Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  The girl’s eyes opened wide and she parted her lips to speak, but Harod pushed and she said nothing. He stared into her eyes so fiercely that the force of his gaze was much more intense than the pressure of his hand on her arm. Harod felt resistance and pushed against it. He sensed the current of her thoughts and pushed even more strongly, forcing his way like a man wading upstream. Harod felt her squirm, physically at first and then in the confines of her mind. He pinned her straining consciousness as firmly as he had once pinned his cousin Elizabeth in a wrestling match when they were children, Harod accidentally ending up on top, holding her arms by the wrists, forcing them against the ground, his lower body between her legs, between her thighs, resisting her straining, thrusting pelvis with the friction of his weight, embarrassed and excited by his sudden erection and by the vain and violent struggles of his helpless captive.

  Stop it. Kristen’s resistance slackened and slid aside. To Harod it was like the shocking, penultimate warmth when physically entering a woman. There was a sudden calm and an almost alarming looseness as his will expanded into her mind. Her sense of self dimmed like a dying light. Harod let it dim. He made no effort to slide along the warp and weave of her thoughts to the warm plea sure center at her core. He did not take time to stroke her. Harod was not interested in her plea sure, only her submission.

  Do not move. Harod brought his face even closer. There was a faint golden down on Kristen’s flushed cheeks. Her eyes were very wide, very blue, the pupils fully dilated. Her lips were moist and open. Harod ran his mouth across hers, bit softly at her full lower lip, and then inserted his tongue.

  Kristen did not stir except for a slight exhalation which might have been a sigh or moan or scream had she been free. She tasted of peppermint. Harod bit her lower lip again, sharply this time, and then pulled his face back and smiled. The tiniest drop of blood left her lip and moved slowly to her chin. Her eyes stared past Harod, through him, passive, passionless, but behind them there was a flicker of fright like the half-perceived motion of a caged animal behind cold bars.

  Harod released her arm and drew his palm across her cheek. He savored the helpless twistings of her will, the firm sureness of his own control. Her panic filled his nostrils like a powerful perfume. He ignored the pleading undertones of her writhing and followed well-trod paths of darkness to the motor center of her mind. He shaped and molded her consciousness as surely as strong hands could knead soft dough. She sighed again.

  Stand still. Harod tugged off her blazer and let it fall crumpled on the counter behind her. The tiny cabin resonated to his heavy breathing and to the throb of the engines. The plane banked slightly and Harod was thrown against her, thighs touching. His excitement added to his power over her.

  Stay silent. She was wearing a silk scarf of red and blue airline colors tucked inside her beige blouse. Harod ignored the scarf and unbuttoned the blouse with sure fingers. She began to tremble when he roughly pulled the blouse loose from the elastic of her skirt, but he tightened his mental grip and she stopped.

  Kristen wore a plain white bra. Her breasts were pale and heavy, rounded above the white curve of fabric. Harod felt the inevitable tenderness well up inside of him, the wave of love and loss he never failed to feel. It did not interfere with his control.

  The young woman’s mouth moved slightly. Saliva and blood trembled on her lower lip.

  Don’t move. Harod tugged the blouse off her shoulders and let it hang from her limp arms. Her fingers twitched. He unhooked her bra and tugged it up. Harod opened his leather jacket and unbuttoned his own shirt in order to rub his chest against her. Her breasts were even larger than he had thought, heavy against him, the skin so vulnerably white and nipples so delicately pink and undeveloped that Harod felt his throat tighten with the force of his love for her.

  Shut up, shut up, shut up. Stand still, bitch. The plane banked more steeply to the left. Harod leaned against her, his weight on her, and rubbed himself against the soft curve of her belly.

  There was noise in the corridor. Someone tried the lock. Harod bunched up her skirt and forced it up over her wide thighs to her lips. Her panty hose tore as he roughly tugged them down, trapped them with one foot, moved her left leg aside with his knee to free her of them. She wore white bikini underpants under the panty hose. There was more soft, golden down on her thighs. Her legs felt smooth and firm beyond belief. Harod closed his eyes in gratitude.

  “Kristen? You there?” It was the steward’s voice. The lock rattled again. “Kristen? It’s Curt.”

  Harod pulled her white pants down and opened his trousers. He was painfully erect. He touched her lower belly just above the line of pubic hair and the contact made him tremble. The plane pitched to turbulence. Somewhere a chime sounded urgently. Harod gripped her buttocks, moved her legs apart, and slid up and into her as the aircraft began to shudder violently. He felt the edge of the sink beneath his fingers as her weight settled backward on his hands. There was a second of dry resistance and then, for the second time, the overwhelming sensation of surrendering warmth. Harod moved roughly against her. The shark tooth’s medallion bounced against her flattened breasts.

  “Kristen? What the hell’s wrong? We’ve got some weather here. Kristen?” The plane lurched to the right. The sink and countertop vibrated. Harod thrust, lifted her weight against him, thrust again.

  “Are you hunting for the stewardess?” Maria Chen’s voice came through the thin door. “She was helping an older lady who was ill . . . quite ill, I’m afraid.”

  There was an unintelligible murmur. Sweat glistened between Kristen’s breasts. Harod held her to him more tightly, squeezing her, seizing her in the tightening vise of his will, inside her, feeling himself entering and withdrawing through the rough reflection of her thoughts, tasting the salt of her flesh and the brine fear of her panic, moving her in response like a great, soft puppet, feeling the orgasm building in her, no, in him, the two streams of thought and sensation cascading into one dark cauldron of physical response.

  “I’ll certainly tell her,” said Maria Chen. There was a soft tap on the door inches from Harod’s face.

  Harod strained, exploded, felt the medallion cut into both of them, and buried his chin in the hollow at the side of her neck. The girl’s head was arched back. Her mouth was open in a silent scream and her eyes stared fixedly at the low ceiling.

  The plane bounced and slewed. Harod kissed the sweat on her throat and stooped to retrieve her skirt. His fingers shook as he buttoned her blouse. Her panty hose were torn in several pieces. He stuffed them in the pocket of his jacket and brushed at the wrinkles in her skirt. Her legs seemed tan enough to hide the absence of stockings.

  Harod gradually relaxed the pressure. Her thoughts were a jumble, memories confused with dreams. Harod let her bend over the sink as he slid open the bolt.

  “Seat belt sign is on, Tony.” Maria Chen’s thin form filled the door. “Yeah.”

  “What?” said Kristen vacantly. Her eyes had not yet focused. “What?” She lowered her face to the steel basin and vomited quietly.

  Maria stepped in and held the girl’s shoulders. When she was done, Maria dabbed at her face with a wet towel. Harod stood in the corridor, bracing himself against the door frame as the aircraft pitched like a small ship on a rough sea.

  “What?” asked Kristen and looked blankly at Maria Chen. “I don’t . . . why am I . . . remember?”

  Maria looked at Harod while she stroked the girl’s forehead. “You’d better go sit down, Tony. You’ll get in trouble for not having your seat belt fastened.”

  Harod returned to his seat and pulled out the script he had been reading. Maria Chen joined him a moment later. The turbulence abated. Up front, Curt’s worried voice could be heard above the engines.

  “I don’t know,” came Kristen’s dulled response. “I don’t know.” Harod ignored them and made notes in the margins of the manuscript. A few minutes later he looked up to see Maria Chen looking at him. He smiled, the muscle
s at the corners of his mouth twisting down. “I don’t like waiting for my second drink,” he said softly.

  Maria Chen turned away and looked out at darkness and the blinking light pulsing red at the end of the wing.

  Early the next morning Tony Harod drove to Willi’s house. The guard at the gate recognized Harod’s car from a distance and had the gate open by the time the red Ferrari rolled to a stop.

  “Good morning, Chuck.”

  “Morning, Mr. Harod. Not used to seeing you out here so early.”

  “Me either, Chuck. Gotta go through more business papers. Trying to untangle the finances for some new projects Willi got us into. Especially a thing called The White Slaver.”

  “Yessir, read about that in the trades.”

  “Security staying on here, Chuck?”

  “Yessir, at least until the auction next month.”

  “McGuire paying you?”

  “Yessir. Comes out of the estate.”

  “Yeah. See you around, Chuck. Don’t take any wooden tokens.”

  “You too, Mr. Harod.”

  He pulled away with a satisfying rumble and accelerated up the long driveway. The morning sun created a stroboscope effect through the line of poplars along the drive. Harod swung the car around the dry fountain in front of the main entrance and parked near the west wing where Willi had his offices.

  Bill Borden’s Bel Air home looked like a palace transported north from some banana republic. Acres of stucco and red tile and multi-paned windows caught the morning light. Gates opened into courtyards which were bordered by covered porches which abutted open, airy rooms, which were connected by tiled corridors to other courtyards. The house appeared to have been added onto for several generations rather than constructed in the hot summer of 1938 for a minor movie mogul who died three years later while watching daily rushes.

  Harod used his key to let himself into the west wing. Venetian blinds sent yellow stripes across the carpet of the secretaries’ office. The room was neat, the typewriters covered, desktops cleared. Harod felt an unexpected twinge when he thought of the usual chaos of phone calls and office noise that had reigned there. Willi’s office was two doors down, past the conference room.

  Harod pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket and opened the safe. He placed the color-coded files and folded documents on the center of Willi’s wide, white desk. He unlocked the file cabinet and sighed. It would be a long morning.

  Three hours later Harod stretched, yawned, and pushed the chair back from the cluttered desk. There was nothing in William Borden’s papers that would embarrass anyone except a few deadbeats and devotees of quality in the cinema. Harod stood and shadowboxed at the wall. His Adidas running shoes made him feel light and agile. He wore a light blue jogging suit, unzipped at the wrists and ankles. He was hungry. Moving lightly, his sneakers making a soft noise on tile, Harod went up the west wing corridor, across a courtyard with a fountain, down the length of a covered terrace large enough to host a Screen Actors’ Guild convention, and into the kitchen through the south door. There was still food in the refrigerator. He had uncorked a magnum of champagne and was spreading mayonnaise on a slice of French bread when he heard a noise. Still carrying the champagne bottle, he went through the huge dining room into the living room.

  “Hey, what the fuck are you doing?” shouted Harod. Twenty-five feet away, a man was bent over rummaging through the shelves where Willi kept his videotape library. The man stood up quickly, his upper torso throwing a shadow on the twelve-foot screen in the corner.

  “Oh, it’s you,” said Harod. The young man was one of Willi’s boyfriends whom Harod and Tom McGuire had chased off a few days earlier. He was very young, very blond, and sported the kind of perfect tan which very few people in the world could afford to maintain. The boy was over six feet tall and wore only tight cutoffs and sneakers. His bare upper body rippled with muscle. The deltoids and pectorals alone testified to hundreds of hours spent pressing weights and wrestling with a Universal machine. His stomach looked to Harod like someone smashed rocks on it regularly.

  “Yeah, it’s me.” Harod thought that the kid’s voice sounded more like that of a marine D.I. than a Malibu beach fairy. “Wanta make something out of it?”

  Harod sighed tiredly and took a long pull of champagne. He wiped his mouth. “Get the hell out of here, kid. You’re trespassing.”

  The tanned-Cupid face curled into a pout. “Oh yeah, who says? Bill was a good friend of mine.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I have a right to be here. We shared a meaningful relationship.”

  “Yeah, that and a jar of K-Y jelly,” said Harod. “Now get the fuck out of here before you get thrown out.”

  “Yeah, who’s gonna throw me out?”

  “Me,” said Harod. “You and who else?” The boy rose to his full height and rippled his muscles. Harod couldn’t tell if he was seeing biceps or triceps; they all seemed to flow together like gerbils humping under a tight tarp.

  “Me and the cops,” Harod said and crossed to a desk phone near the sectional.

  “Oh yeah?” The kid pulled the receiver out of Harod’s left hand and then jerked the cord out of the phone. Not content with that, he grunted and ripped the fifteen-foot cord out of the wall.

  Harod shrugged and set down the champagne bottle. “Calm down, Brucie. They’re more phones. Willi had lots and lots of phones.”

  The boy took three quick steps and was in front of Harod, blocking him. “Not so fast, motherfucker.”

  “Motherfucker? Jeez, I haven’t heard that since I graduated from Evanston High School. Got any others like that, Brucie?”

  “Don’t call me Brucie, shithead.”

  “Now that one I’ve heard,” said Harod and went to step around him. The boy set three fingers against Harod’s chest and shoved. Harod bounced off the arm of the sectional. The kid jumped back and went into a crouch, arms at odd angles. “Karate?” said Harod. “Hey, there’s no need to get physical here.” There was the slightest hint of a quaver in his voice.

  “Shithead,” said the kid. “Asshole motherfucker.”

  “Uh-oh, repeating yourself. Sign of age,” said Harod and turned to run. The boy jumped forward. Harod completed his turn, the magnum of champagne suddenly in his hand again. The bottle made a heavy arc which terminated on the kid’s left temple. The bottle did not break. There was a dull thwump sounding like nothing so much as a large bell being struck by a dead cat and the boy went down on his right knee, head hanging. Harod stepped forward and made a field goal attempt with the imaginary ball contacted directly under the point of the kid’s heavy jaw.

  “Argh!” yelled Tony Harod and grabbed at his Adidas running shoe. He hopped on his left foot while the boy levitated backward, bounced off the thick cushions of the sectional, and landed on both knees in front of Harod like a penitent sinner. Harold swung a heavy Mexican lamp off the end table into the handsome face. Unlike the bottle, the lamp shattered quite satisfactorily. So did the boy’s nose and other less prominent structures. He went over sideways into the thick carpet like a scuba diver going off a raft.

  Harod stepped over him and went to a kitchen phone. “Chuck? This is Tony Harod. Put Leonard on the front gate and bring your car up to the house, will you? Willi left some garbage here that has to be taken out to the dump.”

  Later, after Willi’s boyfriend had been driven away to the emergency room and Harod had finished his second helping of champagne and paté on French bread, he wandered back to Willi’s video library. There were more than three hundred tapes shelved there. Some were copies of Willi’s early triumphs— such cinema masterpieces as Three On a Swing, Beach Party Creature, and Paris Memories. Shelved nearby were the eight films which Harod had coproduced with Willi, including Prom Massacre, The Children Died, and two of the Walpurgis Night sequels. Also on the shelves were old favorites from the late show screen tests, outtakes, a pilot, and three episodes of Willi’s abortive entry into TV sitcoms—“His and H
ers”— a complete collection of Jerry Damiano X-rated films, some new studio releases, and a miscellaneous collection of other cassettes. The boyfriend had pulled out several tapes and Harod kneeled to look at these. The first one was labeled only A&B. Harod switched on the projection unit and popped the cassette into the VCR. Computer-lettered titles read: “Alexander and Byron 4/23.”

  The opening shots were of Willi’s large swimming pool. The camera panned right, past the waterfall to the open door of Willi’s bedroom. A thin young man in red bikini trunks bounced out into the light. He waved at the camera in the best home-movie style and stood uncomfortably by poolside, looking a bit, Harod thought, like an anemic, flat-chested version of Venus on the Half Shell. Suddenly the muscled boyfriend emerged from the shadows. He was wearing even briefer red trunks and he immediately went into a series of muscleman poses. The slim youth— Alexander?—mimed his appreciation. Harod knew that Willi had owned a good microphone system for his home video outfit, but this particular excursion into cinema verité was as silent as an early Chaplin two-reeler.

  The boyfriend finished his demonstration with a torso-twisting finale. Alexander was on his knees by this time, a worshiper at the feet of Adonis. As Adonis held his final pose, the worshiper reached up and pulled down his deity’s bikini pants. The kid’s tan was perfect. Harod switched off the VCR.

  “Byron?” muttered Harod. “Jesus.” He walked back to the wall of shelves. It took fifteen minutes, but Harod finally found what he was looking for. Labeled “In the Event of My Death,” it had been filed between In Cold Blood and In the Heat of the Night. Harod sat on an ottoman and turned the cassette over and over in his hands. There was an emptiness in his gut and he had the urge to go straight out the door and drive away. He set the cassette in place, hit the play button, and leaned forward.

  “Hello, Tony,” said Willi, “greetings from the grave.” His image was larger than life-size. He was sitting in a webbed chair near his pool. Palm leaves stirred to the breeze behind him, but no one else, not even a servant, was visible in the shot. Willi’s white hair was combed forward, but Harod could see the sunburn on the bald spots. The old man was wearing a loose, flowered Hawaiian shirt and baggy green shorts. His knees were white. Harod’s heart hammered at his ribs. “If you’ve found this tape,” said Willi’s image, “then I must assume that some unfortunate event has taken me from you. I trust that you, Tony, are the first to find this . . . mmm . . . final testament and that you are watching alone.”