by Rex Baron
“Paulo,” Lucy said, stroking his arm, “I came to California mostly because I wanted to be with you, certainly not to do that silly picture.”
“You see, you have nothing but contempt for what we do out here, our silly little pictures. Others, like Helen, would die to have the chance, but for you it will always be nothing but a joke, a second rate performance, scoffed at by your theater friends, like David.”
“David was also your friend, a common friend, who introduced us, remember?” Lucy reminded him.
She moved closer, threading her arm into his, but he did not respond.
“I'm beginning to wonder why you wanted to be introduced to me in the first place,” she added coldly.
Paulo had no more words. He smoked his cigarette and stared out into the night as if she were not there.
She pulled her arm away.
“I’m going in with the others,” she said.
She hesitated with confusion. She had done nothing to upset him, and yet his coolness toward her was unmistakable. She hoped that he would follow, that it was nothing more than a passing mood, a dark cloud brought on by thinking about those ridiculous superstitions. But it was more than a fear of retribution for a scrap of paper that went unsigned. There was a finality about his silence that she read to mean a decision had been reached in his mind.
“What have I done?” She nearly pleaded, but he remained unmoved.
“Nothing,” he said. “It was a mistake, my mistake. You are a lovely and kind woman. It was wrong of me to bring you here. I should have chosen someone hungry and unfeeling like I was, who deserves the attentions I will give them, who knows how to use that advantage without being hurt.”
“I don't understand,” Lucy's voice rose in a faint cry of anguish.
“I'm sorry. I'm afraid there are no more words for it,” he replied.
“Tell me what you mean. I have a right to know. I came across the country on that damn train to be with you and now, mysteriously, you tell me it was a mistake. Just what the hell does that mean?” Lucy snapped.
“I told you, I can't explain. Now please leave me alone. I want to think for a while. Perhaps later we can talk again.”
Lucy's mind raced with anger. How dare he dismiss her from his presence like a valet or a serving maid?
“Yes, go ahead and think,” she said. “Ponder your superstitions and all the other nonsense that keeps you from seeing the value of what's right in front of you.”
Her exit from the garden room was as undramatic as she could manage. She did not want to be acting, although the encounter that had just taken place, could, by all appearances, certainly be called a scene. She wanted a clear line drawn between the acts of a definite reality and those that were carried out for effect and excitement. This place, this strange new world, made its money trafficking in illusion and untruths. It was a place of lies, where beauty became nothing more than vanity, and a simple kiss, nothing more than a hollow gesture, which could be repeated over and over again, until it looked convincing on film.
She took a deep breath and braced herself against the doorframe. A serving waiter passed by and offered her a glass of wine from a silver tray. She took one of the crystal goblets and tasted the cool familiar taste of a Rhine wine that reminded her of Germany and home, but there was no comfort in it for her.
The moment of calm was broken by a violent gust of wind, which swooped around the house with the force of a hurricane and shattered the glass of the French windows at the edge of the drawing room. The electric lights failed, plunging the room into immediate darkness. The orchestra straggled to a slow halt, as a determined clarinetist, unable to read the music, improvised the melody for a brave moment before sputtering into a dead silence.
The crowd rumbled in low voices, punctuated by the occasional outburst of excited laughter. After long moments of darkness, lighted candles were brought in by the serving staff, illuminating the company in an eerie and glamorous light.
•••
Helen drew up next to Claxton, who had found a suitable corner from which he could survey the evening's goings on, his back safely to the wall.
“Quite a confrontation between you and our banana curled little infanta corrupta,” Claxton said with amusement.
“Mary had no right to say those things. I've never done anything to her.”
Claxton's eyes sparkled with knowledge.
“Unless we count getting her loaded up on cocaine at the Ambassador, and in general, doing everything you can to help speed along the celluloid demise of our dimpled dipsomaniac. From what I hear you've been spending on drugs to help grease the path to her destruction, she ought to be your best friend. I suppose that's gratitude for you,” Claxton said, clucking his tongue.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Helen tossed her hair.
“One never wants to be criticized for being overzealous,” his insinuating smile gleamed in the candlelight. “After all, you needn't get rid of everyone. You might leave a few of the girls about as supporting players, if only for the amusement of your old pal Claxton.”
Helen eyed the little man with amusement and made note of his vote of confidence in her powers.
•••
The storm whipped through the break in the French window, whistling around the room, tearing at the helpless candle flames. The guests spoke in hushed whispers, as if in the presence of some unknown deity.
“It's amazing how frightened people become when nature shows them a temperamental side, how powerless they are, reduced to children afraid of the dark,” Helen said.
Claxton let out a low chuckle.
“If only they knew. That's when a little understanding goes a long way, as the platitude so aptly puts it. Tonight is the eve of Saint Michael. This is no ordinary windstorm, blown up from the desert. It is one of the very winds of Hell, bringing with it one of the most powerful and magical feast days of the year.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means that tonight all good little witches should be on their broomsticks, making sure that what they have started gets done. It's like the Wesak moon. What you ask for at the beginning of a cycle must be focused and brought into being at the close of that cycle. The energy used bringing something down into manifestation is as important as the ceremonial magic that created it. So if you understand me correctly, it's the perfect opportunity for you to consecrate, if you'll excuse the vulgar term, the spell that we risked our little necks to stir up the other night in my swimming pool.”
Helen did not answer. An inscrutable smile crossed her lips as she spotted Lucy standing in the doorway to the solarium.
Lasciviously, she touched the tip of her tongue to the ring on her finger. Claxton's laughter could be heard above the rattling of the wind alongside the house.
•••
Lucy heard Paulo's voice behind her in the garden room. She turned to see Helen standing next to him. How strange, she thought, that Helen was there in the garden room with Paulo, yet she had not come past her to get through the door.
“I didn't see you come in,” Paulo said, roused from his reverie, “I suppose I was off in my own world.”
“Your world is a lovely place, even with the lights turned off,” Helen said. “Perhaps it could be my world someday. At least I will be able to say that I spent one night on Olympus whether I belonged there or not.”
“Surely, you don't feel that way about the people here, especially after working on the films yourself,” Paulo said, warming with her humility. “You know that it's early mornings and early evenings, and don't waste the daylight in between.”
“I think it's the most wonderful thing in the world to be an actress,” she sighed. “I am an actress you know, even if no one else knows it yet. I'm a singer too… a good singer, not as good as Lucy is, but different. I'm not as pretty, not as refined, but I am a good actress.”
Paulo nodded his approval but said nothing encouraging, nor did he resp
ond with the flattery she had hoped for.
“I watch the great ones,” she continued. “I sit in the background holding grapes, or chained to a wall in some silly, bad picture, but I'm always watching.”
She giggled appealingly and pushed the raven hair back from her face as she leaned closer.
“I learn from watching. I've learned from watching you. I'll bet you never noticed that I worked as an extra in The Night Surrenders. I'm the girl just over your left shoulder in the fight sequence. I think I've come a long way in the few months I’ve been here. I actually have my name listed in the credits of this picture. What do you think of that, not bad for a girl from the sticks.”
“We're a lot alike,” Paulo sighed. “We come from the same place and wanted the same things. You understand and value what this place is about.”
“My family has Spanish blood,” she said. “We've been in these valleys for generations. I don't think I'd know how to live anywhere else. I did a short stint, living in New York, but it wasn’t me. I guess I’m just a small town girl.”
She drew her body toward him and twisted her torso so that the arm he leaned upon to view the city touched the firm shape of her waist. She pressed herself still closer, drawing her leg up behind his thigh, pulling him against her and pinning him there unable to move.
She was beautiful and dangerous to him, in spite of her studied humility. She threw her head back, offering her bare throat to his lips. She was a viper, aggressive and direct. She coiled herself around him ready to strike, and yet she did not. She waited, confident that the white underside of her throat would be fascinating enough to lure her prey to her ultimate intention. Paulo pressed his lips against the warm flesh.
Lucy backed away from the terrace doorway, stunned by what she had seen. She had not noticed that the lights had come back on. Mechanically, she made her way to the cloakroom and gathered her wrap.
Without feeling, she crossed the wind-torn walk to her limousine. She heard the stitching of the beaded dress rip as she settled into the backseat. Without a word, the driver started in the direction of the villa. She rode in silence for some minutes, then tapped ferociously at the glass that separated her from the front seat.
“Take me to the sea,” she shouted.
She ripped the tight sleeves of the dress, breaking the seams that bound her. She pulled at the back of the costume until it gave way and slipped out of the beaded shroud. She tossed it into the corner of the passenger compartment and wrapped herself in the warmth of her velvet wrap.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Santa Monica Beach
A darkened seaside town, Santa Monica, where no lights and no automobiles could be seen, crept past them as the car crawled on the bumpy stretch of unpaved road.
She could hear the sound of the sea swelling in the blackness. The car had scarcely come to a stop when she darted outside and ran to the water's edge.
She stood alone, the city, the car and driver lost behind her in the unreality of the thickening mist.
The sea lay black and rolling before her, filled with power and the same angry fury that she felt inside. If water represented the emotions, then this black and angry sea, in this foreign place, was a perfect mirror to the hatred and desire that churned within her. It was the angry sea of vengeance in the Old Testament, crushing the Pharaoh's armies and drowning the faithless. It was this same unbridled destructive nature of the emotions that prompted the master Jesus to instruct his followers to calm the troubled waters and walk above the tempest.
But she could not. Her anger and desire were from the old ways, her gods the righteous Jehovah of the Hebrews, who rained down death in bolts of flames, or Baal, still more ancient and fearful, calling up a force of destruction that shook the very air around her with his presence.
“This is where I belong,” she called out. “The forces of nature and the sea are my allies.”
She stretched out her hands, piercing the blackness and uttered unfamiliar words that came from some mysterious and forgotten part of her brain, some ancient memory that was passed more through the blood than through teaching.
“I call upon the forces of nature to restore me to power. I invoke the goddess of the night to aid me as her daughter. Though the knowledge is lost and withheld from me, it is my birthright. It is in my blood. I offer that blood to insure the sanctity of my union with the forces.”
Lucy took the clasp of her cape from her throat and scratched a vein in her arm, drawing her warm blood to glisten darkly in the moonlight.
“I offer my blood and being in exchange for the power. I call upon Cybelle, Selene Isis, the moon goddess to aid me. Receive your daughter into your company.”
•••
Paulo’s house, Los Angeles
“It's all right, it doesn't matter. I'm not here to be made love to, only to be with you,” Helen's soothing voice drifted reassuringly over the rumpled bedclothes.
Paulo lay staring up at her as she stroked his face and gently ran her fingers down his naked chest, tracing the place where the medallion lay against his tanned skin. He was what she wanted. But here he lay, unmoved and unexcited by her beauty, much like Richard Barthelmess, who had also failed to perform in her presence. It seemed that it was only arrogant little Claxton who had been able to truly ravage her, as he had that night in the empty swimming pool, without being intimidated by her beauty or her fierce intensity.
“You had too much wine, too much excitement, that's all, nothing to apologize for. I only wanted to be with you, to make this night even more special,” the mesmerizing voice continued. “You have no idea how much it will mean to me.”
She purposefully dug a sharp edge of her ring into the side of her own wrist and strained to see the shining liquid in the blackness.
Paulo sighed with contentment as she moved her lips along the veins of his neck to his shoulder. She kissed him lightly, then again with more intensity, causing him to gasp in passion and pain. She dug her teeth into the flesh deeply, drawing blood. He called out, but it was soon over.
The reassuring voice, once again, convinced him of her tender presence, and she stroked the wound of his neck with the blood from her own open flesh, mingling her power with his, making her thoughts his thoughts, taking dominion over him, as he drifted into sleep.
•••
David and Celia’s apartment, New York
It was a business deal, a buy-out instead of a merger, done simply, with as little emotion as possible attached to it. That was how Celia thought of the transaction she intended with David's mistress, Molly. She repositioned the tea things on the silver tray and stood back appraising, to be certain the arrangement was above reproach.
She had asked the woman to come to the apartment, partly because she wanted the confrontation to take place on her own ground, but also so that Molly might see where and how she lived, and precisely what she was, namely, Mrs. David Montague. Molly was intended to understand that by this transaction, she would be surrendering possession by selling David back to his wife.
Celia had thought about nothing else as she traveled back across the country on the train. On any other occasion, she would have been consumed with the idea that David had abandoned her to make the tiresome and arduous journey on her own. But on this trip, the prospect of indulging herself in her emotions and punishing him for his neglect had been the last thing on her mind. She knew that she had “chosen” to leave, just as he had pointed out, in his cool annoying logic. She also knew that she was willing to endure the consequences of her actions and be thought of as a timid little mouse of a person, who could not sustain herself in the harsh and tedious environment of the undeveloped Southwest. So be it. Instead of replaying David’s scolding last conversation in her head and feeling weak and ashamed, as she most certainly would have done in the past, on this occasion, she sat the entire length of the journey thinking and rethinking… polishing every word of the conversation that she would have in a planned meeting with his manipul
ative little mistress. She had to be certain that every word she spoke contained not a hint of weakness or lack of resolve. She had to make sure that what she said conveyed her utmost determination, and take care not to use language that might be foreign to someone of her type, most probably lacking anything more than a rudimentary education in a public school.
As the landscape of the country passing by changed from a barren, lifeless brown to the snow and rain of an Eastern winter, Celia rehearsed, over and over again, just what she would say. She sat in her little wood-paneled compartment at night and practiced how she would hold her body and even her facial expressions in the mirror inside the lid of her cosmetic bag, until she was sure that she could hold her own.
•••
Molly appeared promptly, as arranged. She was elegantly dressed and far more agreeable than Celia had anticipated. She had hoped for a painted trollop, a scheming, guttural girl who had blackmailed her husband with a lowly brand of passion. But Molly, or Daphne, as she introduced herself with an almost gentlemanly handshake, was lean and tailored, impeccable in a way that Celia could understand had piqued David's admiration.
“Won't you come in?” Celia asked, poking self-consciously at the twist of hair at the back of her head.
Molly crossed the room and took a seat on the divan without being asked. When Celia gestured toward the tea table, Molly shook her head in polite refusal.
“I think we should get to the point,” Molly said efficiently. “You sent a note, telling me that you knew what was going on and that you wanted to see me. Perhaps you'd like to explain.”
Celia calmly poured herself a cup of tea, then turned to face the pretty young woman.
“I don't owe you an explanation any more than you owe me one,” Celia said, bringing the cup to her lips with a remarkably steady hand that surprised even herself. “I know perfectly well what you've been up to with David and I mean to tell you now that what has been between you, from this moment, is finished.”