But Desiree did. That was all that mattered.
He gazed at the leopard-skin loincloth, hearing Shirley’s words ring in his head. “You aren’t a man’s man. You don’t let yourself go wild.” He sniffed, trying to picture himself in the role she seemed to want him to play. What if Desiree felt the same way? What if all women thought they wanted a nice man but were only attracted to bad boys?
He picked up the witch doctor’s rattle and gave it a playful shake, then put it down by the mask and the shrunken head. Even though she had hurt him, he wasn’t the type either to put a curse on Shirley, or to transform himself for her into a muscular hunk of beefcake like Jungo. He would have needed an awfully large special effects budget to pull that off. Walter held up the leopard-skin loincloth to his waist and considered the fashion statement it would make. It looked ridiculous-even more so in contrast with his work pants and his conservative window-pane plaid shirt.
“If I wore this, what would Desiree think?” Would it convince her that he was a wild man, or would she just think him pale-skinned and scrawny? All alone in the prop warehouse, he had no particular need to hurry up. Carmichael, who never noticed anyone’s hard work, had already said that the props were junk.
Before he could change his mind and think sensibly, Walter unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it off. Taking a deep breath, he slipped off his shoes and trousers and tied on the loincloth. He surveyed the effect, looking critically at his skinny chest, thin arms, white skin, and the leopard-skin loincloth. He cast a skeptical glance at the witch doctor mask. “Exactly how did I expect this to bring out the wild man in me?”
Then something happened.
His heart began to pound like drumbeats in his ears. His skin grew hot and his blood hotter. He felt dizzy and then very, very sure of himself. The worries and confusion of his life seemed to float away like soap bubbles on the wind. His attention focused down to a single pinprick. Everything was so clear, so simple. He had worried too much, thought too much, suppressed all of his natural desires. He drew a deep breath, kept inhaling until his chest swelled. Then on impulse, he pounded on his proudly expanded chest. It felt good and right.
He didn’t have to worry about the prop inventory or about Shirley. She had made a bad choice, and she was gone. He no longer needed to think of her. Outside the sun was bright. He was a man, and Desiree was a woman. Everything else was extraneous, a distraction. He was a hunter, and he knew his quarry. A real man relied on his instincts to tell him what to do.
He let out a warbling call, broadcasting a defiant challenge to anyone who might get in his way. Barefoot, he sprinted like a cheetah out of the prop warehouse and onto the lot. He had seen where Desiree worked. He knew where to find Chris Carmichael’s trailer. His vision tunneled down to that one focus.
He streaked past the people working on various films. Someone made a cat-call, but most of the crews ignored him. Employees at Duro Studios were accustomed to seeing axe-murderers, Martians, barbarians, and monsters of all kinds.
Chris Carmichael’s headquarters were in a dingy, gray-walled trailer on the far end of the east lot. The success of a producer’s films earned him clout in the studios, and Carmichael ’s track record had earned him this unobtrusive trailer and one secretary.
Desiree.
Walter yanked open the door and leaped in. He hadn’t decided what to say or do next, but an ape-man took matters one step at a time. He reacted to situations, without planning in excruciating detail beforehand. Instead of startling Desiree at her keyboard and the producer on the phone, he blundered into a shocking scene that would have made his hackles rise if he’d had any. Carmichael stood with both hands planted on his desk, crouched like a predator ready to spring. Desiree shielded herself on the other side of the desk, trying to keep it, with its empty coffee mugs, framed pictures, and jumbled stacks of scripts, between herself and Carmichael.
He leered at her, moved to the left, and she shifted in the other direction. She was flushed and nervous. “Please, Mr. Carmichael. I’m not that kind of girl.”
“Of course you are,” he said. “If you didn’t want to break into pictures, why would you work in a place like this? I can make you an extra in my next feature, Horror in the Prop Warehouse. Ten-second screen time minimum, but there’s a price. You have to give me something.” Now he circled to the right and she moved in the opposite direction.
“Please, don’t do this. I don’t want to file a complaint, but I’ll call Security if I have to.”
“You do that, and you’ll never work in this town again.”
Before she could reply, Walter let out a bestial roar. He wasn’t sure exactly what happened. Seeing red, he acted on instinct and charged forward. He grabbed the producer by the back of his clean white collar, yanked him away from the desk, and spun him around. As he spluttered, Walter the ape-man landed a powerful roundhouse punch on his chin and knocked him backward into the chair he reserved for visiting actors.
Startled, Desiree gasped, but Walter was already on the move. He bounded over the desk, slipped an arm around her waist, and crashed through the screen of the trailer’s open window, carrying his woman with him. The rest was a blur.
When he could think straight again-after the witch doctor’s spell, or whatever it was wore off-he found himself on the rooftop of one of the back lot sets, sitting next to Desiree, his lips pressed against hers. With a start, he drew back. Her hair was rumpled, her cheeks flushed, and she wore an expression of surprise and amusement. “That was a bit unorthodox, Walter,” she said, “but you were amazing. You saved me when I needed it most.”
“What have I done?” Walter glanced down at the loincloth, flexed his sore knuckles, and knew with absolute certainty that he would soon die from embarrassment. He was sitting half-naked on a roof at work and had just made a complete fool of himself in front of a woman he had a genuine crush on. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” He scuttled backward, stood to look for a ladder or stairs, and quickly found an exit. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Mr. Carmichael’s going to get me fired, for sure.”
“Who, Chris? He has no clue who you are,” she said. “Anyway, I’m going to hand in my own resignation. I’ve had enough of that man.”
“I… I need to put something decent on. I can’t understand what got into me.” He felt his cheeks burning. His legs wobbled, and his knees threatened to knock together. Some ape-man!
Before Desiree could say anything more, he bolted, cringing at the thought that someone else might see him this way-that Desiree had seen him. He was sure Jungo never had days like this.
By the time he got home, Walter was consumed with guilt. He felt flustered, exposed, and too embarrassed for words. He couldn’t believe what he had done, prancing around the lot in nothing more than a loincloth, crashing into the producer’s trailer offices. He had punched out Chris Carmichael! Then, after jumping through a window with Desiree, he had somehow whisked her off to a rooftop and kissed her! He was the very definition of the word “mortified.” To make matters worse, Walter had gotten dressed again, called in a friend to finish clearing out the warehouse, then slunk off the lot, taking Jungo’s loincloth with him. He could justify this, since Carmichael had made it clear that the props could be thrown into a dumpster.