When Muses Go Bad

By Terry Leatherwoood [t_leatherwood@peoplepc.com]

Rated: PG

Submitted: August 2010

Summary: "Every writer gets ideas from some place. But some of
those places are stranger than others."

***

She sauntered across the threshold of my mind like a sandworm
chasing water, carrying a manila folder in one hand and a
disassembled tricorder in the other. Her 1930's-style skirt
hissed against her nylon-sheathed limbs as she moved.

The folder slapped down against the top of my desk. "Got
something I think you'll like, sugar."

I adjusted my shade-of-grey tie and sighed. "You're exhibit
'A' in the campaign against open minds, Polly."

"You're such a tease, Sam."

"I'm busy."

"Read this first."

I reached for the intercom box but she shook her head. "Effie
isn't there. I think she had to visit the ladies' room."

"And you had nothing to do with that, right?"

"Of course not. Trope might pull a stunt like that, but I
wouldn't."

As she sat in my rose-print wingback chair, I gestured toward the
mass of electronic components she was studying. "That got
anything to do with this?"

She glanced up only long enough to see what I was pointing at.
"Huh? Oh, no, baby, this is something else I'm working on. For
another client."

I nodded and looked around her shoulder. "She ain't here,
hon," Polly grated. "I'm flyin' solo on this one."

"You and Trope have another argument?"

Chewing gum suddenly appeared in her mouth, probably so she'd be
more in character. "Well, yeah, but ya gotta – "

"Do you have any idea how much trouble you've gotten me into in
the last year?"

"Oh, come on, babe, that story was great! Them readers don't
know nothing from nothing. They're just stupid bums."

"I'm not talking about them, Polly! And they're not stupid! I
don't write for stupid people!"

"Then how come they hated somethin' that brilliant?"

I tried to splutter something that can't be spelled. "Let's
stay on task, okay? I'm talking about the idea you gave me
without Trope knowing about it. When I had trouble with the
ending, she came in and gave me something just totally – it was –
" I tried to say something else unspellable.

"That's not a word, Sam."

I'd told them both my real name too often to care what they
called me. "You knew that story idea you gave me wasn't very
good. I never should have accepted it." I flipped my fingers at
the folder on my desk. "And how do I know this is any better?"
I leaned back and glared at her.

"Come on, baby," she crooned, "just take a look. If you don't
like it, I got someplace else I can dump it."

Against my better judgment, I opened the folder as the
implications of the phrase "dump it" registered, but I held on
to my comment until I'd read the first page of the treatment.

Then I slapped it shut.

"Whassa matta?" she whined. "Itty bitty brain can't work with
it?"

I shook my head. "Polly, if I actually posted something like
that, I'd get pilloried, maybe even drawn and quartered! And
rightly so! Nobody wants to see Clark Kent as a super-pimp and
Lois Lane as one of his string of hookers! And that includes
me!"

She smiled. It reminded me of a barracuda. "I bet you could post
it in the n-fic folder, huh?"

I dropped my head into my hands. "You know I don't post there.
And this story idea is garbage! No way it's up to your usual
high standards." I tossed it back into her lap and scattered the
tricorder fragments. "You're lots better than this."

She looked almost hurt. "If you don't want it, I'll give it to
your partner. I know Miles would run with it."

"Miles would run with a rewrite of 'The Odyssey' and make it a
Mary Sue if you smiled at him when you handed it to him. Besides,
he doesn't have the time. He's due to get shot by another
client soon. Now please, let me get some work done. I've got
that big third part of the trilogy to finish, there's the new
super-hero crossover where you wanted me to use Batman, and on
top of that my shoulder hurts." I pointed at the door. "Come
back when you have something worth leaving."

She stood up and somehow the pieces of the tricorder fell into
her tiny purse. She was so mad her gum popped out of her mouth
and plopped on the floor. "Well! If that's the thanks I get,
I'll just give it to someone else!" She paused in the doorway.
"Someone with a really good sense of humor!"

The office wall shook as she slammed the door. I waited to see if
she'd pop back in and yell some more, but the diminishing
clip-clop of her high heels down the hall told me she had other
fish to fry – or maybe other writers.

"She's gone," I said.

Trope opened the closet door and waved her hand in front of her
face as if the air was foul. "Whew! Where did that idea come
from, sixth grade?"

I ignored the question. "Tell me, did you two really have a
falling out?"

Trope slid onto the desk with her legs crossed, making sure her
Rosalind Russell skirt showed plenty of knee, and swung one foot
back and forth. "You know Polyskitsodia. She always considered
herself the tenth Muse."

"I know. I also know that you think the same thing about
yourself. So what did you two fight about?"

"You really want to know, Sam?"

"Wouldn't have asked if I didn't."

She sighed. "It was you."

"Me?"

She nodded. "And, of course, first dibs on your services." She
licked her lips and inhaled like Marilyn Monroe at a Playboy
photo shoot. "I have to admit that Polly has excellent taste
when it comes to writers."

I laughed. I hoped it was a sardonic laugh. "Very funny. I'm
not your only boy and I know it. You two have a skyscraper's
worth of clients to service."

She smiled. It showed a lot of very sharp teeth. Her smile was a
little saner than Polly's smile, but I knew that Psychotropia
could get nasty with little or no warning. "But you're one of
the most fun," she answered. "Almost anyone else would have
tossed her out without reading the whole first paragraph. Not
you. You gave it a chance, even knowing it was trash." She
leaned closer and licked her lips. "I really – respect you for
that."

I didn't take the bait, not because I'm so very noble but
because I know better than to mess around with mythic figures. I
remember what happened to the city of Troy. "Thanks, Trope. But
I was telling Polly the truth when I said I had a lot of work to
do. So you just run along now. And let Effie out of the bathroom,
would you?"

"Must I? I think I'm much more fun than she is."

"She actually takes the messages when she answers the phone. You
just pretend to be a 1-900 number."

She sighed. "Okay, Sam, if you insist." She slid off the desk
and wriggled to the door, then turned. "Oh, you will read that
little idea I left you, won't you?"

"I read hers. I'll read yours, sweetheart."

"You'll like it."

"Is it funny?"

She cocked her head to one side and frowned with half her face.
"You want funny, I'll send Harley to see you. I do serious
work."

The prospect of Harley giving me story ideas made my navel
pucker. I happen to like my ears where they are, thank you.
"That's okay, Trope. I prefer the way your mind works."

She gave me what the old detective stories used to call a
sloe-eyed glance, along with a smile that promised more than any
woman could deliver. "You say the sweetest things, Sam. Bye for
now."

She shut the door softly and walked down the hall in the opposite
direction from her sister. I pushed my fedora back on my scalp
and sighed, relieved that I'd escaped without any visible wounds
this time.

Might as well read her suggestion, too. It couldn't be any worse
than Polly's.

I hoped.

THE END