by Todd Grimson
It took some time to come all the way back, to form an intentional thought. What a strangeness, to see that the simple, coarse cotton gown had been replaced by … oh, the affectation of ridiculously torn blue jeans, a muslin blouse … she had to move. She put on her sandals and, without looking back, departed the room, a casual motion of her left hand extinguishing the candle’s flame.
Out in the hall again, she remembered Christine. She went back to visit the pond of milk. The wind chimes were going fiercely again, the music a sort of ghostly battle between cherubim and seraphim, a high children’s choir at a distance, maybe electronically altered—she stared upward, at the now open skylight, sensing somehow that Chris was up there, maybe levitating … but she couldn’t find her.
“I’ll be back,” she said, to give herself courage, and went out the door.
Whereupon she was immediately grabbed by Jonathan, immensely strong hands seizing her by the shoulders and flinging her, so that she went tumbling into the dead-end portion of the hall. Getting up on her hands and knees, feeling roughed up, she was terrified. Jonathan had her cornered, and there seemed to be something in his eyes that knew she;d fucked up his family. He also seemed a little swifter on his feet than she expected him to be. “You … bitch,’ he got out in a low voice, the first time she’d heard one of them talk.
“Get back!” Lisa said, trying to sound authoritative. Jonathan reached forward—again, faster than he should have—and ripped her blouse down the middle, with the same hand coming right up to grab her by the throat.
She got out an awful, choked-off sound, and then he started to squeeze, she couldn’t breathe. She struggled, hitting, kicking, trying to fling her body’s weight all to one side and then the other, wishing desperately she knew some kung fu, but nothing was happening—
“Jonathan, stop! Jonathan! Omo-poke-eye-cha! Omo-poke-eye-cha!”
Lisa found herself dropped onto the floor. All she was trying to do was catch her breath. It was Ariel who had saved her. Jonathan stood frozen, glowering. He wanted to kill her. As Lisa got up, swallowing, rubbing her neck, she didn’t know if he could have finished her off or not. There were tears in her eyes, but they were not emotional tears. They were physical.
“Are you all right?” Ariel asked.
She nodded. She couldn’t speak.
“Do you want to go home now? If you do, I’ll walk you to your car.”
She said hoarsely, “My blouse.”
“Yes, that’s bad, you can’t go home like that. You’re about Wanda’s size, aren’t you? Come.”
Lisa cleared her throat again and said, “What about him?”
“Go downstairs with the others, Jonathan. Get out of here.”
“How do you kill them?” she asked when he was out of range.
“Shoot them in the head. Hit them in the head with an axe.”
It was as she had thought. Just like in Night of the Living Dead.
A room she hadn’t tried. Wanda was not there. A television, clothes all over—a very messy room. In the closet, Lisa picked out a leopard-patterned top with spaghetti straps. She took off the torn blouse and put this one on. Ariel watched her, frankly looking at her breasts.
“You think less of me, ” Lisa said, gazing into his eyes. “I’m not a whore.”
“I like whores,” he said easily. “It is my weakness. I have evil desires, evil thoughts.”
They started walking out, down the now quiet dimly lit halls.
“I am worse than you know,” he added after a while. As he opened the red door for her, standing aside, he said, “I didn’t like what they did with you tonight.”
As they came to her car, Lisa asked, “Will Christine be all right?”
In the darkness, the stale wind, he shrugged. “More of the same. She was jealous of you. She wanted powers of her own. But … I heard Wanda say it takes a month to do what she wants to do.”
Lisa started her car. She turned it around and drove out of the estate. Ariel had made his own deal. If it came down to it, she thought he’d watch her die if that was what Boro wanted to see. Tomorrowland. Was that really what she had been through? A preen-actment of what was to come?
Popcorn had waited up for her. Lisa saw the look on his face, and “I love you, I hate you” started going through her mind.
“I’m really tired,” she said, but he was full of lust, full of love. “Don’t,” Lisa said in a spoiled, irritated voice.
“What happened to your neck?”
“I’ve got a scratch.”
“Are you drunk?”
“No,” Lisa said. She lifted up her hips to take off her pants. Then her underwear, and she laughed.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” he asked.
“No, you can stay if you want. Do you think you could get me something to eat?”
“Like what? What do you want?”
“I don’t know. Some bread and cheese. Whatever you would get for yourself.”
Lisa was intentionally being a bitch, sort of to see how much he would take. If he noticed her voice was unusually hoarse, he didn’t comment on it. It was funny to see him wait on her, bringing her in a plate with slices of apples, two kinds of cheese, etcetera … anything he brought her would have seemed stupid right now, she knew. She pitied him, she had turned on him to such an extent.
He waited, lying there next to her, as she ate a little bit. When she said she wanted a Coke, he went and got her a Coke. He had probably never waited on anyone like this in his life. She just wanted a sip or two of the Coke.
Then she turned off the light. He waited, she could hear his breathing … as he slowly moved his hand over her thigh, finally getting up enough nerve to try her cunt. She let him. Whatever he imagined she’d been up to this evening, he still wanted to fuck her! It didn’t matter! No, it made it better for him, in a way.
He crept down there, parted her thighs in the dark, spread them apart, and commenced eating her, doing his best. She relaxed and dreamed dreams utterly disconnected from Selwyn Popcorn’s tongue.
Then he sought to fuck her, but he couldn’t get his hard-on together. He tried to stuff it in. He sighed, big time, and rolled onto his back. His hand went behind her neck, hoping to gently urge her down there, to put it in her mouth, but she didn’t want to, she didn’t respond. He sighed again, realizing that this was going nowhere, and it was nobody’s fault but his own.
Lisa fell easily to sleep, exhausted, her dreams a disturbing review of what she had been through and seen. She needed the rest. She had no idea what time it was when Popcorn left her room.
THIRTY-THREE
Who would be the suspects if she was killed in the manner of the tableau vivant? Nehi Laughton, for sure, since he seemed to be overwrought. Selwyn Popcorn, possibly, depending on his alibi. Perhaps Code. And maybe the ghost of Roy Hardway. Also Jonathan and Lou. And, hypothetically, strangers who might have seen the video, if in fact it did exist. Connections and mysterious disappearances … it would be a confused case to try to solve.
It had shaken her, this Tomorrowland thing. It had been much worse than she had ever anticipated—she had thought she could breeze through it, playact, remain blase … but she was deeply bothered, scared to her soul.
The only solution was to kill Boro first.
If it could be done.
Cut off his head like a chicken. She needed a machete and, once more, a handgun of some sort, to protect her from the Jonathans she might encounter in that house.
Tomorrowland. She kept seeing that first, unbelievable reflection in the overhead mirror above the bed. How sickening. The endpoint of pornography, of fetishism … to open her up. It became very impersonal, Lisa thought, she could see how serial killers remained unmoved by the slaughter, the blood, because they fetishized….
The important point for her was: Boro had lied. He might have been joking there at the end, very blackly, about how the photo op was incomplete, he might just have been trying to shock, to horrify,
but it had been the wrong moment, and besides, he had proven unreliable in regard to Christine. He had said he would let her take Christine out of there. It hadn’t happened. The fuck.
So he had to be destroyed.
At Regime, on Melrose Avenue, lonely, absurd, Lisa considered her financial situation. She felt a desperate need to shop, to buy new clothes whether she’d ever get to wear them or not. She had several thousand in the bank, more to come from Idea One. She put down plastic for a plum-colored slip dress and Danskin black cotton fishnet tights. Shopping. Nothing mattered. She was fucked, so why not? It was a distraction.
She ducked in someplace to have a quick lunch. And then, out the window, it couldn’t be—
In the company of two young women and another young man, it looked like Tavinho strolling by. Lisa ran out to see, to catch up if it was really—yes, she could tell by the way he walked.
“Tavinho!” she called, and he turned, he saw her … and the first thing he did, distinctly, was frown. Maybe Brad had really been an asshole to him. It didn’t matter. If this thin blond girl was his girlfriend, that didn’t matter either.
In a moment, though, he smiled at her, and she knew, in total innocence, that things would be fine. She threw her arms around him, greeting him without inhibition, like in Brazil.
Actually, Tavinho had nearly decided to forget about Lisa Nova once and for all. Her affections were not reliable, to say the least. She was a temptress. There was no sign that she would ever love him as he loved her.
When he had the opportunity to come to L.A. to attend a seminar, he wrote, because he knew Lisa’s home base was here. There was no reply. It was a little maddening to come to Los Angeles and not know if she was even here. She might be in Europe. Or have moved. He had both her phone number and address, but he called several times and only got her machine. Although it was in some way pleasing simply to hear her recorded voice, Tavinho did not want to leave his cousin’s number and then never hear from her, that was too painful, to be a part of her Latin American adventure that could not survive the cold light of the States. He despaired. Borrowing his cousin’s automobile, he drove by her address on Sunday afternoon, only to see that it had burned down. Behind yellow tape, police technicians combed through the debris.
Stunned, afraid she was hurt, Tavinho asked one of them what had happened to the person who lived there. Nobody wanted to tell him anything. Back at his cousin’s, excited, alarmed, needing to take some action, Tavinho called Lisa’s brother in New York. He told Track about the explosion, and in turn Track told him to try this Adrian Gee. But the fellow at Gee’s was unhelpful and unfriendly.
Tavinho said to his companions, “I’ll meet you in the restaurant,” and lingered with Lisa; once she kissed him with her tongue in his mouth, some of the initial distance seemed to dissolve. She was nervous, she kept touching him, as if afraid he would melt into thin air.
“I need to see you,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about you all the time.”
“Your friends keep telling me to go back to Rio,” he said, underplaying whatever resentment he might have felt. Seeing her honest bewilderment, hearing the expressiveness of her “Really?” Tavinho said, “It doesn’t matter. Here we are.”
“We have to go somewhere,” Lisa said. “We have to be together.” She meant, and he knew this, that they had to fuck.
The logistics were awkward.
“Where I’m staying,” Lisa said, thinking aloud, “I don’t think … it wouldn’t be right to have you come over, I mean to come into my room. I’ll do it, but … there are so many people there. I’m staying with Selwyn Popcorn.” Her eyes said what this meant.
They were on the sidewalk, with people walking by them, teenagers and old ladies and stylish women, a transvestite.
“I’ve always loved you,” Tavinho said. “You’ve known that from the start.”
It thrilled her to hear it; she smiled, deliciously, eyes lighting up, forgetting that she had been “killed” in Tomorrowland.
She said she loved Tavinho, he wouldn’t believe how much.
“Where are you staying? Give me the phone number, the address.”
They had to borrow a piece of paper and a ballpoint pen from inside a shoe store.
“I’m at my cousin Paulo’s … but it’s not the best place for privacy I warn you.”
“Tonight some people are coming over to Selwyn’s for dinner: Manning Spendlove, for instance …” She saw he didn’t know the name. “What about if I come over a little later? Will that be all right? If you want to, we can go somewhere else.”
“I don’t want you to embarrass him unnecessarily,” Tavinho said, “or … make your position difficult there, if you’re dependent.”
“He won’t question me. I’ll be there by … nine-thirty, as close to that as I can.”
They kissed again, and parted for the moment.
THIRTY-FOUR
That evening Popcorn did not appreciate it when he realized she was going to leave, that she intended to slip away.
“This is really pretty bad,” he said, having followed her up to her room, his guests left downstairs.
“I’m sorry,” she said, helplessly embarrassed.
“It’s all right,” he said then, changing his mind, maybe seeing himself in a bad role. “I told you that you could use my place as a hideout, and you did. It’s all right with me, really. Maybe at some point, when and if you think I can handle it, you’ll tell me what’s going on. You could tell me, you know. If there’s any way to help you, I’d try.”
Lisa felt bad. Not that bad, because she felt she’d paid her way in terms of access to her body but in his own fucked-up way Selwyn Popcorn still wished her well.
It was a long drive. She did some things to throw off any potential tail, but she realized that maybe no one was watching. It didn’t feel like it right now.
The address wasn’t so hard to find, but it was farther east than she’d imagined, and she felt nervous. She got out and, locking her car, noticed all the candy and magazines in the small backseat.
Tavinho awaited her. Paulo and his girlfriend, Barbara, had gone to a movie. After one fuck, a short rest, then an exquisite, timeless one
that went from tender, minute sensation to slick but frictive stormy intercourse, draining them both, Lisa, lying in Tavinho’s arms, could not help but compare these orgasms with the ones that she had recently been able, on occasion, to close her eyes and have with Popcorn … it was like those other ones had never touched this part of her, like she was a fruit with juice inside, and she’d been waiting for this slowly rising reservoir of hot juice to be released. Every muscle in her body felt relaxed now.
Paulo and his girlfriend came home and went to bed—they had classes in the morning, so they set the alarm, they talked, Tavinho went out to say something to his cousin while Lisa just remained in the bedroom, lightly covering herself with the sheet.
When Tavinho said to her, having brought them something to drink, “I have this feeling that you’re in trouble. Why don’t you talk to me about it?” maybe he was remembering the failed exorcism in Bahia, putting it together with the blown-up apartment, maybe it was something in her manner … anyway, she told him everything she could. It took a long time but he was extremely interested, he listened there in the dark as she talked about Boro, the spell, the pain of being tattooed and why she had done it, the miracle of Manoa, Christine, Duane Moyer … when something was not clear, Tavinho said, “Wait, just a moment,” and asked her to clarify. She was aware that a lot of it didn’t cast her in a very good light, and she told these parts coldly and severely, judging herself … until at last it seemed that Tavinho knew what was going on, the full weirdness and horror of it. He gently kissed her cheek as she shed tears while describing the Tomorrowland scene.
“Nobody tied me up and made me do it. Nobody put a gun to my head. They just… suckered me.”
“Tell me more about the part with the jaguar. You said you thought
you knew how Boro might be killed. I didn’t stop you … but how is that?”
“Like a chicken,” Lisa said. “I’ve got to do it with a machete—chop off his head.” Her voice became a bit excited; she moved her legs in the bed.
“You have to do it?” Tavinho asked.
“Yes. My hand. Anyone else, he’d just laugh. But through me … the mother jaguar will help me do it.”
“I will help you, too. I can maybe keep the others from interfering with you. There are a lot of variables, you realize. Like: What will Ariel do? The way you describe him … his attitude is ambiguous. You sense that he likes you, but—”
“But I also think he might find pleasure in watching me die. Yes,” she said, seeing it, sorrowful. “I think he would.” Then, after a few moments, she said, “I’ve even had the feeling … that Boro wants me to kill him, like a suicide, I don’t know.”
“Maybe he’s lived too long.”
It didn’t matter if Boro wanted it or not, Lisa thought. She couldn’t worry about his psychology at this point.
She wondered if, by sleeping here, she was fraying the Popcorn thing just about beyond repair. Or no, she could repair it, with a blowjob on her knees, but she wouldn’t do it. Tavinho seemed willing to die for her, to risk his life. She didn’t think she was worthy of such love.
THIRTY-FIVE
The next day they tried some simple experiments with her powers, to see what she could do. The process amused them—and they were still full of elation, from having found each other—but they kept straight faces, it was interesting … and Lisa, naturally enough, wanted to demonstrate that she could be believed. Tavinho had listened to her fantastic story, ready to accept it all; some show of magic here would prove she was not crazy, that the rest of it was also true.
At breakfast, without touching them, Lisa rolled some oranges around the table—the smell of the orange peel penetrating deeply into her nostrils—but she could not lift them, could not levitate even one into the air.
