She tossed her purse onto the bed, then caught sight of herself in the mirror. The smile dropped from her face like a rock. Normally she looked like your typical dark-haired, fun-loving, healthy-living “girl-next-door” . . . when her spirits were up, her hair done, her makeup on, her clothes matched and pressed.
Now, however, that girl-next-door look wasn’t cutting it. She needed to look hot. Pouting, she struck a sexy pose. She and the mirror would prove those bastards wrong. Doing a model turnaround, she opened her eyes and stared salaciously into the antique looking glass.
But drained and drunk, her cheeks drawn, eyes hollow and haggard, she looked like . . . well, like Bigfoot on a bad hair day!
Still, she was determined not to cave in. She was, after all, a professional thespian. Instead she pulled herself together, hit the invisible marks, and dutifully recited her lines, even though her only audience was the monstrous reflection mocking her so remorselessly.
“ ’Tis paltry to be Caesar;
Not being Fortune, he’s but Fortune’s knave.
A minister of her will; and it is great
To do that thing that ends all other deeds.”
But the monster in the mirror would not lie. Livia looked and sounded pathetic. Savage and sadistic as the three psychos were, they were right. Furious, she ripped the red stiletto heel from her right foot. Throwing herself down on her bed, she flung the shoe blindly across the room, inadvertently shattering the upright mirror atop her grandmother’s vanity. Crashing and clattering, the glass shards scratched, gouged, and scarred the cherished cherrywood antique.
Overcome with grief, convulsing with sobs, Livia buried her face in the overstuffed purple teddy bear her beloved grandmother had given her as a child.
“Buck up, Livia,” a soft female voice intoned. “We can repair your stupid vanity.”
Who was in her apartment? Livia looked up, searching frantically for the disembodied voice.
“Don’t be afraid,” the voice said with a foreign accent Livia couldn’t identify.
Suddenly Livia saw the woman standing in front of the disfigured vanity. Hips canted, arms akimbo, her honey-hued skin, high flaring cheekbones, and wide voluptuous mouth framed fierce feline eyes, their pupils pale-gray and vertically distended.
Cat’s eyes, Livia thought, staring at them fixedly.
Shaking her head, the woman casually flung her waist-length mane of raven hair over the front of her body. Tall, angularly slim, the sublimely gorgeous creature wore a gossamer-thin, floor-sweeping gown of sheer silk, as luminously black as burnished obsidian.
She wore no jewelry save for the four delicate gold rings that adorned her wrists and ankles.
“Who the hell are you?” Livia asked, not in the mood for any more abuse.
“I am Isis, daughter, She of the Throne. Egyptian goddess of wisdom and simplicity, patron of nature and magic. I’ve heeded your conjurations.”
“My what?”
“Your divine desideratum.”
“Decide what?” Livia said drunkenly.
“I’ve come to grant your more fervent desires.”
“This is a joke, right?”
“Caesar, Antony, and Octavian didn’t think so.”
“You’re Cleopatra.”
“I’m incarnating her earthly presence as it was two thousand years ago.”
“Then you’re . . .?”
“You’ve prayed to me often enough. I’m Isis, the patron goddess of great beauty.”
“What’s that got to do with a plain-looking, no-talent loser like me?”
Isis raked her up and down with a hard stare. “I don’t know about talent. That’s some other deity’s department. You’ll have to ask my boss, Osiris. But the plain-looking loser stuff I can fix.”
“Yeah, you and about ten million dollars’ worth of plastic surgery.”
“I can do it for far less than that.”
“Less than what? I couldn’t afford a canceled stamp or an expired supermarket coupon.”
Isis’s eyes glowed and the corners of her sensuous mouth crept upward. “Then you have the wherewithal.”
“The where with what?” Livia slurred.
“You can afford my services.”
“What’s the catch?”
“You’ll have to live with the consequences.”
“What consequences?”
“The bloodthirstiness of great beauty.”
“Oh, I get it. Is there some kind of weird sacrifice to the gods involved? I have to cut off a toe or something?”
“A simple touch from my palm to your head will do it.”
“Will do what?”
“Make you blindingly, achingly, dangerously, inescapably desirable. Every man you come into contact with will be instantly smitten.”
“You’re going to turn shit into gold?”
Isis winked, and Livia’s heart fluttered. “Just watch me,” the goddess whispered.
She leaned forward to touch Livia’s head with the palm of her right hand, but pulled back suddenly. “There’s just one more thing. In the morning you’ll find a tool to aid in correcting today’s wrongs. I won’t see a daughter of Isis ridiculed.”
Despite all she’d heard, Livia was dubious. “You mean the audition? I can’t correct that. They kicked me out of the room. They called me a monster.”
Isis was undeterred. “Sands shift for the gods and goddesses.”
“Well, that’s great in ancient Egypt, but we’re not there anymore.”
Isis shushed her, holding a slender finger to her lips. “You won’t be disappointed.” She placed her cool palm on Livia’s forehead and Livia felt a thunderbolt blast flash through her skull, face, and throat. Then she felt Isis’s palm press firmly against her chest. A second thunderbolt detonated in her chest, knocking her backward onto her flimsy secondhand mattress.
The pounding on the door woke the groggy girl up.
“You made too much noise last night. You’re two months behind in your rent. I’m sick and tired of your antics. This has happened for the last time. Open up!”
Livia groaned and pulled the comforter over her tender head. She had a killer hangover.
“Hold on, Sayid!” she shouted, hating herself for living in this ratty apartment building with its chronically broken elevator and the crankiest landlord in Los Angeles.
Still wearing her dirty, hideously wrinkled, red cocktail dress, she flung open the door to find the middle-aged, half-bald, eternally angry landlord, Sayid. As usual, he wore a dirty wife-beater tank top, his meaty fist poised for the next door-hammer.
“Maybe I wouldn’t have made so much noise if the damned elevator had worked for once!”
Waiting for him to fire back, Livia watched Sayid’s expression shift from rage to alarm to shock. His mouth gaped, and his eyes grew wide as saucers.
“Hey, forget about it. I’m sorry I bothered you. Really.”
“And the rent, I—”
“I said forget about it. I know times are tough. Really.” Turning, he limped away. Glancing over his shoulder, he smiled at her sheepishly. “By the way, you’re looking marvelous,” he said with a wink.
She gasped. She’d never seen Sayid smile.
Livia closed the door. Judging by the severity of her headache, she’d had far too many cocktails with Jenny. Had she done anything stupid?
God, she looked a mess. That must be why Sayid was so nice. He felt sorry for her. She walked up to the mirror. She was still wearing last night’s rumpled dress. Her hair was messy, her lips chapped, her eyeliner smudged. But wasn’t her mousy disheveled chestnut hair somehow thicker, shinier, more lustrous? Wasn’t her skin brighter?
She backed up to examine her entire body. It was impossible, and yet . . . she could swear her figure had changed overnight. Her breasts had swelled, her waist had shrunken; she was altogether more shapely.
With a start, she remembered the proposition extended to her by a self-proclaimed goddess. In her own bedroom!
She laughed at the audacity of her alcohol-induced dream. Yet she was sure that she had broken the mirror above her vanity, and here it was, intact and spotless. And here she was, and she’d be damned if she hadn’t come down with a serious case of sex appeal overnight!
Remembering the goddess’s words about leaving a gift, she flung open her bathroom door. No golden elixir or beauty potion. Nothing in the kitchen, either. She opened the drawers of her dresser, looking for anything out of place. What kind of gift would a goddess give, anyway? As a last resort, she pulled open the door to her closet. And there it was.
A regal, shimmering, Grecian-style white dress with gold trim.
It lay on top of all the other clothing, suggesting that it outshone all the dresses in her closet—perhaps all dresses everywhere.
And it did.
Hot blood coursed through her veins as she waited outside the door to the audition room. No pacing this time, no nerves, no line muttering—just anticipation.
The door opened and a statuesque Middle Eastern girl emerged in the same red dress and heels all the other actresses had been ordered to wear. The girl had the same shell-shocked look that all the others had had upon leaving that den of vipers, but Livia detected in this girl fear as well—fear that grew as she looked over Livia and took in the white Grecian dress Isis had given her.
No one had looked at her that way before, but she’d been its bearer so many times she knew exactly what it meant. Livia’s beauty intimidated her.
She smoothed her gorgeous new dress, lifted her chin high, and strode in.
“What the hell is this?” Alan Hakim shouted as she entered. “Did somebody tell you to come back here?”
She walked straight up to the long table and stroked his leathery face. “Mr. Hakim,” she cooed, “you’re gonna wish I’d never leave.”
She didn’t even wait for his reaction but hopped onto the table. Slinking down the tabletop, she began speaking the lines she would now never forget. Only this time, she was not Livia Mendelssohn; she was the legendary Nile Queen.
“Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
Immortal longings in me: now no more
The juice of Egypt’s grape shall moist this lip:
Yare, yare, good Iras; quick.”
Catlike, she hopped off the table again and whipped her head to the right.
“Methinks I hear
Antony call; I see him rouse himself
To praise my noble act; I hear him mock
The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
To excuse their after wrath: husband, I come:
Now to that name my courage prove my title!
I am fire and air; my other elements
I give to baser life. So; have you done?
Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.”
She leaned down and gave Lucas a sensuous, lingering kiss. He shuddered at the touch of her fingernails running down the side of his neck.
“Farewell, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewell.”
She tossed her hair and walked briskly out.
Not five seconds passed before the producer’s voice rang out behind her:
“Where do you think you’re going?” Marching after her, Alan grabbed her wrist and pulled her back in the room.
The Three Werewolf-Bears were all staring at her, gape-jawed.
“Were you on the schedule today?” Lucas asked, finally finding his voice.
“No, you miserable moron,” Malachi said. “This is the same girl from yesterday.”
“Which girl?” Lucas asked.
“The wolverine,” Malachi said, staring at Livia, stunned.
“You mean Bigfoot?” Lucas queried.
“Look at her, you coke-crazed cretin,” Alan said. “She’s not a Bigfoot any longer. What was your name again?”
“I think her name just became Cleopatra,” Malachi said.
“It’s Liv . . . Liv Lux.” Marilyn changed her name—why shouldn’t she? “Let’s just say I was having an off day.” She stepped forward and looked each of them in the eye.
“Let’s break for the day,” Alan said, treating Livia to his biggest, widest werewolf smile. “My assistant will bump the rest of the appointments. They can be rescheduled—or canceled. Either way. I don’t care.”
Livia smiled back at him seductively. She liked the sound of his words.
Alan met her by the door. Putting a hand on her back, he felt the silky patch of skin, the Grecian dress’s plunging neck- and back-lines leaving the upper portion of her torso exposed. When Alan placed his hand on her back, her silk skin felt electric.
“You’re coming with me,” he said.
When the headwaiter seated them at the big circular booth of the Polo Lounge, arguably the most famous restaurant in Beverly Hills, she’d found Dom Perignon already chilling in the ice bucket. She also noted that the staff treated Alan with a deference that could only be inspired by total terror.
“Dry gin martini with a twist,” he snapped at the drink waiter impatiently. “And, boy, I want you to shake that martini sixty times, not one less, then shake your ass back here. That should take you sixty seconds, starting three . . . two . . . one, NOW!”
The petrified waiter skittered away.
When the food waiter appeared, Alan ordered a porterhouse steak smothered in onions, French fries au gratin, and for Livia a house salad with oil and vinegar . . . without consulting her.
“I’ve been around long enough to know what you little ladies like,” he said, winking.
“And Mr. Hakim, I bet I know exactly what you want,” she purred, totally into her Cleopatra-seductress role—so into it the part now seemed second nature to her.
“Your voice—it’s pure ambrosia,” he whispered.
“I hope I get the chance to impress you with my other talents, Mr. Hakim,” she said throatily.
Riveted, Alan leaned across the table toward her. “I’m cow-simple over you. You’ve turned me into a raving fool.”
The waiter returned with his martini. Without taking his eyes off Livia, he downed it and slammed the empty glass on the table. “Perfect. Another, and shake this one seventy times.” The amazed waiter whisked the empty glass away and disappeared.
“Tell me what you want. Anything—jewelry, cars, a trip to paradise—you name it.”
It was good to be a goddess.
“I want nothing, Mr. Hakim—”
“Alan, please.”
“—Alan.” Fluttering bedroom eyes, she ran a finger across his bottom lip, somehow aware that the candlelight heightened her captivating radiance. “Nothing, Alan, except the chance to entertain the world. I was born to act.”
“Yes, of course you were.” He was so absorbed in her presence he barely heard his or her words.
“I will work very hard for you. I will do a very good, very thorough job. I will do anything you say.”
“And I will work you very hard.”
“And I will work like a slave.”
She gave his leg a painfully hard squeeze under the table.
Alan Harding’s next martini appeared, shaken a full seventy times.
By the time dessert arrived, he had jacked the shake-count up to a hundred-plus.
“I’m not sure you should have made psycho-producer your first conquest, but it’s a start.”
Perched on the bungalow’s baby grand in a white silk nightie, Isis cupped her glorious face in her hand and gave Livia a coy, eye-batting smile.
Livia woke with a start and rubbed her eyes. Sunshine filtered through the window’s wooden blinds onto the white marble floor. The Jacuzzi in the room’s opposite corner was still gurgling, reminding Livia of their hours of steamy pleasure in it the night before. An empty bottle of Dom Perignon sat on its ledge, and two plush white bathrobes, each embroidered with the logo of the Beverly Hills Hotel, lay crumpled a few feet away. The bungalow where she’d spent the night was a long way from her dingy Hollywood apartment.
Li
via glanced at the mass of grotesquely tanned flesh splayed across the ivory comforter, which had forced her onto the thin edge of the huge bed and finally onto the floor. Gray hair tufts seemed to sprout randomly across his back.
“I got the part!” she whispered to her guardian goddess.
“Isn’t that splendid!” Isis glowed like a proud mother. “Now let’s see if you can really fill Cleopatra’s sandals and match her legacy.”
“I’ll surpass it!” Livia said, leaping out of bed. “Look how they fall at my feet. I plan to make myself the most irresistible woman in history.”
“If you say so,” she said. “Just remember my warning.”
“That ‘bloodthirsty’ stuff again? Don’t you see he’d die before seeing me harmed? He’s head over heels!”
“I suppose you know better than I.” Isis glowed a little brighter as Alan stirred. “But now Prince Charming wakes. Ciao!” She vanished with a flash of light.
Alan groaned as he awakened. “Good God, Toni, how’d you let me drink—” His eyes opened and saw Livia. Confusion, realization, and finally rapture crossed his expression. “Ah yes, my queen. My divine Cleopatra. What a night we had!” He reached out and grabbed her around the waist, trying to pull her back into bed.
“Now, Alan,” she said, teasingly pulling away. “You’d better pull yourself together and get home! Won’t your wife be worried?”
He squinted and let out a cough that attested to an unhealthy smoking habit. “My wife? That ancient hag? How could I go back to her now?”
Ten years earlier, posters of Alan’s supermodel wife, Toni Harding, covered the bedroom walls of her conceited high-school quarterback-boyfriend who’d dumped Livia for a brainless cheerleader with a bodacious body and hellaciously hot panties. Deep down inside, she’d always blamed their break-up not on the IQ-challenged cheerleader but on Alan’s super-sexy spouse. She’d been the boy’s malevolent muse. Revenge on Alan’s trophy wife was sweet.
More Stories from the Twilight Zone Page 28