When I was a shiny new member of a script writing team for a popular medical show, I’d lucked into an unbelievable opportunity.

Before he became semi-famous as a ‘character’ actor Mr. X. needed someone to ‘house sit’ while he appeared
in a Broadway play.

Mr. Y, who’d promised, (he sporadically appeared on the series I wrote for), ran off with a starlet to Catalina. Obviously, devoid of candidates, Mr. X turned to me;

“Can you do me a favour,” he breathed, fixing me with his big eyes, as if he was still seductive in his fifties, when I didn’t find him seductive when he played seductive men in their thirties….

I moved in within an hour of receiving the key.

Yes, I was not supposed to go upstairs to the bedrooms, but to stay in the little ‘guest side’, (or maid’s room).

Yes, there was a Gestapo officer who marched in twice a week to clean and investigate whether I’d used the upstairs loo, But yes! I had the run of the downstairs, the kitchen, the living room, an entire beach, and I prayed Mr. X would be a big success and stay in New York forever.

Each day I woke at seven, walked on the beach, took a dip in the sea, showered, dressed, breakfasted, and with rue, drove my clunker to the studio.

For the next eight hours or so, I suffered the pains of a serious writer having to work on garbage.
Then!
I returned to ‘my’ beach house.

As I got into ‘my’ room I’d strip off my sensible schmatas, pull on my bikini, race into the sea, then, if there was any sun left, lie tanning on the lounge, falling in and out of dreams.

Later, I’d shower, pull on something, shove something in my face, and find my typewriter and wait for my Muse.

It was nine days after I’d moved in, just after I’d called it a night, (my Muse failing to arrive) shut the light, about to get into my bed that I heard sounds.  Sounds on the deck outside of my room.

Cautiously, I came into the kitchen to peer from the window. There, hunkered on the deck was the co-star of an unimportant serial, whom I happened to be madly in lust with.

I’m going to set the scene so you can stand in my place, and understand why I did what I did.

At the time I am writing, I was insanely in love with an actor I’ll call Johnny Merit. (You’ll understand why I
have to change names and mask identities.)

Johnny Merit played a role in a cop show I only watched to see him.

I was too old to paper my room with his picture, too old to let anyone notice my ‘crush’, but each night, when I closed my eyes, I cast him in another fantasy.

These fantasies became stories and screen plays and award winning motion pictures, but that’s years later.

At the time I’m speaking, Johnny Merit was my Muse.

Every story I wrote, I began with him.
I wrote him.
I used the character he played and wrote for that character.
Everything I wrote began with an image of Johnny Merit.

Although I was working in Hollywood, and he was working in Hollywood, our paths didn’t cross. I couldn’t afford
to go anywhere, nor the clothes to wear to go anywhere anyway. If I’d been invited any place I’d have to borrow a dress.

Further, I wasn’t beautiful. My personality was okay, my intellect just peachy, but he’d never dangle a nothing
like me off his arm.

Johnny Merit lived my fantasies, and sometimes, when a dream was that good, I’d leap from my bed, to the
typewriter, and begin punching, creating another story fragment that I’d finish one day.

Johnny Merit being on my deck was more unbelievable than Santa, so my actions, though reckless were very much in my character.

Sure, looking back, I was a  woman alone, in a beach house, hearing sounds at night from a deck that faced
the sea, opening a door, like:
“Please help my beneficiaries collect double indemnity.”

But having seen Johnny Merit from the kitchen window I assumed I was dreaming. 

Anyway, things like that wouldn’t happen to me. A burglar would be the ugliest most depraved ratman in California, not one of the most beautiful young actors. Certainly not, of all people, the one man in the world
I was willing to die for.

I stood staring at the man who sat scrunched up on the deck, watching him tremble in fear or cold.

The night was a brighter one though not a full moon. But that man on my deck was Johnny Merit. Sopping wet, no shirt, no shoes, trembling and I could hear his tortured breathing.

“Are you hurt?” I ask, (image of me washing his wounds).

He jumped, made a cry, his eyes soup bowls.

Being crumpled on the deck is not the most glamourous position he could be in, and I was thinking; (Nahhh, that’s not him, just someone who looks like him), but I knew it was him. I’d know him anywhere.  I knew his face better than my own.

“You want to come in?” I ask, stepping back, from the door.

“Ja, ja just l-let me ssssit sitttt, a min minute…” he stuttered.

Now he played one of the most macho characters on television. To see him reduced to this quaking hulk, I got scared myself. I didn’t know what to do, figured, maybe he needed a drink.

I went through the kitchen, into the living room, to a mahogany cabinet I’d never opened before. I found a glass an open bottle of something and I thought; (this is a bad idea, I don’t know him, he may kill me),
but though I’d left the door open, he had not come into the house.

I took the drink onto the deck.

“Drink this…” I kneel, offering.

When he wouldn’t take it, I placed it on the wooden plank flooring, stepping back.

Eventually his hand came out, he took the glass, shaking so much he could bearly get it to his mouth, finally he
drank.

“What happened?” I ask, moving closer.

He didn’t answer.

I came even nearer, my lust overpowering and put my hand on his naked arm, pulled, “Come inside,” I say.

He obeyed. He followed me into the house, into the bathroom, I turned on the shower, making it a bit warm, for his skin was icy cold.

“Wash,” I command.

Without hesitation, he took off his pants. He wore nothing beneath.
I nearly swooned.
Honestly.
Swoon is the only word that accurately describes how overwhelmed I was. And all that was going through my mind was

“Johnny Merit! Johnny Merit! Johnny Merit Naked!”

Working on a medical series, I was familiar with shock, and he was definitely a senior case.

I began to feel more than stupid standing in the bathroom with him in the shower, so I backed up.
I stood in my bedroom shaking my head.

I must be dreaming…I can’t be dreaming…not a second of his presence should I waste thinking I’m dreaming….

I don’t know how long he was in the shower, but I felt he’d been in long enough, I went back in, with a towel.

“Come out now.” I said, and he did.

He stepped out, just stood there, and I dried him. I was so deep into overlust I was trembling, then to prolong the moment, rubbed lotion onto his skin, then led him to my bed.

I put him to lay down, got in beside him, held him. If he wanted to have sex, that would be paradise but  he lay quaking.

I held him, and he fell asleep in my arms. I stroked him, kissed his shoulder, I was dizzy with lust. Still, it was probably the best orgasm I’d ever had.

I watched him while he slept until I fell asleep, thinking ‘I am dreaming’.

In the morning, he was still there, in my arms. He was more beautiful in real life than the on the box. I would of lain there until hell froze over, but I really had to pee.

I slipped out of bed, not waking him, into the bathroom, where his pants still lay on the floor. I went through his pockets, then put the pants to soak in a bucket of cold water.

The stains on the pants, the pinking of the water, and I knew, blood. Not his blood.

At the moment, at that very moment, I didn’t care whom he had killed. If he killed anyone. I would protect him with my life.

As a woman, blood stains are not alien, and I had a bar of Vanish soap, which I used. I then carried his pants,
and the towels and my dirty clothing to the washing machine, dumped them in, started the machine, then went
back to the bedroom, where he still lay sleeping.

The sheet exposed his body to his waist, and I was deep into overlust so went to get back into the bed,
he sprang from sleep, staring at me, looking around, and of course, says;

“Where am I?”

And me, (remember I write scripts); “What do you remember?”

He shook his head, staring at me. Of course he didn’t know me. Then he knows he’s naked, in a bed.

And me, like an asshole, am wearing the same stupid old tee shirt I’d had on last night, and look a mess.
But he knows we’ve spent the night together.

“Do you have a car?” I ask, (I saw the key on the chain in his pocket).

“Yeah,” he asks, confused.

“Where is it….”

“I…it’s…It’s parked in my garage…”

“Where’s your garage…?”

“How did I get here?” he exclaims, looking at himself, at the room again, at me, then, “Who are you?”

I told him my name, which wouldn’t mean anything to him.

“Where are my clothes?” he asks.

“You only had on a pair of slacks, they were…soiled.” I say carefully, “I’m washing them now…” and gaze
deeply into his eyes.

I can see him remember whatever it was that impelled him to run into the sea, swim or wade or whatever to
reach this house, the deck of this house.

Why here?
The light.

I knew, as if it were a script,  that wherever he had been before he’d gone into the sea, he would have
seen the light in my house.  Seen it, and come to it.

“It’s okay, Johnny, you’re safe, I’ll get you something to put on, and make you breakfast.”

“Do I know you?” he asks, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t…seem to recall you…or how
I got here…or who you are…”

“I’m a script writer for ‘On Call’, we’ve never met.”

“Then why…? I don’t understand…”

“Don’t worry about it,” I flick, and go out, pointing in the direction of the bathroom, then into the kitchen
to start breakfast.

I called my office, sniffing and coughing, then went upstairs, burglarized Mr. X’s room.

Mr. X was maybe five feet eight, Johnny Merit was over six feet. Mr. X maybe weighed one fifty, Johnny was at
least two of solid muscle.

I found a bathrobe and one of those ridiculous baggy swim shorts, an older tee shirt, and came down.

Fortunately, this wasn’t the day Frau Gestapo came to clean.

Johnny was in the bathroom, I put the things on the bed, knocked the door, told him, went back into the kitchen. He came in about ten minutes later, dressed as it were, and I told him about Mr.X, about house sitting, just to keep sounds going in the kitchen.

I was going to turn on the radio, when there was a thump at the deck door, I turned to see police.

They came in, asked typical police questions, but seeing me and Johnny in a common domestic portrait, being relaxed and boring, and me volunteering, “well Johnny was sleeping, I was writing until one”, ended any need for the ‘man of the house’ to do more then make a dull nod, as confirmation.

The police, who would be going up and down the beach saw nothing here to keep them, and were off.

Johnny was a good actor, he’d been as blob-like as any man who just woke up, but when they’d gone, his hand trembled so much, he sloshed half the coffee on the counter.

I came to him, put my hand on his; “It’s okay,” I say.

He shook his head, got off the stool walked forward, back, around, into the bed room, sat on the bed. I came beside him.

“Do you know where the rest of your clothing is?” I ask.

It was as a button had been pushed. He suddenly was sobbing and I pulled him into my arms, lay with him, stroking him, telling him what came to mind in the vein of ‘alright’. My lips tasting his skin, my hands stroking his body, the very smell of him was aphrodisiac.

Eventually he went to sleep, usual male hibernating state. After an hour of his company, I left him, went to the
laundry, moved everything into the dryer, then hung the clothes up inside.

In the living room I turned on the news. The murder of Big Famous Movie Star was headline. Apparently Big Famous Movie Star was found stabbed to death this morning by his housekeeper.

Everyone, except the movie watching public, knew that Big Famous Movie Star was a fairy. No one but me knew where Johnny came into the story.

Well, Johnny’s clothes would be found. However, in those days, (before computers) there wasn’t DNA testing either. As long as Johnny hadn’t been wearing anything with his name in it, he was reasonably safe. Unless there were witnesses.

In those days there was no ‘Gay’. Men who had sex with men were perverts, faggots, fairies, queers, the list
goes on. Big Famous Movie Stars could not be homosexuals. The hint destroyed a career.

Big Famous Movie Stars, who were homosexuals, lived with greater caution than CIA agents in Moscow. Unless this was some sort of orgy…

I went into the bedroom.

“Johnny, wake up…”

Eventually he opened his eyes.

“Listen to me, last night, was there anyone else in Big Famous Movie Star’s house…beside you?”

When I said the name, he nearly screamed. He began to hyperventilate, and I began to stroke him as if he were a cat, telling him to relax, he was safe.

I was getting very concerned about me now. Harboring a fugitive, accessory, things like that.

“It was only us…” he said softly. “I met him…”

He begins to give me what I’ll call, “The Story”.

“I received a phone call from B.F.M.S. out of the blue. He said he liked my work, had a project he wanted to
discuss with me, but despised my agent. He said he wanted me to sign with his agency..”

(A number of Hollywood Stars had created their own agency at this time, and were actively soliciting members among their peers)

“…I agreed to meet him. He told me that due to the possibility of law suits, we’d have to do this very secretly.”

(There had been a slurry of lawsuits brought by agents against the new agency)

“…and he asked me where I lived. He told me to find my way to a certain road, wait in the dark, he’d be driving a black Cadillac, the rear door on my side would be open. He would slow, stop, I was to get in, lie flat.”

(This kind of hush hush wasn’t unknown in La La Land)

“When we reached his house, we came in through a garage side door. As we came into the living room
he told me to take off my shoes, the carpet…”

Johnny became nervous now.

He’d been sitting with his back against the headboard, I beside him. He got off the bed, he walked, he peeked
out of the window, looked at me, sat at the foot, eyes on the wall. His back was towards me, he spoke to the
door, but I could see the left side of his face.

“He asked if I wanted a drink, I didn’t…but he made a thing of it, so I took one, then another. He said something about needing to see my chest, if I was broad enough for the character…I didn’t want to take
off my shirt… I was feeling strange… he came to me, began unbuttoning my shirt.”

(And probably kissing him)

I went to step back, he…tore my shirt…I shoved him off. He said…”

Johnny stopped talking. He didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to give the gory details, but I could imagine.

“The letter opener….I had to get him off me…I stabbed at him, and stabbed, and ran out…the back…past the pool, over the fence….into the sea…to wash him…off me…I had the letter opener, dropped it…in the sea… swam….then…came out….ran….saw…lights…your house…and…”

I wasn’t going to mention that he had no brief, just the pants. I don’t know how far he and B.F.M.S. went. Maybe Johnny was queer, maybe they’d been lovers. I don’t know. I didn’t need to know.

“It’s okay. Later tonight I’ll drive you home.”

“Why are you doing this for me?” he asks now.

There are times in your life in which you chose the best lie. The truth is so stupid that if you say it, you make it a lie. Why was I doing this for him?

If a child had been on the deck last night, I’d have called the police. I’d of peeked out of the window, called the
police.

I couldn’t tell him that I was a deranged groupie fixated upon him to the extent I would aid and abet him in
a murder. So I lied.

“I don’t know, your vibe, your aura, your psychic energy, I don’t know. I just believe you were escaping a fate
worse than death.” (I’m a writer, I know all the cliches)

He looked at me with his big beautiful eyes,

“Thank you,” he said, and crawled up the bed, kissed me. On the cheek. It took all my power not to grab him, give him the most passionate kiss of his life.

It was all downhill from there.

We had nothing to talk about. We didn’t like the same foods, the same books, the same programs.

It started when he saw my bedside reading,

“Don’t tell me you’re actually following that charlatan?”

(That was my generation’s guru).

I tried to defend, he didn’t even listen, waving a hand.

Not to ruin our moments together I switched on the radio. He immediately turned it to a station I loathed, which was playing a tune that nauseated me.

I went into the bathroom to change into my best dress.

“That looks ghastly on you. The color, the cut, throw it away!”

In the kitchen he made himself a sandwich of the veal cutlet I planed to eat for dinner, then left half of it on the counter.

He prowled the house, the living room, upstairs, down, to the back door, didn’t go out, turned on the television, turned it off. I wanted to talk to him, but he left no space.

I went out, to the sea, but it was much too cold. When I returned I learned my office had called, he had answered, told them I was out.

I called them back saying I was out to the doctor, and when they pressured me as to my ‘houseguest’, I said he was an old boyfriend.

Then I took Johnny’s pants from the line, ironed them and he had the temerity to say; “Oh, they’re ruined. You know this material needs to be drycleaned.”

I glared at him. He had this, ‘what did I say?’ look on his face.

If a character existed to totally numb me, that was his.

After a record twenty four hours of daylight, (or so it seemed) the sun finally gave up. He wanted to wait until
about ten p.m. but by this time I was ready to turn him over to the police on sheer irritation.

Why couldn’t he have been as perfect as he was on screen? Why couldn’t we have had something in common?

At eight thirty I drove him to the dark road, he kissed me on the jaw, hopped out, went back the way he’d come yesterday.

I drove off, winding up at the usual Chinese take out picking one from column A and one from column B.

At home I couldn’t get my mind around the last eighteen hours or so, made it an early night.

In the morning I reached work, rouged my nose, talked through it to emulate sick. I did such a good job, my
boss sent me home.

Standing on the deck watching the sea, I thought of Johnny. Oh, did I think of Johnny! I went to the desk drawer, pulled out all the stories I’d built around him.

I was going to toss them, angry, thwarted, betrayed. And then it reached me, the reason why my stories
never finished, why they all ran one to another like cheap dye; my protagonist was too perfect.

All my stories had that too good to be real guy who gets boring fast.  No corners, no hooks, and the female, simpers.

In my anger at Johnny Merit, in my disgust at myself, I began to rework my stories.

Starting that night I became a serious writer.

Meanwhile, the murder of B.F.M.S. continued to puzzle the police and there was another round of investigations.

The second detective who interviewed me was in his thirties, divorced, no children. I gave him the same story I’d given the first set.

Demeanor had a lot to do with it. I had been as calm and believable the second time as I was the first.

The weird part of this, was that Johnny had made such a non-impression on the first set of cops the second was more interested in how I came to be in Mr. X’s house. 

Then, as things happen in Hollywood, the truth started it’s inexorable crawl to the surface. First the hints,
the rumors then the admission; B.F.M.S. was queer. B.F.M.S was queer and it was a queer murder. And no one cared about B.F.M.S. any more.

Eight months later I married the detective and my first screen play was broadcast.

The protagonist, my standard muse, had interesting flaws in his character. The actor who played him, (not Johnny) won an award, and later went on to become a B.F.M.S.

I became an important screen writer, reworking those stories which had stagnated in the desk drawer.

Johnny Merit went on to appear in a number of television serials, minor movies, best as the third co-star where others carried the picture.

I saw him a few times over the years, always a big hello, a lot of nothing, then a big good-bye.

He married, there weren’t any rumors about his sexuality.

Johnny Merit died last week. He had been playing the father on a soap opera, which is why he got a short
obit in the newspaper.

Now I can produce my script of the murder of B.F.M.S.

I’ve worked a lot of the rumors into it, so Hollywood would be warmed with what they ‘always knew’, but the opening scenes, how and when B.F.M.S. picks up his victim, is word for word, image for image, what Johnny told me.

I capture it exactly.

The action flows, until he takes off his shoes to step upon the carpet. At that point, it cuts to credits and
crap, a dark screen, then resumes with B.F.M.S. before he was a Big Famous Movie Star.

I go through B.F.M.S’s ‘history’. Working in rumour and fact. There’s what everyone knew, what some hinted at, as close to ‘truth’ as one can get in Hollywood.

Then, fade, back to the shoes, the drinks, (my husband was one of the investigator, so ‘told me’ about the two glasses, the torn shirt, the missing letter opener). Then the attempt to rape, a hand coming out reaching across the desk…

The murder scene is left out.

The last screen is the housekeeper finding the body.

Who was the murderer?
I leave it vague.
No name, no face.
Never show the killer’s face.

I leave all the answers to who killed B.F.M.S. as is where is; the how, the why, the when, but not the who.

I could have submitted the script decades ago, but I wanted to wait until Johnny was dead.

I owe that much to my muse.