by Guy Adams
Eventually, muscles aching and her whole body sticking to the bath beneath her, Elizabeth lay back and relaxed.
The smell was pungent but not unpleasant – she wanted to be reminded of the potency of what she was lying in, the animal richness of it.
How long did it take to work? Perhaps the longer she had it on her body the greater the effect? Though surely there was a limit? She could hardly shrink away back to childhood here in her slick second womb. Her skin tingled, though whether that was from the rough attention she’d paid it or whether it was proof that the blood was taking effect she couldn’t say.
She realised she’d been holding her breath and she let out a sigh that bubbled through wet lips.
She should be horrified. She should be disgusted. She didn’t want to open her eyes – not because she was scared to look upon the literal bloodbath she had created but because she wanted her eyelids to receive the full benefit. She reached out a hand and rested it on the cool flank of the dead maid, the woman she had killed. She realised she felt nothing. No, not nothing, worse than that: she felt thrilled. She felt powerful. She felt back in a place of dominance, feeding off the little people, thriving off their devotion. She felt herself.
She waited for about twenty minutes, then decided that the blood must have done its work. She was too impatient to wait any longer.
Elizabeth sat up and reached out for the taps. In her head she briefly heard her father’s voice. ‘Cold water for blood,’ he said and she could picture him hurling bucket after bucket of icy water on the bloodstained floor of the barn after he had slaughtered one of the pigs. ‘It chills it off the stones.’
She had no idea whether there was any truth to that but decided there was little point in arguing.
She turned on the cold-water tap and let the liquid rush out. She gave an involuntary shriek as it splashed on her, cupping it with both hands nonetheless and pouring it over her head, letting it rush over her shoulders. A cloud of pink blossomed around her as the blood began to be washed off. She removed the plug and swirled the blood residue away, forcing it down the outlet.
Leaning over the side of the bath she nudged Georgina’s legs aside so that she could reach for one of the bottles she had handed her, the shampoo. Elizabeth poured a good handful into her hair and massaged it, constantly cupping more cold water and dousing herself with it.
It took a long time but eventually she was clean.
She stood up and, on impulse, turned her gaze away from the bathroom mirror. She didn’t want this piecemeal, she wanted to appreciate the full effect.
She stepped out into her dressing room and stared at herself in the mirrors that surrounded her.
She was beautiful. Perfect. A woman who had lost twenty years … more, even. She couldn’t take her stare off herself. Her hands constantly stroked her body, feeling every inch of its rejuvenation.
A miracle. And one that was certainly worth the life of a stupid maid, a girl whom nobody in their right mind would miss.
Which was when she noticed the girl’s uniform, still discarded on the floor. Had Nayland seen it? No matter if he had: he would keep her secret. She would make quite sure of that.
Nayland had noticed the uniform – had been staring at it, in fact, when he had asked Elizabeth about the girl’s whereabouts.
‘I gave her fifty dollars,’ his wife had said, ‘and told her to take the night off.’
A lie, surely. But hiding what truth?
He had retired to his own room. Once again lost inside his own house, feeling out of control and powerless beneath a roof that increasingly felt like that of a prison rather than a home.
He poured himself a large Scotch and sat in the window, watching an unhealthy sun sink behind the mountains. Part of him wished it would have the decency to just stay there.
The maid. What had Elizabeth done to the maid?
And, more to the point, what was he going to do about it?
Nayland lost himself in the shadows, the faint light from a bedside lamp too thin to permeate further than the safety of his white-sheeted bed.
Elizabeth came to him a few hours later. A silhouette in his doorway, a ghost bathed in expensive scent.
‘Look at you,’ she said, ‘sat staring out into the dark.’
‘Story of my life.’
‘It doesn’t have to be.’ She stepped inside the room and closed the door behind her. ‘Turn off that light.’
He didn’t question her – did he ever? – just got to his feet, walked over and let the darkness possess those last few steps.
‘Take off your clothes.’
This did give him pause. Unsure for a moment whether it would be the prelude to humiliation. What the hell, it wasn’t as if he had any pride left.
He dropped his garments to the floor, casting them into the darkness where they were lost.
He stood there in what little moonlight managed to filter in through the window, broken up and carved by the blades of the palm trees outside. He looked down at his body, a scratchy projection of his past self, a grainy monochrome print of a man.
‘Close your eyes,’ Elizabeth said.
‘I can’t see a thing anyway.’
‘Close them.’
Nayland did so, forcing himself to relax, spreading out his hands and letting himself float in the darkness. Giving in to her as he always did. He heard her move closer, the soft breath of air as she came to him, the awareness of something else out there in this ocean of darkness, a big predator certainly, one that he had long ago accepted would one day eat him whole.
Elizabeth whispered in his ear. ‘I’m going to do what I want.’
‘When have you not?’ he replied.
Her fingers brushed his chest, his cheeks, ran their nails down his arms, so lightly that it was like being touched by a spirit, something without flesh. The illusion would not be maintained for long. After a moment of absence, left to float once more, he felt her take hold of his penis, her thumbnail dragging its way along it, promising pain as well as pleasure.
‘I’ve missed this,’ Elizabeth told him. He didn’t believe her, of course, but it was nice to hear. His body had no issue with her lies, and he stiffened between her fingers.
Nayland pictured her as he had seen her on the screen, imagined her hands reaching out from the projector’s beam and pulling him in. She tugged him towards the bed, leading him like the obedient old hound that he was.
‘Lie back,’ she said, feet still planted on the floor, toes curling against the marble tiles.
The spirit of Elizabeth vanished to be replaced with the animal that lived at the heart of her. She climbed on top of Nayland, hands forcing him down against the sprung mattress as she rode him as though he was an inanimate object. As always, the goal was her pleasure but that didn’t lessen his own. He gripped the sheets on either side of him and pressed his head back into the bed, stiffening at the scratching of her nails, the bite of her teeth, the hungry grind of her as she pounded against him. It was an act of vandalism and he loved her all the more for it.
Afterwards, she sat back among his pillows while he lay still, enjoying the feel of the cool air on his wet skin. He wanted to remember the sensation.
‘Why?’ Nayland asked, a question he hadn’t wanted to raise earlier in case it had made her come to her senses.
‘A celebration,’ Elizabeth said. ‘And a business proposition.’
‘Where do I sign?’
‘I think you just did.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Do you have a cigarette?’
‘Bedside table.’ Nayland made to sit up, reaching for the light, but she pushed him back down with her foot.
‘I can manage.’ She scrabbled in the half-light, opening the cigarette case and helping herself. There was a flash of orange fire and then the air was filled with the scent of smoke, eradicating the afterglow aroma of their sex, fumigating them.
‘I have not been happy,’ she said after smoking in silence for a while. ‘Not for
a long time. Did you realise that?’
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘But as you clearly didn’t want me to do anything about it …’
‘What could you have done?’ It was not a question that Elizabeth expected him to answer. ‘But if there had been a way, something that would have made me really happy, would you have done it?’
‘You know I would. I’m an idiot, but I’m consistent.’
‘You really love me, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ Nayland could see no point in lying – she knew it, anyway.
‘Even though I treat you so terribly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘There is a way.’
‘A way to what?’
‘To make me happy. I found it tonight. But I need you to be a part of it.’
‘The maid?’
‘Yes, though probably not in the way you think.’
Nayland didn’t want to hear more: this was the terror that waited on the next sunrise, the next step on the downward spiral. He knew she wouldn’t spare him. ‘What did you do?’
In answer Elizabeth reached across and turned on the bedside light. It took a moment for what he saw to sink in. He scooted across the bed to prop himself up against the footboard, staring at the woman facing him.
‘What have you done?’ he asked. ‘What the hell have you done?’
‘Something miraculous, and all it cost was the blood of someone unimportant.’
Someone unimportant. How mild those words were. How terrible.
‘Tell me!’
‘Darling, there’s no need to shout. It was just an accident, a happy accident.’
‘Not for her.’
‘Oh, who cares about her? She was nothing, just a silly little girl. Since when have we had to worry about people like that? This is who we are, the gods of the screen, grown beautiful by feeding on them. All I did was take it a step further. Her blood made me beautiful. Am I not beautiful?’
Nayland couldn’t deny that. She looked absolutely stunning, better even than she had in his screening room. She was the perfect dream of herself. The definitive Elizabeth.
‘Of course you are.’ He moved closer and she tilted her head, spreading her limbs out before him, soaking up all his attention.
‘Did I ever look better?’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But … the girl …’
‘Is dead and there’s nothing that can be done to bring her back. So why worry? We just need to get rid of the body.’
He sank back on the bed. ‘We?’
‘You wouldn’t let me struggle on my own, would you? And you know I’d be grateful. I might even love you for it.’
‘Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.’
‘Who knows?’
Nayland knew only too well but he wasn’t going to argue about it.
‘Will you help?’ Elizabeth rubbed her young toes on his old, grey chest. ‘You wouldn’t let me go to the chair over such a stupid little thing as this, would you?’
‘I should.’
‘But you won’t.’
‘No, God help me, I won’t.’
‘Good boy.’
They dressed, Nayland unable to stop staring at Elizabeth, she loving every moment of it.
‘What are we going to say?’ he asked.
‘I told Patience that we were going to take her out. Who’s to say what happened to her after we left her?’
‘Not the maid. You. People won’t believe it. You’re so young …’
This had never occurred to Elizabeth, the idea that she had restored her beauty but wouldn’t be able to show it. She looked at herself in the mirror. ‘This is Hollywood – they’ll believe anything we tell them. That’s what they do. We’re not human, we’re not real … they expect miracles from us every day.’
‘And Patience? Or Fabio?’
‘Fabio will see dollar signs, Patience will just have to do as she’s told. That’s what she’s for.’ Elizabeth tore herself away from the mirror. ‘We’ll worry about that in the morning, one thing at a time.’
She led him into the bathroom. He saw the drained body of Georgina dumped in the tub.
‘Oh God.’ Nayland pressed his hand to his mouth, then said, ‘Oh Elizabeth, what did you do?’
‘What needed to be done.’ She had brought in the red dress that she had promised Georgina she could wear. ‘Help me get her into this.’
‘Why, for God’s sake?’
‘Because it will look better. We dress her up and dump her. Stick to our story, that we took her out for dinner somewhere …’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know. Luciano’s, Oceanic …’
‘They’ll check! The police will ask if we were there.’ Nayland rubbed at his face, trying to force his brain into action. ‘This needed planning, care … you just killed her and now …’
‘I needed you,’ Elizabeth purred. ‘All right? I admit it. I should have asked you to help.’
‘To help you kill.’ He bent over, trying to get his breath. A world that had been loose enough already was falling apart around him.
‘To help me get new life. Would you begrudge me that?’
Oh, but the cost … Nayland thought, looking at the dead eyes of their maid.
‘It’s done,’ Elizabeth insisted. ‘Now we need to fix it or I’ll be joining her.’ She fixed him with a stare so hard that he felt as if she had shoved him. ‘And I will not accept that.’
He nodded. However much the act disgusted him she was right in that the girl’s life was gone. Nothing he could do would change that. The choice had been made. Now he had to decide whether Elizabeth should pay for it or not. As always, he bowed to her.
‘All right.’ Nayland drew in a breath and forced himself to act. He grabbed the maid under her arms and lifted her from the tub. There was a loud belch and he dropped her again, with a cry of panic. ‘She’s not dead!’
‘Of course she’s dead. It’s just gas. You remember that movie we did? The Cedar Grove? With Larry Michaels. He told me about the girl I was playing, the real one, how they had found her body in the pond and she had blown up like a Zeppelin. They’d never show that on-screen, of course, just me floating among the lilies. But real death is ugly.’
‘It is indeed.’ He picked Georgina up again. ‘Pull the dress up her legs.’
Elizabeth did so, yanking the material over the girl’s damp body. The girl seemed to fight back, Nayland straining to hold her still as her limbs flailed. It was like trying to dress a large marionette.
‘Put her down,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I need to get her arms through.’
Nayland tried to rest the girl on the edge of the bath but she fell in, her head striking the enamel with a resounding bang.
‘Careful!’ said Elizabeth.
‘What does it matter? She can’t get any more dead – you’ve seen to that.’
‘Just lift her back out.’
He did so, tugging her up by her arms, her head lolling on her thin neck.
Elizabeth stepped in between them, pulling the dress up and then taking hold of each arm to fold it through the straps. The left one seemed to fight back and the fabric ripped.
Elizabeth yelled a Hungarian curse, stepping back to take a swing at the dead girl. She slapped her across the face and Nayland had to yank hard to stop her from being torn from his grip.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘That’s not helping.’
‘Neither is she.’
‘Just pull it around her, it’ll be fine. Who cares if it’s torn?’
Elizabeth did just that. ‘She’ll do. Now we need to get her out of the house.’
‘I’ll carry her to the garage, you walk ahead of me and make sure nobody sees us.’ He hoisted her up onto his shoulder and a splatter of blood shot from her gashed throat and ran down the back of his jacket.
‘Shit!’ He turned around, trying to see how bad it was in the mirror.
/>
‘The material’s dark enough,’ Elizabeth insisted. ‘It’ll be fine. Come on!’
She led the way back out into the hall, checking to either side as Nayland followed her.
‘All clear.’ She ran to the head of the stairs and waved Nayland along behind her.
‘Open the front door,’ he whispered. ‘Quickly.’
She drew back the bolts and swung the door open. He ran right past her, immediately cutting right and then ducking as he saw Patience appear at the window beside him. He fell back against the wall as Elizabeth joined him, both of them moving low beneath the sill.
‘It is ridiculous,’ said Elizabeth, ‘hiding from your own staff, not free to do what you like in your own home.’
‘It hasn’t stopped you in the past.’
‘Just get to the garage.’
They ran together, moving around the side of the house to an outhouse that had been designed to look like a stable. In fact, it housed two or three cars and a motorcycle that Nayland had fallen in love with but had never mastered riding.
‘The keys!’ said Nayland.
‘I didn’t even know it was locked.’
‘That’s because you always get Gerry to drive you everywhere.’ Their sullen driver was only too used to his mistress’s demands and had actually threatened to leave their employ several times due to her frequent abuse. Nayland had always assumed she had taken such a dislike to him because she had been unable to lure him into her bed.
‘So what do we do now?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘You wait here with her and I go and get them.’
‘I’m not sitting out here with the body! What if someone comes along?’
‘Charm them. The last thing we need is Patience seeing what you look like. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now let’s just deal with this.’
He ran back towards the house, remembering his jacket just as he was about to step through the front door. Why risk it drawing attention? He took it off and threw it to the side of the doorway.
Inside he almost ran right into Patience. ‘Sir,’ she said, managing to appear only slightly startled, ‘I heard someone outside and I wondered …’