by Rod Redux
“Wow,” Big Dan said, impressed.
Jane smiled at him. “Oh, there’s more! The house sat unoccupied for thirty or so years after the murder-suicide, but in the 1920’s, the twin grandsons of John Forester took occupancy of the home. There was reputedly a lot of weird goings on up at the Forester House at that time—devil worship, witchcraft, all kinds of occult activity. Those old chestnuts. Then, in October 1929, the Forester Twins held a costume party for thirty or forty of their friends and associates, a Halloween ball, and someone poisoned the punch. It was supposedly the twins, but no one could prove it for sure, because they died along with twenty-six other partygoers.”
“Twenty-six?” Billy exclaimed.
“Yes,” Jane nodded. “The story became a national sensation. It ran in all the papers at the time.”
“What were they poisoned with?” Allen asked, flicking through his printout.
“Oh… um, arsenic, I believe,” Jane answered.
“Couldn’t they taste it in the punch?” Billy asked.
Jane shrugged. “I guess not. I… don’t know if arsenic has any kind of flavor…”
“That’s crazy,” Big Dan breathed, and Little Dan, sitting beside him, nodded in agreement.
Jane flipped through her notes. “Even wilder, the party was apparently more of an orgy than a Halloween ball. Most of the deceased were found in various states of undress, and there were signs that some of the bodies had been… violated after their deaths. Sexually, I mean. By the surviving partiers, I guess. Really kinky stuff.”
“Necrophilia?” Little Dan exclaimed, and then he laughed, more in disbelief than amusement
“That’s so gross!” Tish exclaimed.
Jane nodded in agreement, smiling ghoulishly.
Sweet and unassuming as she was, their Plain Jane had a dark side, Billy reflected. Look at her eyes light up at the idea of mass murder and necrophilia. She was always reading those true crime books. Aphrodite Jones, M. William Phelps—all that bloody trash. She probably has a tattoo of Agatha Christie on her butt, too! Billy thought, smiling affectionately.
Jane was a Goth chick when they were all in high school. Dyed black hair. Heavy mascara and purple lipstick. Leather wristbands and tattered denim skirts. She’d abandoned the Goth look not long after graduation and now resembled a young Shirley Jackson (purposefully, Billy thought) her shoulder length hair unstyled, always sporting those hideous thick-framed glasses. Jane wore austerity like a badge of honor… or a shield. According to network marketing, she was the Smart Chick, very popular with female viewers.
Tish, on the other hand, was the Hot One. Her job on the show was to look sexy and act scared whenever something went bump in the night. For the “males thirty and under” demographic, Billy thought with a smirk.
“An exorcism was performed on the house sometime in the 1960’s,” Jane continued. “This was after Delilah Forester took possession of the property. She was reputedly an extremely devout Catholic, but apparently the exorcism didn’t work, and she never took up residence in the house. Instead, she lived out her life in the neighboring town of Cypress. That’s where she died, and the estate was willed to her nephew Robert.”
Jane put her papers down. “That’s everything we know about the Forester House, factually,” she said. “Reports of supernatural activity include poltergeist phenomena, disembodied voices, strange sounds in the walls and basement, the apparitions of a Native American, the Forester Twins, and a little boy. There are reports of people being touched by unseen hands. Pinched, slapped, and pushed. Maintenance men claim to have seen the spirit of John Forester hanging in the attic. All the typical haunting-type activity you might expect to be reported by untrained observers.”
“Has anyone tried to document the phenomena with modern scientific equipment?” Allen asked.
“Nope,” Jane answered. “After the failed exorcism, Delilah Forester refused to give anyone access to the house except for maintenance crews, which is where most of the claims came from the last fifty years or so.”
“No video? No audio recordings?”
“Nada,” Jane said.
Allen leaned forward in his seat, narrowing his eyes. “Well, this sounds very promising to me. I think we’re going to catch some really dramatic evidence at this location. Raj, Jane, I want you guys to go on ahead of the rest of us and do some onsite research and interviews while we clear our schedules and get all of our equipment ready to spend the night in the Forester House.”
Raj and Jane nodded dutifully.
“As extreme as the reports of this house’s activity are, I think it would be wise if we contact Francis Fontaine and ask him meet us there for the investigation,” Raj suggested.
“Do you really think we need a psychic on this one?” Billy asked.
Jane nodded. “We don’t have a whole lot of time to investigate the Forester House, considering all the supernatural activity that’s been reported there over the years. Francis might help us pinpoint the areas of strongest activity and improve the efficiency of our investigation.”
Allen nodded, acknowledging the wisdom of his teammates. “I agree. Are there any more questions…? No? All right then. I say we get this investigation underway!”
No one moved from their position around the conference table except Big Dan, who reached for a box of Krispee Kremes. After a moment, Raj rose from his seat and walked to the camera mounted at the foot of the table. He unlatched it from its tripod and said, “Okay, gang, let’s do some closeups. Tish, open your collar a little wider. I want you to look at Allen with a frightened expression and chew on your fingernail.”
“Like this?” Tish asked. She pouted her lips and opened her eyes wide.
“Perfect!”
Billy slouched in his chair to wait for his closeup. He would do the standard Billy pose: nod toward Allen with wide, serious eyes while stroking his chin. After eight years of doing the show, he didn’t need Raj to coach him. He knew what the producers expected of him. How he fit into the dynamic of the Ghost Scouts team. He even knew the demographic that found him most appealing (females, age thirty to fifty, who were drawn to the beta male archetype). He watched Big Dan slobbering over a Krispee Kreme donut—one of their corporate sponsors—and heard his stomach gurgle.
He hadn’t had time for breakfast.
4
“You want to grab some lunch?” Jane asked as Billy walked toward the elevators. She had jogged down the corridor to catch up with him.
“That’s where I’m headed,” Billy said. “Feel like Chinese?”
“The Lotus?”
“The Lotus,” Billy confirmed, and Jane laughed. It was where they usually had lunch together.
They nodded to Brock Bauer, the weatherman for the WDBS Action News Team, who was rushing up the hallway with tissue paper in the collar of his dress shirt, and then they were in the elevator, descending to the lobby, Jane hooking an arm around his elbow and cuddling up to his side.
Chancing across the two of them at that exact moment, a stranger might have believed Billy and Jane were sweethearts. Fans constantly gossiped that the two of them had something going on behind the scenes, and had ever since the show debuted, but the affection Billy and Jane felt toward one another was strictly platonic. Jane was one of the few people who knew that Billy was gay. None of the other cast members knew. Hell, his parents didn’t even know! His mother regularly asked him when he was going to “make it official with that sweet Jane girl.”
“Neither of you are getting any younger, William,” his mother had once admonished him, “And I’d like to have some grandbabies from you before I’m too old to chase after them.”
Billy did love Jane… but only as a friend. Still, they let the fans speculate. It amused them, and it kept the devotees hooked. The Billy and Jane thread on the Ghost Scouts forum was always the busiest.
BillyLuvsJane72: OMG! Did you see BK checking out Jane’s toosh last night when she bended over to pick up the E-meter? Have
a look. It’s around 32:15. He was TOTALLY staring at her butt! Now you tell me they ain’t fooling around off camera! They should just come out and admit it, unless Pretty Boy is ashamed of our beloved Jane!
“Are we taking your car?” Jane asked as they exited the lobby, stepping out into the bright summer sunshine together, her arm still curled around his. The stuffy recirculated atmosphere of the WDBS building—which never failed to have a soporific effect on Billy-- was replaced by the smell of warm blacktop and fresh mown grass, car exhaust and the salty tang of the nearby Atlantic. It was a beautiful day, the sky deep and blue and packed with frothy white cumuli the size of mountains. The clouds sailed majestically overhead, their shadows gliding across the crowded downtown skyscrapers.
“I don’t mind driving,” Billy said.
They climbed into the Scion and hummed out of the parking lot, windows rolled down. Jane laughed and tried to keep her hair from flying every direction as Billy accelerated down the street.
“I’m going to look like Medusa when we get there, but I don’t care,” she yelled over the whipping wind. “I love it when you drive fast!”
Billy smiled at her as he drove, thinking, She really is a beautiful woman, under that drab hairdo and those silly hornrim glasses. If she’d just color her hair and style it, ditch the coke bottles for contacts, she’d make Tish look like the ugly stepsister.
Especially when she laughed like she was laughing right then.
Tish was hot, but she was makeup hot, her beauty painted on rather than innate. Jane had inner beauty. The kind you didn’t find in the cosmetics department.
But he knew why Jane hid her beauty under a bushel, and it was a heartbreaker.
Jane turned on the radio as they shot across town, but Billy had always had a lead foot, and they were jouncing into the Lotus’s parking lot before Jane had finished lip-synching the first tune.
They walked in together, drawing stares from a departing family of four. The kids gawked while mom and dad whispered to one another excitedly behind their hands. They obviously watched the show.
Billy and Jane stopped at the Please, Wait To Be Seated sign and looked around for the hostess.
“Mr. Billy! Ms. Jane!” the hostess exclaimed, her almond-shaped eyes twinkling as she came scurrying from some secret alcove to greet them. “How nice to see you today!”
“Hi, Ming Na,” Jane said.
“You come look for ghosts?”
“We’re just after some egg fu yung today,” Billy answered.
“Oh, thank goodness!” their hostess teased, clutching her bosom. “I no like ghosts. You scare me for second! Here, come this way. Your favorite table open right now.”
“Thank you,” Billy said, and he put his hand around Jane’s waist and escorted her across the richly decorated restaurant.
They sat, ordered their drinks. After the waitress had left them to peruse their menus, Jane leaned toward Billy and murmured, “Is that from you-know-who?” She touched her bottom lip as she said it, looking at Billy with wide, somber eyes.
Billy glanced around their section, uncomfortable, but they were the only diners in that area. It was a quarter after two: too late for lunch, too early for dinner. He returned his gaze to his menu, but sighed. “Yes,” he answered her in a studied tone.
“I take it he didn’t handle the breakup well?” Jane asked.
Billy smiled without amusement. “You could say that.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No!”
He scowled at her like she was crazy.
“Billy, that’s assault. You can’t let him do that to you. It doesn’t matter if—“
She broke off as their waitress returned. “You ready to order?” their server inquired.
“Yes,” Billy answered with a smile, folding his menu.
When their waitress had departed again, Jane continued, “You know a man can be a battered partner too, Billy. It’s not just women.”
Billy laughed. “Come on…”
“I’m serious. You have to get away from him, Billy. Make a clean break of it.”
“You don’t understand—“ he started to say, but he faltered when he saw her sympathetic expression, and he blushed at the words which had almost passed his lips. He heard his mother saying the exact same thing in his head: You don’t understand, William. I love him! How many times had she said those very words to him, her eyes blackened, her wrists bruised? He scratched his head in frustration, breathed, “You’re right! You’re right… and I will. I’m going to. I tried last night, but one word led to another, and then it got heated and… I put my hands on him first. I tried to push him out the door, and then we started fighting.”
He couldn’t admit to Jane what Ben had done after that. That his lover had forced Billy into his bedroom, pushed him down on his bed, his left elbow lodged under Billy’s chin as his right hand worked the button and zip of Billy’s jeans, panting, “I know what you like, Bill, and I’m the only one that can give it to you the way that you like it.”
Ben had raped him. Billy had fought for a couple minutes, but Ben was a much larger man than him, and finally Billy had surrendered. Had even rejoined, passionately, after a while, helpless to control his physical responses. He liked it rough, liked being dominated. Ben’s forcefulness excited him and always had.
Still, rape was rape. There was no denying what had actually transpired in his apartment last night. After Ben-- who was so much like his father, Big Bill Kasch, that Billy felt disgusted with himself whenever they were together-- had quit his bed to return home, Billy had laid in his tangled sheets, staring at the ceiling and thinking, with a kind of sick amazement, I’ve just been raped.
He should have called the police, but instead he went to sleep.
Their server brought their food. Billy took a couple bites and then laughed softly. “I’m so fucked up,” he murmured. Jane looked up at him, then smiled and reached across the table to pat his hand.
“We all are, baby,” she said.
5
They returned to the studio for a few more hours to work out the final logistics of the shoot and to do a little more filming. Raj borrowed the Action News Team’s makeup woman, who concealed Billy’s split lip, and then they reshot his closeups. Raj wasn’t happy with his first set of closeups. Billy’s injury had been visible.
Allen asked how Billy had gotten the split lip as Chelsea fixed his face, and Billy said he’d been drinking and walked into the doorway when he rose in the middle of the night to empty his bladder. He changed his story at the last second, afraid they might want to know who he’d fought with at the bar, what bar he’d gone to, blah, blah, blah…
Billy pretended he didn’t notice Jane looking at him reprovingly, but Allen, who was no stranger to drunken mishaps, just laughed and told him he needed to be more careful.
Raj dismissed them at seven, and Billy bid everyone good night and headed home. It was still light out when he crossed the parking lot to his car, the sun a bloody heart wedged between two distant skyscrapers. He slid inside the Scion and zoomed to the street, then worked his way through the congested evening traffic to the express.
Ben was waiting for him at the apartment. He’d let himself in. He was standing at the range in Billy’s small kitchen, a husky man in tight faded jeans and a white tee shirt. He was slightly balding, with a thick gray beard and hairy forearms. Chest and shoulders dense with muscle. Tribal tattoos. A bear, in gay parlance.
“Hey, Bill,” he greeted. “I made some dinner. You hungry?”
Billy put his keys on the table beside the front door. Whatever it was Ben had sizzling on the range, it smelled delicious. Billy eyed the salad sitting on the kitchen island, the bottle of wine chilling beside it in a bucket of ice. Ben had already opened the wine, had been drinking while he cooked. Billy thought of all the things he wanted to say—needed to say—but he was just so fucking tired of fighting.
Let there be peace, tonight, he thought.
Please, Lord.
“Yeah, sure,” Billy answered. “I’m starved.”
Ben’s perfect white teeth flashed inside the wiry mat of his whiskers. That smile had been one of the first things that attracted Billy to the man. Even when he was in a good mood, Ben’s smile was aggressive. Intimidating.
“Good,” Ben grinned, his eyes twinkling. “Go take a shower, and we’ll have dinner. After we eat, I’m going to turn your asshole inside out.”
Billy pressed his lips together, the muscles in his shoulders bunching, his hands curling into fists.
Ben continued to grin at him, bushy eyebrows arched.
Billy finally sighed and dropped his eyes. He turned and shuffled toward the bathroom.
He thought about his mother as he undressed: the bruises on her body, her eyes bloodshot from crying.
You don’t understand, William! Your father’s not always like that. He can be sweet, too. He can be gentle.
He tried not to look at the fingermarks on his own upper arms. Five purple bruises, on each of his biceps. Where Ben had grabbed him last night, dug his fingers into Billy’s flesh.