Sky Tongues (6 page)

The Queen is Dead
and was to be shot mostly in London, but my character didn’t come into the film until the middle portion and so I was sent to a remote island in the middle of the South China Sea.
   I was there earlier than I had to be and stayed longer than I had to, living it up, lounging in the sun and reading trashy bestsellers. I loved being somewhere where the people had no idea who I was and even if they did, they didn’t care and remained completely unimpressed.
   I always had plenty of dipping bowls for my tongues at my disposal, ate exotic foods and met exotic people.
   And then it was time to get to work on the film.
   
The Queen is Dead
is a very apt title for a movie that is about—you guessed it—a dead queen. Or, more appropriately, an assassinated queen. The hero and heroine are assigned to find the drug lords behind the assassination and, after traipsing around England for an hour or so, follow a lead to a remote island where they meet my character, a missionary teaching the native children English and mathematics.
   The film is very much a thriller and was a good deal of fun to make.
   The best part of the entire experience however, wasn’t the actual film at all but a special someone I encountered during the making of the film.
   It was there that I met Rabia.
39
   Rabia was a technical advisor on the set, having spent time as an actual missionary, working with actual native kids.
   Because the native people live in such a remote part of the world, mostly untouched by the rest of humanity, their home is very unspoiled. They have almost no pollution to speak of and very little chemical contamination of their foods and water supplies. Which all means that they have very few Mues among them. In fact, many of the children I worked with were seeing Mues for the first time and while some were quite intrigued, others were terrified.
   Rabia was an exception. Although she was a Uni Mue and hadn’t worked with these particular children, she spoke their language fluently and just had a way about her that made them trust her and eventually fall in love with her.
   Of course, they weren’t the only ones enamored of her. I myself wanted her from the moment I saw her.
40
   We actually met before filming even began. She was assigned to help me understand my character and the children I’d be working with, as well as speak the language at least passably, which technically just meant being able to say my lines with believability. But learning a few things beyond the script would be good as well. Being able to communicate with the children off-set would be very important as well, since it would bring depth to not only my performance, but theirs as well.
   So, one day I was in my hotel room talking to Franz on the phone when there was a rap at my door. Without pausing in the conversation, I went, peeked out the peep hole and then opened the door a crack.
   “I’m Rabia Jacobs,” she said. “I guess I’m your technical advisor.”
    I nodded, smiling and let her in, giving her the “one moment” signal by holding up my index tongue, then motioning for her to have a seat and make herself comfortable.
   Franz chattered on in my ear, talking nonstop about another part he thought I’d be perfect for. I was only half-listening. Nowadays, Franz thought I’d be perfect for every part that slid across his desk or even those he’d just heard rumors about.
   I held the phone away from my ear and whispered to Rabia that she should help herself to anything on the dining cart; the fresh fruit was especially delicious. She only nodded, looking rather uncomfortable.
    Finally, I told Franz I had to go and, ignoring his protests, hung up on him.
   I stood, head cocked, studying Rabia. “You must be a Uni.”
   She nodded, smiling nervously. “How can you tell?”
   In fact, it was quite easy to tell. Her skin was completely transparent. It was as if she were made of a clear gel: you could see inside her body. Her teeth, the tongue behind her teeth, her brain, her veins, everything. The bones in her hands. She looked like a medical students model come to life.
   Naturally, I couldn’t see
everything
. She
was
wearing clothes after all, but I knew that were she to undress, I
would
see everything. Every little organ, every sinew, every bone. I had never realized until that point how inconsequential the muscles of the body really are. They obstruct the views of some things inside but certainly not all. They are there, but only as doors or walls, you can peek around them, see what’s behind them if the angle is right.
   “Staring is rude,” Rabia said, startling me out of my thoughts.
   I blinked. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I can’t believe I was doing that.”
   She held up the script she’d been holding. “Do you want to get started?”
   “Yes,” I gave her my best smile. “Absolutely.”
41
   After about 90 minutes of talking shop with her, I was ready for a break. I stood, stretched, and walked over to the sliding glass doors that led to the balcony. It was still morning, not quite 11:00, and a gorgeous day. The hotel was on a more populated island than the one where the actual shooting would take place and my room looked out over a bay and beyond that were bright green hills with large white houses speckled throughout the landscape.
   The view was beautiful and made me long to be out in the sun, exploring the island, shopping, going for a drive. Anything.
   I turned around, facing Rabia again. “Do you want to take a break? It’s such a beautiful day.”
   “I could use a glass of water.”
   “Oh. Ok.” I went into the little kitchen and brought a bottled water out of the refrigerator. When I handed it to her, I tried my best to look like I wasn’t paying attention, but of course I was. I watched with complete fascination at the water entered her mouth and then flowed down her throat to disappear beneath the collar of her T-shirt.
   “Do you want to go for a drive maybe? See some sights?” I asked, still pretending to be uninterested in her see-through body.
   “Shouldn’t we keep working?” she asked. “I know we don’t have much time before shooting begins.”
    I plucked a strawberry from the dining cart, popped it into my mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Once I’d swallowed, I said, “Not even the tiniest break?”
   For the first time, Rabia gave me a genuine smile. “I was warned you might try this.”
   “Oh? By who?”
   “Lots of people. They say you can be quite a handful.”
   “Ah. Well, they’re right. I can.”
   I couldn’t believe I was flirting with her. I never flirted with anyone, ever.
   “Ok,” she said. “We can take a break. But only a short one.”
   “Excellent!” I immediately began hunting around for the keys to my rental car.
   “We’re staying here,” she said firmly. “If we go out, who knows when we’ll get back to work.”
   “Damn. Ok.” I sat at the table while she reached into her bag and pulled out a granola bar.
   “I have two,” she offered.
   “No, thanks.”
   She ate her bar and drank her water while I fiddled with this and that, waiting for her to finish. Maybe ten minutes passed and she was done. Rising to throw away the foil wrapper, she also used the bathroom and when she emerged she said, “Ok, back to work.”
   I gaped. “What? That was our break?”
   Consulting her watch, she said, “We stopped for a good fifteen minutes. That’s how long breaks are.”
   “On what planet?”
   “Planet Earth,” she laughed. “I realize you movie-star types don’t really live here, but in the real world, that’s how long the average break is.”
   I wasn’t sure if I should be offended or not so I said, “I’m not a movie-star type, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
    “Oh, you’re not? Then why are you here?”
   “Here? Here where?”
   “Here on this island. In this hotel. Talking to me.”
   Meekly, I said, “Because I’m in a movie?”
   “Exactly. Now let’s get back to work, shall we?”
   I rolled my eyes dramatically, playing the sullen, spoiled ‘movie-star type.’ “Oh, fine then!” I sulked as I made my way back to the sofa and sat down beside her.
   I felt like a major idiot but I was still getting her to smile.
42
   All through preproduction and into the actual shooting, my relationship with Rabia remained professional, albeit playful. But when the movie wrapped, I finally felt it wouldn’t be inappropriate to ask her for a date.
    Naturally, she didn’t make it easy for me.
   “What do mean? We’ve gone out before.”
   “Yeah, I know, but—-”
   “We’ve been to restaurants a dozen times. And remember all the times we sat on the beach while you practiced your dialogue?”
   “But that was just for scenery. We were still working.”
   Suddenly, understanding shone in her eyes. “Oh. You mean…
ohhh
.”
   “Yeah,
ohhh
.” I tried to smile.
   “Well, I…uh…” She stammered around for a minute before I decided to let her off the hook.
   “It’s ok,” I said. “Just forget I asked. No big deal.”
   “No. No, wait. I didn’t mean…”
   I stared at her, my heart thudding in my chest.
   “It’s just that I’m surprised. I didn’t think you were…you know…
gay
, I guess.”
   Speechless, I continued to stare. The thought had never occurred to me. “I don’t think I am,” I said finally.
   “So…you’re not gay but you’re asking a woman to go on a date with you?”
   “Umm…” I thought about it. “I guess so. I’m not
not
gay either.”
   “I see.”
   I didn’t understand her confusion and then it dawned on me that she probably didn’t know about my clock. I thought everyone knew. It had been in the rag-mags, hinted at in interviews and had even been a plot twist for my character on Exquisite Afterlife. “I have a clock,” I said simply.
    Now
she
was staring at
me
. At last, she said, “I know, Sky. Everyone knows that.”
   We stared at each other for a long time. Finally, I said, “OK, then. Well, it was great working with you. You were really a tremendous help. Thanks so much for coaching me in the language and all that fun stuff.”
    “Oh, no problem. It was a pleasure working with you too. You were a great student!”
    I laughed falsely. “Oh, I don’t know about that. You were just a great teacher. But, good luck in whatever is next for you!”
   “You too! Bye now.”
   “Bye.”
43
   And that was that.
   I went back to LA and she went I didn’t know where.
   Sky’s Infatuation Story.
The end.
44
   The second season of Exquisite Afterlife began with a bang. Literally.
   A week before our premier, President Guzman was assassinated, making Vice-President Beecher the first Mue president ever.
   The country was thrown into turmoil; the racist Pure Humans were convinced it was all a conspiracy, that Mues were behind the president’s murder and there were even riots. Hatred was everywhere, Mues were constantly being attacked out on the street and sometimes in their homes. Mue shop-owners were terrorized and there were several cases of Mues being murdered.
   All hell had broken loose and Mues were at the center of it.
   Given the circumstances, our producers decided it would be best if we ceased shooting the show for a while, just until all the insanity abated. I was disappointed but I understood.
   I holed up in my house and for the first time in my life, I bought a gun. I learned all about the weapon and went to a shooting range to practice with it. Using a gun is not easy for me at all. Not only do I hate the dreaded things but also, my trigger tongue is just not as strong as the average finger. I ended up having to have one specially made exactly to my specifications.
   I hated having it, or more appropriately,
having
to have it, but I had to admit that it did make me feel safer. I was able to relax and not worry so much about what I would do if someone were to try entering my home and then, even worse, if they actually succeeded.
   Without much to do, not daring to go out in public during this time, I took up painting again for the first time in years. Now I was able to afford actual canvases and made one of the spare bedrooms into a painting studio. For the first time, I had actual easels and didn’t have to hunch over a table or hold a piece of cardboard in my lap.
   It was exciting, buying all the paraphernalia I needed, opening a tubes of paint and brand-new brushes. The paint tasted exactly as I remembered: disgusting. But I was able to get used to it fairly quickly, thanks to my mostly taste-bud free tongues.
   Shooting was postponed for three weeks and in that time I painted a total of 45 paintings. When it was time to go back to work, I was invigorated. I felt like an artist again and I was anxious to apply my reborn enthusiasm to the show.
   It worked too, as I think season two contains some of my best work ever on Exquisite Afterlife.
45
   The show really took off its second year.
   Suddenly,
everyone
knew who we were and crazy things like fan-clubs started springing up all over the place. The merchandising department was thrilled and all our faces started appearing in the most bizarre places. They made a total of seven different T-shirts, one with the shows logo, one with the whole cast and then we each had one of our own, for the especially eclectic fan.
   Then there were posters, puzzles, lunch boxes, mugs, you name it. There were even boxer shorts and a set a sheets people could buy. And then came the real money-makers: the action figures, complete with moveable wings and detachable swords, harps and halos.
   Just to think about it made me dizzy.
   The show’s theme song started getting air play and gained enough popularity that we were all recruited to appear in the video, which was ridiculous and embarrassing, especially for Dove who was just
not
a video kind of guy.
   For the first time, we appeared on the cover of TV Guide. I say ‘we’ but it was actually just Dove and Lavinia, though the rest of us were interviewed for the article and had a few photos inside.
   It was assumed that the show was now a huge success because of the new president and our nation’s current political and emotion climate.
   I became involved in some activist organizations, speaking out publicly about the atrocities being enacted against Mues all over the world. It was an outrage and I wanted everyone to hear about it. I had it written into my contract that every year during the shows run, I would get a few days off in order to attend the national Mue’s Walk on Washington parade. I knew I was making a larger target of myself than was wise, but I didn’t care. This was important, not only for us, but for the future generations of all Mues everywhere.
   In order for us to be accepted and treated as equals by all walks of life, we needed to stand up and be counted. Change does not happen by sitting idly and praying for it. It comes with work and it comes slowly, but I was, and still am, willing to do my part, do to whatever it takes to get us all there, safe and sound.
46
   The hate mail began pouring in by the truckloads.
   Not for just me, but for all of us, including the studio head honchos, most of whom were Pure Humans.
   We tried not to pay too much attention to it but, admittedly, things like death threats can get under your skin after a while.
   So there was this odd sense of millions of folks loving us to death and millions of