Her Robert Blake
fiction by Lara Parker

LA Times: February 21, 2003: A judge ruled Thursday that actor Robert Blake had the motive and opportunity to fatally shoot his wife, and ordered him to stand trial for murder. Blake, who had been staring forlornly through most of the morning's proceedings, took a deep breath and cried, as Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lloyd M. Nash set bail at $1.5 million. Blake, star of the 70s television show Baretta, is charged with ambushing his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, who was fatally shot May 4, 2001, while sitting in the passenger seat of Blake's black Dodge Stealth near the Studio City restaurant where they had just dined...........

Cheryl had stopped crying, but she was still twisted up inside, even though she had tried to take deep breaths on the long drive home from Universal to Malibu Lake. Mostly she had concentrated on the lush green meadows across Mulholland, impossibly verdant seas dancing with the foam of orange poppies, all trembling, all waving wickedly. Linda Ronstadt's melancholy wailing on the radio had only made her more irritable. She gunned her car up the driveway, parked, and sat listening to the end of Blue Bayou before she turned off the ignition.

Another terrible reading. Another blown audition. She'd worn absolutely the wrong thing, too sexy, too tight; she'd shopped for three whole hours to find it and, naturally, she'd been late. A clingy silk dress that was too young for her, and now it was wrinkled, hot, bunched up under her breasts.

After twelve auditions this year and still no jobs, she thought she must be losing her edge. But then she was thirty-six, and most of the roles were for girls in their twenties. Just another out-of-work actress, still not married, behind on her rent and her Visa. She owed everybody, her acting teacher who'd let her class fees slide for three months, and her mechanic who fixed the transmission on her deteriorating Volvo. What was so maddening was the part was perfect for her. With top of the show and re-runs, she would easily have made over five thousand dollars. She should have worked harder preparing for the audition, a love scene on a fire escape with Baretta. Instead, she'd gone shopping. She could have fixed her air conditioner, caught up with SAG dues, and paid for this awful dress, one hundred and ninety dollars charged at Bloomingdales.

She leaned back in the seat and sighed, breathing in the mingled odors of a balmy spring day. At least she lived in Paradise, she often told herself, a cute single room above a garage in the Malibu Hills. And the landlord had given her the garden to care for. The arbor over her parking space was a waterfall of wisteria, and the perfume was intoxicating to the bees who dove in and out of the lavender garlands with amazing determination. They had jobs.

Trailing up the walls of the house, jasmine she had planted her first year exhumed the scent of Los Angeles in the spring. She remembered her first weeks in the city after she left Memphis ten years ago and came to Hollywood to be a movie star, the heady smell of jasmine and orange blossoms in the night under the glamorous palms, the smell of fame.

She decided to look at her roses to cheer herself up, and got out of the car and walked over to the fence behind the driveway, where she had planted her Climbing Peace. Dozens of blossoms hung on the vines, but when she saw them, she started to cry again. Each year she pruned and fertilized, eagerly awaiting the spring, and then it made her inexplicably sad. When the flowers finally bloomed they were so beautiful, but their time was short. Buds she had seen only yesterday, today were full blown, creamy and huge, like pale pink moons. In another week, the California heat would shrivel them to faded and lifeless lumps.

She shuffled into her apartment and sighed at the mess she had made getting ready for the audition. Uneaten oatmeal congealed in a bowl by the sink where last night's take-out enchiladas were stuck to a plate. Dresses and blouses jerked from plastic cleaning wrappers littered the floor, and she had left her best heels where Beeper, her shih tzu puppy, could chew on them. Where was Beeper anyway?

"Beeper?"

The phone rang. It was her agent. "Guess what," he said. "You got the part."

She gasped. "You're kidding."

"No. They loved you."

She felt weak and had to sit down on the couch. "I can't believe it. I was terrible. I thought I was too old."

"Well, it said twenty-five to thirty, but I think they thought you were in there. Maybe you were the shortest girl who read. He's supposed to be five four."

"Oh, God, I'm so happy."

"So, wardrobe at three, and you'll get your call around six."

She realized she was sitting in a wet spot. Beeper was hiding because she had peed again on the cushion. Cheryl jumped off the couch and grabbed the roll of paper towels from the counter while Lou gave her the bad news.

"You know you're Station 12."

"Oh-h-h-h, right."

"You'll have to drive to SAG and pay your back dues, or you can't work."

"Shit, it's over three hundred dollars. I haven't got it."

"Yeah, I figured." He sighed. "Come by here and I'll give it to you and take it out of your check." Dear Lou. He was her best friend.

She danced across the room trailing the whole roll of paper towels across the floor, wrapping it around and around her waist. Beeper couldn't resist this and came out from behind the couch, growling ferociously at the huge white boa constrictor all hers to rip to shreds. Life was bliss.

Cheryl waded up some of the towel and soaked up the pee. "You're so great, Lou. You know what I love about you? You never give up on me."

He chuckled, "That's right. I keep thinking... someday... I'll get lucky."

"Say I'm a movie star."

"You're my movie star, baby."

She was late for class and the first scene was already up. The little black box theater was dark when she slid in beside Cliff, and realized, like a lot of the seats in the room, her seat was broken. She moved to the edge so she wouldn't pinch her rear end and caught a whiff of Cliff's cologne, something musky that blended with his own scent and drove her absolutely crazy. She imagined being sweaty and naked with him. They were mad for each other, and sex with him was divine, but he wasn't going to marry her. He wasn't even divorced yet. How many months ago was it when she had answered the phone. It was about to rain, and she had been planting grass seed trying to take advantage of the downpour. It was Maria, Cliff's wife. "I want you to stop fucking my husband," she said. Cheryl was dumbfounded. She stood by the kitchen window watching the rain coming down, with her seed spreader still in her hand.

"He told me you knew. That you were separating."

"Well, he lied," said Maria. "Better get used to it."

Glancing at his perfect profile in the light from the stage, she felt a throb. He looked like one of those Greek charioteers in the Parthenon freeze, so boyish and noble. She loved his soft mouth, the way his sandy hair curled over his ears. He picked up on her excitement as soon as she pressed her arm against his.

"How ya doin'."

"I can't come home with you tonight," she whispered.

"Why?"

"I got a job."

"Really? That's great." She could hear the jealous edge in his voice under his forced enthusiasm. He almost succeeded in sounding sincere because he was such a good actor. She was itching to announce her good fortune to the class, but she knew it would make them all sad. Most of the actors hardly ever worked, especially the girls.

She unbuttoned the top button of her jeans, slid down the zipper, and let her stomach relax. Only a few years ago she could count on five to ten shows a season, plus a pilot. Now all the shows had permanent casts, and unless you were on a series, you had to scrounge. Crime shows still had a girl every week because they had a murder to solve and they needed someone to die, or to mourn. Her last three parts had all been murder victims, killed off in the first five minutes, day jobs for a thousand. But this was a lovely part, three scenes and a romance with Baretta.

She snuggled against Cliff and put her head on his shoulder. He reached for the inside of her leg in the dark, easily laying claim. She watched Don and Carla up on the tiny stage struggling through the opening scene of Cat. Why in God's name did Carla decide to do Maggie? Her Southern accent was atrocious, and she was even from the South! And her timing was way off. Maggie was meant to be funny, and the speech about the Cotton Carnival Float was supposed to be hilarious, especially when the Queen gets spit in the face with tobacco juice. Still, she had to admit Carla looked fabulous in her bra and that skimpy slip. She had great tits. That was probably why she wanted to do the scene, so she could parade around on stage in a lace-trimmed negligee thing.

She leaned it to Cliff and whispered, "Will you read through the lines with me after this?"

"Sure. What's the show?" He stuck his tongue in her ear.

"Baretta."

"Baretta?" There was a pause she didn't expect as he pulled back. "Good luck."

"Why do you say that?"

"I've heard it's an awful show to work on." His hand on her thigh felt leaden, and she shifted so he would take it away.

John was critiquing the scene, and he was getting right to the point. Carla was playing the sex, but it made no sense 'cause Maggie wasn't getting any. Tennessee's Maggie was brittle and frantic. Her sexuality had to be unconscious. Cheryl was so impatient to spill her news she found it hard to pay attention. It was serendipitous that she had class the night before she worked. John would give her amazing pointers, things she would never think of. He knew her bad habits, her special gifts. He would line up her objectives in the scenes tomorrow and she wouldn't have to come up with them on her own.

At one time John had looked forward to a promising career, and he'd been at the Actors Studio with Brando and Kazan. Dapper and graying now, he was still savvy and acerbic. Once he had tried to kiss her. They'd been working late alone on an audition scene and he had praised her work. She was limp with happiness when he walked her to her car. Before she got in, he reached for her and held her to him breathing into her neck. "You have the most amazing odor," he said. Bewildered, she patted him on the back affectionately, and she felt him stiffen.

Don't pat me," he said. "Don't dismiss me like that. Don't you know how demeaning it is?"

"Sorry."

"God, Cheryl," he said as he opened her car door, "you're so damned delectable, and so..." he searched for the word, "...so, oblivious."

She and Cliff got up on stage and read through the scenes. The part was a policewoman-in-training named Josie who was new in Baretta's precinct. They met early in the show, worked on a murder case together, had a scene with the cockatoo, and then a love scene on a fire escape outside Baretta's apartment.

"Nice part," said John.

Then Joanna, a gorgeous black girl who always complained about the lack of heat in the theater, spoke up from the back of the room. "Yeah, well, Baretta kicked me off his show."

"What?" said Cheryl. "Who?"

"Robert Blake. That son of a bitch dumped me the very first day. Said I didn't work out." Joanna was tall and creamy skinned. She could sing, and she'd just done a Fosse musical for free in the Valley with great reviews.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing. I didn't do nothin'. Shit. All I said was I didn't get my cue." "But you never get your cue. He improvises." Now Lulu had chimed in. Lulu was a tiny Jewish girl with a boyish body, smart as a physics professor. She had gone to the network on a pilot three weeks ago. A new sit-com. But they cast a blond. "I did his show last year. He changes the dialogue every take. That's how he keeps it fresh. You have to be able to hang with it."

"Hang my ass," said Joanna. "I think it's totally unprofessional."

Cheryl could feel the stage spinning under her feet. "He kicks people off the show? After they've been cast?" Anxiety was shooting up her inner thermometer like mercury in a heat wave.

"You didn't know that?" said Joanna. "All the time. Everyone knows he's a first class jerk He even fires his directors. You know, Napoleonic complex."

"It just means he gets the shots," said Lulu. They have to cut to him, because he's the only one in the scene who knows what's happening."

John interrupted. "Okay, that's enough. Relax, Cheryl, you'll do fine. You've got nothing to worry about." He sounded weary. "Find your objective. Listen. Watch. Concentrate. You can improvise. I've seen you do it lots of times."

"On camera?"

"What do you shoot tomorrow?"

"The first scene where we meet in the police station, and then, naturally, the love scene, well, the kissing scene. I have to wear this awful blue uniform that makes me look fat and--"

"Forget what you're wearing. With that baby doll face nobody's going to be looking at the uniform. Okay, what's your objective in the first scene?"

"It's Josie's, uh... it's my first day of work and I really want to impress him."

"Right. And what's the 'event'?"

Cheryl started to feel the pressure. Always the question with the absurdly simple answer she never could figure out. The clue to playing the scene.

"It's... well, there's a murder--"

"What's going on in the scene? With you? Come on, Cheryl."

"I'm scared, intimidated."

"Not the negative. You can't play a negative." He was bored. "What happens? Let's go. Other people want to work tonight. Think about it. Isn't there going to be a love scene?"

"Yeah..." She was sweating, running out of time. God, she hated this. She turned to look at Cliff. His face was blank; no help from those parts.

"So, in the first scene?" John was pinching the end of his mustache and sucking it into his mouth.

"So..."

John was out of patience. "Wouldn't you say..." throwing his hands in the air, "They hit it off!"

"Right. Of course. They hit it off."

"So, that's the 'event.' Okay?" He was starting to take that condescending tone which made it hard for her to think. "And why do they hit it off? Cheryl?"

She took a chance. "There's a spark when they meet?"

"Right. Can you make that happen? Can you create that spark?"

"I guess."

"So, what kind of preparation are you going to do?"

She hesitated. "I don't know. Work on how worried I am about meeting him, how hard I'm going to try to do a good job." She giggled. "I guess I don't have to work on that." The class all laughed. John sighed and slid down in his seat covering his face with his right hand. His mustache protruded from between his second and third fingers and he rubbed his mouth as though he had just discovered his lips.

"Cheryl, how long have you been in this class?"

"Two years."

"You are supposed to have learned something, my dear." She couldn't speak. She hated John when he was like this. She sat there, paralyzed, like a lump of sea-weed. John spoke slowly weighing every word. "How do you prepare for a scene where you meet someone and there's an instant sexual charge?"

Okay, she had been humiliated, and now she was sick of it. She sat up and gave John a cool look. "I'm sure you'll tell me," she said. But her snit went right by him.

"You fantasize making love. All night. Imagine sex in every position."

"With Robert Blake?"

"No. Not with Robert Blake, Cheryl. With Cliff. He's your boyfriend, isn't he?" Cliff gave a little burp and grinned at her. Everyone laughed again.

"Do everything you can think of tonight to get yourself in a state of arousal. Masturbate, but whatever you do, don't come. Walk on that set flushed with sexual hunger. You should reek like a cat in heat. Understand?"

"Okay. Yeah, sure."

"You have a big garden, right?"

She nodded.

"What kind of flowers?"

"Roses, mostly."

"I want you to go home and take three big paper bags and fill them with rose petals." She could see John's eyes gleaming with that light that came on when he got into his teaching frenzy. "Take off all your clothes, and get in the bath tub, and cover yourself with rose petals, and lie there until you... glow, until you... bristle... with desire."

In the moonlight, the pale roses hung on the thorny vines like the faces of angels. Pricking herself over and over, Cheryl gathered sacks full of tender petals, and carried them inside. She lay in the tub and scattered them on her naked body, feeling them tickle and caress every curve and crevice. She breathed in the pungent odor until she felt drunk on it, and she stroked the silken leaves, the petals like sheer leather, her small breasts, her hip bones, her ribs, until her skin and the flowers were one. All the while, she visited her fantasies: the one about the car full of wild high school boys circling the bus stop until she finally climbed in; Mr. Wartshoski, her History professor, spanking her after he caught her cheating; and, her favorite, the night she was doing Six Million Dollar Man and Lee Majors called her hotel room and asked her if she wanted to fool around. She said no that night, but in her fantasy, she always said yes.

When she walked into make-up the next morning she felt like a neon sign pulsing with electrified color. She could hear Robert Blake on the other side of the sound stage barking at someone, his Jersey accent more recognizable than the words. Every show had an ambiance that reflected the star's personality, and she could feel right away the skittishness on this set. The make-up girl was jerky and apprehensive, hurrying though the base and powder. And Robert Blake was mad at somebody, that was certain. Now he was screaming, and she heard something crash. Cheryl felt her pulse quicken, and a sour taste trickled into her mouth.

She'd worn her cashmere sweater to give her a soft look, make her breasts touchable, and it was blue like her eyes. But when she caught a glimpse of Robert Blake walking in her direction, panting a little from his tantrum, she thought about high-tailing it to the wardrobe truck. Still, she told herself she should meet him before they did the scene, so she kicked her shoes under the table. She could see right away that she was taller than he was.

He was wearing tight jeans and a short-sleeved, white T-shirt plastered over his pit bull frame. His hair was a thick, curly black cap with side burns and a cowlick over his forehead. Black eyebrows curved like upside-down smiles over two shiny beetle eyes dancing in a Pan in the Forest face that seemed squished together, his nose too close to his chin. He looked exactly like a haggard, forty-five year old version of Mickey in Our Gang. Which, of course, he was.

"Mr. Blake. This is Cheryl Thomas. She plays the policewoman."

He stared at her and she could have sworn he had a miner's light glued to his forehead, and she was caught in its glare. Now, her stomach squirming, she stood up, and immediately scrunched back down, thrusting out a hip and drooping her shoulders.

"I just want you to know," she said in her softest, most conspiratorial voice, "how much pleasure you have given me."

He frowned. Irritation floated across his face.

"Watching you work, I mean, on your show, it's a real lesson in technique."

"Which one?"

"What?"

"Which episode?"

It was only at that moment she realized she had never watched Baretta. She started to say, Oh, all of them, but that seemed miserably inadequate so she said, "The one when you nearly died."

He stared at her a second longer, then grinned. He put an arm around her and pulled her to him.

"Wanna meet my bird?"

The cockatoo was sitting outside her cage and preened when she saw Robert Blake.

"She's pretty, isn't she?"

"Oh, yes, so pretty. Pretty bird."

"Her name's Fred. Want to hold her? Just stick out your hand. She won't bite."

Fred politely minced up to her hand, hopped to her shoulder, and crawled up on to her head. When she felt the bird's claws in her hair, she giggled. "It tickles," she said in rush of embarrassment, knowing that she was her most appealing when she became flushed like this. She darted her eyes at him. His were smiling at hers, and an electric spark passed between them, just as John had said it would.

The scene was a breeze. Robert Blake even remembered her cues, and never took his eyes off her while she was doing her close-up, continually giving her that licorice-tooth look, locked in, and smitten. And she blushed and glanced back, smiling a thousand secret-promise smiles, as the spark danced between them again and again.

The scene on the fire escape was the best acting she had ever done. She completely forgot her lines and improvised effortlessly. The dialogue in the scene wasn't important anyway because Josie and Baretta were talking so intimately. They talked about the disappointments in their lives, and Baretta said a cop's life was lonely, that his wife had been murdered outside an Italian restaurant, and he'd become a cop to forget. It all felt natural, the way acting was supposed to feel, and then, without even trying, she cried real tears.

"You're always stronger in the broken places," Cheryl said. It wasn't in the script. It just came to her during her close-up. Baretta's face lit up and he smiled with undisguised admiration. Then he leaned in and kissed her, which was in the script, and the director waited a long moment without saying anything until Robert Blake pulled away and said softly, "Cut."

He whispered in her ear. "You're the best actress that's ever been on my show. "

That night she called John.

"How's it going?"

"Great! Great! Unbelievable. They absolutely love me!"

"You do the scenes?"

"Both of them. With not a single problem. He gave me lots of compliments."

"Well, he won't fire you now." John was pleased. She could feel him taking credit through the phone line. "Not with film in the can. Good girl. Keep it up."

"I'm so happy."

"Don't go out with Cliff."

"Oh. Okay."

"Keep her steaming." He paused. "You have any operas?"

"Maybe an old LP of Traviata."

"Listen to it. And Cheryl... don't..." He paused.

"H-mmmm?

"Just be sure..." He stopped. "Never mind. It's okay."

"Bristle."

"Yeah. Bristle."

She lay in bed listening to "Sempre Libera" in the dark, flooding her body with Violetta's dark passions, thinking about what John had said. When she had first begun studying with him, she had been the class star. Every time she did a scene, he gave her so much praise, she had come to believe she was incredibly gifted. Now he rarely had anything good to say. She knew it was because he had hinted he wanted to sleep with her and she had pretended not to notice. It was nice to feel his approval again, to be getting such inspired guidance.

The next morning Robert Blake came over to her and said, "Have lunch with me." She was startled, but flattered. It would be exciting to be seen in the private dining room of the Universal Commissary with a famous person. Besides she was feeling a little tired and she had to keep that spark alive. They didn't have any scenes together that morning, and Robert Blake put her in his canvas chair with his name on the back so she could watch him work. It was the scene where Baretta caught the murderer in a back alley, pinned him to the ground, and handcuffed him. First they choreographed the fight scene. Two stunt guys would do the gnarly parts, the falls, and the heavy hitting. Then they would cut to Robert Blake and the other actor for close-ups. The stunt man standing in for Robert Blake wasn't as small in stature as the star, and he was dark-haired and sexy, but he was concentrating on the scene and she couldn't catch his eye.

Cheryl had a thing for stunt men. When she had first come to California she had a deep and unfathomable crush on the Marlboro Man, and she intended to look him up. Her fantasy was that when she met him she would simply offer herself to him. Her crush was that agonizing, that profound. But the first time she asked some stunt men on the set about him, someone had told her that he had been in a jeep accident, that he had torn off the top of his head and now he was a complete vegetable living at the Motion Picture Home.

The actor playing the bad guy was obviously intimidated and Robert Blake was giving him a hard time.

"Come on, asshole, why don't you show me what you've got?"

The actor looked around for the director who was deep in conversation with the cameraman. Then he stared at the floor.

"Come for me like you mean it. What are you, a pussy?" Robert Blake made a couple of fists and then pointed at his chin with his middle finger. "Here, sonofabitch," he said, "right here." Then he looked over at Cheryl and winked. He was showing off for her. He was relaxed, edgy, and funny all at the same time. He had that special something that made him a star.

The AD called "Quiet on the set," and she heard "Marker" and "Speed." Magic time thought Cheryl, and she felt a tingle.

"Right here," said Robert Blake. "You sonofabitch, I dare you." Then the director said "Action." The other actor lurched and swung. Robert Blake ducked and came at him like a sledgehammer. He nailed him, and in a split second was on top of him, his hands around the actor's neck, choking him, the poor guy's eyes bulging for real and Robert Blake grunting and thrusting him into the floor. The director yelled, "Cut!" Robert Blake got up, the actor shook his head in a daze, and the crew all clapped and whistled.

When they walked in the commissary, everyone looked up. She felt a little awkward in her high heels, towering over Robert Blake, but only once did she hear someone giggle. The commissary was noisy with dishes clattering and actors ranting above the din at their agents, producers firing angry tirades at their directors. Cheryl caught a glimpse of an actor she'd worked with on Hawaii 5-0. She ducked her head in hopes that he wouldn't see her.

"Tell me a secret about yourself," said Robert Blake after they sat down. She tried to think of something, but all her secrets were about other men.

"Well, I made a book of all the wildflowers once."

"No kidding?"

"I took pictures and looked up all the Latin names." Actually she hadn't done it alone. It had been an project one spring with a new boyfriend. "They're blooming now," she said. "Hundreds of different spring wildflowers in the chaparral. Most people don't know they exist. They think there's no change of seasons in Southern California."

Robert Blake took both her hands and looked into her eyes.

"I can't believe you've come into my life."

She smiled. "It was so great to get cast."

"You know I've just gone through a very painful divorce."

"No. I didn't."

"Don't you know Sondra Blake? The actress?"

"Oh, right."

"We were married for twelve years. She really broke me up. I never thought I'd meet someone as lovely as you."

She laughed her most charming little laugh and looked down at her club sandwich then up under her lashes. The spark was definitely alive. He dissolved in her gaze, his small jowls drooping, his eyebrows like the mouths in tragic masks. And to think she had been so afraid of this teddy bear.

"What went wrong?"

"Oh, baby, you don't want to know. It got so ugly. Like my whole fuckin' life."

"What do you mean?"

"I was strung out on heroin for two years, stole cars, smashed motorcycles into trees. I could write a book about self-destruction."

"But why would you want to destroy yourself? You're so talented."

"You've never read about how my dad used to lock me in the closet all day, made me eat off the floor like a dog?" He looked serious.

"No-o-o-o." She let her eyes go cloudy, and she pursed her lips in a soft, round O.

"Yeah. But now everything is beautiful," he said smiling.

They did the final scene with Fred, breaking up the whole time, teasing each other, playing off the bird. And then, she was a finished actress. The crew gave her a nice applause and the head gaffer came over and said, "You made it easy for all of us."

She blushed and said, "Thanks."

All the way home she was humming to herself, thinking about Cliff and the heaven of the night coming on. He had one amazing characteristic she had never seen before in any other man. He got wet like a girl. Clear mucus came out of the tip of his penis when he was aroused. It was so sweet. The phone was ringing when she walked in the door. It was Robert Blake.

"Listen. I've got a couple of horses. Come go for a horseback ride with me this afternoon."

She tried to think. How did he get her number? Why was he calling her now that the show was over? She gathered up Beeper, and an itch of irritation flickered in her nose as she nuzzled her puppy.

"Oh. I can't."

"Well, when?"

"What?"

"When can you go? My farm's not far from Malibu Lake."

"Oh... I..."

"You said you like to ride, right?" His voice was scratchy. "I've got a couple of great horses. I want to take you. Come on, it'll be fun." He sounded tired, irritated maybe. Then he said, "You can teach me about the wildflowers."

She didn't know what to say, so she said, "Okay." He gave her directions to a road off Kanan and Mulholland, and she wrote them down without really thinking. Everything had gone so beautifully on the show. She didn't want to jeopardize it now. And the truth was she did love to ride, and when would she get a chance to do that again? Luckily, she had a Ralph Lauren cowboy shirt and some doeskin boots. The show was over, she did a great job, she was going to get paid, and she deserved to celebrate. Why not gallop through the wildflower meadows with the wind in her hair.

When she got out of her car, Robert Blake came over and gave her a long hug, the top of his head just below her nose. She resisted an inclination to pat him, and waited patiently for him to let her go. A beautiful bay horse, tied up and saddled, stomped and flicked flies with his tail. His hooves were long and shiny.

"I'm putting you on Magic,' he said, and led her over to the horse who rubbed his bridle against her stomach before raising his head to look at her with his deep set eyes.

"He's a retired race horse. Thoroughbred. But gentle." He cupped his hands and she placed her doeskin toe into them and he lifted her, and she raised her leg gracefully over the saddle. Then he passed her the reins. "You okay?" he said, looking into her eyes.

"Yeah. Sure. I'm great."

"I need to get something," he said. "Be right back."

When Robert Blake came out of the barn, he was wearing a huge black cowboy hat, and he had a small silver pistol in his hand. He untied a muscular Appaloosa. "This is Applehead," he said with a grimace as he eased into the saddle. "My trusty steed for ten years." He thrust the pistol into a holster on his saddle.

"What's the gun for?"

"Rattlesnakes."

It was the wildflowers she talked about after they started down the trail. The air was drenched with the fragrance of ceanothus which dusted the hillsides like snow. She pointed out lupine and cream cups and Indian paintbrush. She exclaimed over mariposa lilies and Chinese houses. Robert Blake was subdued, watching her closely, listening and nodding. Once he reached for her hand as they rode side by side, but, to her relief, the horses pulled them apart. They came up on a bank of tiny blossoms of intense lapis lazuli nodding on long stalks. "Oh look! Hyacinth!" she cried. "They're wild onions. Some people call them blue dicks."

He grunted, "Oh, yeah?"

They rode deeper and deeper into the chaparral. For a while she concentrated on sitting her horse, back straight, heels down, knees squeezing tight. But when they cantered, she felt free as an Indian girl riding over the plains, Magic's hooves pounding in the soft dirt, the chaparral like clouds of green and gold. Finally they reached a hidden clearing with a stream where twisted black trunks of live oaks lifted gnarled arms over the sunlit grass. Robert Blake said, "Let's get off and wade in the water?"

She shook her head. "Oh no, please, I don't want to stop." She was unwilling to break her sweet reverie, and she didn't want to sit on a rock with Robert Blake and have a boring conversation. She wanted to ride and ride.

"Come on," he said, "Get off your horse."

Reluctantly she dismounted and tied Magic to a small branch. He mouthed the bit as he tore at new grass, ripping up clumps and leaving bare earth behind. The bank was covered with delicate new ferns and tiny seedlings, blue-eyed grass and owl's clover. She thought about offering Robert Blake some miner's lettuce and telling him that it was eatable, but she decided not to. She was floating in a dream of spring, the soft air, the sweet odors, the sparkling green beneath her feet, lush as down. The water was rippling over the rocks, and she wandered over to a spot where a pool flickered with tiny black tadpoles. Trying to find one with legs, she watched them darting in and out of the shadows.

Something moved on the surface of the water, large and wavering and pale. It was a reflection that came and went, and it had a shape she didn't recognize at first. Then she realized it was Robert Blake who had come to stand near her, and his approach had been muffled by the gurgling water and the soft grass beneath his feet. But why was his reflection so white? She turned to look at him.

Robert Blake was completely naked. He had taken off all his clothes, and now he stood beside the stream with nothing but his shirt in his right hand, and his chunky, furry body exposed from his head to his bare toes. Black tree trunks criss-crossed behind him, and far off she heard the cry of a crow.

He stood there, saying nothing.

She actually had to make an effort to suppress an explosion of hysterical laughter. She shut her eyes, but blood throbbed in her temple and, afraid to look at him, she bowed her head and stood, her hand over her mouth.

"Cheryl. Come here."

She stifled all but an anxious giggle caught in her throat.

"What's the matter?"

The word was a wheeze. "Nothing."

He took a step closer, and she took a step back. She tried not to look at his erect penis which was of a size appropriate to his small stature but formidable all the same, peeking out of a muff of thick black pubic hair. She put her hand out, palm forward, to keep him back, and her vision blurred, and his shape wavered, as it had when it was only a harmless reflection in the water. She had a flickering sense of some distant truth, a vague idea like a flame in dry brush. This was not what she meant, and she had done something terrible. This was not what she meant at all. Her thoughts refused to remain in one place long enough to retain any clarity. They were frightened birds in a cage, fluttering furiously, bashing into the wires.

He was naked and he expected her to... oh, no. This wasn't what she meant. He looked so forlorn, his stocky body and his squished face, which was darkening now, and his off-center stance--one knee bent, and the shirt dangling from his right hand--like a hairy little version of Michelangelo's David.

She heard a snort and saw Magic had stopped grazing and was eyeing the two of them with his dim horse curiosity. His ears twitched forward and his nostrils flared in and out as he breathed.

She was in big trouble.

Robert Blake moved towards her again, and she thought she might faint.

"Cheryl," he said, "look at me."

She couldn't.

"Don't you want to touch me?"

"No," she said and it sounded too harsh. "No," she said more gently, "I don't."

"What's going on?"

"I don't know."

"You've been giving me all the signals. Isn't this what you want?"

"No... please." A whisper was all she could manage, and the black branches lifted and crossed behind him.

"Come here." He reached for her and pulled her to him, his hand in her hair and his arm around her waist. She could smell his sweat and feel his erection against her thigh. The juxtaposition of their two bodies was utterly unromantic. She was like a giant looming over him. He held her too tight, and she cringed in the muscles of his arms. Her face was scalding hot now, and her fingers clutched the air at her sides while he hung there, holding her, squeezing the breath out of her body, and over his shoulder she could see Magic whose nose was buried again in the grass. He had pulled the reins loose and was dragging them on the ground.

"Please... I'm sorry..."

Robert Blake collapsed a little and she could feel his heavy head resting in the corner of her shoulder and his breath on her chest. A harsh rasp escaped him, then a shiver, as though some sharp object had entered a tender part of his body. His voice was ragged.

"You just been dickin' me over. That it?"

"No..." She was wretched. "I just wanted to... to..."

"To what?"

"To..." oh, God, "to bristle," she said helplessly.

"What the fuck." He let go of her hair and grabbed her face in his hands, staring up at her. His skin was ruddy, and she could see his lumpy nose and the large pores in his cheeks, the stubble of his beard. His eyes were popping out of his head. She had never seen such fury in a man's eyes.

"You little bitch." He pulled her mouth to his and rent her lips with a savage kiss, his tongue forcing its way between her teeth. She tried to wrench free. Something about the groin. A knee to the groin, but she couldn't do that to Robert Blake. He was too naked and vulnerable. The gun. He had a gun and he was going to rape her. Somehow she had to get hold of the gun on Applehead's saddle. But then what? She had no idea what to do with a gun. She'd never held a gun in her life. She kicked him in the shin as hard as she could.

He fell back with a little yelp, and she scrambled for Magic's bridle, tossing the reins over his head, missing, trying again, afraid to look back but she was sure she could hear Robert Blake coming for her, his heavy footsteps, and, any minute now, his hot hands grabbing for her, ripping at her clothes. She batted the stirrup with her boot and whispered, "Whoa, Magic, Whoa," but the horse danced in a circle as she hopped about on one foot. She looked back and Robert Blake was still naked, bending over, rubbing his leg. She couldn't possibly have kicked him that hard. Finally her foot was in the stirrup and she reached for Magic's mane and grabbed for the back of the saddle as the horse tip-toed and side-stepped, and she was across the saddle, and up on the horse, and reaching down his neck for the reins.

Then Robert Blake was standing with his hand just under the bit, her reins in his fist. "Hold on a minute. Just hold on."

She couldn't look at him, but she knew if he touched her now she would throw up. Her heart was beating so hard she thought it came from somewhere else.

"What have you been doing the last three days? Why did you come on to me like that?"

She didn't know what to say. It was all so silly, such a paltry excuse. "I was afraid you would... I... just wanted the scenes to work."

"I thought you were in love with me. You're not in love with me?"

She shook her head.

He looked at her for a long moment, while she stared at the reins in her hands.

"Just stay there," he said. He walked over to his clothes and began to dress. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him put on his jockey shorts and jeans. He pulled his shirt over his head, and sat down on the ground and tugged at his cowboy boots.

"Josie..." she began.

He looked up quickly, then stood, and walked stiff-legged towards his horse. He mounted and drew up next to her.

"What?"

"Josie was in love with Baretta."

He stared at her with perfect hatred. "Don't you think I'm professional enough not to need all that horse shit."

He eased Applehead down the path, and she could do nothing but follow after him. Then, as if to punctuate that last remark, Applehead stopped, lifted his tail, and released a pungent green loaf. She reined in Magic and they both watched it fall.

Then Robert Blake leaned forward and let out a war whoop, and Applehead sprang as if shot from a cannon. In response, Magic practically leapt out from under her and she was catapulted forward on his neck. She grabbed his mane and leaned down into him. Magic smelled the barn and spread his wings. He stretched out in that long low stride he was born for, and she could see Robert Blake just ahead, galloping, bumping up and down. Then Magic gained ground and she was alongside Baretta and he was looking over at her with a surprised expression. He gathered his reins and whipped his horse hard on both sides of his mane, and for an instant they were neck and neck and knee and knee. Their legs knocked together on the narrow path, then brushed apart as she took the lead. Trees flew by in gasps of green and the air was a wall of wind like a siren in her ears. Her horse was vigorous and muscular between her legs as she clung, pressed, pointed and gripped, moving her weight with his rhythm, and Magic lowered his nose and ran for home, his long strong hooves jettisoning small pebbles like hail from the path, and she winced, but she was helpless to prevent it, as the barrage of sharp rocks flew out behind her and into her Robert Blake.