by Nick Keller
Number Two: Taxi services were good, especially when getting through L.A. traffic. And according to the next guy she met, L.A. traffic was a motherfucker—the way King Kong was a motherfucker. It made her laugh so she did what she did best—made him scream too.
Number three: If you want information on actor’s services, temporary representation, auditions, and general industry information, read The Wrap. The Hollywood Reporter wasn’t bad either. They both contained lists of agents looking for pretty girls—just like you, the third guy told her. He was in his fifties, but she slobbed his knob anyway. And as one might have suspected, the old geezer screamed.
Number four: Blowjobs went a lot farther with these L.A. people than those Genesee hillbillies.
She landed the first job she applied for working as a hostess at Spado’s in Beverly Hills. Everyone said she was lucky for landing the gig, but she knew better. Some downtime with Chrissie Newton was far better than conducting a job interview. During her off time, she scanned through the Reporter and The Wrap, and sundry other industry rags. She made phone calls, chased leads, and made a few more resources scream. So, she had a job. A place to stay. A means of getting around the city. And her natural talent. And now she’d lined up a number of interviews with talent agencies.
A few proved to be a sham, but one or two panned out… sort of. And before Chrissie Newton from Genesee fuckin’ Idaho knew it, she was cast as the second billed actress in a low budget movie making seven hundred dollars a week. The movie was called The Shawshank Ejaculation. She was a hit. People loved her. But she needed a bad girl’s name. Chrissie Newton just wasn’t black-leather-&-lace enough for a girl with her talent. And what better name could there possibly be than Harlie Davison? It was creative, nuanced, had a double entendre, original. It was perfect! Yes—Harlie Davison.
Her popularity soared. Harlie Davison’s reputation as the best face foofoo in town started reverberating with high-powered porn people. They started paying her top dollar to watch her perform on this costar or another. She turned her talent into a paycheck. A good one. She was making so much money she just knew momma would be proud. But once daddy caught wind of her escapades in the city of angels, he cursed her as a Jezebel (which according to the Bible was basically like a porn queen and stuff) and swore he’d never speak to her again. When he yelled no daughter of mine would ever engage in fellatio, by God! She yelled back It’s not called fellatio, daddy. It’s called a blowjob or giving head or knob slobbing or puff puffing—but usually just a blowjob! So she hadn’t spoken to them in seven years, and they hadn’t spoken to her.
In that time, she rose to the top. She got the Adult Film Industry’s Best Oral Sex of the Year trophy four years in a row and monopolized her craft. There was never any real intercourse, just lots of lip service. It was her schtick, her brand.
Beyond that, she was the biggest thing to ever come out of Genesee, Idaho except fifth grader Robby Thropton back in 1982 who won the Idaho state spelling bee. He even went on to place fifth at nationals.
Then—badda bing, badda bang—along came the big time.
Sitting at home one night in her downtown loft she got a call from her agent, an excitable sleaze bag named Trooper, who told her a major studio was going into preproduction on a pseudo art film directed by John Thomas Phillips, the newest up-and-coming Hollywood auteur, about the teenage Midwestern underground. The movie had a fifteen-million-dollar budget, and they wanted to offer her a supporting role, obviously for her seasoning as a nude starlet. Her role would be a small-town prostitute named Sugar Cane who seduced farm boys for a living. It was her shot at crossing over into the mainstream. She accepted, and all those magazines she used to rifle through looking for the tiniest way into the film industry started headlining her. She was a hit with The Wrap and Hollywood Reporter.
The porn production company which represented her, Red Rocket Studios, threw her a party at the studio head’s mansion up in the Hills—Mulholland Drive to be exact. All her porn friends showed up. There were male strippers walking around with large, exposed schlongs, nude female models who were all nipples and body paint, ice sculptures, fine catering, trays of multi-colored pills, and lots of top-shelf fucking. The place had a grand south Cali view off the rear balcony.
Though the premiered drink at the party was a Cuervo and Goldschlager concoction with Gin, Schnapps and vodka thrown in called a Suck Bang & Blow, Chrissie a.k.a. Harlie Davison walked through the crowd half buzzed and sipping on a good old simple beer, a domestic pilsner. After all, you can take the girl out of the country, but yadda, yadda, yadda. She’d also dropped a Mollie pill an hour earlier and was beginning to get touchy-feely. That’s when Chrome Steel spotted her and came up beside her. He was only wearing swimming trunks showing his body off to the world and floating a martini glass in one palm.
“Girl of the hour,” he said in his southern-California-wanna-be-accent by way of Kentucky. He was a cheesy piece of shit, over six feet tall, the body of Adonis, and a face like Brad Pitt meets Father Knows Best, but Chrissie liked him. They’d starred in a number of movies together and were a crowd favorite. Her character, Harlie, had sucked him off several times, and apparently, his body wasn’t the only thing Adonis would have been jealous of. Boy’s dick was the size of a Braunschweiger sausage. The DVD sales were through the roof. Everyone liked Chrome Steel, and they liked it even more when Harlie Davison upstaged him.
“Hey, Chrome,” she said as they moved out of the large kitchen area and into the darker den. Naked bodies were everywhere.
“So, I have to say it, especially because you’re my favorite engineer, but congrats, babe.”
She gave him a confused look. “Engineer?”
“Oh shit—” he giggled sipping out of his plastic martini glass. “I meant ingénue, right?” More naked bodies slipped past them, one of them grabbing Chrome in the package and making him give his seasoned, surfer-boy whoa man!
“Thanks!” she said, beaming. “I’m so fucking excited to be working with, like—the director.”
“Yeah, John what’s-his-name?”
“Yeah—John what’s-his-name.” They started climbing a staircase walking together.
“Bet you’re happy to have a budget, too, right? Not like these cheap-ass cocksuckers around here.”
It made her laugh, and for a second she felt more like Chrissie than Harlie, but only for a second. She said, “No more sucking off stupid extras in the bus, either.”
He responded, “No more maiden voyages on brand new costars during a take.”
“Yeah—no more douching in the green room because some amateur came inside me when he wasn’t supposed to.” They moved down the hall.
“No more banging ugly fans for some damn fund raiser.”
Harlie tried a knob and the door opened. “No more assholes expecting a blowjob just because I’m the blowjob queen.”
“Yeah—no shit. I bet that sucks,” he said as they went in.
“Baby, you have no clue,” she said, shutting the door and putting him against the wall. Chrome couldn’t hide what he had going on down there, and with her hands all over it, it just got worse. But Chrome had a talent. Just as Harlie was known for her niche, Chrome was known for his finger-thing. They called it squirtability in the industry, a male’s ability to get a woman to orgasm, explosively. Chrome Steel had this talent. He had squirtability.
So, when she went down on him hardly able to fit that thing of his half way into her mouth and handling it like a butter churner, she had her motives. After several long moments Chrome screamed (like they all did) and she felt a warm gluey explosion in her mouth, so she wiped her chin with the back of her hand and laid down on the bed prostrate with her hands up over her head while he recuperated.
Thinking about that stupid seventeen-year-old girl who had caught a bus to freedom so long ago, and those first weeks in the city exchanging blowjobs for knowledge, and that cheap little flick The Shawshank Ejaculation, and all the things which led
her to this point where she stood on the cusp of true Hollywood greatness, she said, “Finger me and make me squirt, Chrome. I fucking deserve it.”
THE ORGASM and the pilsners and the Mollie pills put her to sleep. In the last several years, she’d had her fill of porn parties. They were so novel in the beginning, everyone naked and sliding all over each other, snorting top-strength cocaine and screwing on the sofa or the floor or the coffee table. It was like an orgy. But after a while, it all just became an extension of her job. So, after Chrome sapped the last of her will power, there was nothing left for her there. Besides, she was tired.
She woke up before the sun broke the horizon. It was dark but she could still hear the remnants of the party downstairs. The clock on the table showed 4:55. Chrome was next to her on the right, some naked girl on her left. She nudged the naked girl out of the way, got up, left the room, and discreetly made her way out the front door. No one noticed. They were all fucked up and lounging around like lazy cave dwellers coming down from their high.
Outside, she walked down the winding guest way toward the street feeling the cool night breeze wash around her. She clicked the door locks on her Mercedes Benz C-250 coupe, got in and pulled onto Mulholland Drive. She wasn’t drunk anymore, but she had a familiar heavy-brain, post-party sensation in her head. She would take it slow back home. It was only ten miles down the 101 or so. She couldn’t wait to get there and go back to bed.
Taillights appeared up ahead—someone just pulling onto the road. Then they disappeared around one of Mulholland’s long, looping curves. The black trees encroached on her, slipping past her headlights. When she followed Mulholland around the bend those taillights were even further up. Whoever it was—they were moving fast.
Checking the rearview, she saw only empty night behind her. The road was hers alone… and the idiot racing the moon up ahead.
She turned on the radio. It was some pop hit. She wasn’t in the mood so she took her eyes off the road to change the station. The digital band flashed over. Another song came on. Hip-hop. Her eyes went back to the road.
Mulholland wound lazily to the right as she dropped in elevation. The 101 was approaching and the closer she got, the more rural Mulholland became. All the multi-million- dollar mansions and big Tuscan-style spreads and postmodern cantilevered homes dropped further behind. Now, the trees loomed up over the road hiding the forested valley immediately off the shoulder.
She breached the curve. Those taillights were gone. There was only dark road.
The hip-hop was grating on her. It was too late for that shit. Or maybe it was too early. Peeling around another curving foray in the road, she thumbed off the radio altogether.
Ahhh….
She settled into her handcrafted leather seat feeling it hug her like a lover. Her eyes closed for just a second, and in one pure moment, she swam in peace and quiet thinking on the days ahead—she had a movie contract with a major studio, an enormous fan base, the love of an entire film industry. Life. Was. Perfect.
Then she opened her eyes to the sound of a scream. It was a horn. She couldn’t see. The world was nothing but blinding light.
Fucking headlights!
They had turned around—those taillights! Somehow it registered in a flash of clarity. They had turned around and raced back up the hill toward her, and now they were locked on a collision course.
Chrissie screamed a blast of terror yanking the wheel to the right and stood on her brake pedal. The anti-lock engaged creating a gravely skip skip skip under her butt. The headlights in front of her broke in the other direction and the black road jetted away from under her car. Her stomach dropped away. Everything lost gravity. For just a second everything went peaceful. She heard the sound of wind growing. Trees loomed up at her through the windshield. She was falling, plummeting off Mulholland. She released a scream that shattered the night.
Her Mercedes slammed into the forestry. There was a shotgun bang and the airbags exploded in her face. Even through her dizziness she felt the car teeter over jamming her against her driver’s door. The whip-crack of shattering tree limbs banged around her and the windshield evaporated into glass droplets. Eyes pinched closed, she felt the glass pepper her face. Another tree banged her sideways and the car went into a barrel roll. A wall of dirt erupted over the hood as the Mercedes came down on its side crushing the air out of her. Everything waited for a few eternal seconds before the sound of rending steel issued up to her and the Mercedes flumped back down on all four tires. Everything went silent.
The sound of her own breath made her come back. She blinked her eyes shaking off the feeling she was in a dream. She kicked her feet to see how broken she was. Her feet moved. Groaning half-hysterically, she clawed at her seatbelt release. It disengaged, but she couldn’t move. Her body was in shock. Everything trembled. Tears started. She could feel them come.
Phone!
Padding her lap, then her console, then the passenger seat, she searched for her phone. It wasn’t there. Jesus—it could’ve been anywhere. Maybe it had been ejected from the car and was laying in the shrubbery half way up the incline. The thought forced her eyes toward the rearview mirror. Up the pitch-black incline, she saw headlights sitting on the road. Someone was up there.
Oh, thank God. Thank you, God!
“Ple-please, help me…” she cried through a hoarse throat. Nothing engaged. There was no sound. Touching her lips, she put her eyes back on the rearview. Someone was coming. She could see their silhouette making its way painstakingly down the decline. They picked their way through the terrain disappearing in the night, then reappearing under moon shadows as they approached.
Chrissie closed her eyes and tried to collect herself. Help was coming. It was on its way. Be calm. Everything’s going to be okay. She started sobbing uncontrollably. They were huge, grateful sobs. Grateful to be alive. Grateful she wouldn’t be trapped here for hours and days. Grateful there was help coming.
She felt the thump of the person’s hands on the car as they reached her. She looked up through the shattered driver’s window. The person stood staring in at her under the dark shadow of a hoodie and a ball cap. His eyes glistened in the night. There was the vague outline of a face, its features indeterminable except the hint of teeth showing through a grin. A new feeling of horror washed over her, submerged her in a sinking sensation. It was deeper and darker than the crash itself.
She heard him say, “Shhhhhh. Shhhhhh…”
He reached in through the window and put a hand on her neck, and for a second she thought he might be checking for a pulse. Then his arm pulled away in a flash of power and she felt something painless, but horrifying. She reached for her throat feeling a sheet of warmth run out over her hands. Dark fluid glistened in the night. She tried to pull a breath, but nothing came. Then everything went cold, and somewhere in her exquisitely alert mind, she wished she was at home. She wished she was in Genesee, Idaho. She wished she could see her momma. She wished she could throw her arms around her daddy and tell him you’re right, daddy—nice girls don’t do fellatio! She wished she’d never come to Los fucking Angeles.
7
WILLIAM ERTER AT WORK
“It’s all about patterns,” William said walking slowly up and down the aisles of his classroom. Students followed him with their eyes, a few of them doing a long, slow blink-dance as they dozed. “They’re everywhere, patterns. Can anyone tell me what a pattern is?”
No one raised their hand. No one ever did, at first. There was one he could always count on to start the conversation.
Jacky Lee Hobar.
William put his eyes on the far desk at the back of the room. Last semester it had been Jacky’s chair. Now it belonged to an artsy-fartsy psyche student named Neil. He was a good student, but he was no Jacky Lee Hobar. William cleared his throat and said, “Come on — patterns — anybody.”
A hand.
“Ah, Marcus.”
Marcus, a kid with remarkably good hair and ironically ba
d skin said, “Things going in circles, like — they go in circles.”
“Okay. Excellent. Circles. There are many circular patterns.”
Another hand.
“Yes, Melanie?”
Melanie said, “Like plaid—plaid’s a pattern, right?”
“Plaid,” William said. “The fashionista of the group. Actually, yes, plaid has a pattern. A very discernable pattern, right?”
Another hand.
“Yes, Brand.”
“Something going up and down, up and down, over and over. That… that’s a pattern.”
“Sure, right.” William smirked to himself. Pathetic. He was going to have to feed them the right answer. “So, things that go in circles. And things like plaid. Other things that go up and down. What makes all of these beautiful examples of patterns? What do they all have in common?”
“They repeat…” Andre said, blurting a guess.
William’s eyes went to him and he pointed at him. “Yes. The magic word. Patterns are patterns because they repeat. They do the same thing. Or they look the same way. Or they even sound the same, again and again because… they repeat. If you look around, you’ll see patterns everywhere. The sun comes up in the east, down in the west, every day. It’s a pattern. We brush our teeth every morning…”
“Most of us do,” someone said. There was laughter.
William grinned and said, “Nevertheless, it’s a pattern. Look at our clothes. Look at the stars. Petals on a flower. Fiddle head ferns. All patterns. They’re all around us, right?” There was general agreement in the class. William led his words with a finger and said, “Everything has a pattern. Patterns are in every single thing.”
A hand went up. It was Cynthia. He gestured to her. She said, “But just last week we talked about chaos, you remember? No patterns.”
“Yeah, Teach…” It was Marique, the cool guy, the buddy-type, too cool for school. “You said chaos doesn’t have patterns.”