She never had been, really. Corrie Colman — or that is, Corrie Climer — was a successful young woman, but in my memory, she would always be the girl who dry-humped me on her couch, like we were high schoolers under the bleachers; forever the sexy dirty little thing who thoughtfully picked up extra napkins so she could give me a hand job during The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Of all the sex stuff I encountered in that depraved place known as Memphis, Tennessee, those innocent memories — innocent by way of comparison, anyway — would stay sharp while the debauchery I experienced and witnessed would blur into just so many more meaningless sexual encounters.
“This place hasn’t changed much, anyway,” I said, nodding to the kitchen around us. “Are you living here?”
“I am. Very convenient to our offices, at least till we expand in a few years. One of these days I’ll remodel. Getting Climax Publications in order was the priority, and this is just a place to crash, admittedly a pretty decadent one. Maybe... maybe you’d like to stay over a few days.”
“What did you do with the Clampetts’ mansion?”
“It’s on the market. Why, are you interested?” That made us both laugh.
Then she got serious. “How would you like to do more than just hang out for a while?”
“Not sure I follow.”
Her brown eyes were big and beautiful and as earnest as those of the nut who shot her uncle. “I could use a man, a smart man, who could stay on with me and build a new, responsible empire out of the old Climax. We could change the world, Jack, and get rich along the way.”
I thanked her and said I’d think about it, but also that I couldn’t stay.
“But, hey, I’ll be back through this way again, before you know it,” I lied.
Sure, it was a hell of an opportunity. A cushy life with a smart, beautiful woman. But I had a couple of sweet sexy memories with this girl that I didn’t want to mess up. And like I said once, we all have our secrets, and one of mine was that I’d killed her father.
So, yeah — I suppose I’ve done some bad things in my life.
But I just can’t see myself as a fucking pornographer.
Author’s Note
Despite its period setting, Quarry’s Climax is not exactly an historical novel, and does not intend to suggest real people or events.
The Cinemax TV series, Quarry, imagined an expanded origin story for my character, including substituting for my Midwestern setting a backdrop of Memphis, Tennessee. By way of acknowledgment, and as a hat tip to writers Graham Gordy and Michael D. Fuller (who developed the show based upon my novels), I have taken Quarry to Memphis in these pages. While I spent a week in that city during the shooting of the series pilot, Quarry’s Climax takes place in the Memphis of my imagination, the geography at times suggesting the real town and in other instances the needs of this narrative.
I’d like to acknowledge the following articles: “When It Was Hip to Be Square” by Michael Finger, Memphis Magazine (2001); “The History of George’s Disco” by Vincent Astor, Memphis Vive Magazine (no date given); “The Night They Raided the Highland Strip” by David Dawson, The Memphis Flyer (2001); “Fear and Loathing on the Highland Strip” by Patrick Lantrip, The Daily Helmsman (2013); and the Historic-Memphis web site, as well as numerous other Internet sources dealing with Memphis and other topics.
My thanks to Graham and Michael, and to my wife and inhouse editor Barb, as well as my agent, Dominick Abel, and Quarry’s friend, editor and publisher, Charles Ardai, without whom the revival of interest in a character I created in 1971 is unlikely to have occurred.