Christopher WunderLee - The Loony - a novella of epic proportions

So up late one morning, Albert is about to holler at Dr. Kurt Obelsky, his bunk-mate and a meteorologist specializing in stratospheric conditions and theories of space storms, for letting him sleep in after the two went out the night before and got a little tossed at a local pub, when he realizes, lo and behold, dear Kurt’s bed is gone. The whole damn thing… They didn’t just fold up his blankets and make it look nice, They removed the entire cot, footlocker, and metal wardrobe closet. Albert’s hard pressed to find even a rogue pube in the toilet bowl or some shavings still ringing the sink or a fingernail clipping or any trash in the garbage cans… Kurt’s gone for good like he’d never been there in the first place, which is exactly what the officer in charge of the science team seems to want Albert to believe when he asks… “Kurt who ?”

“You know… Doctor Kurt Obelsky… from Odesa… meteorologist… Berkeley… Cal-Tech… been my bunk-mate since I arrived… on Doctor Gregarin’s team…?”

Lochner had been important to them to make the space walks look realistic, to make the images of space work, to make the lander come down right, but now, he was nothing more than a liability. He was getting nervous; they knew it and they gave him Harris. She was presented to him at the Goose & Sweaty Spoon Saloon in Ketchum, a little tavern the technical team adjourned to after work. Lochner was sitting with Kirst, a geomorphologist and photogrammetric expert, when the loud mouthed waitress by the name of Candy, a real Candy too, with a southern mouth harp kind of voice, blue eye shadow, years of smoking wrinkles, gum constantly popping, kind of woman, served him a beer and said it was from the woman sitting at the end of the bar. Lochner turned his head and lifted the bottle in salute and there was a blond to beat all blondes, an absolutely flawless vision so breath-taking he dropped the beer right on his own foot and watched as it broke into pieces on the floor. She was one of those women he had stared at but never dared say a word to, one of those women who never really acknowledged a man like he existed, one of those women he fell in love with from afar and had delicious night fantasies about. She was tall, about 5-foot, 8-inches, with clear, warm skin, sunshine hair and a petite nose. She had thick, pouty lips, and crystal eyes that seemed to glow like mythic auras. The way she was sitting, he could see her long, slender legs from the knee down. She smiled as Candy mopped up the mess. “The lahdy sez she wanzta giv ya another un, but ya need to hol onta it, don’t git sa excited.”

Harris was stationed nearby, he should have known right of the bat, but with this blond siren giving him the fuck-me eyes reserved for men with goatees and sports cars, he wasn’t thinking about the job, he was thinking about how long it’d been since his zipper’d had a reason to come down. She came over after he said nothing about the beer and scooted her chair up close, put her hand on his knee, gave him big blue stares as he described the incredible twists and nuances of physics, laughed at his jokes about profane equations with tremendous, guttural cackles and then, as the night grew late, she said: “Doctor, would mind very much giving it to me tonight?” That night, she took Lochner home and sat him on her couch. She paced her living room, removing her stockings, lifting her dress provocatively to undo suspenders, exposing bare flesh, covering it, rolling them down her perfect legs with her toes pointed forward like a ballerina, slinking gloves off her hands, slowly unbuttoning her coat, and then, in a smooth transition, she let her dress slide down her body. He had a glass of wine in his hand that got upset by an unmentionable reflex, but he didn’t take his eyes off her, even as he felt the wine spilling onto his trousers. She rushed over and picked it up before it got all over her couch and straddled him. Lochner removed her bra and buried his face in the most juicy smelling breasts he’d ever tasted. She acts (he didn’t know then) like he’s just given her everything she’s ever wanted and moans with a voice that sends semen out of him, a rough sigh that is the noise he’d wanted a woman to utter since he was fifteen, a sound that makes him feel as though he’s given the woman enlightenment, salvation, heaven, and paradise all at the same time, along with the voice of god thrown in. She begins to grind against him, but he’s already blown it and it’s going to be awhile before he can continue.

Poor Al, initially, after his premature geyser that first night, thinks he’s blown his shot… She cuddles with him and soothingly rationalizes it for him, even tries that she’d already came herself… twice… But he goes to work the next day feeling wasted, foolish, like a man who’s blown his chance at life itself… Only, come 5 PM, as Lochner leaves the testing facility, there she is, leaning ever so lip-smackingly against an Army issue jeep. When she sees him, she actually runs up and jumps into his arms, wraps those honey thighs around his waist, and gives him a hot breathed smooch, tongue and all. She takes him by the hand, all the other techies and soldiers and officers watching, and leads him back to her ride. They go straight to her place… barely making it inside, she’s half-naked by the time they reach her front door, and fully nude half-way up the first flight of stairs. They end up just doing it on the landing between the two floors. She behaves as though he’s the best that she’s ever been with, just like the hookers he’d later buy for company while he roves the country with the G-men. But, at the time, he didn’t know this. He really thought women treated it like men, if it worked you were calling their name, if it didn’t… well… it was still worth the shower afterwards. But no, Harris was a pro. For the next three and a half months, the two are practically man and wife. She would lay against him in the dark, her nipples brushing his chest and beg him to do it again. She’d show up at the office and get him to take her into the bathroom for a quickie, she’d hide nasty pictures of herself in his reports, she’d call him and say the dirtiest things imaginable over the phone. She made him believe he was the deity of her heart, the dominator of all her dreams, the comedian of her humor; she made Lochner believe she wanted him, desperately. It was then, that they planted their purpose for giving him Harris. And Albert, in his ignorance, bought it.

“Hello… hello… yes… this is… What…? Who is this? Where…? What… what are you… are you going to do? No… please… yes… I’ll do… I’ll do whatever you asked… just don’t… please… I’m… I’m begging you… don’t… don’t hurt her… I’ll… yes… yes… please…”

* * *

Lochner watched the rocket the same way millions of Americans did, on television, its awe-inspiring plume of exhaust vaulting it into the sky, disappearing into nothingness, the ultimate symbol of humanity. The only problem was he knew there was nobody on board, no destination, no complicated operation, no heroes, no danger — it had all been filmed six months before in Siberia and Rainer National Park, on a sound stage. There wasn’t even room for people in the rocket. They went up the platform, entered the hallway that supposedly led to the rocket, which was blocked from cameras and view, and took the elevator underground to sip martinis and watch how well the show worked.

It succeeded better than any other movie ever made. It was like the Bible of motion pictures. It was suddenly history. Countries across the globe reported on it, people flocked to their homes every night to see what those crazy astronauts were doing today on the unforgiving moon. Don’t bother with the radiation shield that would have fried the entire crew, ship and instruments long before those stellar cowboys got a third of the way there. Don’t bother with the excruciating vacuum of space, the suits a thin material so that the men could be distinguished in them. Don’t bother with the amount of power it would have taken to actually land on the moon and then take off again, let alone cruise around in a car on its surface. No, this was the truth; Armstrong walked on water, cured a leper, and brought Glenn back to life. Well, he did some miraculous stuff, none-the-less.