Animate Me / Chapter Seven / I am Clark Kent

“There’s nothing better than a little old-fashion Smurf Power!” ~ Hefty Smurf

Just past noon Joel sticks his head in my cube. “I think the Incredible Hulk is looking for you.”

I find my tall, well-built brother, Curtis in the lobby chatting up one of the producers, Dawn. His charm is irrefutable. Dawn is pretty serious, yet he has her giggling.

“Hey Nathan,” she says as I approach. “Look who I found.”

“I found you,” he corrects her. “And you can bet I’m going to come looking for you again.”

She blushes, looking down. “Okay, well it was nice meeting you Curtis.” She scurries off.

“Do you know I’ve seen at least a dozen cute girls since I’ve been here, dude. You should be hitting this stuff hard.”

“Thanks for the brotherly advice,” I say, trying not to smirk. “Hey, you still want to see my work before we have lunch?”

“That’s why I’m here,” he responds, nodding.

I lead him back to my cube and he starts looking at the drawings on my animation desk. “I still can’t figure out how you learned to draw like this. It’s not like we have a single artist in our family.”

I click on my computer screen. “Here, check out this pencil test of a scene I’ve been working on.”

A sequence comes on of Bucky chasing Bernie through a flea market and strange items like sombreros and suits of armor attach to them as they run.

“Where’s the color and why are they floating in space?” he asks, leaning into the screen.

“I’m working on the animation part. When I’m done, the character lines are digitized and the colorists digitally paint the animation. Then the backgrounds are created separately by a different set of artists, and the work is then layered together.”

“That sounds complicated,” he says, rubbing his chin.

“Yeah, and that’s not the half of it. There are sound effects, music, editing. Not to mention the writing, storyboarding and timing and voice recordings at the front end. These days most studios do most of it overseas, so I’m lucky I still get to do it this way.”

“All of that for a fucking cartoon,” he shakes his head in disbelief.

“Well, I could say the same for what you do—all that bullshit for some fucking money.”

“Don’t pop your cork, bro, I’m actually really impressed.” He pats me on the back. “Let’s go eat. I’m starving.”

I decide to take him to Mo’s in Toluca Lake because the burgers are almost as big as his head. Big C still eats like he did when he played football in high school.

“So how’s it going with Beth?” he asks before taking a handful of fries.

“Brooke,” I correct him. “It’s going fine, well better than fine, I think.”

He raises his eyebrows like he can’t believe a dork like me can be doing fine with a girl. “Are you being chill, like I told you to be?”

It occurs to me that in his eyes my plan may be a good one, so I test the waters.

“Really chill. As a matter of fact she thinks I like another girl at the studio, and she’s going to help me get her.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I told you to be chill, not insane.”

“Don’t you see, she feels safe now spending time with me. And she’s like my dating coach, she was showing me how to kiss Dani…the other girl.”

“No shit, that is bizarre. So she is kissing you to show you how to kiss someone else when she doesn’t know that you’re actually really kissing her?”

“Exactly!” I exclaim.

“You are one crazy fucker. So tell me Einstein, how do you see this playing out in the end? Or did it occur to you to figure that out first?”

“No, the whole thing just sort of happened. I’m figuring it out as I go along and it seems to be working just fine.” I am getting irritated with his doom and gloom. It’s a black cloud lingering over our table.

He shakes his head. “But in the end—no matter what—she will know that you lied. You deceived and manipulated her. And in my vast experience with women, that’s usually a deal breaker.”

I spend the rest of lunch watching him eat, since I’ve completely lost my appetite. As we go to leave I ask if he minds us swinging by Outer Limits since Billie wants me to pick up my special-ordered vinyl Harley Quinn collectible figurine that goes with my Joker. It’s the last one she has and she’s sick of people eyeballing it despite the fact that my name is on it.

Billie is standing near the door rearranging a display when we enter the store. She turns towards us, and her eyes widen when she sees Curtis. For almost any girl, you would hardly notice the gesture, but with hard-ass Billie it’s like the earth has tilted off its rotation. He must be wearing that pheromone cologne or something, since I appear to be witnessing textbook instant attraction.

“Hey, Nathan,” she says, never taking her eyes off him. “Who’s your friend?”

Curtis steps forward. “Hi, I’m Curtis, Nathan’s brother. And you are?”

“Wilhelmina.” She smiles. “But you can call me Billie.”

I move to the back of the store, disgusted that in ten seconds he has scored with Billie-the-ball-buster. Everyone but me has asked her out and she usually just rolls her eyes and punches them on the arm.

When I finally head back to the front to see what’s going on, Billie has her shirt hiked up and she is showing Curtis the tattoos on her lower back. He is running his fingers over her skin and quietly charming her with his admiration.

Curtis wins yet again.

I’m quiet for the first part of the ride back to the studio, but then I can’t help myself. I need my suspicions confirmed. “When?” I ask.

“Late this afternoon, after work.”

“Really?” I grumble. I’m not jealous, just frustrated. Everything is always so easy for Curtis.

“She told me that she wants to know everything about me…if you know what I mean.”

I take a sharp breath. Damn. We weren’t even in there twenty minutes.

“I can’t even believe how I feel,” he says. “There’s no bullshit with this girl. She serves everything straight up, and it’s a revelation compared to the other women I’ve known. Our attraction was completely visceral.” He shakes his head in wonder.

• • •

Later in her office, Brooke gives me a soft smile as I present the latest Starbucks cup to her. “Do you know how much I look forward to seeing what you’re going to create for me?” She asks.

“Well, I like drawing them for you,” I reply. “I hope you like this one.”

She turns the cup and grins when she sees that I’ve rendered one of her collectible lady-head vases on the cup, but this time she’s the lady head with pencils and a pair of scissors coming out of the top of her head.

“Oh, Nathan…I love it! I’m going to set this cup next to my collection.”

“I’m glad,” I say. “It was fun to do.” I let out a sigh as I sink down into her guest chair.

“Hey, are you okay?” Brooke asks as she notices me pull my hand through my hair.

I can’t hide anything from her. “Not really.” I admit. After my loser lunch with Curtis I’ve convinced myself to tell Brooke the truth and cut my losses.

She walks over to her office door and closes it.

“What’s up?” she asks after sitting on her couch and motioning for me to join her.

“I just have the worst feeling, like everything’s a mess and I’m not sure how to fix it. Do you ever feel that way?”

“More often than I’d like,” she says nodding.

I look over at her and notice that her face looks drawn and pale.

“What about you? Are you okay?”

“Not really, no. I had something really disturbing happen earlier.”

“You want to talk about it?”

She suddenly stands up and goes over to her desk, grabbing her purse. “Come on. Let’s get out of here, I need a drink and it sounds like you do too.”

Morgan doesn’t say a thing when Brooke tells her that we’re leaving to take care of something. I keep as neutral of a face as I can, despite the fact that I am nervously thrilled to be running off somewhere with her. The excitement distracts me from the feeling of doom that was weighing me down only minutes ago.

We stand quietly in the elevator, and when we stop on the sixth floor Kevin joins us holding some storyboards.

“Hey, Nathan,” he says before turning to look forward.

Something suddenly occurs to me. “Um, Kevin, will you do me a favor? I need to run out and take care of something. Can you let Joel know? Tell him I finished the revisions.”

“Sure, no problem.” Kevin nods. I don’t think he’s associating me with Brooke who is standing quietly in the corner.

For a moment I’m grateful he’s the one that I ran into. Andy or Nick would have asked me twenty questions.

Once in Brooke’s Prius we head out without a word. After a long quiet minute I finally speak up.

“Where are we going?”

“Smokehouse, over by Warner Bros.”

I smile at the odd choice. It’s so old school that it’s cool. Despite the traditional decor, and older clientele, there’s something about the place. I’m sure a million film and cartoon deals have been made there.

“I saw Frank and Ollie there once eating soup.”

“Disney’s Frank and Ollie?” I ask with reverence. They were a famed part of what was termed Disney’s Nine Old Men, the brilliant animators who worked on all his key classic films.

“Yup, I almost asked if I could join them.”

“I bet they would have loved that, such a beautiful woman fan-girling all over them.”

She looks up at me surprised. Is it because I called her beautiful? It can’t be since that fact is irrefutable. Maybe she’s just surprised that someone as dense as me noticed.

“I wish I had.” She responds after the pause. “Now they’re both gone, and I could have told them what Bambi and Dumbo meant to me as a young girl.”

After being sat in a deep booth in the corner of the room, we decide to order serious drinks so Brooke gets a martini and I, a double Jameson on the rocks. We start out talking about the cartoons we grew up with. The Smurfs are on both of our lists and I laugh telling Brooke about the twisted caricature I remember seeing of Hefty Smurf doing inappropriate things with Smurfette. Brooke practically spits up her martini.

“You’re so evil,” she laughs. “I’ll never be able to look at those little creatures again without having that idea in my head!”

“I guess that’s the point, revising animation history, one disturbing caricature at a time.” I can tell, as I watch her face warm up, that the drink is doing its magic. She looks much happier and relaxed now than when she was in her office.

“Oh, I’m glad we did this,” she exclaims, stretching her legs out under the table so that they pass in between mine. “I was ready to kill Arnauld, and now I barely give a fuck about him and his agenda.”

“Agenda?” I ask, too curious to stay quiet.

She rubs her hands over her face and moans.

I take a long sip of my drink before setting it back on the table near hers. “What did he do? It must have been bad to get you so upset.”

She plops a green olive in her mouth and watches me as if she’s trying to decide whether to tell me a secret or not.

“He tried to whore me out.”

I grip the edge of the table and my back goes rigid. “What? Did I hear you right? You have to explain what you mean by that.”

“Okay, I’ve told you that we have an open relationship, right?”

“Yes.” That’s one bit of information I’ll never forget.

“Well, we had our network meeting today and they’ve been working us over hard, both with content and budgets. It’s so aggravating to always feel like you’re on your knees for them…at their mercy in every way.”

This is a side of the business I never hear about, and from the sounds of it I’m lucky to be shielded from it.

“So the key decision maker, Stephen, is this prick with a bad comb-over. And lucky girl that I am, Stephen seems to have a thing for me. The looks he gives me during meetings are so inappropriate. He’s even suggested that we go out a few times to ‘go over business’ but I always turn him down.” Her hands curl into fists and press into the table. “Arnauld knows all this; he knows how I feel about him.”

My stomach’s churning, and our waitress brings over our second round. I take another long sip, as does Brooke.

“So the meeting ends, and as I’m packing up, Stephen slithers over to me and asks me to lunch. I lie and tell him that I have a lunch meeting with Arnauld and our directors. The words have just left my mouth when Arnauld jumps in and assures me, in front of Stephen, that they will be fine without me and to go ahead and have a nice time with Stephen.”

“He threw you under the bus,” I say quietly, anger in my voice.

“And removed my panties before he did,” she agrees, disgustedly.

“So Stephen says he will meet me in the hallway after a pit stop, and Arnauld pulls me aside and encourages me to charm him into getting the deal through.”

“Hell no, what did you say?”

She leans forward into her drink and sighs. “I was so stunned, so completely stunned and furious that I couldn’t say anything. I just turned and walked away from him. Besides, I couldn’t exactly start screaming at him since we were still in the building.”

“I understand,” I say sympathetically. “When I’m surprised I’m dumbstruck, that is my reaction more times than not.”

“And I got to spend the next two hours listening to Stephen talk about himself and avoiding his slimy advances.”

“Are you okay?” I ask, worry etched across my face.

“Yeah, but it was nasty. I had to abandon polite Brooke early on, but of course he liked that challenge. I did everything to dissuade him but kick him in the balls. That ass is persistent. And it’s beyond me how any of that could have helped Sketch Republic’s cause. The whole thing made me sick to my stomach. I will never be put in that position again.”

“I’m so sorry.” I look down and feel so frustrated that I can’t do anything to take that memory away. “So what are you going to do now to Arnauld? Let’s think of something deserving of the offense,” I say determinedly.

“Something really evil,” she agrees. But just then her phone vibrates telling her that she has a new text and I can see on the screen that it’s Arnauld trying to reach her.

“Where are you?” she reads off the screen. She laughs and then slowly types the answer. “Exactly where I want to be.” After hitting send, she looks at the phone and curses, “Fuck you, Arnauld.”

I smile, hoping she really means that. She turns and looks at me. “Have I ever told you that his real name isn’t Arnauld…it’s Arnold?”

“Arnold?” I choke out, almost spitting up my drink.

“Yeah, isn’t that rich? I discovered his high school yearbook once and found his picture. I called him Arnold once when we were having a fight and he stormed off like a big baby.” She grins.

A second later her phone prompts again.

She reads his response aloud. “What are you doing?” Her fingers fly over the text keys to respond. I imagine I can see the steam rising out of her ears like what happens to Yosemite Sam when Bugs Bunny really pisses him off.

“I thought you knew. I’m bending over. If he fucks me again I really think I’ll be able to close this deal.”

Why did she have to read that to me? It makes me sick and yet arouses me at the same time. I’m in pain, and I down the rest of my drink. The room tilts as a result.

She reads his response with a mock angry face. “That isn’t funny, Brooke. Oh, hairy back is getting angry,” she slurs.

“No, it really isn’t,” she types while reading aloud, then shuts off her phone. She waves for the waitress, who comes over warily. “Another round, please.”

You go, Buttercup!

I sit quietly wondering what to say. Finally I offer my best idea. “You want me to beat him up? My brother, who’s looks like the Incredible Hulk, would help and it wouldn’t be pretty.”

“You’re so thoughtful, and for the record that’s really hot.”

“I mean it,” I say. I want her to understand I mean business.

“I know you do and that means a lot to me. Still I have to say no, but thanks. Look, I’m a little loaded and enjoying venting, but for all my bitching I know he didn’t really want me to sleep with him. Charm him, yes, but not fuck him.”

“It’s still disgusting,” I insist.

“Yes, it is.” Her head drops and we sit silently for a minute before she looks back up. “Look, enough about me. What happened to you today?”

I realize that I shouldn’t tell this story drunk, but I’m overwhelmed with the urge to let out this gnawing frustration.

“Oh, I’m having envy issues. I’m so pathetic.”

“What happened?” she asks sympathetically.

“I had lunch with my brother today. After lunch we stopped at the comic book store, and I introduced him to my friend, Billie. She runs the place and is exceptionally good looking. And of course they had an instant love connection.”

“But I thought you liked Dani, why does him liking Billie, and her liking him, bother you?”

“I don’t know, probably because they’re most likely in bed right now. Women always fall all over Curtis and drag him to bed. He has amazing sex all the time, and I don’t. Things never work out that way for me.”

“Really?” she asks, looking disappointed for me.

“Sorry,” I groan, letting my face falls into my open hands.

“You don’t? What do you mean you don’t? You make it sound like you’ve never had great sex or something.”

I look up at her and blanch as I watch the blood also drain from her face.

“Oh my God,” she chants. “You’re not a virgin, please tell me that you’re not a virgin.”

I’m already the worst kind of loser and I don’t even care how it looks anymore. Defeated I lean into my drink and take another long sip. “Well, technically I may as well be for the lack of fun I’ve had.”

“I don’t understand. Is something wrong with you physically? I would imagine not since you felt more than healthy when you were holding me last night.”

I’m horrified and dumbstruck. I can’t even look her in the eye. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable talking to you about sex, or I mean my lack of hot sex, Brooke. It’s so humiliating.”

“First of all Nathan, I love to talk about sex. It’s my favorite subject. So please don’t be shy.”

She scoots over closer to me and reaches over, putting her hand on my knee. “You have to understand, I was raised by free-love hippie parents who were very open. By the time I was in high school, my mom left a candy jar full of condoms by the front door and tried, to my horror, to show me the best way to perform fellatio on a banana. Hell, all she ever talked about was sex. So there’s nothing you could say that would change what I think of you. This is a subject I’m very comfortable with. Besides, I bet I can help you.”

I look down into my drink and nod. “Okay.”

“Let’s take a step back for a moment. I knew about the awkward kissing issue, so is it similar with sex? Did you try, but not like it?”

“I don’t know where to start.” I pull on my hair in frustration.

“How about at the beginning?” she suggests gently.

“Well, I think I already told you that I was really shy in high school with the girls. My senior year I ended up going out with my friend’s sister for a while. We fumbled around and did stuff a few times but she was even more uncomfortable than I was about it and it wasn’t very satisfying. We really didn’t have any common interests, nor did we have good chemistry together so that didn’t help. We finally just gave up. Later when I got to CalArts I met Rachel, another animation student and within weeks we were involved.”

“She’s the one that didn’t like to kiss.”

I nod. “Yeah, but she’s so great in so many ways. We felt the same about animation and we talked about it non-stop. Before you knew it we were glued at the hip, together all the time. I was so happy to finally have that with someone.”

“That sounds great.”

“It was. Plus she was my biggest supporter, always telling me that I was the most talented in our year…that I was going to have a great career.”

“How sweet.” Brooke nods, encouragingly.

“It was so confusing though when it came to sex. She was very physical with me, always touching me, holding my hand, sitting on my lap but whenever I would try to initiate anything more she would just freeze. It started with the kissing. She hated the kissing. So finally I gave up with that.”

“But I had needs you know. I loved her and wanted to be with her…really be with her. So I just kept asking and finally she gave in, agreeing to try making love.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” she says, smiling.

“Honestly, I don’t know what I did wrong. I thought since we were in love it would be different than high school. But no matter how I touched her she didn’t react the way I expected…the way I’d seen in movies or read in books. She just laid there. And then when I tried to, you know, go inside of her, she said it hurt and she stopped me.”

I realize that my hands are twisted together painfully, and I pull my fingers apart and flex them while sighing.

“I cared about her so much. It took me weeks to get over that first time.”

“That’s awful,” she says.

“The next time I tried, I got us drinking first thinking it would relax her and the situation. Instead it just made her emotional. She started crying when I was only halfway inside of her.”

“Damn,” she mutters.

I nod. “You can imagine how I felt.”

“So I started doing research on how to please a woman. I desperately needed to figure out what I was doing wrong. I was obsessed. It was like I was trying to crack a secret code. I put together an arsenal of techniques and a plan of seduction…and the only thing that seemed to work was…you know…” I can feel my face on fire.

“When you went down on her?” She gently asks.

I nod, and look down embarrassed. “She was crazy for that and I got really good at it.”

“But what about you?” I can’t help but notice how sad Brooke looks, and my heart sinks even further.

“I loved making her feel good so it wasn’t the end of the world. Sure I wanted more, much more, but what could I do? And that is when I finally just accepted that I just didn’t have it — that indefinable thing that men should have to make women want them.”

But suddenly Brooke’s mood seems to shift, and she even looks a bit angry.

“Why are you making this all about you? What you did or didn’t do? Did you ever consider that she was just frigid when it came to full on intercourse?”

“Not really because she said she had a boyfriend in high school who really made her feel good. She made it clear it was me; whatever it was, I was lacking. Besides, my experiences hadn’t been good in high school either.”

Brooke huffs and folds her arms over her chest. “Really? Maybe she was lying about the boyfriend. She could’ve made him up to cover for her issues. Did you consider that?”

“No, Rachel wouldn’t do that to me. She loved me; I know she did. We stayed close even despite all that.”

“Do you still see her?”

“No, other than seeing her once last year; but we still talk. She took a job at Pixar and moved up North.”

“Does she have a boyfriend now?”

“Not that I know of, but that doesn’t prove anything. I don’t have a girlfriend either.”

“You’re unreal, Nathan.” She shakes her head with disbelief. I can hear the martini drawl in her tone. “Maybe I should just sleep with you and show you what you’re capable of. You need to know what good sex is.”

Oh, good God. My heart flip-flops at the idea of it. Yet, despite the absolute thrill and how much I want her, this isn’t how I would want it to happen for us. I need her to desire me…not have sex with me to help me.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” I ask carefully. “I mean, that’s really generous of you but are you sure you’d want to do that? I mean, you aren’t even attracted to me.”

“How do you know that? Maybe I’m wildly attracted to you? Maybe I go to bed every night thinking about you that way.”

Okay…it’s official. She’s really drunk.

I know I’m beet red. No mirror is needed to confirm this. I’m also so painfully hard that I have to lean back in the booth and pivot my hips to adjust myself. “Brooke…” I stammer.

“Okay, I’m sorry…I’m being crass. My point, poorly made, is that I want to help you. And if showing you how to have fun in bed helps you, I’d like to do that. I think you’re amazing, Nathan. I want you to understand how beautiful sex can be. I don’t want you to have all these negative images plaguing you. You aren’t ever going to be truly happy until you get past this.”

Our waitress comes over with her hands on her hips. “Can I get you two some food? Looks like you could use it. Today’s special is prime rib with baked potatoes, how about that?”

We both nod at the same time. When she leaves to put the order in, Brooke reaches over and rests her hand on my arm.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take this slow…one small step at a time. All right?”

I nod, still completely confused about what I’ve signed up for. Am I getting a baked potato and Brooke in my bed? The whiskey must be playing with my head. I can’t even remember if I told her that I had lied about liking Dani, when all I want is her.

After devouring our plates of food, and considerably more sober, we debate in the parking lot who should drive. She finally agrees to let me drive her car. Back at Sketch Republic the parking structure is empty except for my little red Mini-Cooper. I desperately don’t want to say goodnight yet. I never get enough of her.

I am so done for.

After I park her car next to mine we both get out and face each other. She steps closer, and I step back until I’m against my car.

“Are you okay?” she reaches over and touches my wrist. It’s the lightest touch, like a butterfly brushing against me. Yet still, the spot burns hot and wild.

“Shall we practice?” She steps closer still. There’s nowhere for me to go.

“Practice?” I ask, my voice shaky.

“Our kiss, just our kiss,” she whispers and a second later she is pressing up against me. When our lips connect my mind goes gloriously blank, forgetting the rules, the geometric optimal angle, just how incredible it feels when Brooke’s tongue is tangled with mine.

Next thing I know my hand is in her hair and my hips are pressing into hers. Oh yeah.

“See,” she whispers, in between gasps. “This is absolutely right…just as it should be.”

I kiss her again, and again.

“Can I touch you?” she whispers.

I take a sharp breath. I can’t help it; I want it so much. I think I nod, but I’m not really sure.

But next thing I know I feel her stroking me outside my pants.

“Is this okay?” she looks up into my eyes.

I swallow hard and nod.

“Let me tell you…you feel so amazing, just right. Do you understand?” The look of lust she gives me sets me on fire. She tightens her fingers over me for a long moment before slowly removing her hand.

My body is screaming for more, but I know we’re done. She’s pulling away. “That felt so good,” I whisper.

“When you touch yourself later, remember how good that felt, okay?”

I nod with a grin as she gets into her car and pulls away. She looks a bit flustered herself. Could she be feeling aroused too?

As she passes through the lot gate I fight the urge to run after her like Superman, so I can pull my Lois out of the damn car and into my arms. But in reality I’m Clark Kent, bumbling and slow, and she’s just turned onto San Fernando Road and out of my sight.

I quickly get in my car, anxious to get home and spread out across my bed. The vivid image of her hands on me, wrapped with her seductive words, echo in my head all the way home.

Oh, I’ll remember all of this when I touch myself Brooke. Will you?