High Life

by Matthew Stokoe

  The day seemed suddenly glorious. The hacked-open dog at my feet outweighed Bella’s leading role in the operating room ten to one. It tipped the scales so far away from her they’d never come back. Even if she’d been aware of the murder, it had to have been Powell who actually committed it, the wounds were just too similar.

  Added to the spunk in Karen’s guts it meant I could go on sucking up Bella’s money and influence without fear of it one day being stolen from me by some judicial inconvenience. It also meant I’d have something to derail Ryan with if he got bored after he’d finalized his blackmail scam and decided to start riding the frame-Jack-for-murder trail again.

  Bella sat in a gray deco chair in the drawing room of her suite, staring out of the window. She seemed a little distracted and jerked when I came in.

  “It’s time I call Ryan. What do you want me to tell him?”

  “Tell him to meet me tomorrow. The same motel will do.”

  “I can’t make tomorrow, I’m taping.”

  “I’ll go by myself.”

  “Are you sure? He looked pretty weird.”

  “You’re not jealous, are you?”

  “After Powell and that guy in the motel?”

  “Good. You have no reason to be. I’ll give him the money and hopefully we won’t hear from him again.”

  “Unlikely.”

  “Yes. But money is a powerful thing. With enough of it you can make anything happen, one way or another. Let me play you something.”

  In the video suite Bella fired up the machine and loaded a tape.

  “These are some of my donors. Everything I’m doing to them is medically unnecessary. They must suspect it, but they talk themselves into letting it happen because they want the money.”

  She ran the tape. A series of zero-income types, men and women, in one of the examination rooms at Apricot Lane. Bella in surgical gown and mask, hair pulled tightly back. The donors naked. From the way they behaved I assumed the camera was hidden.

  A man undergoing a rectal examination, Bella’s fingers in rubber gloves slick with lubricant. The same man crouched over a pan on the floor, producing a stool sample. A young woman with track marks on the insides of her thighs, cunt held open with a stainless steel clamp so Bella could douche it with a quart of saline solution. Bella’s entire hand inside the anus of a black guy who didn’t look much over nineteen. A girl being sick on her hands and knees after drinking an emetic while Bella took swabs deep inside her cunt with long-handled Q-tips.

  “You have to admit there is something intensely erotic about this level of invasion.”

  I was going to make some noise of agreement, but the action on the tape jump-cut to another scene and I couldn’t stop myself tensing up. Bella was no longer gowned and masked, but naked, stretched full-length over another naked woman, head to toe on the examination bench. They were eating each other out and the woman’s face was hidden between Bella’s legs, but when she lifted her head to work her tongue in deeper I could see her shoulder blade. And the tattoo of a scarab on it.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You recognized her.”

  “No. It’s just … different. Was she a donor?”

  “She became a donor, yes.”

  On screen Bella’s hips jerked, then grooved slowly, relaxing. After a while she climbed off and the woman on the bench turned her head toward the camera and smiled—Karen, her face shiny with spit and cunt juice. Bella froze the picture.

  “She was my lover.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “What do you mean? If you know her, Jack, I’d like you to tell me.”

  “I only meant why did the relationship end?”

  “Do you know her or not?”

  Bella was too hot for the question for me to avoid some sort of answer.

  “She looks like a girl who works the drag. Maybe I saw her down there once or twice, that’s all. What’s the problem?”

  “I’m sorry. We had an intense relationship. I’m still a little sensitive about her.”

  “Why did it end?”

  “I don’t know. One day she didn’t turn up. I never saw her again.”

  “Didn’t you try to get in touch with her?”

  “She never told me anything about herself. I didn’t know her last name or where she lived. There wasn’t much I could do.”

  Bella rewound the tape and started it again. She sat on my lap, facing the screen, and put my dick inside her. She moved hard against me and when Karen’s dripping face smiled at the camera she came.

  Later I phoned Ryan. The Starway Motel was cool with him. When he heard I wouldn’t be there it was even cooler.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Bella left the house late morning the next day, first for the bank, then for the connection with Ryan. Powell hadn’t come back to Malibu during the night so I guessed he was still sulking in his apartment downtown.

  My call for 28 FPS wasn’t till twelve. I used my time alone to do a couple of things.

  I took Bella’s donor tape from the concealed cupboard in the video suite, cued it to the segment with Karen, and copied it onto a blank cassette. It took me about twenty minutes—ten minutes to figure out how to route the signal from one video deck to the other, and another ten for the copying because I couldn’t find the high-speed dubbing function. I shat myself the entire time, listening for cars in the drive, footsteps in the house.

  There were other tapes in the cupboard, two I’d already seen—Bella and Powell fucking, me unconscious having my dick sucked—and three I hadn’t. I spent another jumpy half hour fast-forwarding through them—a solo sex exhibition by Bella, another collection of losers undergoing sexually toned medical examinations, edited highlights from various fuck sessions that Bella and I had taped since I’d been out at Malibu. Nothing that linked to Karen. I rewound and put everything back the way it had been.

  I had two reasons for wanting my own personal copy of Bella and Karen yumming each other. First, the tape proved they’d been lovers, or at least that they’d had some kind of sexual connection. Added to the snippet Bella had let drop about Powell sneaking copies of every tape she had, it backed up my jealousy-as-motive theory about him being the killer. If he had a copy in his possession it would show he’d been aware of their relationship, and if he was aware of their relationship he may just have done something about it.

  My other reason was a little less Bella-friendly—insurance against her ever changing her mind about how nice it was having me around. If she did have some knowledge of the murder, her rolling around naked with the victim wouldn’t be a scene she’d want anonymously left on the police station doorstep.

  I put the cassette in the trunk of the Mustang and headed down to PCH. It was a hot day and I felt excited. Lorn and I were going to be working together for the first time—a duet interview with some chick who was going stellar in the porn industry. Not a name recognizable to anyone outside certain video circles, but someone who could provide enough titillation to interest the 28 FPS target audience. An easy way to start me off—Lorn there to hold my hand, no big name to get pissed off if I blew my lines and forced too many retakes. I told myself to be cool. I’d been watching Lorn on TV and fancying her for the last twelve months and I didn’t want her to think I was a dick.

  The girl called herself Mistral. I don’t think she knew what it meant, just saw it somewhere and liked the sound of it. It hardly mattered. When you function primarily as a collection of orifices, nobody gives a shit how smart you are—especially if you’re a platinum blonde with implants.

  She lived in a narrow house that went toward the beach in a slope—one of those places where they’re all built so close together along the highway you can’t see the ocean. Not a big house, no grounds or garden to speak of, but it was Malibu, and that kind of area code is important on the way up.

  There were a couple of vans parked outside when I got there. I did makeup in one of them
then wandered into the house. The crew was setting up out on the deck, Mistral was in the lounge, smoking a long thin cigarette and chatting to Lorn and James, the director I’d worked with on my first day taping.

  We intro-ed. James told me to relax, that he’d guide me through the whole thing. Lorn said she thought she’d seen me someplace before and gave me a question sheet with J marked next to about every third question.

  “They’re yours. She knows what we’re going to ask—”

  Mistral blasted smoke through her nostrils and broke in.

  “Yeah, I don’t wanna answer no questions that aren’t on that sheet there. My agent said I wouldn’t have to.”

  She had a high whining voice that sounded like it came out of a bad part of the east coast. She was close to the top when it came to humping on screen, but it was a cinch she wasn’t going to cross over making a noise like that.

  Lorn patted her knee.

  “It’ll be just how you want, honey. Don’t you worry.”

  Lorn looked good, like she always did. Black leggings, Reeboks, a tie-dyed vest that was tight around her tits and showed off her shoulders.

  “You wanna see some of my stuff before we start? I got a tape right here.”

  James left to make some calls, but Lorn and I had nothing to do until shoot time. Mistral was already thumbing the remote.

  “This here’s me and Paco Rondello. Boy, when he comes in your mouth it’s like having a meal. See how my hips are moving there? That’s something I do, kinda adds sensuality to it, dontcha think? Oh, and now this, this is one of my favorite takes, ’cause it’s so artistic. When I was starting off I wouldn’t do an anal sandwich, no way, but eventually in this profession you loosen up and think what the hell? So it’s two at once, big deal, to get to the top you have to develop a few specialities. Mind you, I ain’t into none of that shitting or puking stuff. Nah, it’s gotta be tasteful or I walk right outta there. See, where I am now I can dictate my terms. Hey, did you go to Charlie Sheen’s party? Recognition, that’s the important thing in my industry.”

  Lorn nodded distractedly, the stuff on the video seemed to bore her. After a while she stood up and jerked her head at me. We went outside and walked down some sun-bleached wooden steps to the edge of the beach. The sun on the water made a hot path to the horizon that hurt to look at. There were a few rich people swimming and some more lying on the sand under umbrellas. They looked relaxed and healthy, satisfied with themselves, like this time lazing had been well earned.

  I wondered how the tramps and the other fuck-ups in Santa Monica felt today. It seemed a long time ago that they’d been a reality I was sliding toward. I had a sudden urge to drive down the coast and look at them, to use them as a gauge for how far I’d come.

  “Nice spot.”

  Lorn was doing calf stretches on the bottom step. She snorted.

  “You’ve got to be kidding. This end of the beach is for wannabes. Where do you live?”

  “I’ve got a place on Willow Glen.”

  “The hills?”

  “Laurel Canyon.”

  “Got a pool?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Did you think her pussy looked slack in the close-ups?”

  “Uh—”

  “I’d have it fixed if it was mine.”

  “I heard you used to work in a pie shop.”

  “Really? Where did you hear that?”

  “Around.”

  “Well, I haven’t heard anything about you. How’d you get on the show? It’s not like we needed anyone else.”

  “Good honest hard work.”

  “Like?”

  “You know, this and that.”

  “You know how I got here? Merit. I worked my ass off in local radio for six months. People who get TV handed to them because Daddy knows the producer piss me off.”

  “Hey, same here.”

  She looked at me like she couldn’t figure out whether I was joking or not, then she did a couple more stretches and sat down on a step.

  “How long have you been on the coast?”

  “A couple of years.”

  “Let me give you a tip, newboy. Don’t ask people about their past, it doesn’t mean anything here. What you’re doing right now is the only thing that counts.”

  “Sure. I didn’t mean anything by the pie shop.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Do you think we’re going to get along?”

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  “Why not? We’re both shallow enough.”

  “Are you trying to be funny?”

  “Do you want to run me through what I’m going to be doing?”

  “Just wait till your questions come up then ask them. Don’t worry about the camera, it won’t be on you. We’ll do reaction shots after. Jesus, I hate doing these no-name bimbos. They can’t introduce you to anyone and they never have any decent coke. You better go back up, James’ll want to prep you.”

  Out on the deck the camera guys had erected a canopy thing made of gauze to soften the sunlight. I sat under it on a short calico couch facing Mistral and felt Arabian. Lorn was next to me. I could smell the perfume of the styling product in her hair.

  It went well enough. Lorn asked questions, I asked questions. Mistral talked about the way her childhood had forced her into pornography but how she was glad now because it had a valid place in our society today, about the money she made, what her artistic goals were. At one point she wanted close-ups of the implant scars under her tits. They let her have them. Why not? It made good TV.

  I fucked up a couple of my lines and we had to retake. Nobody seemed to care, and when Lorn did it once herself I realized working in front of the camera required even less talent than I’d thought.

  When there wasn’t anything more to be milked out of Mistral, they shot Lorn and me asking our questions and reacting to supposed answers. Lorn had about four stock facial reactions. She ran through them for me, one after the other. Mistral, who was standing out of shot on the other side of the deck, saw her and came across to show us her four stock orgasm expressions. Then she went inside and I heard snatches of her voice as she explained to one of the crew that she always used a silicone gel so her cunt looked wet even if she wasn’t feeling in the mood. Which, of course, was most of the time because she was a professional and being sexually aroused wouldn’t give her the distance she needed to be truly creative.

  The crew packed away their gear. James gave me the thumbs-up and climbed into his Porsche. Lorn hung around the cars clustered out front of the house, looking superfluous now that the shoot was over. She watched traffic swish by on the hot afternoon asphalt as though it was a reminder that between the highs of shooting, parties, premieres, and talking to the stars, the underlying foundation of life was a gray rolling mundanity, the meaning of which she was unable to access. She came over to me, wanting to fill this downtime.

  “Are you going to Sub tonight?”

  “No invite.”

  “You can come with me if you want. You should anyhow, it’ll be a good opportunity to hustle interviews.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m empty for the rest of the day. We can get something to eat first.”

  “Sorry, I’ll have to meet you there. I’ve got stuff to do.”

  Lorn didn’t look disappointed so much as anxious that she might not have anything to occupy herself with until evening. It wasn’t a move I wanted to make. Despite our fencing down on the steps I was as attracted to her in the flesh as I had been to her on the screen. And I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot. But what could I do? I had to get over to Rex’s and stash the tape. I couldn’t risk leaving it in the car or at Willow Glen or any other place Bella might stumble across it. And on top of that, I’d been feeling for a few days that I needed to see him, needed to talk through my last visit to his place.

  Lorn and I arranged our meet. I started up my car and drove away. She went back to watching the traffic.

&nb
sp; Rex didn’t answer his door when I knocked, but it wasn’t locked so I pushed in and went down the hall to the lounge. He was slumped on the couch, it didn’t look like he’d moved since last time I was there. The room stank of unwashed body. There was more dried blood on the walls and he’d added empty cream pudding cartons to the litter of cola cans on the floor. The blinds were drawn and the curtains across the sliding doors at the back of the room were still closed. Dim light came in around their edges, more of it came from the TV.

  Rex looked at me blankly, like you’d look at another person in a bus station. He waited for me to speak first.

  “Hi, dude.”

  “Hey.”

  “This place is … not much better.”

  “I’ve achieved stasis. Negative buoyancy. I’m floating under the surface.”

  “It doesn’t smell good.”

  “Jack, it doesn’t matter. It’s my world. I’m acclimatized. Nothing is any better or any worse than anything else. The only thing you can say about anything is that it goes on. And it goes on until it stops and then it’s finished.”

  “Rex, you need to see someone. You need to stop taking so much smack.”

  “Nah, you’re wrong. I need to take a whole lot more.”

  “Look in the mirror, man. It’s not doing you any good.”

  “Oh, but it does. It stops me loving so much.”

  “Loving what?”

  “Everything. I know you hate a lot of things. You hate being poor, you hate not being famous, you hated Karen, you hate most people you pass on the street. But I was never like that. I realized it when I hit that kid. I kind of dug everything, good or bad. I didn’t have to judge it like you. Things, people, they were just there. And if I wanted I could take the good from them. And if I didn’t I could just pass by. But you know what, man? Not everyone’s like that. And loving a world that doesn’t love you back the same way, that is so fucking conditional all the time … That gets tiring, man. You can only do it for so long.”