by Joshua Ingle
“Not enough makeup either, Crystal. I wanna see at least twice as much next time.”
Brandon started rolling, so Crystal adopted a fake sexual expression and twisted her body back and forth to accentuate her features. She removed her dress, revealing lingerie underneath. Heather licked her lips for the camera and ran her hands down Crystal’s body.
Brandon observed eagerly from below. “Ah, great angle. Fuck yeah. A couple of MILFs we got here. Crystal, give her a kiss.”
Crystal leaned over and briefly, tepidly pecked Heather on the lips. Heather reciprocated, probably giving a better performance.
“Naw, put some tongue into it, Crystal,” Brandon said.
Crystal’s false smile waned momentarily, but she leaned in for another kiss that lasted several seconds.
“Is this making you girls horny? Crystal, I can tell this is turning you on. Take off your panties, baby, huh?”
Well that didn’t take long. Crystal struggled to keep up her facade for the camera. Brandon frowned at her. Stupid. Why can’t I be as good at this as Heather? She made it look so easy.
“We’re just getting started, baby,” Crystal said. She needed to work herself up to the point where she could take her clothes off without feeling too self-conscious. “Give us a minute to warm up.”
“The boys online wanna see some pussy, though. So why don’t you take it off?”
Crystal pleaded to Heather via eye contact. “I—I, uh—”
“Take it off.”
Heather slowly ran her tongue up Crystal’s cheek. Crystal did little to respond. “I think going slow is so sexy, baby,” Heather said to Brandon. “Wouldn’t you rather be teased? It makes me so wet.”
Brandon ignored her and vehemently yanked Crystal’s underwear down her legs. He raised a hand toward her bra, and Crystal recoiled, afraid he would hit her. But instead he stopped suddenly and let his camera hang at his side.
“The fuck?” he said. Crystal realized Brandon was no longer looking at her, but instead at the wall behind her, where it looked like the wallpaper had been scratched up. Brandon approached the markings and touched them curiously. Heather and Crystal ended their performance, and Crystal took advantage of Brandon’s distraction to secure her lingerie back in place. “Did you girls do this?”
“No.”
The markings were long and thin and barely noticeable: just slight scratches in the wallpaper that couldn’t even be called rips. Their configuration seemed to loosely spell the word “HIDE,” in all caps.
Brandon snatched his cell from his pocket and heatedly dialed. When Crystal looked to Heather for guidance, the taller woman nodded toward their clothes. Crystal followed her as Brandon spoke to Cole.
“Hey buddy, we’re gonna shoot the rest in your place, okay?”
Crystal donned her blue-green dress and removed those awful heels. She watched Brandon through the mirror as he used his pocketknife to cut away a gel that had partially melted onto a studio light.
“Because I think somebody’s snooping around. I don’t want some fucker looking at my girls for free.” He accidentally burned himself on the light, wrenched his hand away, and shook it vigorously. “Goddammit.”
•
Brandon was sure the markings hadn’t been there when he’d first started taping Heather half an hour ago. But no one else had been in the lounge when Brandon checked it, so either Heather had done it herself to fuck with him, or one of the condo’s other residents had decided to play a game with the local pornographers.
In the lobby, Brandon approached the security guard: a thin, bald man in his forties who sat behind his desk, sipping coffee and speaking happily into his cell phone. “Two bedroom, one bath. Gas stove, twelve hundred eighty square feet. Right on the shore, very secluded, you’ll love it. And the price is great.”
Making a personal call while on the job? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Brandon interrupted: “Hey. Yo.”
The guard realized Brandon was waiting on him, so he spoke softly into the receiver. “Can you hold on just a minute? Thanks.”
“You got someone fucking with your wallpaper in the lounge.”
The guard didn’t bother to hide his impassivity. He glanced down at his phone as if deciding how he could evade Brandon and return to his call. What a dumbfuck.
“Can you get off your ass and check it out?” Brandon asked. “One of your residents is a pervert. Could you tell him to leave us the fuck alone?”
The guard hesitated. “Call you back?” He reluctantly pocketed his phone, stood, then adjusted his pants.
Seeing that the guard intended to follow through with the request, Brandon almost left for Cole’s floor, but then had a thought and turned back to the guard. “You selling your house?” He read the man’s nametag. “Virgil? A little place on the beach?”
Virgil gave him a once-over, dropping his gaze from Brandon’s eyes to his shoes, looking through Brandon the man and seeing only Brandon the pornographer. “I’m not selling my house.”
Brandon read the subtext: Not to someone like you. He was so tired of this bullshit. Most people in the condo knew about Brandon and Cole’s porn business and treated them like second-class citizens because of it. Well, fuck this guy. Fuck all of them.
3
Crystal said goodbye to her mom and hung up. So, her mom had gotten the check at least. Crystal could only hope she wouldn’t waste it all on some weird spice or trinket purported to connect her to the spirit world. The Day of the Dead was coming up, and her mom would probably go all out again with her marigolds and other offerings, just as she’d done throughout Crystal’s childhood. At one point she’d even bought a billboard in Little Havana advertising her services as a medium.
Crystal had lived with that silliness all her life: the luckless fools waddling in to ask her mom to channel dearly departed Aunt Maria or poor old Rottweiler Benito; the plaques and statuettes of Catholic saints and/or Vodou Loa adorning every nook of the house. Her mom was a believer, heart and soul, often spending her paltry grocery money on weird-ass household fortifications against evil spirits or other, equally crazy expenditures. Crystal had enjoyed the stories, songs, and ornamentation—even to this day, she relished her memories of the Vodou traditions she’d grown up with—but tradition was one thing, and beliefs that took precedence over even your own children were quite another. It eventually got so bad that the neighbors called child services, but by then Crystal was old enough to know the difference between what Mom believed and what the rest of the world knew.
And now, it was Crystal who was the provider. And she found that her mom’s superstitions were even harder to endure when it was her own hard-earned money supporting them. She’d borne the burden of those beliefs long enough. Even after all these years, Mom’s vacuous proverbs still spoke inside her head.
“Hang this stone over your bed or Baron Samedi will come get you in your sleep.”
“Don’t shake a tablecloth outside after dark or bad luck will follow you for the next year.”
“You will meet a kind man, and he will be the center of your life.”
That last one came from a palm reading (or was it a Tarot reading?) when Crystal was seven, and her mom continued to remind her about the “kind man” to this day. Somehow though, Crystal didn’t think the owner of a porn website was who Mom had in mind, so she’d told her mom instead that she’d gotten a job as a model and that Cole was her manager. Still, maybe the prophecy had come true in its own way.
Cole wasn’t in his condo, so after Crystal got off the phone she grabbed the book and went searching for him. She spotted him with Heather at the far edge of one of the condo’s many piers, his walking stick in hand, and a white apron speckled with dried black paint worn over his clothes. Huh. What’s that all about? Crystal descended the stairs to the docks then gingerly moved closer so she could eavesdrop.
Cole took out his wallet. “How much?” he asked.
“Like a hundred?” Heather said, a twinge of worry in her voic
e.
“Damn. You ever think of going back to school?”
“Nah. Not my thing.”
“So you’re okay with this job?”
“Sure. Showbiz. Good times all around.”
“Ha. Let me clarify. You’re okay working with Brandon?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Heather sounded less convinced this time.
Cole handed her two fifty-dollar bills. “Is that right?”
“Yep. Thank you so much.” She put the money in her purse and started to walk away, but Cole stopped her with a hand placed gently on her arm.
“Hey, do you know how much tuition runs these days?” he said.
“It’s been a few years. I have no idea. Why? What do you wanna study?”
Cole shook his head. “It’s not for me.”
Heather lingered for a moment. Cole often left people hanging like that. It felt like the conversation in his head never quite matched the actual conversation being spoken, so he could come across as detached. Crystal liked how smart it made him seem.
“Oh,” Heather said. “Well… thanks.” She smiled warmly at Crystal on her way back to the condo. Cole turned to face out toward the ocean, his shaggy hair blowing in the wind.
Does Cole know I’m saving up for college? Could he actually be thinking about paying tuition for me? The thought made her giddy. As she walked toward her lover, soft waves licked against the two dozen wooden piers and the boats bobbing in the surf beside them.
She set down her book on a piling. “What was that about?” she asked.
Cole smiled at her presence and slipped an arm around the small of her back. “Her kid’s sick. Needs medicine.” He looked so handsome in the moonlight, the waves in his hair swishing just as gently as the crests below. He was just tall enough that Crystal could rest her head on his shoulder. Even his pasty white eyes and their pale pupils glistened enchantingly in this light. Crystal could have stayed with him here for hours.
“How’s Brandon treating you?”
“Good,” she lied. She needed to be her best around Cole to impress him. Plus, if she ever told him the truth and he got mad at Brandon, Brandon would take his rage out on her, and Cole would learn about…
But no, she didn’t want to think about that. “What do you think about giving us tomorrow off?”
Cole raised his eyebrows as if asking for an explanation.
“You and me could hang out. Don’t you hate working Saturdays?”
Cole said nothing, but soon she felt his hand slide onto her stomach. She chuckled, and so did he. His hand felt good against her modest baby bump.
“Sorry, love,” he said. “This has never happened to me before.”
“Me either.” Crystal wrapped her arms around his neck. “What do you wanna name her?”
Cole hesitated. “I think we both need to get our lives in order first.”
“I will,” Crystal said. “But what do you wanna name her?”
No response from Cole.
“We could name her after your mom. Or your dad, if it’s a boy.”
He stayed silent. Why was he getting so distant like this lately? Why did he shut down whenever she talked about the baby or their future together? Did he realize how guilty it made her feel about getting pregnant?
Crystal knew he’d eventually come around if she just showed him enough love. And she did love him. She loved how he made her feel important. Did he know she spent a lot of her free time daydreaming of him? When she made love to him, could he tell that her enjoyment was genuine—not faked like the shows she and Heather put on for Brandon? Was Cole still mad at himself for letting Brandon have sex with Crystal for the job during her first weeks here?
She decided to be brave and voice her worry. “Do you see a future with me?”
Cole drew away from her, but kept his gentle hands on her waist. His eyebrows furrowed at the question. “Of course. Why would you ask something like that?”
“I don’t know. Sorry. I just really like you. You’ve been good for me, and—I just don’t want to do anything to ruin this.”
“Hey, no, you’re fine.”
“Cool. I just—You know. I can see a future with you.”
“I mean, I have a business to run. That’s gotta come first, but yeah.”
That made her uneasy. What did he even mean by that? She decided her best option was to agree with him. Guys always liked that.
“Yeah, of course. I’d never want to get in the way of your business.” She giggled a fake little laugh to relieve the tension between them.
But Cole brought the tension right back. “Brandon has a lot of new ideas that could really break us into the big leagues. I’m—I’m pretty excited about them.”
You mean Brandon’s pretty excited about them and you feel obligated to be excited too.
“And Crystal, I love you. You know I love you. I just don’t want to commit to anything real serious right now. You know how it is. We’re young, so let’s just… Let’s not make any promises we can’t keep, okay?”
That made Crystal really nervous. She broke away from Cole and retrieved the large red book. “I, um, I got something for you,” she said. She softly pressed the book into Cole’s hands. “It’s Paradise Lost. That old book from your dad’s estate. The one with the burned pages. But I got it in braille, so now you can read it.” Crystal still found it funny that her initial connection with Cole had been a conversation about the weird religious beliefs of their parents. Paradise Lost had been Cole’s dad’s favorite book—next to the Bible and the Book of Mormon—and an antique copy of it had been one of the only things to survive the fire in his dad’s house. Crystal had thought she might connect with Cole even more by giving him a version of his favorite keepsake that he’d finally be able to read.
Cole took the braille book and thumbed through it. “Hmm. What’s it about again?” he asked, shivering against a chill wind.
“I dunno. Do you like it?”
The wind abruptly picked up; a big gust made Crystal take a few steps back. She crossed her arms against the cold. Weird for this time of year.
Cole put his arm around her, and she huddled next to him as the wind continued. She looked out toward the ocean and saw the moon’s shimmering reflection in the water, darkness to all sides. It was beautiful. If only Cole could see it. If only Cole could see a lot of things.
“It’s pretty windy out here, huh?” he said. “You wanna go in?
Is this another way of avoiding me? She leaned against Cole and nuzzled at his neck, but the wind blew even harder against them, and Cole lost his balance. He gasped as his cane fell and he stumbled, but Crystal wrapped her arms around him to support him. He leaned heavily on her.
Cole held out his arm cautiously, like he was feeling for something. Crystal saw goose bumps on the back of his neck. “Let’s go inside,” he said.
•
Yes, go inside, thought Thorn. The army is coming from the sea, and you don’t want to be outside when it arrives. To frighten Cole even more, Thorn brushed past him again, sending his hair fluttering. He trailed after the couple as they walked up the deck toward the condo.
The security guard perked up as they opened the door to the lounge, spilling a bit of coffee on his magazine. He grimaced and grabbed some napkins to clean up the mess, then nodded to Crystal as she helped Cole inside the lobby.
Thorn let himself feel tentative relief as the door to the outside eased shut. Cole and Crystal were heading to the elevator down the hallway, and Brandon and Heather were already safely upstairs… But this guard, Virgil. How can I get him to safety?
He’d etched the warning onto the lounge wall that had postponed the video shoot, and then with the wind outside had gotten Crystal and her blind boyfriend to come indoors—but parlor tricks would not suffice for Virgil, who remained the last human downstairs. Thorn would need a major distraction for him: perhaps some sort of emergency in Cole’s condo unit? Could Thorn use his newfound power to cause a ruckus upstairs?<
br />
For Thorn had discovered that he wielded new power here in the Sanctuary. For one thing, he could create a limited electrical current—an ability that felt similar to the way he’d sent electrical signals through Amy’s brain when he’d possessed her in Piedmont Park. He recalled horror stories he’d heard of human cadavers’ nerve endings being stimulated in Sanctuaries, resulting in walking, talking corpses controlled by demons. Oh, what vile prestige a malicious demon could gain here! But so far, Thorn’s increase in power had gained him only greater frustration at his inability to solve these people’s problems.
And in the back of his mind, that ages-old question lingered: Why? Why did he have more power here? Since this was his first time in a Sanctuary, he had no clue, and he doubted his foes—who had certainly gained the same powers here—knew either. It was just one more mystery to add to the mountain that Thorn had collected ever since his eyes were opened.
It was a mystery he had no time for. Not now. There was only one mystery he needed to solve tonight, once for each human: What is the choice that Virgil is supposed to make? What purpose is he here for tonight? The Judge had made clear that the humans’ survival depended on the “Big Goddamned Choice”— the Judge’s eloquent term—that each of them was supposed to make tonight. “So you ice those suckers before they can make their choices, okay buddy?” the Judge had said. So far, Thorn hadn’t even begun to discern what these choices were.
Scratch.
Thorn looked up at the noise. So did Virgil.
Just outside, on a wooden pillar lit by the swimming pool’s soft blue light, a long vertical scratch mark stretched two feet top to bottom. One of them floated right next to it. An early bird.
Virgil stood.
“No!” Thorn called to him. Thorn had been trying to avoid direct persuasion, but with his adversaries beginning to arrive, he was desperate. “Hey, hey, hey. Get out of here. Go upstairs.”
Virgil winced. Some part of the man heard him, but the demon outside was whispering too, and the guard’s curiosity was palpable. Virgil approached the window and observed the vertical mark from his safe position indoors.
