Gloria was touched by Ryan’s almost charming shyness. He tipped his hat to her and even called her ma’am like some type of southern gentleman. His friend the producer made sure to whisper in her ear that Ryan had just sold a computer game for 1.5 million dollars, as if this news was supposed to make her drop to her knees instantly. Gloria was impressed again when Ryan appeared to be even more annoyed by his friend’s brazenness than she had been.
“Gloria? Do you think you’d like to go out with me sometime?”
Something in his eyes had seemed so afraid of rejection that there was no way she could have turned him down. That night he’d flown her to New York on a chartered plane and there she’d stayed for the next ten years. Six of those years living with Ryan, sharing his wealth and his bed while still maintaining her career in porn.
If what she did for a living had bothered him at all, he never once gave indication of it. It had all seemed too perfect. She’d even been close to marrying him until he’d asked her to give up the drugs. She’d have rather he’d asked her to stop sucking cocks and licking pussy on camera.
“I just can’t stand to see you destroying yourself like this. You’re killing yourself with that junk”
“You’ve got it wrong. This is how I celebrate life. I don’t want to die without experiencing the highest highs life can offer.”
And so she had. The highest highs and now the lowest lows. Ryan had loved her and she’d thrown it all away in order to keep the party going. She’d thrown away all hope she’d ever had of having a normal family. It was after leaving Ryan that the drugs had really begun to take control and her career had nose-dived.
Sometimes Gloria would visit that old neighborhood—upper Manhattan, a decent neighborhood, certainly better than the one she lived in. A neighborhood where she once belonged. And where he still lived. She wondered if he would even recognize her. Or worse, if he did, would he shun her, treat her like shit, pretend to not know her? That terrified her, so she never sought that answer. The chance of it was too painful to imagine.
She began walking. North. And east. She knew where she was headed, even if she didn’t understand why. Sometimes she just had to be there, pretend she still belonged. Pretend the fantasy was still her life.
Central Park didn’t scare her, even in the middle of the night. There wasn’t much she hadn’t been through, not much left anyone could do to her short of murder that would make much of an impact. So she cut through the Park, crossed fields of grass just starting to sprout, past bronze statues of horses and dogs and heroic men riddled with graffiti, past a carousel long in need of a face-lift, until she reached the Seventy-second Street entrance. Fifth Avenue. She could barely remember having lived here, among the elite. In clean buildings with large apartments and no rats or roaches. Greeted by doormen who knew her name and handed her mail and dry cleaning. Waited on by maids who did the laundry and cleaned the dishes and made the beds.
She glanced at the cheap watch she had bought in Chinatown for five bucks. Almost seven a.m. She’d been wandering the streets for hours. Wooden benches lined the shoulder-high stone wall surrounding the park, and she sat, watching the building across the street, waiting for the flurry of commuters, an exodus of tenants heading for work.
She knew his routine better than he did, even though it had been months since her last trip uptown. Every day at seven-thirty, like clockwork, he left the building. So many times she’d wanted to follow him, get up the nerve to approach, but the idea of rejection terrified her. Better to watch from a distance.
He was late this morning, but only by ten minutes. God, he looked good! So handsome … so normal. That’s all she wanted. Normal.
And there she was, across the street, holding his hand. Looking adoringly at him as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
Gloria leaned forward, unsure of what she was seeing. What the hell was she doing here? Gloria tried to swallow but her mouth and throat had gone dry, tried to seize up. The cobblestoned ground rushed at Gloria as she stumbled to her knees, climbed back up to her feet and moved toward the street. She crouched behind a car and stared at them across the avenue.
She looked so beautiful … her long blonde hair tied behind her head in a ponytail. More like a photograph. Too perfect to be real.
Just like her mother, once upon a time.
“Why isn’t she at school?” Gloria muttered, covering her mouth with a hand that still smelled faintly of vomit. Angela had been in one of the country’s finest boarding school since she was six years old—right before Gloria left her family—ten years earlier. And as far as she knew, that’s where Angela had stayed. In the years she had been coming back to watch Ryan’s daily activities, she hadn’t seen Angela, except during summer vacations or holidays. It was April now—Easter break had ended weeks earlier, and school wouldn’t let out for the year until mid-June. Maybe someone had died, maybe that’s why the girl was back. Maybe it was a special vacation she and her father had planned. Maybe Gloria was hallucinating and Angela wasn’t there at all. What the hell did it matter? It wasn’t so much that it mattered … it was the shock of unexpectedly seeing the girl, being unprepared for it. Feeling that aching want return, that incredible need to be with her daughter, her only child.
And knowing it would never happen.
She drifted away, sneaking back into the park before they spotted her, and made her way home.
*
Vlad had gotten his way yet again. She’d been unable to score anything at all, not even a goddamned Vicodin. She spent the morning vomiting, fighting fever and chills and a massive headache, all thanks to her addiction trying not to flee her body. Just one hit, Gloria … that’s all we need. You’ll feel good again. Trust us!
Too weak now to even crawl to the toilet to puke, so she used a bucket at the side of her bed. Not much left to throw up anyway. Her stomach was empty, and all that was coming up was yellowish bile. This didn’t worry her—if she started spewing blood, then she’d worry.
With fever-swollen eyes she stared across the room, looked at Vlad sitting in a chair by the window. She was about to yell at him and realized she had to be imagining it, he couldn’t have gotten into her apartment. The building was old, the doors constructed of steel back when builders knew how to make things that last. Several locks and a deadbolt made break-ins impossible.
“You’re not hallucinating,” he said, snapping his newspaper as if gearing up to turn the page.
“How’d you get in here?” she mumbled, still not sure she was talking to the actual Vlad or to his apparition.
“You look awful. How long before you get over this withdrawal? I’m a patient man, but my customer isn’t.”
She groaned and fell back onto the pillow. “Get out of my apartment.”
“Get up, Gloria. I have something for you.”
She couldn’t get up if she wanted to—and she didn’t want to. Oh, here was something new for her personal enjoyment: the headache had intensified to such a degree that she could see auras surrounding the objects in the room. She squeezed her eyes shut until it hurt, until she thought blood vessels would rupture.
“I’ll come over there then.”
She heard him approach, heard his feet padding across the worn, filthy carpeting. Seconds later he had crossed the tiny bedroom and sat beside her on the bed.
“Look at me.”
Slowly she opened her eyes, fighting against the pain, against the burning blur that had overtaken her vision, blinking back tears that had formed because of the heat and pain and nothing else.
He offered her a glass of water—and two pills. She licked her lips, almost started to salivate at the sight of those pills, accepted them eagerly and dry-swallowed, not caring what the hell they might be. He could have slipped her cyanide and it wouldn’t have mattered.
“Get up, Gloria.”
She was about to protest—to complain about her pain and suffering when she realized that this was no longer true. No more pain
. No more headache and burning eyes and shivering body and crawling flesh.
“What did you give me?” She sat up, crossed her hands over her throat. “My God, what did you give me?”
That weasel-grin formed on his face again. “I don’t have time to watch you suffer, as much as I would have enjoyed that. I told you, my client is not as patient as I am. And I know you would have suffered for at least a week. Maybe some other time for that, eh?”
She sighed, nodded. Didn’t know what else to do, what to say. How could she be grateful to a man she utterly despised, one who repulsed and terrified her—but had saved her from so much agony?
The addiction was gone; she was no longer trapped in its stranglehold.
“You couldn’t have gotten hold of anything stronger than baby aspirin anyway. Trust me.” That vile grin turned into a laugh. The expression on his face was happy enough, but she saw that his eyes remained cold. Empty. The smile never touched his eyes.
“It was you, then? The dealers?”
“Of course it was me. You think the police are capable of doing that much? They can barely do their own job, never mind doing something so extraordinary.” He leaned over until he was resting on his side, head cupped in his palm. “I always get what I want. Always.”
“So what do you want?” she asked quietly, unsure that the words had come from her own mouth. She certainly hadn’t meant to ask; the words just popped out on their own.
“Get dressed, put on a nice dress. But shower first. Please. You still smell like pig shit. And now you smell like vomit as well.” He shook his head. “You’re quite a classy lady, Gloria.”
*
She followed him out of the building and into the taxi he had hailed.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said, leaning back into the seat.
Surprises weren’t something she much enjoyed. A surprise didn’t have to be something good—and in her experience, they usually weren’t.
“How much are you paying me?”
“You mean over and above that miracle cure for your addiction?”
“You only did that for your client, not for me. You don’t give a shit if I suffer, you said so yourself. So don’t try to pass that off as payment—I’d rather go through with the withdrawals.”
Vlad chuckled. “At last you know how to negotiate. All right. You’re getting a hundred thousand for today’s work.”
Gloria was torn between feeling absolutely ecstatic over that amount and extreme terror at wondering what she’d have to do for that much money. Traffic outside the cab whirred by as the driver took them north along the East River Drive. The normally congested Drive was unusually clear that evening; their cab always seemed to get around the rest of the vehicles. Almost seemed to float past them.
“Where are we going?” she asked again as they got off the Sixty-ninth Street exit and headed west, toward Central Park. There was no reason to worry, yet a lump lodged itself in her stomach as she realized where it appeared they were headed. But that was impossible. Even if Vlad knew where they lived, why would he bring her there?
He stroked her cheek with his forefinger and shook his head. “We’re almost there. Don’t ask so many questions.”
The cab stopped on Fifth Avenue and Seventy-second Street, and the blood rushing to Gloria’s head made her dizzy. “Why did we stop here? Please, we have to go. I can’t go here.”
Vlad took her hand after he paid the fare and led her out of the cab. And she followed, filled with dread and terror as they entered her former building and moved toward the elevators. When he pressed the button for the seventeenth floor, she thought she was going to pass out. She wished she would drop dead.
“I can’t do this,” she said, reaching for the Door Open button, but he took her hands and pushed them down.
“You can and you will.”
They reached the floor and exited the elevator, and headed down the hallway toward a world she thought she’d never see again, even in her dreams. An existence foreign and frightening to her now. To people she no longer knew.
They entered the apartment, and it was as if she had never left. The same art adorned the walls, the furniture had obviously been replaced through the years but the style was remarkably similar to what she had been used to. Same hardwood floors leading from the foyer to the living room and den, buffed and waxed to an almost blinding sheen. Even the umbrella stand by the front door was the same. It was as if time had stood still in this place.
“Have a seat in the living room,” Vlad said. “We’ll join you in a moment. I trust you remember where it is?”
She nodded and wandered toward the living room, sat on the sofa beside the fireplace. A small pile of wood was stacked haphazardly against the wall.
“We’re ready,” Vlad said, entering the room. “Come with me.”
Still used to commands, especially for money. Gloria followed without thinking, without considering the consequences, the thought of a hundred grand propelling her. What did she care what Vlad wanted? Maybe Ryan had turned kinky. Stranger things had happened.
They entered the room that had once been the master bedroom but now appeared to be something else. It was bathed in darkness, so it was hard to tell what was in there, but there didn’t seem to be a bed or other furniture. In fact, all she could make out in the extraordinarily dim light was a large table in the center of the room.
She could hear breathing, from someone other than Vlad. Some ones other than Vlad.
A mewling noise filled her ears, and she wondered what a cat was doing in the room. She also wondered just how strange this was going to become.
“Vlad?” she whispered, groping in the darkness for his arm, but he was no longer by her side. “Vlad?” she said louder, stopping where she was, afraid to move any further.
Matches were struck, and several candles were lit. The room was awash with flickering, faint light, but enough so that she could now see the room more clearly.
Vlad stood by the table—a table that she thought had been their dining room table, a large mahogany piece they had gotten from the Ethan Allen gallery. He was covering it with a sheet.
Across the room stood Ryan—and beside him, Angela.
Gloria clamped her hand over her mouth and stifled a cry. This was too bizarre, and she didn’t know why she was here, what they were planning. Her legs refused to obey and stayed fused to the same spot.
“Ryan?” she said through splayed fingers.
“Hi, Gloria.” He smiled at her, even gave a little wave.
“What … what are you doing here? Are you involved with him too?”
“You mean Vlad? He and I go waaay back. Don’t you remember? He’s the one who introduced us.”
That was impossible. How could she not have remembered? It had been a long time ago, sure, but you didn’t forget someone like Vlad. But on some level, Gloria did remember. When she’d first seen him on the street, she’d thought he looked familiar but figured he was probably just a john from her long and sordid past. Now it was coming together.
How long had this evil fat fuck been messing with her life?
She wanted to approach Ryan and Angela, had even tried to move her foot in their direction but something compelled her to remain where she was. Still too afraid to approach them. Still terrified of that rejection, even though she was standing in the same room with them.
“Go give your mother a hug,” Ryan said, and Angela walked across the room and approached Gloria.
Gloria gasped, choked back a sob as her daughter threw her arms around Gloria’s waist and squeezed. Gloria buried her face in Angela’s hair and inhaled the sweet scent of her child. Unable to speak. Unable to do anything but sob into the girl’s blonde hair.
Angela withdrew from the hug and returned to her father’s side. Her face was devoid of expression, as if she were sleepwalking.
“All right,” Vlad said. “We ready to begin?”
Ryan smiled, no
dded. “We are.”
Gloria looked from person to person and tried to get a feeling for what they were planning, but they weren’t giving any clues. What could they possibly want from her, with her child in the room? With Ryan’s child in the room? Surely he wouldn’t let anything happen to Angela.
Vlad motioned for Gloria to join him at the table, and slowly she walked toward him.
“Here’s the thing,” Vlad said. He chewed his lip and looked like he was trying to choose the right words. “First of all, there’s no backing out of this. Not that you had a choice in the matter to begin with, but I’m telling you now that you can’t leave. “Second, you will do exactly as you’re told. If you try to disobey, not only will you be forced to do as you’re told, but you won’t be paid. Am I clear?”
Gloria opened her mouth, shut it. “Well yeah, but—”
He interrupted her. “That’s all you need to say. That you understand what I’ve told you.”
“What exactly do I have to do?”
His grin would have been better suited on a jackal. “Ryan—would you like to give dear Gloria the details?”
Ryan stepped forward and moved close to Gloria. “It’s simple. But first, let me give you a little background.” He rubbed his hands together as if he was trying to spark a fire. “You’re a grandmother, Gloria. Your daughter gave birth to your granddaughter.”
Gloria’s head snapped in Angela’s direction and studied her sixteen-year-old daughter. The girl looked bored, even yawned and cocked her head.
“How? How could you let that happen?” she yelled at Ryan.
“How could I let that happen?” He laughed. “I’m not exactly pleased with this development myself. She was supposed to have Vlad’s child.”
“What? No. No. Tell me you didn’t let that pervert near my baby. Tell me he didn’t touch her.”
“No, he hasn’t touched her yet. But I have.”
The room started spinning, and Gloria gripped the table for support. She looked at Ryan and whispered, “Is the baby yours?”
Wrath James White presents Poisoning Eros I & II Page 5