Read Online The Fictional Man by Al Ewing - Free Book Online Page A

from that consisted mainly of launch parties and publicity junkets, and while he did plenty of looking – ogling, even, this was still LA – he always seemed to have an excuse not to ‘seal the deal.’
    “Good God,” he muttered to himself. “Seal the deal.” He sounded like one of those idiots who wrote seduction manuals. How To ‘Neg’ The ‘Hotties’: A Kurt Power Manual. That was a bad sign. Something was obviously starting to curdle.
    Now that he thought seriously about it, the woman he spoke to most regularly – and also the last woman he’d been in any way intimate with – was Iyla, which seemed... off, somehow, in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He’d have to speak to Ralph about it at their next session.
    He sighed, shaking the thought off and allowing his mind to return to the movie. It had reached one of his favourite parts – the casino scene, featuring the first appearance of Joi Lansing as the delectable Kitten Caboodle. Niles found himself perking up. As she leaned forward over the roulette table to serve Dalton Doll his Old Fashioned – “hold the cherry” was evidently thought by the screenwriters to be a serious rival for “shaken not stirred” – Niles reflexively did the same, as if he could somehow peer further down her top than the cameraman had managed to, and when Doll got her back to his pad and she revealed that dress, his hand began, almost unconsciously, to reach down and unbutton his fly –
    – at which point the phone rang.
    “Damn it,” muttered Niles, flushing slightly as he scrabbled around for the smartphone buzzing on the table in front of him. Surely the studio couldn’t need their pitch yet? Or was it Bob, ringing to apologise about his rudeness last night? They’d ended the evening amicably enough, but Niles had spent the taxi ride home fuming, recalling Bob’s tone when he’d referred to Kurt Power and the future Dalton Doll. How dare Bob imply that Niles wasn’t a good writer?
    Niles blinked at the display. It was Iyla.
    The synchronicity unnerved him. He considered ignoring it, but his thumb, seemingly on automatic pilot, slid across the display to answer the call.
    “Hello, Iyla?” He already regretted answering, but he was committed now. He put the film on mute – he could always come back to where he’d been later, and besides, his putative erection had gone back to sleep at the first sight of her name. He wondered exactly when it was that she’d begun having that effect on him.
    “Niles, hi. Listen, it’s not a biggie – were you working?” Her voice was brisk and rich, with a slight hint of the stronger accents of her parents. They’d hated him, of course, particularly at the end when she’d finish most nights by retreating to the spare room and calling them in floods of tears. Her father had once threatened to beat him to death with a tire iron, and it had taken a lot of restraint and understanding for him not to call the police.
    “Yes, I was working,” the author said, as if speaking to a child. “I’m always working. I can never turn it off, not for a second. To me, breathing and writing are the same. When you plunge me into the cold waters of our dead love, stop my work, stop my breath – I begin to die.” With that, he crushed the phone with a single clench of his powerful hand, and returned to making his copious notes.
    Perhaps he would thank her at the Oscar ceremony – for nothing.
    “No, no, nothing I can’t...” he tailed off. On the screen, Doll and Kitten – now naked but for a discreet op-art bed sheet – were locked in a passionate embrace. She was mouthing the words “real man” into his earlobe. That bit, he realised, might have to be updated for modern audiences. “Nothing important. How have you been?”
    “I’ve been fine. Things are great. Look, the reason I’m calling is that I was opening up one of the boxes...”
    Niles frowned. “Still? It’s been years.”
    Iyla sighed. “I’ve