At a party this weekend a couple of former co-workers, Chris and Bill, were talking about this romance novel they were planning to write. The main character was to be a badass Scotsman -- whose name I can't remember. He'd wear a kilt all the time and bed busty ladies regularly.
I'm not sure how serious these two were about their novel -- they'd been drinking girly moonshine (it was peach flavored) and looked a bit glassy eyed and giddy, but I went along with the quick brainstorming session -- suggesting names for their protagonist and character traits (like that he rode a motorcycle and had a tragic past).
Then yesterday, I amused myself by inserting their Scottish rogue into the sort of story I would write (as you will see I'm much to cynical and prudish to tackle romance). Here's what I came up with (and lest you think of me as a novel concept thief, Chris gave me his blessing … I don't really care what Bill had to say).
“The Short, Bonnie Life of Donovan MacWallace”
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Photo courtesy of Ishan Manjrekar/Flickr |
Donovan MacWallace sat at the end of the dark bar. One elbow
leaned against the glossy wood, the sleeve of his scarlet tartan shirt soaking
the condensation dripping slowly off his scotch.
He surveyed the room, slowly stroking his jaw – a few days
worth of carefully curated scuff scratching the tips of his fingers.
A few regulars sat closest to him – 30-something-year-old
bearded fellows who cheered each time one of the 48 kegs was kicked and the
bartender wrote a new microbrew on the large chalkboards landscaping the back
wall. With each glass they spoke of the hoppiness or spiciness, trying to
one-up each other with tales of even more obscure pints consumed at
even-more-obscure faux dive bars in places like Williamsburg or Madison or
Portland.
Past them were the happy hour stragglers, still wearing
suits – ties loosened, blazers strewn on the backs of puritan wooden chairs.
It was the lull between when the weary business crowd
stumbled home to tuck their kids in and the fresh-faced coeds bounced in from
the local college.
Donovan relished these moments, when the evening was so full
of possibility. A drink or two down he felt warm and confident, ready for
conquest. From his seat he lean back – one dusty boot balanced on the brass
rail the other slung on his knee – and watch the door swing open and closed.
Each gust expelling a new candidate.
A bob-haired burnet with full pouting lips and a narrow
waist. A compact, tight-assed cheerleader-type with a sheet of shiny raven
hair. A cadre of blonds, their hair all curled in wide undulations, in jeans so
tight they must have been slipped on with oil and heels that made their legs
look as if they never ended.
One of these sweet creatures glanced over at Donovan. Her
wide blue eyes encased in black liner and false lashes. He refused eye contact,
instead of furrowing his brow and looking off as if to some distant moor
against a crashing sea. But he watched out of the corner of his contemplative
maple eyes as she strode toward his end of the bar.
When the bartender failed to notice her, Donovan swooped in
ever so slightly.
“Her name’s Kelly,” he told the girl in a gruff Scottish
accent, nodding toward the barkeep. “She gets distracted sometimes.”
And that was all it took.
The girl, smiled at him – her immaculately styled brows shot
up in surprise and pleasure. “Thanks! You’re not from here are you? Are you
Irish?”
He allowed his lips
to turn up a fraction of a centimeter. He glanced at her a second then stared
down at his glass, taking a quick sip.
“Nah – tho that’s what everyone usually guesses. A’m from
Edinburgh,”
“Oh … where’s that?” She was wearing a loose sequined tank
top whose neckline flopped down over her ample breasts. From his vantage he
could see black lace cupping her chest. He knew his hands would perform that
same duty in a matter of hours.
“Scotland.” He replied, finally turning his full gaze onto
her glowing face. “Ma name’s Van – pleasure to meet you.”
And then he’d stand up. And they’d see his kilt.
Game. Set. Etc.
It was the same story every night.
His exotic accent. His James McAvoyian eyes. His bike. His
feigned aloofness. And the story they’d eventually draw out of him – the one
about Fiona, his dead fiancé – killed by an unruly mob drunk on whiskey and a
recent win on the pitch.
The woman fell at his feet, beguiled by his foreignness, the
undercurrent of danger and the promise of being taken by a Celtic rogue. If
they were disappointed by his softer-than-expected physique or his inability to
remove their lingerie with anything bordering on panache, they never said
anything, not wanting to seem culturally ignorant. Melting at his boyish
apologies.
“I’ve never been great with these things,” he’d intone
fumbling with dainty clasps and fussy elastic. And they’d do the job for him.
His charm and that accent lubricating the way to passionate, or more often than
not, rather underwhelming coitus.
He’d leave in the middle of the night. Pulling on his kilt
and weathered leather jacket. Getting off again on the 4 a.m. rumble his bike
made on the empty street and the image of another satiated lass sprawled in
twisted sheets.
****
Donald Geuber became Scottish on drunken dare. He was
offered a free High Life for a week if he hit on a woman while pretending to be
Groundskeeper Willie from “The Simpsons.”
Unremarkable in every other way, Donald could make passable
impersonations of some of televisions most iconic characters, so he accepted
the bet and approached an marginally attractive (in a cute-as-a-friend sort of
way) girl wearing orange Converse sneakers and a T-shirt picturing a hippo with
the word “marblevore” underneath.
As he recalled, he struck up the conversation by asking
where he might relieve himself.
“Excuse me – do ye happen to know where the loo is?”
Her friend, who had just recently returned from a semester
abroad, caught his bathroom reference immediately and began pummeling him with
excited questions about his origins while sharing all about how great actual
pubs were compared to these shabby American knockoffs and how much better a
real pint of Guinness tasted over there than here and how the people were so
much cooler … he zoned out while she blabbed eventually making eye contact with
Marblevore, telling her she was “a right bonnie lass” and asking if he could
buy her a drink, which she accepted (later lapping her tongue up his stomach in
the corner next to the bathrooms).
It was as much a surprise to Donald himself as it was to all
of his friends that the tactic actually worked. And while they never put him up
to the challenge again, he was so intoxicated by his early successes that
Donald found himself deploying Groundskeeper Willie in more and more social
situations (such as they were for someone who spent a large portion of his
non-working hours in the basement of his parents house playing “World of
Warcraft”.)
Not every outing was a success in those early days. More
than one potential mate picked up on the fact that as the night wore on his
accent drifted from that charming lilt something more nondescript and vaguely
American. That, and he didn’t seem to have the mysterious qualities possessed
by mythical Europeans – that of style, social graces and knowledge of soccer
(or football, as he’d come to prefer).
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Photo courtesy of Darren Foreman/Flickr |
He’d watch them lose interest as the night wore on and made
the decision to do something about it (the possibility that the sex being
offered to him so freely might disappear too devastating to consider at
length.)
To facilitate his transformation, Donald immersed himself
into Scottish culture by way of
“Highlander,” “Trainspotting,” “Brigadoon” and “Brave.” (He also watched
“Michael Collins” and “Darby O’Gill and the Little People,” perhaps assuming
Ireland was just another name for Scotland in the same way the States were
representative of all America).
(He
was also aided in no small part from the various romance novels he found on his
mother’s nightstand – usually featuring a strapping clansman with long hair
blowing in the cries of his countryman preparing to pillage a heaving young
maiden. The man always wore a fraying tartan cape and tie-front shirts untied
to reveal booming pectorals. The women were always in too-small corsets – their
peaches and cream expressions a mix of fear and lust.)
But it was the Academy Award winner “Braveheart” he watched
over and over again, inspired in no small part by his admiration and respect
for Mel Gibson, who he maintained gave his heart and soul to the role of the incomparable
William Wallace.
He memorized Wallace’s famous troop-rallying speech,
practicing it in front of a mirror, half his face painted cobalt, in hopes that
he might one day have the opportunity to inspire his friends to take
life-altering measures.
“And
dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the
days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here
and say … .”
Sadly,
he never could come up with an applicable, equally stirring, life-altering
ending though.
His
friends commented on the ever-present accent at first, but were dismissive –
figuring Donald – who, let’s be honest, had always been on the fringe of even
their fringe – was just trying to make them laugh.
But
there were more changes. He began wearing plaid daily. He grew a beard. Bought
the bike. And the leather jacket (the latter two less for Scottish authenticity
than general badass-ness).
He
stopped hanging out with them altogether, instead venturing out solo. One time
they ran into him at a bar across town, shouting “Hey Donald!” while he was
talking to a girl in a dress that only feebly offered to cover up the parts
that could get you arrested. The fact
that she was much too sexy to be talking to their friend didn’t seem to
register with her.
When
they approached Donald laughing about the skirt he was wearing, he hissed at
them to stop calling him “Donald.” He went by “Van” now. And don’t act like
they know anything about him. As they left, Van shrugged at the girl with
disgust. “A bunch of wankers,” he said. She nodded in agreement, her hand
crawling up his kilt.
That
was the last anyone saw of Donald Greuber.
****
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Photo courtesy of Dave Stokes/Flickr |
When across the room, as if glowing in the moonlight
reflected off Loch Ness, he spotted a woman so fair it made his heart break.
Her glossy auburn hair fell in tight curls down to her
shoulders framing a long, delicate neck with skin the color of buttermilk from
a hairy coo. She wore a loose green top unbuttoned just enough to reveal her
creamy décolletage and jeans that molded a delicious posterior. She looked over
at him, her eyes as emerald as the isles, and this time he did not turn away.
She walked toward him, a smile forming on her rose-colored
lips. Nessie stirred under the kilt.
“You’re not from around here,” she said – her voice the wind
dancing over the heather.
He smiled. “Nah. I’m from Edinburgh.”
And she’d been there. A couple times. Visited the castle,
climbed Arthur’s Seat, toured a distillery. She didn’t seem fazed by the fact
that he did not engage in more discussion about his homeland. Which he, of
course, appreciated.
They talked for most of the night – well, mostly she talked.
(As was customary, he shared the heart-wrenching tail of the lovely Fiona –
taken too soon from this cruel world – before resuming his usual brooding.)
He watched those pretty lips open and close, imagining how
they’d be used later that evening. He thought about how her soft the skin on
her belly might feel and admired the sprinkle of freckles along her throat.
When it was time to go, she asked him to take her home with
him. Something he never did (What with the fact that he’d have to sneak past
his parent’s bedroom to get to his own.)
But she insisted, saying her roommate’s boyfriend was in
town for the weekend and the apartment was small and she could often be loud.
At this last part she giggled in embarrassment. Leaving him to wonder about
what it was she was loud about.
The stirring shifted to throbbing.
He relented, but told her his grandparents were staying on
with him for awhile – his grandfather having lost his potato farm to a fire.
They’d need to be quiet.
He could feel the start of her thighs against the back of
his as they sat on his bike. She smelled like vanilla and strawberries.
He raced home.
When they made it up to his bedroom -- the same one he’d had
since childhood – he made an excuse for the twin bed, telling her he’d given up
his room for his grandparents. This was where his nephew stayed when he came to
visit.
As he pulled her over to the bed she became coy. She tousled
his hair and blew in his ear, but backed away from all his advances.
“Tell me your name,” she said, sucking on her index finger
and then running it down her chest.
He’d read about this game. She wanted to be taken. To have
that blouse ripped off, the soundtrack to their passions a popping of buttons
and angry tearing of seams.
“It’s Donovan MacWallace. Now get over here woman,” he
returned.
But she didn’t move. When he strode over reaching for her
shirt, she intercepted his hands. Placing them down by his sides.
She began fiddling with the buttons on her shirt.
Unbuttoning the first. The second. The third. Exposing the lacy tops of her
breasts.
“No. Your real name.”
This caught Van off guard. But the strangeness of the question
was outweighed by the promise of her that he answered, panting, after only a
short pause.
“Donald Geuber – can you do that thing with your finger
again,” and with the reintroduction of Donald, away went that voice. That
charming, panties-dropping voice.
She straightened up. Buttoned her shirt.
“Hello Donald, my name is Phyllis Gertmander. I’m with a
local collections office. It seems you’ve failed to pay your Visa bill since
last May. We’ve sent you several notices and have visited your house on at least
six occasions. I’d like to notify you in person that unless you can fulfill
your obligations, we will be filing a lawsuit against you.”
Van nee Donald felt his stomach drop. His smile fell. He
sighed.
As it turned out, becoming Donovan MacWallace – Rogue,
seducer of women, wounded soul – was not an inexpensive undertaking.
In fact, it had cost him nearly $50,000. Which he couldn’t
really afford with his job as an administrative assistant, so he’d charged it
all. The bike. The clothes. The collection of Scottish and/or Irish-themed
DVDs. The replica highlander sword that he liked to wield in front of the
mirror while re-enacting the William Wallace speech. The bagpipe he’d intended
to learn how to play.
The legend was exposed as a myth and somewhere under his
kilt Nessie died.
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