Excerpt 2

Excerpt from this year's nanowrimo novel. In this passage (set in April 1955) Elvis Presley meets King Kong for the first time. In the fine tradition of B-Movies it also features an entirely gratuitous pair of tits.

“It's like the last day of term,” muttered Buddy, coming over to Ann's makeup station like a sailor looking for a safe port in a storm. “Can't you say something to them. They respect you.”

“What do you want me to say?” asked Ann.

“I don't know,” said Buddy, “they're like a bunch of schoolchildren. We're going to be late on at this rate.” He looked at his watch and shouted, “come one people. Hustle!”, but nobody appeared to notice.

Ella walked boldly up to Buddy wearing her leather effect bikini bottoms for the opening native girl scene but otherwise entirely naked. She held out the bikini top in one hand and, Ann noticed, threw back her shoulders for the full effect.

“It's broken,” she said, and it had indeed snapped. Ann had already seen her use the same routine on a couple of the band members.

“Well it was always tight on you,” said Buddy, not phased. Ella fluttered her eyelashes flirtatiously and rolled her shoulders just a little, there had been a hip flask passed around when Buddy wasn't there and the girls had been teasing him like this all evening. He sighed wearily and said “go to costume and get it fixed then.”

The girl turned on her heel and walked away.

“That's going to delay us even more,” moaned Buddy.

“Have I got time to nip in and see the ape?” asked Ann.

“If you're very quick,” said Buddy. Ann leapt up from her chair

“He's in the runway. See if you can get him to make some noise, it'll keep the audience from getting antsy.”

At that point Carl Denham walked into the room, just as the still topless Ella was about to walk out.

“Oh mister Denham,” she said, going through the whole routine again, “my bikini top snapped.”

Carl looked down, then up at her face again. “It obviously had more than its fair share of work,” he said, “but we ain't that kind of show just yet so go get it fixed.”

Standing behind Carl was a very young man Ann did not recognise. He looked positively scandalised.

“Oh you're a cutie,” said Ella, “what's your name?”

“Err ...” the young man stuttered, “it's ... err, Elvis mam.”

“See you later Elvis,” said Ella, and kissed him on the cheek and pushed her way past.

“Carl!” said Ann, walking over. “You're back!”

“Just flew in,” said Carl, embracing her. “Hi Buddy, how's it going.”

“It's a disaster,” said Buddy.

“It always is,” said Carl. “Ann, I want you to meet someone. This here is Elvis Presley. Elvis this is Ann Driscol, star of the Kong show.”

“There's only one star of the Kong show,” said Ann, the line, so old and familiar, tripping off her tongue as easy as breathing. She shook he young man by the hand and said “pleased to meet you.”

“Honoured mam,” said the young man nervously. He was a good enough looking young man - definitely something of the matinee idol in his face, but he was obviously very shy and Ann wondered what Carl was doing with him, he was too young to be anybody important, and too uncultured to be the son of anybody important.

"Say," said Carl, "why don't you take mister Presley and show him the ape. Would you like that son."

"Yes sir," said the young man, "I'd like that very much."

"Come on then," said Ann. As they left they heard Carl shouting, trying to pull the production back into shape.

"I was a big fan of your story when I was a kid mam."

"Thank you."

"I saw you once, when you came to Memphis."

"Back when we were touring?"

"Yes mam."

"That must have been a long time ago."

"I reckon I must have been six years old mam. I thought it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen."

Ann said "I still think he's the most amazing thing I've ever seen."

"Well mam, when you put it like that, I reckon he still is the most amazing thing."

"People forget, you know," said Ann, "when something's around for a long time. They forget just how wonderful it is."

"Yes mam." Elvis had just seen the ape.

He was ready in the runway, behind the vast stage doors that, incongruous with the rest of the bare surroundings, had been painted wood effect to look like the gateway on skull island when they swung open. A huge curtain was dropped behind him to hide the daylight and the rest of the runway, the remaining effect would be achieved with smoke machines and bright lights. He was chained at the wrists and ankles to hard points that were ingeniously sunk into the floor underneath the stage doors, allowing him to move backwards and forwards onto the stage. The links on the chains were about four foot long and ten inches in diameter and burnished to a brilliant shine. Ann new that they were hollow, the old solid chrome steel chains, the ones that he has snapped like threads twenty years ago in New York, were too heavy for him now. If they put them on him he dragged his wrists on the floor and barely moved.

Behind the doors you could hear the murmur of the crowd as they gre impatient. Ann walked over and peered out from behind the edge of the curtain, it was full house, or very nearly. The young man followed and stole a glance after her. "Wow!" he said, "that's a lot of people."

"Are you a performer yourself?" asked Ann.

"Yes mam, I'm a singer. But I've never played anywhere like this before."

"Do you want to have some fun?"

"How do you mean?"

"Kong!" she shouted to the ape. "Roar."

The ape, looked down at her quizzically.

"Roar," she shouted, throwing her arms up.

The ape huffed and shook his head.

She roared herself, "raarrrrr! Raarrrr!" and waved her arms furiously.

Again the ape huffed, keeping his mouth closed and making a sharp nasal noise.

"Come on," Ann called to the young man, "help me." Again she roared, throwing her mouth open wide and emitting loud and joyful scream. Elvis, after hesitating a moment, roared with her - a curled lip snarl that built into a mountain lion shriek, he held something back but gave it something unexpected too, something genuine, something heartfelt.

Kong roared. Ann had heard it many times before, times like this when he was just doing it in play, and times when he had done it in anger, and it never failed to take her back and leave her, for a moment, speechless. A great thunderous statement of strength that struck raw fear like a lance into a deep, primal, part of the mind; the gorilla leaned forward onto his haunches, opened his mouth wide revealing his fangs, and bellowed. Ann took a step back despite herself, as if her legs had decided to run without her brain consenting, she noticed Elvis do the same, and his hands shot up to cover his mouth.

The only thing Ann knew that had ever come near it terms of sheer power was when she and some friends had driven up to the Nevada Test Site to watch an underground detonation of the atomic bomb.

The ape harrumphed and smacked its lips together and sat back down. Suddenly everything was extremely quiet.

"Oh mama," said the young man under his breath, without apparently realising he was saying it. Ann took his hand and led him back to the curtain. In the auditorium the audience had gone completely silent, each one of them sitting down watching the stage expectantly, like scolded school children.