A flush burns across her skin like a wildfire and she cries out, “Yes! Yes!” And I’m calling out too because I’m soaring with her. I’m no longer awkward, bumbling Clark Kent, but her man of steel, and she’s my wondrous Wonder Woman.
After we come down, I hold her tightly as I roll onto by back, pulling her with me. We continue to lie heart to heart. She is gloriously stretched over me as we let our breathing settle. That’s the final moment I remember before I wake to the sensation of Brooke’s hand tightening over me, where I’m fully hard.
It takes everything I have to carefully peel her hand off of me instead of encouraging her to do more. I can’t afford to lose what is building between us. I’m confident that if I do right by her, one day we will end up together.
Just a minute later she stirs and slowly wakes up. “What time is it?” she mumbles.
“Almost one. I’m going to head home.” I slowly lift myself off the couch, thankful that my erection has subsided.
“I’ll walk you out.”
I grab my DVD and head to the front door with her. Right before I open it she wraps her arms around me. “Thank you for everything Nathan.”
I smile at her and she reaches up to kiss my cheek. She pauses there, and kisses me again.
“What?” I ask.
“I had this superhero dream…” Her face gets pink.
I feel my cheeks getting hot too. Could she have had the same dream? I don’t really want to know so I can always believe that she did. “Was it a good dream?” I ask.
“Mmm,” she purrs. “So so good.”
I grin. “See you tomorrow?”
“Indeed, see you Superman,” she says.
My heart thunders joyfully all the way to my car. Whatever that meant, a guy can dream, can’t he?
Everything happens very quickly the following week. Arnold’s batshit crazy treatment is turned into a lame pilot script and Dani, our background painter who was thrown into the writing process, sneaks an early script to us. The scenes are divvied up between the two animation teams and Joel and Bruce, our harried directors, stay focused on getting the main storyline and gags done with their animators. Meanwhile, we gather in groups after work in various people’s apartments and houses to spend our late nights working on all the “extras” that we hope will blow this show’s chance of getting picked up right out of the water.
I tend to go wherever our team slob and deviant Kevin goes, because he sets the tone for the evening by always coming up with the most outrageous stuff. He conjures up Banging Betty, the chicken that will lewdly rub up against any one or anything that holds still long enough. The plan is to always have her in the background going to town, so it’s not an immediate read but when you catch her thrusting up against the fence posts or whatever, she serves up quite a wollop.
Sometimes the jokes are in the backgrounds. Like there’s the small sign over what we assume is a doghouse with the words “Huff and Puff” printed in block letters above a neon green cross. Nothing should get the bigwigs riled up more than a marijuana dispensary in one of their kiddie cartoons.
The dog that lives in that house is usually stoned and smoking behind the doghouse so all we see is the end of his tail peeking out, and the continual puffs of smoke rising.
Sex-obsessed Kevin has Cocky’s right hand guy, a sarcastic Duck named Quackers, wander through the barnyard quacking out, “Calling all booties!”
Genna suggests a sign near the henhouse that says “Line up for Harem Inspections Here.” And Dani proposes that a calico cat character wanders into the frame and Sir Cocky calls out, “Hey, can someone grab that pussy for me?”
As our ideas get bigger and our time grows shorter, we finally realize that we are going to pick and choose among the inappropriate bevy of gags we’ve all come up with. Once that is decided, with the directors having the final say, it’s time for the animators and background artists to jump on the extra work. The good thing is that everyone is so motivated that it doesn’t feel like work. We are united in a cause we all believe in and know is worth fighting for.
Our team of editors are our champions in the technical process, as they have to take their original final cut for our pilot and switch out many scenes with the “new added material” scenes. This is no small task with sound syncs also changing, but they rise to the occasion and do a fantastic job working right up to the wire.
Meanwhile, Arnold has not ventured down to our area to actually see our progress despite his early assurances that he was going to be very ‘hands on’ during the production process. This is probably thanks to Joel and Bruce, who loaded key scenes on Arnold’s private drive hoping he’d never actually wander down to our area. The directors also shared with us that Arnold a.k.a. King Boo-Foo reported back that he was pleased as punch with what he had seen in the comfort of his own office.
We still have two main hurdles to get over if we’re going to be successful. First, the marketing angle with the test screening is pivotal. Luckily this challenge is being managed by Brooke since she’s perfect for it. We knew it was too risky to have her involved in any way with the animation part of the coup, but Brooke has a good relationship with Anne, the marketing head, who happens to detest Arnauld, so we’re optimistic we’ll get her support.
Brooke explains to Anne that this new pilot concept is very controversial and we are all very concerned. When Anne hears the details she is horrified and agrees to show the X-rated pilot to the testing group as long as she is assured that the little kids won’t get the dirty references. She also agrees to delay the testing and revealing the results until the bigwigs are already in their meeting. Brooke will rush the result in and apologize for the delay due to program errors.
Finally, our silent soldier Chester has the most important job of all. He will make the last minute digital switch of the X-rated pilot with the original right before the bigwigs watch it. I have a mild panic attack at the bravery required to make this switch less than thirty feet away from the execs, but if anyone can keep his cool under fire, it’s Chester.
The night before our big reveal, everyone on this project except Brooke, the editors, and Chester meet up at the Smokehouse bar. It feels so good to cut loose and forget about the potential that we all may be jobless by tomorrow night. Every time I have a second thought about our coup, I push it out of my mind. It’s too late to change my mind now anyway. We are heading down a steep hill with no breaks, and my anxiety level teeters somewhere between a heart-attack and just the sheer thrill of it.
The next morning most of us show up a little late since we’re hungover, and we were told the afternoon before that Arnold had a breakfast meeting with the execs at their hotel before they head to our studio. He’s really pulled out all the stops to make this a successful presentation.
Brooke summons me just minutes after I’ve set down my workbag and turned on my drafting table lamp.
“What’s up?” I ask after I step into her office and shut the door behind me. My concern is amped when I notice that her hands are trembling. “Everything okay?”
She picks up a folder and waves it at me. “This is the test audience result for the pilot.” Her eyes look like they’re going to pop out of her head.
“It’s that bad?” I ask, trying not to grin since she looks so freaked out.
“Bad is an understatement,” she grimaces. “The kids thought it was stupid and don’t like roosters, and the moms were horrified.”
“Awesome!” I say gleefully. “That’s the kind of response we were hoping for!”
“But I’m worried we went overboard! He’s going to lose his shit!”
I shrug. “Well, it's better that we get our desired result by going overboard than being tame and losing.”
“He’s going to kill me. He’ll know I was behind all this.”
“He won’t if you act pissed off with us.”