High Life (39 page)

Chapter Forty-Nine

TV, TV, TV. It made me mad with wanting. I watched it nonstop. Days had passed and Bella hadn’t called and it was getting harder to keep a lid on the feeling that it was never going to happen, that I was going to be left forever in this nightmare world of cheap motels and nonidentity.

Sometimes I went outside, mostly to look at the colors in the sky near evening. I walked up and down the street in front of the motel trying to feel connected to the city. But everything was foreign to me, like I was lost in some Asian city where I couldn’t understand the language or recognize even the most fundamental patterns of behavior.

I had the management hook up a VCR and I watched the jewelry-shop raiders fuck the young cleaner to death. I watched it over and over and wanked endlessly, trying to expel my growing anxiety. I bought a second TV set so
Melrose
and
Baywatch
and
90210
could run at the same time. But nothing worked, and each time I shot my load over the carpet I was left in a state of dissatisfaction that bordered on rage.

Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow, Johnny Depp and Kate Moss, Keanu Reeves, Matthew McConaughey, Chris O’Donnell, Leonardo DiCaprio, Drew Barrymore, Linda Hamilton, Winona, Sigourney, Woody, Pamela … Jesus, I couldn’t stand it. The collected media of the United States bombarded me with these people. I closed my eyes and blocked my ears, but it was too late. They were all already stuck inside my head and there was no way to ever get them out.

I swallowed pills—Rohypnol, Valium, Lorazepam, anything to help me cope with the onslaught, to buffer the image of these movie stars who had grown so gigantic in relation to myself. But chemicals weren’t enough. They slowed things down but they couldn’t rid me of the feeling that I didn’t exist. And eventually, as Bella still hadn’t called, I was forced to go out and look for a more effective means of escape.

The evening was smogged and the sky looked like it was going to rain—dirty black clouds with bleeding bellies. A warm breeze came down off the hills smelling of eucalyptus and jasmine. I had all the windows open and the air stormed through the car. For a while the roaring it made blanketed the screaming inside my head. At red lights I turned the air conditioner on to keep up the noise.

The drag hadn’t changed in my absence. It still stank of fast food and cunt, its neon still rolled in waves of dusty color across the bare thighs and shoulders of tiredly strutting whores. I was too early for the high-density trade, but people seemed to be moving around pretty fast all the same. Maybe it was the pressure in the air, maybe they all wanted to do whatever they had to do before the rain came. I parked and went looking for Rosie, the hooker who’d let Ryan shit in her mouth.

She wasn’t in her usual doorway. I checked a few of the surrounding streets without luck, then gave up and went searching for a substitute back in the main flow. There were a lot of women to choose from, there always were, but I had difficulty picking one. I got close a couple of times, but there was always something that put me off. Maybe they looked too clever, maybe they looked too strong.

I told myself I should get back in the car and go home, take some pills, and have a wank. But I was driven by a body hunger that wouldn’t let go, a desire that didn’t come out of my head, but generated somewhere down at cellular level, indefinable and uncontrollable.

I made circuit after circuit of the area. It got late and it started to rain. I walked until my legs ached and the heavy men outside the live sex shows started giving me suspicious looks. The uglier whores who’d been waiting for trade about as long as I’d been trawling began to call to me each time I passed. The night slid into a time-lapse blur of bright light and water until, around two in the morning, I passed Rosie’s doorway on an off chance, and she was there.

She was wearing a tight pink dress that didn’t look too good on her untoned body. But she had tits and a cunt and I knew she was fucked up enough to agree to just about anything.

In a taxi on the way to some rotting hot-sheet dump on Lexington she asked me about my diet and the size of my bowel movements. It was obvious she didn’t remember me from before.

The motel had a main block and a few bungalows out back. A couple of junkers with bumper stickers that said something about guns were parked off the street in a lot strewn with weeds and empty cans. It looked like the kind of place that catered to fugitives.

At the desk I gave a fake name, paid in cash, and avoided eye contact. The check-in guy stared at Rosie and licked his lips. His breath smelled of bourbon. We got one of the bungalows. Not really secluded or quiet, but separate at least.

Inside, Rosie spread out her sheet of plastic, took off her clothes, and lay on her back. Her body looked pale. I could see the line of her cunt lips sticking through the hair between her legs. She kept opening her mouth as wide as it would go then closing it again.

I took my clothes off slowly, allowing myself to recognize at last what I wanted from the night. It was kind of frightening knowing I wouldn’t be able to make excuses to myself the next day. That I wouldn’t be looking back on a body Ryan had supplied or one I happened across like Rex, somebody already dead. And that I wouldn’t have been forced into it like I was with Powell.

She started to mutter about wanting me to hurry up, so I squatted and let her rim me while I collected myself. When my ass was thoroughly clean I climbed off and told her it would turn me on more if she was tied up. It was cool with her and I ripped up one of the sheets and bound her hands behind her back. I would have liked to tie her feet to something as well, but there wasn’t anything close enough.

All these arrangements felt like they were happening somewhere outside my head. What I was more consciously occupied with was the sight of the woman on the floor—the bright fluoro light that fell so harshly against her, punching her into my retinas, making her superreal. That and a rabid impatience to put my dick inside her and feel whatever it was you felt when someone died underneath you.

I climbed on top and pushed into her cunt. She started complaining that the deal was she got to eat my shit first and that her hands were uncomfortable behind her back. I listened to every word she said, I looked at her as hard as I could, trying to absorb every detail of her appearance—the workings of her face, the feel of her body moving under mine, her heat. Her life.

I told her I was going to fuck first then shit, and eventually she shut up. After she’d been quiet for a while, after I’d breathed in the scent of her hair and her skin and her pussy, I put my hands around her neck.

She didn’t realize what was happening at first because I’d never done it before and I wasn’t sure how much pressure to use. Absurdly I had this notion that I didn’t want to hurt her, that I should be trying to do it as painlessly as possible. But of course that wasn’t going to get the job done, so I pressed down hard with both thumbs at the base of her throat. Maybe the middle would have been a better place, but I couldn’t stand the feel of the cartilage there.

She got the idea then all right and started rolling from side to side, trying to throw me off. She couldn’t scream because my hold was too tight, but she made some really quite alarming choking noises. They sounded so awful I almost stopped. But the way her hips bucked against me and the warmth of her piss as her bladder let go felt so good that I didn’t.

At least not until someone started hammering on the door.

I froze, but the hammering continued and whoever was doing it started shouting.

“Hey, buddy, open up! I wanna ask you something!”

The check-in guy. I let go of Rosie’s throat. She’d passed out, but I jammed some sheet into her mouth just in case. Then I got off her and yelled to the guy outside, asking what he wanted.

“Let me in. I can’t stand here shouting through the door, people are trying to sleep.”

I looked at Rosie lying on the floor in her pool of piss. She wasn’t too good, but she was alive. I could see her tits move as she breathed. But that was all that moved, she was out cold. The guy started banging again. It was obvious he wasn’t going to fuck off. He sounded drunk.

I opened the door a couple of inches and peered around it. At that angle he couldn’t see Rosie.

“What do you want?”

His skin was oily and he hadn’t shaved in about three days. His hair was oily too, stuck down flat on his head with some kind of old-fashioned dressing. He grinned through the opening.

“Come on, buddy, you know what I want. I saw that piece you brought in here, I got eyes. That kinda thing could get you kicked out. Get you busted too, using the premises for immoral purposes.”

“Fuck off.”

“She’s a hooker. Am I right or am I right?”

He giggled a bit at this and staggered out of my line of vision for a moment. When he lurched back he was holding up a quarter-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s, waving it in front of my face.

“I thought maybe you and me and her could all have a drink together.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Hey, don’t be like that. Sitting on your ass all night gets a guy hot, you know? It won’t hurt you none to share her around. I got money.”

“Fuck off.”

I tried to close the door but he stuck his foot in it.

“No need to be unfriendly, not when I’m offering my liquor. You shut this door, I’m just gonna to get my pass key out and open it up again.”

I looked over my shoulder at Rosie. She was still out and it looked like she was going to stay that way for a while.

“Okay, you can throw one into her, but she’s pretty out of it right now. She took a load of pills and shit.”

“Buddy, I don’t care if she’s in a coma.”

“Let me get some pants on.”

He took his foot out of the door and I closed it. I went over to Rosie and shook her. She didn’t respond but her breathing was nice and even. I took the gag out of her mouth, undid her hands, hid the ripped sheet under the bed, and put my clothes on. I figured if I let the fuckwit get started I could be long gone by the time he realized anything was wrong. When I let him into the room his face lit up.

“Hey, out of it is right. What’s with all the water? You trying to wake her up?”

“It’s piss. She lets fly when she passes out.”

“Wow, wish I’d come around earlier. Lucky you put that plastic down, it could have fucked up the carpet. Who goes first?”

“I already fucked her.”

“I’m the lucky guy, then.”

He opened her legs and stuck a couple of fingers into her cunt.

“Hey, this is great. I’m gonna get piss all over me, though.”

“You don’t have to fuck her.”

“Are you kidding?”

He got his cock out and gave it a few strokes. I edged toward the door.

“Listen, man, I got to go out for cigarettes. I’ll be back. If she wakes up, don’t listen to anything about money. I already paid her.”

“Sure thing, buddy.”

But he was too busy lifting her legs over his shoulders to pay any real attention.

I walked fast down the street until I could flag a cab. Five minutes later I got out halfway along the drag and walked back to where I’d left the Prelude. A little while after that I was back at the Palm Grove, gulping pills and making sure the door was locked.

Chapter Fifty

The phone woke me about midday. Bella calling with an offer of resurrection.

“You can do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“I want your help with Lorn.”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t had a donor for a long time. I want her kidney.”

“What does she say about it?”

“I haven’t asked her. I know what her answer would be.”

“Offer her more screen time, she’ll do whatever you want.”

“I’m using that to get her into bed. And money won’t work, she’s not desperate enough.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Use your imagination.”

“You want to do it by force?”

“Force sounds a little melodramatic.”

“But that’s what we’re talking about, right?”

“There won’t be any violence. I’ll use a drug. I just need you to help me carry her.”

“What’s she going to say when she wakes up?”

“What can she say? It’ll be too late by then.”

“She’ll be a bit pissed off, don’t you think?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“How are you going to take care of something like that? It’s not like she won’t notice the scar.”

“I said I’ll take care of it. If it’s a problem, she needn’t know you’re involved. I’ll knock her out before she sees you, and you can leave before she comes around.”

“But Lorn’s just a person. It’s not like she’s connected to Ryan or Karen or anything. Can’t you use someone off the street?”

“I want her.”

“What difference does it make? A kidney’s a kidney, for god’s sake.”

“Doesn’t she remind you of someone?”

“Who?”

“Karen. She looks like Karen, Jack. Same body, same hair, just a little less rough. I can’t believe you’ve never noticed.”

“No, I never noticed. And I don’t like the idea of you trying to relive what you did to Karen.”

“Jack, I only want her kidney, I’m not going to kill her. Helping me could be extremely advantageous to you.”

“How advantageous?”

“Your house and car, and I’m sure Howard could be persuaded to find something for you on one of his shows.”

“And if that’s not enough?”

“I’m giving you a chance to get back what you lost. It’s more than you deserve. Of course, if you’re going to be difficult I could always take another approach, one you might find a lot less pleasant.”

“The gloves.”

“If you force me to. An evening’s work, Jack. It isn’t much of a sacrifice to avoid a murder charge.”

She was silent for a moment, I listened to the faint hiss of static on the line. Then Bella’s voice came again, confident and sexy: “You aren’t going to be difficult, are you, Jack?”

After Bella hung up I sat on the edge of the bed and thought about Lorn. She wasn’t the love of my life, but helping her get mutilated was still something I found difficult to come to terms with. At one point I called the studio and managed to get through to her. But when she came on the line I didn’t say anything. I just held onto the phone and listened to her say hello a few times and ask who it was, wanting to warn her, wanting to tell her what Bella was planning, but unable to do it. I just couldn’t find it in me to throw away my ticket back to the world.

Luckily, I didn’t have to suffer my conscience too long.