'L.A. 2000'
Sex Asylum
by
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The next day the three of them went down to the religious cafe, Matthew's Place, for brunch.
The girl who came to wait on them wore a dangerously low-cut blouse. Annise sometimes flashed these types the hairy mug, but with this person, she was downright cordial.
As the waitress leaned to serve their miniature bread loaf, Morton had to take evasive action, for the girl's huge Jesus-on-the-Cross medallion swung pendulously over his coffee cup. She smiled and jiggled. And it suddenly became plain as day to the counselor how her cross was actually validating the boob show.
"I liked that girl's necklace, didn't you?" said Annise.
"Absolutely yes I did!" returned Morton a little too enthusiastically.
Annise glanced into her own cleavage. "I've been thinking of buying myself one of those," she said. She adjusted the sparkling chains already around her neck. "Mine aren't the heavy-duty, take-charge kind like that girl's wearing. They're nice, but the thicker the piece the better. A big Jesus would really look impressive with my smaller necklaces. They'd compliment each other. Don't you think?"
"I guess so," said the counselor.
"You guess? This stuff is almost solid gold, Morton. It's quite valuable."
"I've never really understood all the hoopla about gold," he admitted. "I think of people going down in the earth with dynamite and blowing it out. You can't build a house with it. It's even outdated as tooth fillings."
Annise pursed her lips. "I doubt this has occurred to you, but in actuality gold is the word 'god' without the L. I can see by your expression you haven't considered that. Well, it is. And anybody who's anybody wouldn't dare underestimate the value of money."
Morton drank his coffee. Aphie pushed hers aside.
"Dad said a very important thing to us girls once," continued Annise. "He said, 'You'll never have your cake and own it too, unless you can get clear title to it.' And that's where gold and silver and drachmas and all that come in. The whole damn country is on the gold standard, Morton. I'm afraid you're a little out of step on this one."
The waitress brought their soup. The sisters chit-chatted while the counselor read the newspaper. Before long he came to a disturbing article. It was about the increasing willingness of nuns to be surrogate mothers. He showed it to the girls.
"I can't put this together," he said scratching his head.
Annise mounted her elbows on the table. "Christ, Morton, you're so naïve sometimes. Don't you realize how perfect nuns would be? They could get inseminated, you see, without intercourse. With a long needle or something say, so there wouldn't be any sin," she said.
"Please," said Morton. "I'm trying to eat."
Annise began to smile. Her perfect rows of teeth were showing for the first time in a long while.
"If you think of it, it would almost be like an Immaculate Conception," she said thrilled.
The blonde put her fingers to her lips in thought. Morton looked over to Aphie, who was wearing the same troubled expression he was.
"It says here more than a third of Catholic priests are sexually active despite vows of celibacy. 'Sexual misconduct as related to the clergy is a very hot issue,'" he read pointing to the headline.
"What do you expect?" returned Annise. "You've got to remember, Morton, those young nuns are completely nude under their habits."
"They are?"
"Absolutely," insisted Annise. "A woman can only hide it under a bushel for so long."
"I guess. Only it says here the priests are usually gay."
He waited, but she didn't reply. Aphie sipped her coffee.
"Homosexual," clarified Morton.
"Well," grunted Annise waving for the waitress. "It's never too late for a queer--I mean, a clergyman to change."
"Ladies can be gay too, you know," he noted cautiously.
"Ladies with ladies aren't much of a problem for God. It's the sword fights with men leave a girl stained and defiled," explained Annise. "Nobody can be snow white, Morton. But a couple of girls are going to leave each other a lot less ravaged when their dry cleaning bill comes due in purgatory."
Morton jutted his jaw.
"I've got to hit the restroom," said the blonde.
She left, on the way pausing momentarily to confer with the bosomy waitress. Hmmm.
Aphie whispered, "When my sister gets extra religious we know she's going extra crazy. I hope you can help her through this. It's obvious something big is going on with her."
Apparently, Annise didn't have to use the restroom after all, for he saw her talking on the pay phone under the plastic replica of Moses and the Ten Commandments.
Whoever she was communicating with, she was smiling. It wouldn't be Joseph. It definitely wouldn't be Muriel. Aphie was here. Which left--yes--Wanda! No, Wanda Novice wasn't a novice at all. More like an Immaculate Deception for your waif-like blondes, decided the counselor. A serpent in bulldog clothing disguised as the female gender. That's what they said the Devil could do, wasn't it? Change shapes and body forms and whatnot in order to seduce the meek?
Jealousy. It was the ugliest of emotions. Even a nice person like Wanda could seem a threat if you were seeing through the torn pupils of the green-eyed monster.
Look to yourself, boy. Inside is where the answers are.
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About the Book
From Sunset Strip's treacherous nude bars and famed 'Peruvian Marching Powder' to the taboo tub lust of disciple and mentor, 'L.A. 2000:' Sex Asylum is a sizzling, New-Age journey through California's traffic jams of the heart. In his new novel, Buck Buchanan combines the gritty inner truths of works like Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, with the pissedoffish, satiric humor of a Catch-22. While much of people's lives are nutty and phonied up, this book is a meth-amphetamine shot of reality. 'L.A. 2000:' Sex Asylum may be enjoyed on many levels. It can be read as straightforward, plot-driven action fired by the pursuit of heart-torn, over-the-top sexuality; or, as a keenly honed social assault on L.A.'s in-vogue hypocrisies. What follows is a seamless, unassuming interface between tongue-in-cheek jest and radical bloodletting as hedonistic cunning and deceit unravels the loosest cord in each of the offbeat characters. Buchanan's work is funny and unorthodox, yet infused with a jarring earthiness that is vitally honest to the soul. His technique of building a progressive elevation of wording throughout the course of the book produces strange, lascivious insights with an elegant silhouette of meaning. 'L.A. 2000:' Sex Asylum ranges from the hilariously comical to the deeply profound, from the lighthearted to the brokenhearted. It is a vision of the haunting, crotch-driven ways we cope with our day to day craziness.
About the Author
Buck Buchanan and his wife, Sandy St. Pierre, spent 7 years between south Florida and the Bahamas aboard their Morgan OutIsland sailboat, Gravity's Rainbow. They relocated to a log cabin in the Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia where Buchanan completed his novel, 'L.A. 2000:' Sex Asylum, and began assembling a collection of his published short stories entitled, 'Imperative Orgy:' The Sweetwater of Suburbia. Buchanan has published in numerous literary magazines, professionally written and edited nonfiction texts, books of poetry, and novels. He supervised Group Homes for Autistic Children in San Francisco, and for Retarded Citizens in the Experimental Community of Columbia, Maryland. 'L.A. 2000:' Sex Asylum won the Virginia Highlands Literary Contest in the novel category. Buck Buchanan's writing resonates with a fast-paced narrative style turned with a voice that is at once polished and hardcore. As his titles indicate, these works present a notably unconventional approach to progressive, thought-provoking literature, highlighting the glossy sparkle of tomorrow's bizarre unreality. Buchanan and his wife are currently aboard their Winnebago Motor Home where he is at work on his new novel, 'The Mad Beach:' Follies & Fornications. He holds a Master of Arts Degree in Literature from the University of South Florida. Imperative Orgy: The Sweetwater of Suburbia, is now previewable on his website at BUCKBUCHANAN.COM.