Letter from Jew-neau (Part II): In Which the Author is Hunted, Tortured, and Brought to Climax

“A little to the left,” Sarah said. “A little more. Left! Left! Yes, that’s perfect. Now faster.”

“Like this?” I said. I was breathing hard, blowing steam into the air. “Is that good?” “Faster!” she said. Her command echoed across the tundra, startling a vulture or two into flight. “Gosh darnit, can’t you move any faster?” The truth was, I couldn’t. Her Babeness had worn me out. But for her, my radiant snow goose, my siren song of subarctic sex appeal, I would try harder, no matter how sore and depleted I was, no matter how cold. Summoning my last burst of energy, I pumped my legs and sprinted across an open field between two high snowbanks. The moose antlers she’d made me wear swayed perilously on my head, the leather straps that fastened them chafing my chin. You’d be shocked at how heavy moose antlers are – earlier, Sarah told me these had come from a 1300-lb. bull killed last season. I could barely lift them. But Sarah picked them up with one hand.

“My seven year old, Piper, shot that bull,” she said, fastening them to my head. “Jeez, you’re a pussy.” Now, across the undulant snow, Sarah raised her rifle. Jewcy, it can’t be overstated how unbelievably hot she looked in her camouflage pants and ammo vest, her bare shoulders dusted white –like an angel, a curvaceous and possibly deadly angel. I tried to zig-zag, though I knew this was un-mooselike; but damned if I was going to stand still and eat shrubs and bark while the governor took aim. I saw the puff from the muzzle before I heard it. Then there was a crack and a slam on my antlers and a wrenching of the neck and next thing I knew I was flat on my ass in the snow. Waves of color flapped across my vision, electric curtains dancing almost as erotically as Sarah had danced the night before, in the Baranof Hotel. “Is that the Northern Lights?” I muttered, stunned and broken. I closed my eyes, but the colors kept dancing. “Bulls-eye!” I could hear Sarah running toward me, panting, and I remembered how she’d sounded in the big bed in Suite 604. “That’s a confirmed kill.” “Are you going to eat me now?” I said. “Isn’t that what you do around here?” “Well,” she said coquettishly. “First I’m gonna string you up and tear your flesh off, then bleed you and slice you up into little pieces. I’ll bet your meat is real, real succulent, novelist.” “Will it hurt?” I said, trying to keep up with the little game. Or, at least, I hoped it was a game. I’d only known Her Babeness for three days – three wild, beautiful days in which we barely left Suite 604 – but I thought she might be dangerous. There was that Room Service waiter she had fired when she found out he once dated her oldest daughter (though she told the manager it was because the Steak Tartare was cold). Then there was the time I’d woken to find her holding a straight razor to my throat, rifling through my wallet; she’d laughed it off, placated me witha long, slow kiss. “I’m a Republican,” she shrugged. “It’s just something we do.” “Get up,” she said now, shielding her eyes. “I can’t feel anything in my legs.” “What do I care? Just because I shot you, does that mean I have to play nursemaid? The freakin’ welfare state’s over, novelist. We have to get back to Wasilla. Meter’s running – I want to collect every cent of the per diem for travel.” I rolled to one side and managed to unstrap the moose antlers. My head was throbbing, blood trickling over my scalp. I thought I saw Sarah lick her lips. “Travel? Don’t you live in Wasilla?” She cocked her hip and puffed out her lips that way I like. “I’m the governor. I live in Juneau.” When we left the Baranof, I’d told Sarah I’d never been moose hunting. She said it was just like deer hunting, and I said I’d never done that, either. “Well what do you hunt in New York, rats?” she said. I told her again I didn’t live in New York, and explained that Jews don’t really hunt. We made a pact: If I was a good sport about the whole getting-shot-at thing, she’d make it up to me by doing something “more Jewdy” afterward. Now, over a plate of Kung Pao Grouse in Seward’s Fortune Cookie, Wasilla’s only Chinese restaurant, she asked me about Lady Lazarus, my novel. “There’s no sex in it, is there?” “Some,” I allowed. “Straight, gay, you name it. Masturbation, too.” “Then we’re not going to have it in our libraries. Nuh-uh, no way pardner.” “That surprises me,” I said, shoveling the food in. Since the Room Service episode, we’d barely eaten. I said a woman with five kids couldn’t object to sex that much. Plus, I said, I happened to know for a fact that she enjoyed sex quite heartily. I slid my hand across her knee, but Her Babeness stabbed it with a chopstick and I withdrew. “Anyway,” I said, stung and feeling pouty. “You can’t ban books. The Wasilla librarian already told you that.” In response, Sarah lit up that $700 billion smile, the one that turns my guts to mush. “That’s the great thing – once I’m elected, all that’s going to change!” When I asked how, she said she would write a Constitutional amendment. I said I didn’t think it worked that way, and she banged a fist on the table, spilling hot and sour soup all over the place. “Yes it does! That’s the Bush Doctrine – we can do whatever we want. It’s the theory of the Urinary Executive!” “Sarah,” I said. “Sweetheart. Do you mean the Unitary Executive?” To which she reached out and gripped my chin, squeezing my cheeks together painfully. “Ooh, that’s why I love you writers,” she said. “So good with words. Oh, hello boys, is it time for Andrew’s little, er, interview?” Behind me were the two Aryan agents from the Baranof, looking none too pleased. I thought maybe they’d found out about the fancy bathrobe I’d stolen from Suite 604, but as they dragged me out to the snowmobile I realized that couldn’t be it – since when did Republicans object to stealing? Blindfolded, lashed by wind, still bleeding – and worse, I hadn’t finished my Kung Pao! – I bounced on the back of the snowmobile as we raced across the landscape to an undisclosed location deep underground. “Tell the truth, scumbag,” said one, throwing me onto a cot with no mattress. The other bound my wrists and ankles to the frame. When he picked up a thick electrical cable, my teeth started to chatter. “W-what are you doing?” “It’s called ‘extraordinary rendition,’” one of them laughed. “We’re in Russia now.” “Wanna look out the window?” said the other. “Maybe you’ll see your girlfriend waving.” “Now,” said the one brandishing the cable. “Talk.” Jewcy, I thought I would be stronger. I thought, when the brown shirts (flannel, in this case) finally came for me, I’d stick to my guns, die with my mouth shut. But it took only a few taps of that cable against the bed frame before I was squealing like a pig who’s lost his lipstick. I told them everything: How I’d hacked into Sarah Palin’s email accounts, crazed and lovesick, how I just had to know everything about her. How I’d set it up to look like that kid from Tennessee did it, the state representative’s son. “Oh god I’m so sorry,” I cried. My legs spasmed, my gums crackling as though I were chewing tin foil. “Oh Sarah, please forgive me!” Before the agent could jolt me again, the metal door smacked open. “Stop!” Sarah said. She flung herself next to me on the cot. “You mean, you did it for love?” “Uh huh,” I whimpered. “And not to get at the state business I was illegally conducting on personal accounts so as to circumvent laws about keeping records of all such official communications, thereby avoiding accountability for my actions as governor?” All I could do was sniffle and hide my face in her breasts. She stroked my cheek and I wept, hugged her while she whispered and cooed. All lovers go through rough spots, Jewcy – there are no fairy tales in life, no perfect relationships. What really matters is communication: the ability to talk through the difficult things with your partner, to weather the hard times and emerge stronger. Together. “Take your clothes off,” she said. But I was still bound to the bed, so she took them off for me. Then she lay across my quivering form and, touching her lips to mine, pulled the cable to the nearest bedpost. I couldn’t possibly articulate the white-hot ecstasy that followed, my soul and Sarah’s fused in an electrical storm of passion until the rusted old springs finally gave way and we fell to the floor, collapsing into the kind of sleep only known by those blessed with true love. When we woke, the door was open, a tall silhouette blocking the light from the hall. “Sarah?” the man whispered. I nudged Her Babeness awake. She sat up, her body lit lusciously by the moonlight, her hairdo unperturbed by our crazed lovemaking. The room smelled vaguely like roast turkey. “What is it, Todd?” she said. “Well, uh, honey, uh… I just –” “Spit it out!” she said. “And call me ‘Mother,’ for Christ’s sake.” “Sorry, Mother. But, uh, who’s this guy?” Sarah smiled, and you could see immediately how her smile pleased him. From her briefcase, she took out a copy of Lady Lazarus. “He’s a novelist, Todd. Look at this book he wrote – isn’t it big…?” “Yeah, but, uh…” Todd scratched his head. “Why are you guys, like, naked?” The governor of Alaska stood and walked across the room in all her glory. She slid her arms around the First Dude’s waist and nuzzled his neck – oh, how it hurt me! – tickling his ribs until he cracked a smile. “You’re so silly-willy,” she said. “Todd’s so jeally-welly, isn’t he, Andrew?” I thought it might be best to keep my mouth shut. Todd twisted and shrugged, trying not to get tickled. Finally, Sarah stopped. “It’s nothing for you to worry about,” she said, winking at me so he couldn’t see. “Andrew was a Hillary Clinton supporter. I’m just making sure I have his vote.” Tomorrow: Sarah Palin’s secret love techniques; a romantic, moonlight walk on the Bridge to Nowhere; strange happenings in the Alaskan bush…