“Word.”

“Well, getting back to the ladies, I’m very bummed that that TH has a BF.”

“What’s a TH?”

“A Traffic Hazard,” Heeb clarified.

“Oh you mean because the woman is so hot she’ll take your eyes off the road?” Narc confirmed.

“Exactly.”

“She’s definitely a TH – a TH with a BF. But that’s why we’re in a club, Heeb. So you can keep on moving when that happens.”

“I hear you. But she was the one for tonight, I think.”

“Well – I don’t recommend this – but if you’re really feelin’ her, I could try to get friendly with her man and pull a legit CB. You know, get him away from his lady long enough for you to get her digits.”

“No. I can’t do that,” Heeb protested.

“Why not? It’s doable if your game is good.”

“No, it’s against my ethics – like hitting on married women…That’s being a home wrecker. And I’m a firm believer in home improvement.”

“True ‘dat. And home wrecking can get her man vexed,” Narc observed.

“Yes. Collapsing homes can cause severe bodily harm to those in the immediate vicinity.”

Heeb and Evan benefited differently from the posse. For Heeb, the group was the largest circle of reliable, good-looking, and “cool” male friends he had ever had, and consequently provided a tremendous boon to his badly damaged male ego. For Evan, who had enjoyed male packs of almost comparable size and quality in many prior years, the posse provided more literary inspiration than SQ elevation. While Evan was, in spirit, every bit a member of the posse as the others, his heart remained reserved for Delilah Nakova, no matter how much he tried to tell himself and others that he was “free to see other people.”

Although Evan never missed a posse adventure and always contributed whatever charm and risk-taking the night called for on his part, he increasingly viewed everything that happened and everyone they met as potential fodder for the novel that would unite him and his love. One time, Trevor confronted him about the issue after he caught him jotting something down immediately after Trevor had answered his question.

“What are you always writing there, mate?”

“It’s for my novel.”

“You’re not nicking my words are you?”

“Just noting the noteworthy.”

“I’ve got to be careful what I say around you.”

“Afraid of the unflattering exposure, are you?”

“You know, you really should give people their Miranda rights when they first meet you so that they have fair notice. Something like, ‘You have the right to remain silent or walk away. Anything you say or do may appear in my novel.”

“Do you mind if I quote that joke in my novel?” Evan asked.

Trevor rolled his eyes and shook his head in amusement.

And so the other posse members came to expect that Evan would always be documenting their time together. His ever-present pen and paper also provided pretexts for various openers by him, and sometimes even by forward females wondering what he was writing. This advantage, as far as the other members were concerned, was enough to justify whatever oddity the posse stenographer represented.

Chapter 27
Sex in the Title

By late January 2001, the clan had been out seven times together (although they celebrated New Year’s without Carlos, who was with Carolina), and Evan had finally finished the novel that was entirely designed and destined for Delilah. As he was printing out the first draft, he called Heeb and put his cordless phone near the noise made by his printer.

“You hear that?” Evan asked. “That’s the sound of completion, my friend!”

“That’s great, Evan. But do you have a good title yet?”

“Would you stop carping about the title? It’s the body that counts. That’s where the sleep is lost, the hair is pulled, the sardine dinners are eaten, and the schizophrenia is developed.”

“You’re definitely right about the schizophrenia part.”

“Are you dismissing the five hour discussion I had last night?”

“With whom?”

“The two main characters in my novel.”

“Yeah, yeah. Very funny. So did you come up with a title for it? Preferably with the word sex?”

“Delilah’s too sophisticated to like a novel just because it has the word ‘Sex’ in the title.”

“You’re making a huge mistake, Evan. Trust me on this.”

“I can’t believe you’re serious about this.” Evan began to pace around his apartment restlessly. He was in the mood to celebrate wildly and receive enthusiastic congratulations but was encountering stiff resistance from his good friend over trivial details.

“Evan, it doesn’t matter what else you’ve written if you can’t get her to the first page. And sex is the best way to do it. Look at you: you read those cheesy frat boy rags with sex plastered everywhere on them.”

“But she’s so much better than me, Heeb.”

“Evan, unless she’s Mother Theresa, the word sex will still intrigue her the way it does everyone else.”

“So what do you want me to call it? Sex With Delilah? Or should I be truer to life and call it ‘Sex Without Delilah.’”

“They both sound too much like a stalker’s confession…How about “Sexy Delilah?”

“That’s too direct. And too sycophantic. I need something more subtle,” Evan said, now sounding genuinely troubled about not having a suitable title.

“How about Sex and Sexuality?” Heeb suggested. “You know, a kind of play off of ‘Sense and Sensibility’?”

“Sex and Sexuality? That sounds like the title for some biology book. Or some mildly pornographic guide to lovemaking.”

Evan began to pace more nervously. “Just let me think for a sec,” he said, to curb Heeb’s distractingly bad suggestions. There was a long silence as Evan walked wildly all over his tiny apartment with the cordless phone in his hand, feverishly brainstorming for just the right title with the word “sex” in it.

“I got it! I got it!” Heeb declared triumphantly.

Evan stopped in the middle of his kitchenette to hear Heeb’s idea.

“Sex in the Title.”

“Yeah, that’s what you’ve been saying I need.”

“No, that’s the title: ‘Sex in the Title.’”

“You want me to call my novel ‘Sex in the Title?’”

“Yeah. Isn’t it great?”

“To quote that bimbo model from last Saturday night, that’s the most retardest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s completely idiotic. That title makes no sense at all. It’s the worst thing you’ve come up with yet.”

“It was a joke, Evan.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, what better way to tease you about your title troubles than to state them in the title itself?”

“All right, but now you’ve got me obsessing about the title.”

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something good.”

“Let me think for a second.”

Heeb patiently waited in silence for a few moments.

“The funny thing is,” Evan began, “as I think about it some more now, there’s actually something kind of appealing about Sex in the Title.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I kind of like how the incoherence – or rather the suggestion of coherence – is unshakably intriguing to the mind.”

“It was a joke, Evan.”

“But I kind of like it.”

“It’s totally asinine. Ask the characters in your novel. They’ll tell you.”

“I just did. We had a brief conference during that last silent pause. And they all agreed that it’s a good title.”

“So they’re just as whacked as you.”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, don’t come crying to me if the manuscript comes back to you unread.”

“With cheerleaders like you, Heeb, who needs book reviewers?”

“Forget me and the book reviewers. You have a much bigger problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Getting it to her.”

But Evan had already worked out an elegant solution to that problem. He explained to Heeb how his strategy was premised on the unfortunate fact that nothing would happen in Hollywood if it weren’t for the exploited assistant. “Shame on Hollywood for using its glamorous aura to milk starry-eyed newcomers like that!” Evan exclaimed, as if his plan were some Marxist plot to rectify the injustices of Hollywood. Deviating from his usual naysaying, Heeb had to admit that Evan’s plan just might work.

One week later, after several rereads and polishes, Evan finalized the manuscript, and was ready to send it to Delilah Nakova. His prior research had uncovered that she was represented by the International Artists Agency, a prestigious Los Angeles talent agency also known as “IAA.” After some additional research and a few anonymous inquiries (using his best imitation of Trevor’s accent), Evan was able to determine the names and numbers of several assistants who worked with Delilah’s main agent.

The next day, Evan called IAA at 7 p.m. Pacific Time, when he knew that most of the agents were likely to be wooing new clients over cocktails, while their assistants were still laboring away at the office. He tried several extensions until he reached Mike Yuvalov, a fresh UCLA college graduate working at IAA as an intern “assisting the assistant” of a top Hollywood agent.

“Hi Mike. My name is Evan.”

“What can I do for you, Evan?”

Evan chatted him up for a while, developed some trust, made him feel important, and got him talking about life on the exciting inside track to a glamorous Hollywood career. After about ten minutes of rapport building, Evan felt comfortable discussing his proposal.

“Mike, you seem like a nice guy. How would you like to do me a personal favor and make infinitely more money than you make now?”

“One dollar per hour is infinitely more than I make now, so that’s not necessarily such a tempting offer.”

“See that? You’re smart and witty and probably better at math than your boss, and yet you’re getting paid nothing. That’s just scandalous. A moral outrage!”

“Tell me about it.”

“I’m offering to do more than tell you about it. I’ll pay you some real money if you can just help me out with something.”

“How much are we talking?”

“Up to two thousand dollars.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. I am. But since I don’t know you that well and I have no way to verify whether you actually do this personal favor for me, I have to incentivize you properly.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll give you five hundred dollars upfront. And then fifteen hundred dollars on the back-end.”

“If you’re talking about net profits, I know they don’t exist, so I’m not into back-end compensation.”

“You’re good, Mike. Sharp and quick-witted. I like you. This little transaction could evolve into a nice friendship between us.”

“I somehow doubt that, since I don’t really know you.”

“I know you don’t know me. But this phone call is changing all of that. So here’s why the back-end is legitimate in our little situation here. You see, I’ve written a novel that could be a perfect film adaptation project for Delilah Nakova. And I just need to get her the manuscript now. Which is where you come in. All you have to do for the five hundred dollars is put the manuscript which I mail to you into an IAA envelope, include whatever cover note – on IAA stationary – you think will make her read it, and then you’re done.”

“That’s it? You’re offering me five hundred dollars to stuff an envelope and include a cover note?”

“Yup. And that’s five hundred dollars more than your boss pays you to do the same thing every day.”

“Sad but true.”

“So what do you say?”

“I say it sounds good, except for the part about me losing my job afterwards.”

“You’re worried about losing a non-paying job?”

“Well, I’m just weeks away from being promoted from intern to paid assistant.”

“Fair enough. But you won’t lose anything if you don’t mention your name anywhere. Besides, if she ends up loving the manuscript and her agent gets credit for sending it to her, do you really think he’s going to fire anyone? At that point you could probably confess your crime and get a promotion for secretly trying to advance the agency’s interests.”

“You may have a point there.”

“Of course, I have to take the leap of faith that you won’t just pocket the cash and use the manuscript for toilet paper. But you seem like a nice, honest guy, and my manuscript paper isn’t exactly soft, so I’m willing to take that chance.”

“What about that back-end you mentioned?”

“Ah. The back-end. Here’s how it works. The back-end is your little fifteen hundred-dollar bonus if Delilah likes the manuscript enough to contact me directly. So you may want to encourage her a little. You can mention that you thought this story would be perfect for her next project. And you can suggest that she get in touch with me directly. That should significantly improve your odds of getting the back-end.”

“But how can I trust that you’ll actually pay the bonus if she does get in touch with you?”

“That’s where a little bit of trust will have to come into play, Mike. Just like I’m going to have to trust you with that first five hundred dollars. And, you see, if she contacts me, I’ll know that my trust in you paid off. And I’ll be in such a good mood about the beauty of trust that I’ll want to send you an extra, pre-agreed thank you. Besides, I may need you for other favors in the future, so I wouldn’t want to ruin all of that beautiful trust we’d have going on, if you know what I mean.”