Heart's an Ocean Wide

All my stories are designed to be read with particular music playing. In this case the pieces are: Myon & Shane 54 ft. Natalie Peris - 'Outshine' (Nigel Good remix), and Martika 'Flow With The Go' for the hot scene. So, as the sun rises on the opening scene, get Myon & Shane 54 up on YouTube, pump it through your best speakers, and crank them up loud!

*****

One day recently I got a telephone call at home from someone announcing themselves as the personal private secretary of a certain Mr. Peter *. (I won't name him), a very wealthy industrialist from Shenzhen in China. I remember the caller's underscoring the fact that the gentleman was very wealthy.

Now I have business in China, and I have friends in China, and I have friends who are ethnically Chinese who live in New York City too, and I am pretty sure that somewhere in my files there is even a hand-signed letter from Sir David Tang, the founder of the Shanghai Tang fashion group, so initially I wasn't really too surprised by the phone call.

So I was wandering around then, I guess kind of in a glow of imagined self-importance, a mug of coffee in one hand, Nokia Lumia in the other held up close to my ear, when I heard the woman explain in perfectly-British accented English that her boss wanted to know why 'all you top Literotica writers' virtually never wrote about the products her boss made his fortune on.

Something of an entrepreneur myself, I knew the importance of not giving away that you have been figuratively shot between the eyes in a negotiation and that the effect on your brain was much like that of having become a stunned mullet.

I quickly fired off some stock phrase or other: 'well, that's a very good question you see!' 'Ah!' 'Well...'

The fact was you could have peeled me off the ceiling. I'm sure I spilled some of my coffee.

Yeah yeah yeah now I remembered the significance of this guy. He was a billionaire. God almighty I even had a long-time-ago one-time business partner (and friend) of mine who had gotten out of the stock broking game back in the Eighties to do a joint venture with this same tycoon years and years ago with some particular design innovation... Sex toys. That's what these people were making. Sex toys. Making - and selling them too... Millions of.

Then again I hadn't heard from Hank for years; last I knew he was living in Vietnam or Thailand or someplace. Never heard that he'd become a billionaire anyway, that at least my lack of general humbleness assured me was almost certainly the case.

In the background, behind the cultivated, educated, Brit-accented voice of the personal private secretary, I could distinctly hear someone with a very Chinese accent say: 'get me de jemsbee-jonshon. I wan de jemsbee-jonshon.'

*

Peter the tycoon, it appeared, wanted to make a full-length feature movie, and wanted an 'adult-themed' script development, that could use top-flight A-list actresses and actors, and that would have more or less the same widespread international impact of a 'Basic Instinct,' but which would in this case somehow or other also highlight his company's products. Which were, of course, vibrators and assorted other sex toys. How the -?!

And Peter - the tycoon - wanted the 'jemsbee-jonshon' to work on the script development.

Holy fuck.

China money is not small money of course, not these days. And now it seemed, it was educated money too. The 'jemsbee-jonshon' was certainly no kind of cut-rate Joe Eszterhas!

Who the tycoon probably really wanted was Ira Levin, but then Ira Levin would only be accessible via a psychic medium. Jemsbee-jonshon, on the other hand was real, he was now, and he was going through a decidedly noir phase in his style at the moment and so, he was cheap.

I told Peter the tycoon five hundred thousand on the basis that Eszterhas had gotten two million from Mel Gibson up-front - and then hadn't even delivered in the end too; and told jemsbee-jonshon twenty thousand plus airfares and hotels fully-found. And stuck the rest into Russian ten year bonds multiplying everything fifteen-fold so that I could have financed the whole movie myself if Peter wanted to shoot 'the jemsbee' in 'the jemsbee ass' at some point. It's the usual thing producers want to do to writers.

Turns out though, that the very cyber infamous, highly trolled, and otherwise also much-maligned jemsbee-jonshon was just about the nicest man you ever would really want to meet in rl. Which was all for the best too, since Peter the tycoon had arranged a meet-up at the Hong Kong Peninsula with one of the world's best (and best-looking) A-list actresses - in order for 'the jemsbee-jonshon,' to sound her out on script ideas.

*

Cathy-Lee - it's not her real name, but let's call her that - had this modus operandi in any public situation of throwing a Cecchetti trained, stage production laugh-and-head-tilt to the presumed cameras at almost every requirement for a response in English, and she cultivated the impression in public, that she didn't really speak English all too well.

But she spoke it well enough in fact.

The other thing was, she was not generally known for wearing leather or anything even slightly less than 'superior class' and 'total elegance' in matters of dress. She did have this Louis Vuitton blue voile silk set though, that included thigh-high black leather boots that made her look much much taller than she was. And she was tall for a Chinese actress to begin with.

James B. Johnson, the American adult fiction writer, modestly cast himself as a kind of a Wilford Brimley type - Republican to the core, gun-owner, somewhat cynical, wordly-wise, realistic. All that kind of nonsense you get from the 'hard-core' manly-imagining fantasists who automatically assume they know what 'tough guy' means and it means them, of course.

Cathy-Lee had been raised where Cantonese street toughs would regularly pick on the upper middle class Chinese girls with the narrow selection of vocabulary that all street urchin Cantonese possess along with their mime actions that these words bestowed. Virtually the entire vocabulary of street Cantonese consisted of 'fuck,' 'cunt,' 'mother-something,' 'wank,' 'asshole,' 'prick...' - and that's about it! The entire sum total vocabulary. It was the way you spun the word that gave it some kind of implied ordinary sense or meaning so that the whole thing was any kind of language at all!

James B. Johnson, though, was in real life more like a slightly older Colin Farrell, than a Wilford Brimley at any age, although there was an all-Humankind-generous look in his eyes that was indeed somewhat reminiscent of Brimley about to lecture a young child in a movie scene.

The sweat that had poured off the JBJ's brow all throughout the whole entire plane flight - tough guy though he was - had nothing whatsoever to do with any fears of terrorism or off-beam BUK missiles or anything of that commonplace kind. This was from much more of an intellectual form of pressure. He knew he had to be able to come up with something meaningful and significant as far as a real script idea went. That would be the only way to bridge the gulf between who he was and who she was. People with money had ideas that defied any kind of the sense of 'normal.' Here was this amazingly glamorous woman, featured prestige brand ambassador all over the world, and he was being expected to converse with her about dildos!

This is what people with money arrange, though. It's what they do all the time. Well let's say some people, with money. And especially some of those people in the movie producing racket. Simpson, Flynt, Polanski, Milchan, Vadim, even Kubrick. They all did it. Or had done it.

Even when JBJ thought he had finally come up with something, the sweat still didn't stop.

She was more prepared than he. He quickly picked up something else too that he read from her body language and eyes and tone - she was tired and she was serious and this was a task of some real importance and not just 'some game.'

"So." She said, when they were seated in the deep cushioned and floral-pattern cotton cording covered seats of the Peninsula Hotel afternoon tea room, looking out across the amazing vista of a misty, cloudy, rainy, Victoria Harbour Hong Kong. "Welcome to China, Mr. Johnson."

*

James Johnson resorted to one of his tried and true expedients. He scratched the long flight stubble underneath his chin and looked as avuncular as he could, took a deep breath, smiled as openly as possible, and -, drooped his head in defeat and silence. He waved a hand around weakly like a small plane tossed about in a thunderstorm.

Cathy-Lee saved the moment. "May I call you James? You can call me Lee."

JBJ nodded gratefully. "I am totally at a loss for words ma'am." He confessed. "Never short of ideas, but at this moment completely lost for words. For the spoken word, you understand. Rather than the written word. Of course, thank you thank you for, ah, agreeing to do this meet-up. But you know, I have been thrown a huge challenge, and I really can't see how you would be... I mean to say, how I could, that is, how you would handle, er, the whole situation that Peter * has dreamed up for me, for us, to work on."

"Well, that wasn't too bad of an opening speech James. I must say. You are very gracious in your manner to approach this." (Not quite perfect English, he knew, but pretty good enough in conveying a certain sense of her self-confidence - and real poise). "I will be able to help you to understand how to proceed."

She looked around for a waiter. "Which I will do shortly," she continued.

A white-jacketed waiter of at least middle age rushed forward with alarming swiftness. "Forgay-ah. Lai-lai. Chung cha. Fai-ti ah. Earl Grey, m'gor-sai."

And then she turned to James B. Johnson again. "But first, may I suggest that we have some afternoon tea together, maybe some cucumber sandwiches, or some small cakes, and for the moment at least relax enough to enjoy the view of the beautiful harbour, and the light misty rain, and also enjoy the Peninsula's famous afternoon tea. Do you drink tea, much, in America, Mr. Johnson? I think it's more of an English custom."

"You said you would call me James," he said, with a definite twinkle in his eye. "It must be this whole English tea thing. It makes things quite formal, doesn't it. But yes, I sometimes drink tea, I mostly drink coffee. And sometimes too -, I also, er, drink, stronger stuff."

Hong Kong was the hell of a noisy place but the Peninsula Tea Hall managed an English-y placidity, blocking out most of the outer, never-ending cacophony.

"Well then, you'll be happy to know, James, that this kind of afternoon tea here, is known as 'royal tea,' and which I am sure you know also means that they serve the best champagne alongside the tea..."

It was something in the way she qualified the champagne as being 'the best champagne,' not just champagne, or any champagne, but the best... Maybe it was also the completely disarming way she spoke English to him; self-confident, worldly, savvy. Certainly it was partly the unexpectedly dynamic, almost aggressively modern high fashion style of her clothing too. But then there was something else, and he knew what it was.

When someone is physically attracted to someone else, when they are really attracted...

Basically they are just instantly attracted...

The sensation of it comes into play far quicker than any subsequent pheromone effect. And certainly long long before that urging, that addictive, second and third stages of pheromone excitement.

JBJ, and quite unexpectedly so too, he told himself, was really very sure of the fact instantly then that he was going to be quite sympatico with this exceedingly beautiful Chinese woman - a celebrity actress of world standing and fame. Yes indeed... Quite unexpectedly so.

*

Silk voile is warm on a woman's skin. On Cathy-Lee it was like the Hong Kong mists outside, beyond the human-made floor-to-ceiling crystal clear glass windows.

James Johnson was glad he had taken the trouble to rush into the gym and keep his waist-spread mildly in check.

Yet he still wondered how it was that a conservative, cynical, tough American realist with a lot of the marks of experience and age on his visage - and a threateningly walrus-like moustache - could seem in that way attractive to a very haughty and obviously well looked-after, if getting to be no longer ingenue, A-lister Chinese actress.

Could she read his mind? "You look like what I have always imagined the Genghis Khan to have really looked like." She offered, out of the blue suddenly. And leaned over to present him one of the little, light, fluffy yellow egg tartlets.

He was never any great fan of tea - but he wasn't a snob either and this was, very different of a situation when it came to the meaning of enjoying a cup of tea.

"The Genghis Khan..." He echoed.

She shrugged. "You don't say it that way?" She enquired.

"I'll let you. By order of the mighty Khan, you may say it however you wish." He said with a certain amount of private vanity.

That tea was mighty good, he thought.

It was hot; steaming hot. And deep orange-y gold. And of course it gave up that characteristic bitter-sweet Spanish orange peel or bergamot perfume of Earl Grey tea.

He became more consciously aware of her perfume: fruity-floral, not oriental at all. Almost French really, in the way it assembled violets at the front, and maybe Satsuma plums next.

And was that her underarm perspiration he could smell? Yes it definitely was. Well, it was a tropical, humid, monsoon-y sort of country afterall.

"Oh mighty Khan." She murmured.

He looked up at her face, straight into her eyes.

"After having waged a lot of war, conquered many lands, subdued many peoples, established many outposts, forged your civilization valiantly all across the world - did you never feel tired?"

He raised an eyebrow and peered at her.

She half-raised an elegant hand. "I am very tired, James B. Johnson. Can you see it? I am worn out, in a way. All the time in the public eye, always in front of flashing camera lights, always maintaining the look, sitting as quietly as I can while they shade here or darken there - it usually takes up to two or three hours. Never can you get sick. And hours, mind you, not minutes for the make-up people. Then keeping the smile on. And looking, always looking, searching, for that next good script too. Waiting. Reading. Losing heart. More waiting. Being let down. And finally becoming tired. And then becoming more than tired. Beyond tired. Exhausted."

Now it was starting to come. What this was all about.

She tapped a silver spoon at her tea-cup in irritation.

"I know that I have to take risks as an actress. Yes I want to tell stories, great stories, but for my kind of actress, my kind of casting profile - I have to attempt dangerous roles now, take, not just difficult parts, but outrageous parts. This is not just my agent's idea. It is my idea. I know it.

"And then again - it has to be just right. Just right, d'you understand? I know you understand. You are the James B. Johnson; and Peter says you are the most self-confident, deft, hot, muthafucking, sonofabitch adult fiction writer in the world today. So what have you come up with for me?"

"Holy fucking Jesus...!" He whispered.

James B. Johnson put down his cup of tea.

He was so so very tempted to give her the most recent rendition of his pet whine, the Raymond Chandler speech about how luv always messed up any potentially decent adult detective yarn. Especially any noir one. How there was never going to be any subtlety or 'just rightness' about it. Not with the stories he wrote anyway. How after getting shot fulla lead, drenched in blood and gore, the main character was going to be totally lost to the hard-boiled adult entertainment world if he simply turned into the guy who helps cute kids find their lost dogs and lunch money...

But he had been himself wondering about just how to deal with the strength of this actress's profile too - how to deal with the responsibility of providing something that would be extravagant and edgy and at the same time not damaging to her profile. And somehow also include the tacky but extremely lucrative 'adult/sex toy' product placement angle.

"Lee -" he called her by her name for the first time. "You know, every time I come to Hong Kong I can't get over this idiosyncrasy they have here about up-stamping on the competition. You go to one street and there is an old shop: 'a hundred coloured lights company.' And then you go a little further on down the road and there is this other one: 'a hundred thousand coloured lights company.' And then you go down the same street the next day, and across the road from 'one hundred thousand coloured lights company,' there is a brand new shop open: 'a million coloured lights company.'"

"One trillion coloured light company," She corrected, smiling. "And then across that road: one trillion coloured lights plus one, company."

"Yeah. You got it. It's completely tacky but it's kinda charming too in its own way.

"So it got me thinking along these lines now... Nowadays we are all living in a world of techno-tack anyway - the Internet Of Things and IPhone Apps, and Wearables. All that kind of thing. It makes it reasonable to think of tech things for the story. Movement sensors inside the sex toys maybe, sending profiles of the 'cadence of action,' as it were..." he mimed the quotation marks to emphasis the euphemism. "To mobile phone Apps."

Now she was listening, he thought, rather intently.

"And I couldn't help thinking of some fairly typical film tropes too to hang the novelty tech onto in the storyline. D'you know what tropes are?"

"Yes. I think." She opened a small purse and took out a slim mobile phone. "Let me look at the Wikipedia entry..." There was a short pause in their conversation. "A commonly recurring literary or movie or rhetorical device."

He watched her silk creme massaged and moisturised hands and their carefully manicured fingertips move.

"Well... So I was thinking that the character inherits a business from her father -"

"Maybe better her uncle." She offered.

He placed his palms open. "Uncle then. Not sure that Peter would appreciate us killing his symbolic role off early, of course. But still... Anyway... And the girl is a software programmer or something like that. Or a bachelor of biz administration."

He made a motion to indicate asking whether he could pour her another cup. She nodded.

"And then," he said, slowly pouring out her tea, and then pouring another for himself. He was doing it for effect, of course. He felt sure he was doing that and that he was starting to be in control now. But he was feeling a rather rare composure too, something quite strange for him in front of such elevated female company...

It must have been the excellent tea. Ah, maybe that's what all the fuss was about with damn tea drinkers; it wasn't just that Nigella was so appealing to everyone: be they lesbians, bi-sexuals, males who liked curvy British women with that stupid Brit toffee accent. Pretty much everyone.

"And then," he continued. "She discovers, as she goes through the desk in her uncle's office, that the NSA is trying to stick bugging software and miniature wifi chips into the sex toys."

The woman at the other side of the table nodded with her eyes widening.

"I wanted to make her a bad girl too, but then I don't think that is going to fit very well with your profile. Yet I have to stick some bad in there. There has to be bad. Something very dark."

"I like that."

It was then that the room started to swirl around for him.

*

He had read about the effects of highest quality Egyptian marijuana, how the walls would suddenly enclose around you at first, tightening in, making you feel claustrophobic, and unable to move. And then how they would expand again until the room seemed large enough to contain the whole universe. And then at last the sensation of limitless power and the fulfilment of one's dearest desires.