High Life (8 page)
“Got any coke?”
“But of course.”
We walked out into the tawdry drag night.
West on Hollywood, then north up Laurel Canyon and into the hills. A cool drive through some of the best of L.A.
The road twisted as it climbed. Tight one-lane streets veined off it into gullies or up rises where box-sided sixties and seventies architecture leaned against the slopes on death-wish stilts. Flatland Beverly Hills had more ostentation and the money in Bel Air was older, but you couldn’t beat the Hollywood Hills for atmosphere.
From the street the houses didn’t give much away. They were built with their backs to the world, screened by eucalyptus and pepper trees. If they showed any windows at all, they were narrow and the light coming through them was gentle and masked. Driving through the area was an exercise in imagination. Whoever they were, whatever they did, it was a sure bet the people here lived lives worth filming, that they had strings of lovers and unlimited earning potential.
The booze from the bar and the night air blowing through the open windows made me feel young. I was alive and excited, it seemed absurd to me now that I had spent the last two weeks lying in bed when I could have been doing something like this—rubbing up against the outsides of perfect lives.
“I’m a little over the limit.”
Rex smiled dreamily. “Who cares? I always feel kind of hopeful driving fucked up. Increases your chances of winning that lottery.”
“You might hit someone who doesn’t want to die.”
“True, but if you drink enough you don’t worry about that.”
Rex got his coke out. I closed the windows and he stuck some on the corner of a credit card under my nose. The road was straight for a little way so I held the wheel with my knees and did it. Call me irresponsible.
A few minutes later we hit the Hollywood Bowl overlook and the city lay spread out below us like a carpet of jewels, an infinite sprawl of light that rose gigantically at its center in the towers of downtown. I pulled over. The gates to the overlook were locked but there was space at the side of the road. We got out, hooked our fingers through the mesh of the fence, and gazed.
At any time the city was awesome, but at night, when darkness removed the comparison of the horizon, it became a construct of light that simply overpowered vision—a glittering prize for all the owners of the houses in the hills.
“Incredible.”
Rex grunted. “Gives me the creeps. All those people spinning around as fast as they can go. I mean, you figure when you think about yourself there’s some importance to being human. But when you see it like this and there’s so many people … We can’t all be worth something. We’re ants, man.”
“Not if you’re Bruce or Arnold.”
“I reckon it’s all hell on earth, no matter who you are.”
We did some more blow at the fence, then got back in the car.
The house was at the end of a quietly lit lane off the downhill side of Mulholland. It was large and white—replica Spanish surrounded by subtropical foliage. Two wings angled back from a central block, away from the road, spread open toward the city.
We left the car in the drive and headed for a black oak door that had iron studs in the wood.
“Isn’t it a bit late?”
“This kind of thing happens when it’s late.”
“Looks like bread.”
“They’re industry.”
“Cool. How do you know them?”
“They ring the agency and order what they want. If they like you, you get to come back. For fucksake, don’t start asking them what they do. How do you feel?”
“Pretty fast.”
“Just go with it. They’ll love it that you’re new.”
The door was opened by a small-boned man of medium height who looked extremely wired. He wore a carefully faded cotton shirt open halfway down his chest, his hair was sandy and thin. I didn’t recognize him. If he worked in film it had to be on the other side of the camera. He waved us in and closed the door. He moved in an abrupt, exaggerated fashion, like he found it difficult to control his limbs.
“Well, it’s about time. And who’s this young man?”
He smiled at me and jerked his hand forward. His grip was way too tight.
“Ron, this is Jack. I had car trouble and he gave me a ride. You get him too, no extra charge.”
“Hello, Jack. You look like a healthy fellow. Do you like teaching people how to behave? Of course you do, of course you do. You wouldn’t be here otherwise, would you? Yes, I’m sure you know how to treat people who haven’t been quite as good as they should have been.”
I looked at Rex and saw his left eye twitch.
“You bet.”
After that the three of us stood in a brittle silence. Ron shifted from foot to foot, like he’d forgotten what to do next.
Rex cleared his throat. “Er, Ron …”
“Oh, yes. Jesus. God, sorry. Money first, of course. Nothing extra for Jake, you say? I mean Jack. Sorry, Jack. Nothing extra?”
“If you feel you’d like to, Ron. It’s entirely up to you. Don’t feel pressured.”
“Well, maybe a little something, then.”
Rex took the folded bills Ron held out and slipped them into his pocket without counting them. Everyone acted as though the money didn’t matter. I tried to check denominations, but it happened too fast.
“So, let’s go through.”
At the end of the entrance hall we went left through an arch into a high-ceilinged room that ran clear to the back of the building and ended in a glass wall that showed L.A. floating above a stretch of dark canyon.
Harsh light, white stone walls, varnished blond-wood floor. Very little furniture—a bar in an alcove, a white leather couch against one wall, a low coffee table that held an oversize douche bag, fat with water. The room felt like an art gallery without paintings.
Centered in the barren expanse of floor was something that looked like a customized gynecological examination table—three feet high, four feet long, surrounded by a chrome-steel framework that held a pair of stirrups.
And on the table, a naked woman.
From her body she looked to be mid-thirties, good condition. I couldn’t tell from her face because she was wearing a fitted black leather hood. It didn’t have any eyeholes, but it had a couple for her nose and a closed zipper over her mouth. Her feet were strapped into the stirrups and pulled so far back her knees almost touched her shoulders. Her anus was plainly visible. Handcuffs locked her arms to another part of the framework behind her head.
Rex took off his jacket and sat on the couch.
“Does she need the same as last time?”
Ron was over at the bar picking up glasses and things.
“I think she deserves it, don’t you?”
“I certainly do.”
Rex grinned at me while Ron’s back was turned.
I stayed standing and looked at the woman on the table until Ron brought the booze over. Under the halogen she didn’t look real, it was hard to think of her as human.
The drinks were strong—vodka, lime juice, ice. Rex watched me over his glass to see how I was taking it.
“Do you hear us, my love? They’re here, two of them this time. That’ll teach you, won’t it? We’re all looking at you.”
Ron’s voice rose as he spoke, he had to struggle to keep himself from shouting. He paused for a second to regain control.
“In a little while I’ll let them start, but first we’re going to have a drink. Don’t worry, we won’t leave you alone.”
The woman’s tits lifted rapidly with her breathing.
“Okay, let’s get you fellows fired up.”
From a drawer in the coffee table he took a bag of insulin syringes, a few vials of sterile water, and a couple of gram-wraps of coke.
It was hot in the room—Californian nighttime balminess on top of under-floor heating. Outside, deep night silence ate away at our connection with the rest of the world.
Ron watched the woman flinch at the small sounds he made opening the vials. Her tension seemed to please him. When the water was a quarter-inch deep in the bottom of a tumbler he opened one of the wraps and dumped it in, stirring with a syringe plunger until it was dissolved. The rubber end squeaked against the glass.
I helped myself to the vodka bottle, chugged a couple of mouthfuls. It burned my throat and made my eyes water, but things were hotting up and I wanted to be loose. Ron handed out the works.
“Don’t worry about a filter, this stuff’s pharmaceutical. Help yourselves.” Then, calling across the room: “These boys are going to be ripped, pussycat. I hope I can control them.”
The woman shifted position slightly. The stirrups and the handcuffs clinked.
Ron had to tie off, but Rex and I could find veins by making a fist.
I slid the needle in, a slight sting in the crook of my elbow. Pulled back a little on the plunger to check I was connected—blood expanded in a thick con trail through the clear solution. I looked over at Rex before I let rip. He was waiting for me. We hit simultaneously, Rex giving me a smile like, here we go, dude, hang on.
Bang. Head and chest expanding. A pleasant flash of nausea that fades as soon as it comes. Superman. Clarity and blurred reality at the same time. I wanted to do it. I wanted to fuck the woman right then, before the rush wore off, before my scrubbing organs robbed me of its insulation.
Ron’s forehead shone. Eyes on stalks, no irises, bunched muscles at the corner of his jaw. We were all the same.
“Get ready, darling, here they come.”
The woman opened and closed her legs as much as the stirrups would allow. Rex nudged me, stood up, and stripped. He was half hard already. I dropped my clothes in a pile on the floor. Ron was still sitting and my dick swung in front of his face.
“This first.”
He handed Rex the douche bag.
“Clean her out before you start.”
All three of us stood around the woman. She knew we were close. Troughs appeared on her thighs and arms as she strained against her bonds and the different muscle groups separated. Ron hadn’t taken his clothes off and his hard-on stretched the material of his trousers.
Rex was acting like he knew what to do and I wondered how often he’d worked his way through this scene. Ron’s apparent hatred of the woman looked real, but there was something calculated about the scene, something arranged. Fit and fighting, she would have been too much for our host to maneuver into bondage. She must have allowed it to happen.
The booze and the coke were peaking, making things easy for me. Rex, all business now, moved in with the douche bag.
“Hold her open, dude.”
Her cunt was wet and my fingers slipped twice before I had her spread. The white plastic nozzle slid between my fingers and into her. Rex squeezed the bag.
She took about half a pint before it started to come out, gushing around the edge of the nozzle and drooling off the table to spatter on the varnished floor with a sound like thick rain.
“That’s right, Rex, wash the bitch out. How does it feel to be clean, bitch? She wants to be clean. Don’t you, my love? You want to be clean?”
The woman made a noise that sounded like yes.
When half the water was gone, Rex did the same thing to her ass. This time the water didn’t come out.
Ron had a cigarette going and was smoking like someone unaccustomed to the habit. Short drags with his eyes screwed up. Puff, puff, puff. He handed it to me and nodded at the woman. I looked at Rex.
“Her foot.”
“With this?”
“It’s what they want.”
I hesitated, the cigarette’s tip glowed bright red through a gray dust of dead ash. I scanned the room for a sign to tell me whether or not I should go through with it. But nothing hinted one way or the other. And at that moment I was overwhelmed by the pointlessness of trying to choose right over wrong. Why bother? What possible difference could what happened to this woman make to me?
“Do it, dude.”
I felt like a puppet, something without choice.
I pressed the cigarette against the tender skin on the arch of her foot. She convulsed, lifting herself into the air, blasting water from her ass in a stuttering, shitty gout that arced several feet beyond the table.
“Yes! Goddamn, she needed that.”
Ron hopped from foot to foot and actually clapped his hands. Inside her hood the woman shrieked. Rex raised an eyebrow at me.
“Interesting, huh?”
Ron produced a couple of novelty condoms, one with a head like an elephant, one like a chicken.
“These boys are pumped, pussycat. You’re going to get reamed. You want the new one first?”
She moved her head in an awkward nodding motion.
“Yes, I thought so. In you go, Jake. Let me help you.”
I stood at the end of the table, Ron took hold of my dick and guided it into her. His fingers lingered for the first few strokes.
“That’s it, fella. Give it to her. Jam it in as hard as you can. That’s the way she likes it. Harder. Burn the shit out of her.”
I made it pretty energetic, but it wasn’t good enough for Ron. He shouted and waved his arms like he was rooting for a football team until I was slamming it in so hard my thighs made a slapping sound against her ass and the table rocked. At each impact the woman grunted. By the time I’d finished her gash looked raw and slack.
