Beyond the Pale Motel

by Francesca Lia Block

  Even as I tried to suppress a shudder, I knew I wouldn’t skip the coffee date we’d made. If anything, I wanted to talk to him more. As if he might have some insight into what was haunting all of us.

  * * *

  “So I appreciated your share,” I said when we were seated at Jack and the Bean.

  He nodded and ran his thumb around the rim of his coffee cup. “Thank you. I wasn’t sure I should say anything.”

  “That’s kind of the deal, I guess. I mean, so they tell me.”

  “So they do. But I’m glad you decided to have coffee with me anyway.”

  We sat looking at each other, without speaking for a moment. Then he said, “I just wish I understood the relationship between my book and that freak out there.”

  “Collective unconscious, maybe? You picked up on something, I guess. I liked your first book, though. I’m going to write it up for my blog.”

  “It’s pretty dark. Although I suppose after my share you would know that about me anyway.”

  “Dark can be good.” I squinted at him, the sun light hitting my eye line as the sun edged lower in the sky. “It helps me forget my own shit.”

  “I wouldn’t guess you’d feel that way. From looking at you.”

  I asked him why and he touched the sleeve of the gauze blouse I’d borrowed from Bree. “Flowers everywhere.”

  I shrugged. “It’s my friend’s. She made it. And flowers can be dark.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Really?”

  “Yes. Poisonous ones. Psychotropic ones. Carnivorous.”

  “Right. Well spoken.”

  “I did my senior thesis at UCLA on death in Los Angeles literature and music,” I said.

  “Very impressive. Didion, West, Chandler, the Doors?”

  “Exactly. And also Eve Babitz, Steve Erickson, Janet Fitch, Bret Easton Ellis, X, Tupac.”

  “To Live and Die in L.A.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Mmmm. So the flower is darker than I thought.”

  “I was goth in high school,” I said, fake-scowling at him. “Don’t mess with me.”

  “Duly noted. Which school?”

  “Fairfax High.”

  “You’re a local. More creds for your thesis.”

  He was from upstate New York, had gone to Harvard, lived in Boston, came here when someone optioned one of his books for the screen. He’d gone through a bad divorce after his professor wife had an affair with one of her grad students.

  “Fifteen years younger than her. They just had their first kid.”

  That was his wound, and I realized those bloody rips were the things that made me fall in love with someone more than poetry or music or strength or beauty ever could.

  “Tell me, if you don’t mind, it might be too personal. But what you are trying to forget?” he asked me. “Something to do with your share at the meeting?”

  “It’s a longish story.”

  “I have all night.”

  It was if we were touching—our conversation had that kind of energy, a rush back and forth between us.

  We stood at the curb. I’d walked to the café but Dean had a red Triumph and he asked if I wanted a ride home. I put on the helmet; he fastened it under my chin. I slung my leg over the seat, pressed against his rippling back. Hot skin beneath the T-shirt, broad chest; my legs clung to his hips. Books and bikes; we really might as well be fucking already.

  He was going too fast. The wind whipped against my face burning my lips and cheeks. I bent my head down behind his shoulder. My eyes stung. We ripped the air, we tore it up like silk. I thought, Fuck you, Dash. Look at me now, you asshole. Check me out, Jarell. Carlton, you fucking toe-sucker.

  Dean held my hand as we walked up the stairs to the bungalow. He kissed me soft on the mouth and then we were entwined and then his hand was on my ass and his pelvis was against mine and I didn’t have to wonder about his cock.

  “I should go,” he said. Then, more softly: “Should I?”

  I shook my head, thinking of the dark in my home. The Dash-less dark. The bumps in the night. The Hollywood Serial Killer harvesting lithe limbs of his victims. How they were alone when he got them, no daddies or husbands or boyfriends to protect them. That’s why boyfriends are a good idea. Dean Berringer might write horror but I doubted he was dangerous in any way. “Come in.”

  I opened the door and we stumbled into the living room as if we were still drunks. Sasha darted away into the shadows like a phantom cat. I led Dean to the couch, where we fell on top of each other, kissing, kissing, kissing. Soft lips, strong teeth, a tongue somewhere in between the pressure of the two. Dean’s fingers slid down between my legs pushing into me; I bucked up against them. I had tears in my eyes from excitement, and mild fear, not sorrow, not love, I told myself, like the tears I used to get as a child listening to scary stories at slumber parties, and I blinked them back so I could see him better in the dark. His eyes glittered black with light from the streetlamp. He had lines in his face, was probably nearing fifty. I found myself wondering if he wanted children. I would have let him fuck me without a condom if he’d asked. But in my bedroom he took one out and dutifully put it on. I hated the rubber between us; I wanted to feel him come into me. He spread my legs and put himself inside, pushed his pelvis so that he couldn’t go any farther. More tears came to my eyes. It hurt a little. I wanted that hurt, wanted to erase the debacle with Carlton. Wanted to erase my five years of marriage with each thrust. And Jarell, too. Maybe, weirdly, especially Jarell. We’d only been together a few times, I reminded myself. It had been only about the sex. And I had ended it. In my head there had been potential, but only in my head. Was this thing with Dean something more?

  Dean said, “If you were mine, I’d buy you a 1920s mansion, with hundreds of white roses in front, and a huge library with leatherbound books from floor to ceiling, ladders to reach them all, and a big, tiled pool that was always warm, like a bathtub, surrounded by statues of naked nymphs, and eucalyptus trees. You could open your own salon and we’d go to restaurants and movies every night and you could review them on your blog. We’d have lavish parties every weekend and travel to Europe and I’d buy you black lingerie and vintage dresses and give you as many babies as you wanted.” At this last, I came so hard I thought I would never come back. It seemed he already knew me so well. Or maybe he just knew women well.

  We lay together for a while, my head on his chest, his hands in my hair, making me purr. He asked me about my childhood and we discovered the things we shared growing up—alcoholic mothers who had died of cancer, abandoning fathers, screaming fights, and sexual betrayals. The usual. He was even more my type than I had realized, our pain-pillow-talk more of an aphrodisiac than sex; I wanted him to fuck me again. But he seemed tired.

  My favorite music mix was playing. Nic Cave, PJ Harvey, Björk, Tori Amos. Portals to other worlds. I hadn’t been able to play it since Dash left. How pathetic that I could only listen to my favorite music if a man was there. But you are listening, I told myself. And, yes, he is still here. Be glad of that.

  “May I stay?”

  In answer I kissed his stubbled cheek. But I couldn’t sleep with him there so I lay beside him, forgetting how I ever breathed without thinking about it. At about 3:00 a.m. I finally fell …

  I’d forgotten to close the curtains so the brutal sun woke us whitely. I got up before him, to brush my teeth, and checked my reflection; I looked like shit.

  When I went back to bed, hoping for a morning fuck to substitute for sleep, he said he had a seriously bad headache. I gave him an Advil, made coffee, and then he kissed me quick and left. Taking with him my heart, like a small, viscous purse.

  * * *

  I struggled through work with cut-glass corneas; I was getting too old for late-night sex with relative strangers. When I got home, I wanted to e-mail Skylar but I worried I’d upset him; he was such a little empath. So I told myself he’d reach out if he needed me—then I would answer him of course.
The only new e-mails I had were from FU Cupid: “The lines around your eyes are scary clear signs of aging or drug use yet still you play hard to get. LOVE.”

  Had I corresponded with this person? I looked at the picture. The man was in his early fifties, pasty white, balding, with a sagging face and goggle eyes. In one of the photos he had his arm around a girl. The caption read, “With my ex. She was way younger than me. Big tits, no waist, no ass, great lay.” Another picture showed him gripping a mic and wearing a studded belt under his belly paunch. The caption read, “I’m a F-ing rock star.” Under interests he’d listed, “Hot chicks, Sex, Mass Murderers, Satanism, Cults, Manson, Dahmer, Ramirez, the Hollywood Serial Killer.” I should have been able to delete the message and block the guy from my account, but I just sat there staring at the computer until black spots swam around my eyes like drowned flies.

  In a month I had slept with three men I didn’t really know, while my neighbor—Michelle Babcock was her name—was slaughtered and cut into pieces.

  Already, by then, something intricate and vital was falling apart inside of me.

  * * *

  I waited to hear from Dean. He had said, “If you were mine…” Was I that naïve that I bought it? No, but I chose to anyway. Especially in light of Michelle Babcock’s death.

  I went to meetings, but mostly because I was hoping to see Dean there. I called Shana every day as promised and talked about Dash and Jarell and Michelle Babcock, but managed to avoid the subject of my new obsession.

  Bree wasn’t going out as much—there were problems with Dr. Vampire, and after Michelle Babcock’s death she didn’t feel like partying, she said—so I didn’t get to have Skylar or take him to his games. Which was probably for the best considering what was going on with me. Fortunately he called me a few nights a week and sometimes came in to the salon to do his homework after school. This was always the light of my day, but the fact that it didn’t pull me entirely out of my depression pointed to the darkening of my mind.

  When I was with Bree and Skylar, no one talked about Jarell. I knew Bree had met him when she went to tell him not to call her son names (he had apologized) and was just being thoughtful by not mentioning him after that. He had probably hit on her already.

  I didn’t go to the gym. I should have, I should have checked up on Scott, brought him food, seen how his new apartment was. But I was afraid of a long conversation that would reveal what I’d been up to, so I only texted him a few quick words. He replied in kind.

  The only person who checked up on me regularly at that time, besides Skylar, was Cyan. He had been sending me pictures for Love Monster and little texts now and then, but he also called the day after Michelle Babcock’s photo was on the news when he realized she had lived in my neighborhood. I told him I hadn’t seen anything suspicious and that she hadn’t died at home so I wasn’t any more nervous about where I lived than I’d been before. And I had the alarm system, thanks to him. He made me promise to stay in touch, especially if anything seemed strange.

  Alone in my apartment with Sasha and the TV and my cell phone, I stared into the mirror at the lines around my eyes, thought about the Hollywood Serial Killer, and waited for Dean’s call. I was aware I had transferred my desperation about Dash and Darcy London, and about the murders, to Dean, but it didn’t lessen the urgency of the feeling, as if toads were in my belly, trying to leap out of my throat and infest the rooms.

  Dean texted me that his publisher had added a few cities to his book tour and he’d be in touch; weeks passed and he never called. I thought of trying him back but decided against it. Jarell was gone. Dash had left one message checking on me when he’d heard about Michelle Babcock, but my husband was very gone.

  It was Cyan who returned.

  #7

  When Cyan came to my door (this time he had checked first to see if it was okay), he looked tan and unshaven and was wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops, not his usual plaid-flannel-lined Seattle hoodie. I’d just gotten home from work and my skin felt sticky with hairspray from the day. I’d had nonstop clients who all needed a little extra TLC and I was pretty drained. Serina, who had three children and an awesome husband, cried while I gave her a Brazilian blowout; she’d just had a miscarriage. Lisa-Anne was pregnant and complaining about the exuberant thickness and length of her hormone-enhanced hair. Karli was getting married and needed her extensions redone but hadn’t yet told her fiancé that her locks weren’t real. Deirdre, the model, couldn’t get any work because her agency said she was too thin. She weighed about ninety pounds; her lips and eyes looked bigger and more voluptuous than ever in contrast with her bony jaw and sunken cheeks. When I offered her the name of a sliding-scale clinic that specialized in eating disorders and suggested a 12-step program, I saw her eyes glaze over. So I gave her a discount on her bob (her long hair was falling out) and an extralong hug and told her to call me if she needed anything.

  We were all really just freaked out by the murders, especially Michelle’s, because of how close she’d lived to the salon, but none of us talked about it. By the time I got home I needed some strong, male energy.

  It was evening and Cyan and I sat on the balcony watching the evening sky pinken the atmosphere, listening to the sounds of traffic and sipping Perrier. The air smelled of charcoal fluid, flames, and meat. I felt as if Cyan had woken me from a long, complicated dream that I wanted to get back to. Even the most complex and terrifying dreams were easier to handle than my life, it seemed.

  Later I made pasta with pesto, which we ate in the kitchen, though I mostly just picked at my food. He asked me about my new alarm system and if there had been any other sounds in the night.

  I told him no.

  “To be honest, I’ve been kind of obsessing over that thing happening to someone who lived so close to you. Anyone you see on a regular basis that makes you uncomfortable?”

  “Besides the guys I meet at work and online?” I tried to joke.

  “Seriously, Catt.” He said he had gone to Body Farm that morning after he left me and that a strange “stretch-face” dude was there, training some women.

  “Big Bob,” I told him.

  “That’s his name? Big Bob? What’s his story?”

  “Bodybuilder, steroid freak, creepy but harmless,” I said.

  “Okay, if you say so. Anyone else?”

  I ended up telling him what had happened with Stu, F-ing rock star, and Dean. I avoided talking about Jarell or Carlton.

  “If I can speak frankly…”

  I nodded.

  “You need to take better care of yourself, Catt. What’s all this about?”

  I shrugged, not wanting to look at him.

  “Tell me.”

  “I try so hard,” I said. “Everything I do, I keep trying and trying to be better. To be good enough. But it’s not enough.” Even as I spoke the words, I was ashamed of them. I sounded petulant and weak.

  “There’s no such thing as perfection.”

  I flicked my eyes at him sideways. He was frowning, thinking.

  “What?” I said.

  “As a kid I had a dog, a puppy, Bella. The most gorgeous dog, smart, sweet. I mean, this was the best dog in the world. Perfect. But she died while I was giving her a bath with a hose in the yard. Heart defect. There is no perfection.”

  The puppy in the photograph. Dash hadn’t wanted to talk about her when I had asked. “I’m sorry. That must have been so hard for you when you were a kid.”

  “Much worse happens to children. But my point is, you are a smart, beautiful, sweet woman. With an artist’s eye and hand. And you have a beautiful, strong heart, Catt. Any man should be able to see that.”

  Warmth spread through my body, unbidden. I didn’t want these words to be coming from Cyan’s mouth. Why couldn’t Dash have said them? Or, better yet, someone new, who wasn’t his brother? At the same time, I needed these words. Like food. Like water. Like sex.

  “If they can’t, it’s better to be alone, trust me,”
he said. I frowned. Why hadn’t I learned that lesson? He must have interpreted my look as disappointment rather than regret because he added, “You’re the one who calls it a monster.”

  Love monster. In my blog. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Is it better to be with someone or alone?”

  He smiled—a rare occurrence—the hard angles of his face gentling, eyes brightening as he glanced up at me from under sensually heavy eyelids. “Why do you ask?”

  Maybe I was trying to distance myself from him. Maybe I was trying to bring him closer. Maybe I was just expressing my concern for someone I cared about. “I asked Dash when I first met you if you had a girlfriend, and he said why, when you could spend time with all those models.”

  Cyan shook his head. “That sounds like something he would say. But you didn’t really answer my question.”

  “What was your question again?”

  “Why do you ask me if it’s better to be alone? For me.”

  “I’m just curious. You seem content to be by yourself. But I wonder if anyone really is.”

  He smoothed a hand over his sculptural head. “Like I said, being alone is better than being with the wrong person, that’s all I’m sure of.”

  “Have you ever found the right person?”

  He gazed away, into the darkness, musing. “I don’t know. I’ve found parts of her in different people, I guess.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “May I take your photograph?”

  It startled me, as if he’d suggested something much more intimate. When I realized he hadn’t, I thought of those deer women with wet hair and asked him, “Why?”

  “Let’s see. I’m a photographer. I take portraits of people. You’re very lovely. How’s that?”

  * * *

  In the shot I like best, the woman who is me is sitting on my unmade mattress with Sasha curled up in a ball behind her; the woman’s arms are wrapped around her torso and she’s looking away from the camera. Her hair, in a small, wispy ponytail, is very black, her skin so white, her eyes like worlds.