When Michele was on a “project,” as she had termed her work as international jewel thief and some-time assassin Taran Tula, she stayed in the most luxurious of hotels. The same held true when she was doing work for her security company – one always had to put up a prosperous appearance when meeting clients in different cities.
But when she was travelling on her own, she much preferred to stay in the least expensive hotels possible – which typically meant motels. As long as the motel was in a good neighborhood, she had no apprehension staying in a room with a door that opened up to the night air rather than to an interior hallway.
The rooms weren’t that luxurious, true, but what did that matter? They were to be used for sleeping, reading or watching TV – as long as the heater or air conditioning worked and the room was clean…
Such it was with this room. Before unpacking, Michele made her usual check. It was summer, and the air conditioner was turned on. The room was nice and cool and the air conditioner hummed, with no knocks or other disturbing news.
Then she went into the bathroom. The tub was disappointing – as with most hotel tubs the rear end had no slope, but rather went straight downward. Michele always suspected that they did this to prevent people who liked to read in the tub from getting comfortable, so they wouldn’t use up too much water. Nevertheless, the drain stopper worked and she had hot, warm and cold water so that was okay.
Returning to the room itself, she turned on the TV with the remote. Picture – crystal clear. There was also a list of channels and channel numbers which was very considerate.
Finally, Michele opened up her laptop and fired that up. She waited the few minutes for the computer to boot up, and then attempted to sign on to the internet. The signal she received was strong and clear, and the log on screen showed up immediately. Yes, it was, as promised, a fast internet connection.
Michele nodded, satisfied. The room would do.
She unpacked shorts and t-shirts and stowed them away. Then she looked around…something was missing. Ah. She went back out to her car – a 1998 silver Toyota Camry – and recovered a bag of Kentucky Fried Chicken original recipe all white meat chicken, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, and chocolate parfait.
As she dined, Michele watched the final episode of the third season of Big Bang Theory – “The Lunar Interactions”. The episode ended with the asexual, Asperger-syndrome-possessing anti-social genius Sheldon Cooper meeting an asexual woman, Amy Farah Fowler, presumably his intellectual equal. They hit it off and go to the bar have a beverage together. The episode ended with Raj and Howard looking at each other and Howard saying, “What have we done?”
Michele switched off the TV and shook her head. She hoped that the show’s writers were not going to make the mistake of giving Sheldon a regular girlfriend. Or at least, not one whom he’d get interested in sexually. That would ruin the character – Sheldon was complete within himself and to have him mooning and crying over unrequited love would be not only out of character but also completely annoying.
Michele chuckled…she was so in to these characters. And it had all started out so innocuously. She rarely watched first-run TV, and although she considered herself a science fiction geek she had not been the least interested in the Big Bang Theory when it had debuted in 2007….. 4 geeky guys and a dumb girl - so stereotypical, so annoying.
But three weeks ago, when she’d been spending her last evening at Vic Durant’s home, he had insisted on watching the show, and she’d found herself intrigued by the characters. Sheldon Cooper, played by Jim Parsons, was clearly the star of the show. He was tall and dark-haired, two of Michele’s prerequisites. But he was a beanpole – like Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, and she’d never cared for beanpoles. The other lead, Johnny Galecki’s Leonard Hofstadter, had a physique much more to her liking, for all that he was rather short. Raj, played by Kunal Nayyar, was also not bad looking, either facially or physically. Simon Helberg as Howard Wollowitz – worse than Parsons in the looks department, and an annoying character altogether.
Michele decided to check out fanfiction.net, a website where people published stories they’d written based on their favorite TV series. She had discovered it some years ago, when she’d found fan fiction on The Avengers (John Steed and Emma Peel) and Star Trek by a pretty good writer, who used the pseudonym Gale Force. The author had also turned out some pretty good NCIS alternate universe stories, as well…
“I know they’ll have stories for The Big Bang Theory,” she mused aloud, “and I wonder just what kind of stories they’ll be.”
Smiling with anticipation, she went to the website, and as she expected, found over 700 stories written by fans. And as she suspected, most of them were “Shenny” – romantic relationships between Sheldon and Jenny. There were several “slash” stories as well – featuring Sheldon and Leonard and Howard and Raj.
Michele was not a big fan of slash, although she had read some of it and found it good (the aforementioned Gale Force had contributed a few stories to the genre). But while Sheldon was certainly effete (not to be confused with effeminate), if he were going to break down and have sex, it’d probably be with a woman. Having said that, she didn’t think he would, unless he got really, really drunk.
“And that is such a rip-off,” she IM-ed sister, with whom she shared most (but certainly not all) of her thoughts. “Plus it gives a false and harmful view of getting drunk to the more impressionable kids in the audience. They see someone lose their inhibitions and have fun, and they think that’s how they’ll overcome their shyness as well. So they get drunk, have sex, don’t remember it the next day, and nine months later they’re confronting the result. Not good.”
“You’re such a pessimist,” her sister IM-ed her back. “Most people have more common sense than that, c’mon.”
“Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree,” typed in Michele. “You didn’t spend seven days on a cruise ship with a roommate who got drunk and puked her guts out every….single…. night…”
“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”
“Never! ; )
“Well, let’s move swiftly on, then. ; ) How are you liking Gettysburg?”
“I haven’t been to see it yet. Got here a few hours ago, and I decided I’d relax with some supper and TV. I’ll go to the battlefield tomorrow.”
“Okay. Thanks a lot for helping me out like this, Michele.”
“No problem. Okay, I’ll let you go. I feel in the mood to do a little writing.”
“Have fun.”
Alice, Michele’s sister, ran a lucrative travel website which she had taken over from her mother. When Michele had written her an email telling her she was taking a month long sabbatical from her security firm (Alice knew nothing of her Taran Tula activities), Alice had suggested that she do some traveling around the US, documenting all the places lost to the traveler thanks to the rotten economy that had the country in its grip for over a year.
Michele, who was always more comfortable when she was traveling then when she was standing still, agreed.
“I’ve been thinking of visiting some Civil War sites,” she had said. “Would you believe I’ve never seen Gettysburg?”
“Start with Gettysburg, then.” Alice agreed.
And here she was in Gettysburg, having driven down from her home (as Michele Bravo) in New York.
Now, Michele signed off with her sister, and then pulled up a Word document.
The vast majority of TV series copyright owners had no objection to fans writing fan fiction, as long as they did not try to sell novels on Amazon, or something of that nature. Practically every TV series you could think of had some kind of presence at Fanfiction.net.
Michele didn’t write fan fiction as a matter of course – she expected to be paid for her writing. But what the hey, she would give a Sheldon – Penny story a try, just for the challenge of it. If it was any good, she’d post it on fanfiction.net.
Now…what should it be about…..?
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