Fifty Cents For Your Soul

by Denise Dietz

  I wanted to run as fast as I could, toward a shelter, any shelter. Was the inside of the restaurant safe? Except, once again I couldn’t move. Then my intuition kicked in. The beetles tended to ignore me when I was sexually aggressive.

  “Say the words, superstar,” I growled, dropping Jem’s cock and sitting back on my heels.

  “More, baby, please.”

  “Tell me what you want. Say the words.” Dimly, I realized I had played this scene before. But hadn’t the roles been reversed?

  “I want you to suck, baby. And swallow. Do you swallow?”

  “Yes.” Staggering upright, I tugged my pants down. The beetle carpet was oscillating closer, but Jem didn’t notice…or couldn’t see it.

  Should I point it out? Or continue the seduction? “You first,” I said, choosing the safest course. “Eat me, drink me.”

  Jem knelt and crushed my hips with his hands. This time his tongue flickered. My legs tensed, then quivered. Jem stood up and gave me a kiss that virtually drained all the breath from my body.

  A voice called, “Jeremy Glenn, are you out here?”

  Victor Madison!

  “Shit,” Jem swore.

  I yanked my pants up. Jem’s tall body hid me from sight, but I had to stifle a cry when I felt the deck’s railing dent my backbone.

  “I’m over here, Madison,” Jem said. “One of your actresses had herself too much to drink. She’s a bit under the weather, eh?”

  As if on cue, vodka and cranberry juice lapped at the back of my throat. I swallowed convulsively, then gagged.

  “Good girl,” Jem whispered. “Pretend you’re sick.”

  Pretend? I felt a shadowy claw tickle my neck. A finger parted my lips and inserted itself. I bit the finger and my teeth came together so hard my head rocked with pain. Against my ear, a voice hissed: “I want you to try and keep your teeth apart so the mouth is structurally sound.”

  Sol Aarons! Somebody mimicking Sol Aarons! I gagged again.

  Madison’s voice: “Can I help you, Jem?”

  Jem’s voice: “No, thanks. She’ll be fine. It’s all my fault. I’m the bastard who got her drunk.”

  Madison: “I warned you, damn it! Who is it this time?”

  I didn’t hear Jem’s reply. The finger thrust all the way down my throat, scratching, tickling. A disembodied voice said Vomit his kiss!

  Sweat and tears streamed down my face as I resisted the urge to throw up. Despite Jem’s words to Madison, I wasn’t drunk. I should have been, but I wasn’t, even if my whole body felt like the rubber band on the end of a slingshot.

  Turning abruptly, I leaned over the railing and tried to spit out the finger. It probed deeper.

  I heard a hissing voice. Vomit his kiss!

  “Why?” I managed between clenched teeth.

  He’s not the one!

  “Who?” I said, the word paving the way for a guttural retch.

  Son of Mad! Son of Mad!

  I heard Jem say, “Christ, you really are sick,” as my waist caught on the railing and my toes left the deck.

  “Catch her!” Madison shouted. “She’s going to fall!”

  I heard the jukebox. I want…click-click…to hold…click-click…your hand…click-click.

  Had beetles invaded the jukebox, or was the needle stuck?

  My throat unstuck. Wine and oysters and vodka and cranberries gushed as I finally gave in to the demon’s finger.

  I heard a voice say, Poor baby. Just go with it, baby. I’ve got you, baby.

  Jem’s voice or the demon’s voice?

  The sky spun until it merged with the water. Breakers crashed against the shoreline and I smelled decaying fish.

  Or did I smell decaying flesh?

  That thought gave new impetus to my stomach’s ejective powers. Disgorging with a vengeance, I wanted to die.

  The demon laughed. Grasping the soles of my sandals, it hefted me up over the railing.

  I felt my body descend, and with horrific relief, welcomed the gaping black void.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  An overhead fan sounded like one of those dicey slice-and-dice appliances.

  Was I in hell?

  Beneath my silk blouse and crepe pants, I felt a vinyl couch.

  Slowly, I blinked open my eyes…and saw Bonnie’s fake-gem-studded harem slippers. She perched on the edge of a scarred wooden desk, her legs dangling. Above and beyond her head, taped or hooked to the wall, were pictures of food, a calendar, a catalogue for non-slip shoes, coffee mugs, a clock shaped like an overripe tomato, and several clipboards.

  I shook my head to clear spider webs, checked my body for broken bones, didn’t find any, and said, “Am I fired?”

  She chuckled. “Most people would say where-am-I?”

  “I’m obviously inside an office. This is just an educated guess, but it’s the restaurant manager’s office, right?”

  “As rain.”

  The ceiling fan’s blades were filthy, but sharp. I watched one blade nudge an obese, Texas-size fly, probably a horsefly.

  With a shudder, I sat up and said, “Tainted food.”

  Bonnie’s face scrunched. “What do you mean, tainted food?”

  “Earlier, inside the mermaid bathroom, you said the cast and crew had food poisoning…an accident. Maybe my fall was another accident.”

  “What fall?”

  “From the deck.” Stiffening my fingers, I made a diving gesture.

  “Frannie, you didn’t fall. You passed out.”

  “But…but…” My breath escaped in short gasps and my head whirred faster than the fan. “But I wasn’t drunk, Bonnie, I swear.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, right.”

  “Oh, God, what happened on that deck?”

  Her smile faded. “You don’t remember?”

  “Tell me!”

  Abandoning the desk, she slid her tush next to mine. “First of all, Jem accepted all responsibility. He bribed the bartender, told him to make your drinks ninety-nine percent vodka.”

  “Read my lips, Bonnie. I was not drunk!”

  Or was I?

  My mind raced as I tried to reconstruct events.

  Oysters and white wine.

  A double-strength Cape Codder with a splash of cranberry juice.

  Madison’s edited screen test.

  A triple-strength Cape Codder with no ice.

  My compulsion to tell the party guests that Frannie Rosen, not Lynn Beth Sullivan, had played the demon.

  Sailing outside onto the deck, my anchor Jeremy Glenn’s hunky hand, attached to his hunky wrist and arm.

  Deck events were…blurrier. But unlike the Night of Wine and Roses, I had a sneaky suspicion it wouldn’t take me days to remember details. This time, in time, probably a short time, I’d remember everything. Because this time I didn’t want to remember!

  “Madison wasn’t upset,” Bonnie said, rising. She walked to a wall hook, retrieved a pretentious Lone Star mug, poured coffee from an insulated Thermos, and handed the mug to me. “In fact,” she continued, “he sounded amused. And sympathetic.”

  “Omigod! I ralphed in front of Jem and Madison!” At the thought, I placed my sloshing mug on the floor.

  “Frannie, read my lips! You passed out!”

  “I didn’t throw up?”

  As if speaking to a small child, she said, “You leaned over the railing. You had an Alfred Hitchcockian attack of vodka-inspired vertigo. You passed out. Jem caught you before you fell. Madison summoned me. Jem found the manager, who unlocked the office and said to take all the time we need. He, the manager, wanted to call 911, but Madison said no. Then he, the manager, said there was a trash basket near the desk, if you woke up puking.”

  “He sounds like my mother,” I interjected, “only she would have said if I puked in my sleep.”

  “Jem wanted to stay and apologize.” Bonnie was still talking very slowly, very distinctly. “But Madison said no again. End of story. Unless you feel like ‘ralphing’ now. Do you?”r />
  I shook my head from side to side, then pressed my thumbs against my pounding temples. “Wait a sec…the voice…the finger.”

  “What voice? What finger?”

  “A voice hissed in my ear, told me to vomit his kiss.”

  “Who’s kiss?”

  “Jem’s kiss.”

  Bonnie patted the hands I’d clasped in my lap. “Your voice of reason,” she said, “wanted you to barf that potent poison inside your system.”

  “My ‘voice of reason’ doesn’t hiss or growl or tell me to vomit a kiss. I think it was the screen test.”

  “The screen test? What do you mean?”

  “Long story.”

  “We’ve got time. They’re dancing the Cotton-Eyed Joe out there.”

  “Jem? Madison?”

  “Jem’s dancing too, just one of the guys. Madison…I don’t know.”

  I took a deep breath, then told Bonnie everything, starting with my erotic audition. “So you see, Bonnie, I get an allergic reaction.”

  “Oh, great! You’re suddenly allergic to acting.”

  “No…not acting. I think I’m susceptible to the demon. Or maybe it’s a dybbuk.”

  Bonnie looked mystified so I said, “Jewish folklore. Dybbukim are wandering souls who enter and control a person’s body. They’re like doppelgangers…you already know about them. My cousin Charlene used to scare the living daylights out of me by talking about dybbukim. My dybbuk, or doppelganger, enters and controls me temporarily whenever it wants to, or whenever it’s…provoked. At the audition I couldn’t perform. In my apartment I said something about turning down the Forever Asmodeus role. Tonight…well, I don’t know what brought it out tonight. Shit, Bon, maybe I imagined the whole thing. Maybe it was the vodka. Maybe the beetles were Beatles. Maybe ‑‑”

  “Frannie!” A small hand pushed open the office door. A slender body literally burst inside. “Are you okay?”

  Cat Sands exuded the scent of perfume, humidity, and unicorns.

  Unicorns? Whoa. How did unicorns smell?

  With their noses, I thought, stifling the urge to giggle hysterically. If I started, I’d never stop.

  “Except for my sunburned clown-nose,” I said, “I feel fine.”

  “Hi, Bonnie.” Cat turned to me again. “I just got here, Frannie, and heard about how you almost plunged into the Gulf.”

  “From whom?

  “Dawn Sullivan.”

  “If I had plunged, Cat, I would have landed on seashells.” Glancing at the tomato clock, I said, “Why are you so late?”

  “I’m afraid curiosity consumed the Cat. You see, Madison hired this fascinating technical advisor ‑‑”

  “Tenia. Yes, I know. Bonnie told me.”

  “And tonight she attended ‑‑”

  “A voodoo convention.”

  “Not voodoo, Frannie, witchcraft. Anyway, I decided to follow her. Are you sure you’re okay? You look funny. Strange.”

  “I know that look,” Bonnie said, “and I don’t like it.”

  At the same time I said, “I’m fine, Cat, really. Please go on.”

  “I didn’t have a name tag, so I stationed myself in the hotel lounge. I was at the bar, smoking a cigarette, when I overheard a conversation between Tenia and another woman, a slinky blonde who could have doubled for that Canadian model, Jem’s girlfriend, Mary-Magdalene. Anyway, for what it’s worth, several convention members are planning to hold a Black Mass tomorrow night. Tenia noticed me eavesdropping, grabbed the blonde by her skinny arm, and walked away from the bar.”

  “A Black Mass,” I said. “Yup.”

  “What do you mean, yup?” Bonnie’s question sounded rhetorical.

  “If they plan to hold a Black Mass,” I said, “I plan to be there.”

  “Why?”

  “It’ll be…educational. I can use my reactions for the Robin-Asmodeus scenes.”

  “Bullshit!”

  Cat’s eyebrows merged. “Hey, what’s going on? What did I miss?”

  “Frannie wants a spell to ward off demons,” Bonnie said. “But a Black Mass is a perverse combination of sacrilege and sensuality. Frannie doesn’t need to fall into a trace. She needs to fall out of one.”

  I said, “Do you know where they’re holding the Mass, Cat?” She didn’t reply, a definitive yes. “Hey, you guys, I don’t believe in all that crap, but I was a Girl Scout and should be prepared, fight fire with fire. That damn demon has finally met its match!”

  “Okay, I’ll go with you,” Bonnie said.

  “Me, too,” Cat said, then laughed.

  Bonnie and I stared at her.

  “I’m good at puns,” Cat said, “but Frannie’s a pro.”

  “Puns?” Rising from the vinyl couch, I performed an upper-torso aerobics stretch.

  “Fire. Match.” Cat laughed again.

  Bonnie and I joined in, even though, in retrospect, it wasn’t funny.

  Because my demon was determined to have the last laugh.

  A LOS ANGELES RESTAURANT- JANUARY, 1988

  Victor Madison couldn’t stop staring at the waitress.

  He hated her.

  No! Hate was too strong an emotion. He didn’t hate her.

  She wore a name tag on the pocket that would have stuck out, had she boasted a breast.

  M A R Y

  Her name was Mary. Mary…plain as any name could be. George M. Cohan had hit the proverbial nail on the proverbial head. Plain Mary.

  Except…she wasn’t plain. All she needed was a make-over. Then she’d be…exquisite? Stunning?

  First, he’d send her to a professional stylist and get rid of that hair! Too long, almost waist-length, the profusion of sienna strands minimized her ragamuffin face and dark brown eyes. On the other hand, Natalie Wood could get away with long hair, and Mary looked a little like Natalie in West Side Story…at least she did when she smiled.

  She never smiles at me. If she smiled just once, I’d leave her a tip that would knock her socks off.

  Her panties, too.

  Christ, what was he thinking? He didn’t need a woman right now, not even a one-night stand. The extra he’d enjoyed nine years ago, during the filming of D-Train to Hell, had come back into his life, uninvited but not unappreciated. Then there was The Stalker.

  The Stalker had a first, last and maiden name. Victor had met her twice. An aspiring actress, he’d never balled her, never even hinted that he might ball her. She had a kid, or kids, and that took her out of the ballpark. His strict rule, no mothers, was absolute.

  Sometimes she followed him and watched him from a distance. Sometimes she raided his trash. Sometimes she sent him love letters, unsigned, mostly bad poetry. It was creepy, but he didn’t deem her pathological, and one had to maintain one’s sense of humor when it came to un-fatal attractions.

  He sipped from his glass of Il Fratello. A cheap wine, but he liked the taste; fruity, with accents of chocolate, blackberry and spice.

  Shit, was he going Hollywood or what?

  Wine was wine! He only drank it when he ate Italian; red with beef and veal, white with fish and chicken. Fuck accents!

  “Will that be all, sir?”

  Victor eyed the waitress. Mary. She had an accent, a regional twang. Nebraska? Oklahoma?

  With a scowl, he shoved his plate toward the edge of the table.

  “You didn’t finish your Veal Parmigiano, sir,” she said.

  She made the word “sir” sound like you-son-of-a-bitch. He could have been watching an Italian movie where an astringent Sophia Loren says “Prego” and the subtitle reads: “Have a nice day.”

  Mary’s uniform didn’t fit. Granted, she was thin, almost scrawny, but surely the restaurant had a smaller nondescript dress. Her breast pocket handkerchief looked as if it hadn’t been used since Custer’s last stand. Her bobby socks cut her legs in half, thirds when she bent over, and when she bent over she had a very nice ass.