High Life (19 page)
“This’ll be an experience for both of us, Jackie.” Ryan glanced at Rosie and shook his head. “Jesus … What happens to some people?”
“You’re the one who’s going to give it to her.”
“It’s an opportunity. Who wouldn’t?”
“Most people.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes. He had small feet. He laughed.
“You wouldn’t take it if it was offered?”
“Doesn’t do it for me.”
“Probably ain’t extreme enough.”
“Yeah, right.”
Ryan was down to his shorts. He picked up his jacket, took an envelope from it, and spun it into my lap.
“Brought you another present.”
I looked inside—several glossies.
“Have a look. I won’t think any the worse of you.”
I dropped the envelope on the bed. Ryan made a disappointed face. Over on the floor a naked Rosie was flat on her back, legs spread, talking to herself. The plastic crinkled beneath her. Ryan winked at me and moved toward her.
“Time to get on.”
From behind he looked like some huge slug heading for food. He didn’t have a waist, the fat on his guts filled up what hollows there should have been, and the cheeks of his ass were so full his crack was just a tight vertical line running between his legs to the small of his back.
He stood in front of Rosie for a while and stuck his toe into her cunt. She ground herself against it. Then he got down on hands and knees and crawled up her until his hard-on was in her mouth. He pushed it in as far as he could. She took it until she was about to heave, then told him to turn around. The cheeks of his ass stayed together even in this position and she had to use her hands to pull them apart. When she saw his hole she groaned and put her nose against it. Her tits rose and her eyelids fluttered like she was getting a rush.
“Squat over me, baby.”
Rosie’s bent legs trembled. Ryan looked like a small Sumo wrestler, hunkered down over her head, arms braced against his knees. His dick looked ugly and dark against the white skin of his belly. Rosie pressed her mouth home. I watched the sides of her mouth roll as she worked her tongue, but it went on too long to hold my attention so I took the photos out of the envelope and looked through them.
Five shots of two bodies, different angles. A guy on his back, a woman slumped on top, his bone curving into her cunt. Both of them locked together in rigor. Some hotel room, cheap prints on the walls, pieces of plaster missing. Their heads were covered with plastic convenience-store bags, cinched tight with silver duct tape at the neck. I could see the logo for a liquor company on the one the woman was wearing.
Wild. Real dead people having sex. An image so shocking that for a moment I couldn’t make sense of the pictures, couldn’t arrange the collection of limbs and asses into two joined people. When I did I got hard, so I put them away for later.
Rosie was murmuring up at Ryan.
“Are you ready, baby? Can you do it now? Squeeze it out of that big ass of yours. C’mon, baby, c’mon.”
Ryan concentrated and there was a moment of complete stillness, his face turned red, Rosie lay motionless with her mouth open. Then he grunted and a flood of liquid shit slopped out of his ass, filling her mouth and covering her face in a lumpy brown sheet, like it had been tipped out of a bucket.
She coughed and swallowed and coughed again, blowing shit out of her nose, wiping it from her eyes. Her tongue circled her mouth once, trying to lick more of the stuff in. Then she twisted her head away and puked. But Ryan wasn’t finished yet. After a couple of stuttering farts something more solid emerged, a short thin turd that dropped out of him and lay across her ear and the side of her throat like a dead snake. She took hold of it and pressed it into the space between her breasts. Ryan smirked at me, then rolled her over and butt-fucked her. He could have done anything he wanted, Rosie was off in some shit-heaven dreamland.
Ryan took a shower and dressed. I opened a window and sat counting the minutes until I could get away. The smell in the room was appalling. Rosie lay on her plastic, her head in a pool of shit. She had her eyes closed and she made noises like a baby sleeping.
“Looks like she enjoyed it.” Ryan tightened his tie. “Fucking nitro, haven’t had a solid shit for five years. You think Miss Vernier is into this kind of thing?”
“Who?”
“Your piece with the limo.”
Ryan took out a small notebook, tore off a page, and handed it to me.
“The address DMV gave me, same as where the limo went.”
“You followed her home?”
“I’m interested in the company you keep. Dress smart, she’s big money.”
Ryan and I left Rosie fugued out on the floor and headed back into the world. Late afternoon, the sky was clear and there was a nice breeze coming up from the ocean. Traffic was starting to pick up along the boulevard.
“You want to grab a coffee, Jack?”
“No.”
“She forgot to pay you, huh?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Sure.”
“Maybe I just like her.”
Ryan laughed.
“Don’t get those photos too sticky.”
Then he got in his car and drove away.
On the flats of Beverly Hills they go out of their way to flaunt their wealth. In Malibu they do their best to hide it. Up in the hills, anyway, where the really big money settles itself. More space, better views, enforceable seclusion. The roads are narrow and winding and they don’t have sidewalks. The only things that show people live there at all are the occasional driveways disappearing between screens of vegetation.
Access to the address Ryan had given me was blocked by a pair of black iron gates ten feet high, set into a solid stone wall. Through them I could see redwoods and pines and a lot of other European-looking trees. I parked on a grass verge and thought. How to explain knowing her address? I couldn’t tell her I got it from a cop. So I generated some bullshit about knowing a guy in the DMV, which was kind of related to the truth, and when I had it straight in my head I got out of the car and pressed the intercom by the gate. No one answered, but there must have been a camera somewhere because after a while the gates swung open. I drove through and along an avenue of trees that opened out, about a quarter of a mile later, into an area of gently rising wild grass surrounded by woodland. I’d expected something more formal, more landscaped and designed, but it looked like Bella’s ideas on gardening were strictly low-maintenance.
The house, at the top of the rise, was large, but not obscene. Old stone, slate roof, leaded windows—more New England than Malibu. I rang the house bell and looked back the way I’d come. I could see a slice of ocean above the trees.
Bella answered the door herself and she didn’t seem pissed off to see me—the opposite, in fact. I got ready with my story, but I didn’t need it.
“I thought that must have been you last night. The driver noticed your headlights.”
For a moment I was thrown. Then it clicked, she’d mistaken Ryan’s tail for me.
“I don’t like sleeping by myself.”
She reached out and ran her fingers through my hair.
“Come inside.”
The interior of the house wasn’t anywhere near as gothic as the outside. Instead of antiques and shadows, the decor was contemporary and there was a feeling of light and space that could only have come from an extensive remodeling of the original layout.
Bella led me up a flight of stairs and along a corridor to a suite of rooms—bedroom, bathroom, a dressing room, and another room with the door closed. The windows of the bedroom were on a corner of the building and overlooked a large rectangular pool on one side and an area of grass and forest on the other.
“Nice house.”
“I like the seclusion. One of the advantages of wealth is the distance it can buy you from other people.”
“One among many.”
She undid my fly. I came out hard in her hand and we fucked a solid hour. By the end of it I was sore and she was smeared with come and glit.
While she took a shower I wandered through the suite. The style of the rooms was deco minimalist—smooth unornamented surfaces, furniture with clean lines, nothing unnecessary. In a wardrobe that formed one wall of her dressing room I found her clothes. They hung with department-store precision—a lot of short-skirted suits, dark colors, no patterns, cut from the best fabrics in the world. On the rack they looked almost conservative, but I knew how Bella’s body transformed them. The recessed dressing table in the opposite wall was bare of cosmetics or jewelry except for a platinum compact and an eye pencil.
I ran my hands over things, over polished hardwood and flawless joinery, over materials and furnishings the rest of the planet could never dream of owning. I breathed in the smell of money.
The closed door off the bedroom opened onto a small room without windows that held video equipment—a couple of semi-professional cameras on tripods, a two-tape VHS editing desk, three monitors in a row above it.
I was looking at the controls of the editing machine when Bella walked up behind me and touched my shoulder.
“Do you know anything about them? Or are you only interested in the end product? What you see on the screen?”
She was wrapped in a towel and there was still moisture in the hollow of her neck.
“I’m interested in the life around it.”
“I spoke to Welks this morning. You should call him, he’s warming to the idea of another presenter.”
“You pressured him.”
“I’m a stockholder, I’m entitled to make suggestions. Did you enjoy mixing with those pigs last night? Is that really the life you want?”
“It’d be better than the one I’ve got now.”
She kissed me and smiled, and it was a smile that unnerved me. Not passion or compassion or pity or love … but satisfaction.
“Go and clean up, Jack, we’re having dinner soon. There’s someone I think you’ll find it interesting to meet.”
The dining room was on the ground floor. Bella held my arm as we went down the stairs. I expected to hear the bustle of cooks and maids, but the house was quiet.
“Are you good at surprises?”
“Sure.”
“I hope so.”
She pushed a door open and we walked into some sort of predining area, a room with couches and a bar—a place for cocktails. A man stood at a window, looking out at the grounds. His back was toward us but he turned as we entered. And in that two-second movement I understood what Bella meant about surprises.
“Jack, I’d like you to meet my father, Powell Vernier.”
There was laughter in her voice, like she was enjoying a joke. But it was lost on me. I was too busy trying to deal with the implications of what I was seeing. The man in front of me had silver hair. He’d picked me up in a Jaguar on the drag, and later he’d dumped me in an alley. And his presence here moved the thoughts I’d had the night before, about Bella’s blow job and tattoo, from bleary late-night brainshit to something with a much more definite connection to reality.
Powell ignored me and looked hard at Bella.
“Is this wise?”
“Whether it is or not, he’s here.”
“You invited him?”
“Shall we go through?”
Powell snorted and turned away from her abruptly. He stalked through a pair of open sliding doors that connected with the dining room proper. Bella and I followed.
The table was laid with crystal and silver, pale roses were arranged in the center. On a counter under a row of windows, covered metal dishes rested on warming plates. I thought someone might appear to serve us, but Bella and Powell moved to the food and helped themselves. Bella caught my look.
“I don’t like other people in the house.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“We have cleaners and a cook, even a chauffeur. But none of them lives on the property. And when they are here I don’t allow them to show themselves.”
We ate in silence for a while. Bella shot glances at me like she was waiting for something to happen. Powell pretended I wasn’t in the room. I just sat there and wondered what the fuck was going on.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
Bella had stopped eating and was looking at me incredulously. “About what?”
“About Powell.”
“Well, I wasn’t sure …”
“If I was part of it? I am. What do you think of our … social conscience?”
“I don’t have much to go on, do I?”
“I’m sorry about the spray but it’s a necessary security measure. Gratitude can turn to greed so easily. And we didn’t treat you because it wouldn’t have been ethical working on someone I was interested in. Besides, you aren’t homeless.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“Powell has more experience.”
“Why didn’t you just let me wake up and send me home?”
“I wasn’t sure I knew you well enough. I didn’t know how you’d react.”
Powell looked up from his plate.
“You know him well enough now?”
He’d cut the food on his plate into small pieces, but he hadn’t eaten more than a couple of mouthfuls. I checked his eyes and realized why they’d seemed so unresponsive when I saw him on the drag—they were pinned. The guy was smacked. Bella ignored him.
“We’re somewhat jealous of our privacy.”
“Leaving me in an alley was the only alternative?”
“An alley?”
“I woke up with a couple of tramps trying to take my pants off.”
Powell chuckled softly. Bella turned on him.
“I told you to be careful with him.”
“What would you have done?”
“I certainly would not have left him in an alley.” Then, to me, “Whereabouts?”
“Hollywood.”
“Hollywood! For Christ’s sake, Powell, what were you thinking?”
“I was thinking about our security.”
“Are you sure?”
“Meaning?”
There was a calculated blandness to Powell’s expression that made me feel I’d missed something. Bella changed the subject.
“Would you call us philanthropic, Jack?”
“There really is a free healthcare thing?”
“Of course. It isn’t anything particularly exhaustive—a checkup, some medication, some money—but I think it makes a difference.”
“I thought you didn’t like people.”
Powell made a short barking noise which I guessed was laughter. Bella looked viciously at him.
“Certain people. The people we help have so little impact on the world it isn’t worth judging them.”
“As you see, my daughter is completely selfless.”
Bella gave him a false smile.
“But you give so much to the project, Father, don’t you do it out of a sense of selflessness too?”
“You know why I do it.”
“Yes, I do.” The bitterness in Bella’s voice was unmistakable. She caught herself and looked apologetically at me.
“You’ll have to excuse us, we’ve been working very hard.”
Later. Upstairs in her bed. She fucked madly, clawing at my skin, sweating into my eyes. It felt like something was trying to fight its way out of her body and fuse with my heart.
In the dark, afterwards, I smoked and stared at the slug-trails of my come caught in the moonlight on her legs.
“Why did Powell act like a messenger boy when he picked me up? He didn’t say anything about being a doctor.”
“He thinks it separates him from what we do. A precaution in case anyone recognizes him.”
“He doesn’t like me.”
“He hates you. He’s hated every lover I’ve ever had.”
“Have there been many?”
“Would it worry you?”
“I’m just wondering how long I’ll last.”
“You’ll last as long as you want.”
“It’s my choice?”
“Everything is your choice. It’s the same for all of us. Self-determination—it’s what makes us human.”
“If you’ve got enough money.”
“If you’ve got the strength to decide what you really want and then to act on that desire and make it a reality.”
“Sounds simple.”
“Only the weak allow themselves to be thwarted, Jack.”
“What did you mean outside the Bradbury building, when you asked me about love?”
“I was asking you to make a choice.”
“About us?”
“About what you want for yourself. I can offer you everything you dream of. But there are things about me you might find unusual.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, one step at a time, I think.”
Bella smiled and swung her legs out of the bed.
“I have to confess something, Jack. I’ve been less than frank with you.”
“What about?”
I held my breath, wondering if she was going to make some kidney revelation.
“How I found you after the party in Bel Air.”
“You spoke to my trick.”
“I don’t think he was in a mood to do you any favors.”
“Yeah. How, then?”
“When Powell picked you up you had a card in your wallet—your escort service.”
“Oh.”
“Do you remember anything from that night?”
“Between getting sprayed and waking up? No.”
“Nothing?”
“Well …”
“Come with me.”
In the video suite she pressed part of the wall, it slid back to reveal a shelf of video cassettes. She took one, slotted it into the editing machine, and fired it up. I saw myself unconscious on a gurney. Clinical surroundings—green walls, green surgical fabric. My pants were around my knees and Bella had my dick in her mouth. When I came she let it spurt over her lips.
She killed the tape.
“The drug we use allows certain physical responses. That’s one of them.”
“I thought it was a dream.”
“Does it bother you?”
“Why would it?”
“Taking advantage of an unconscious person might be considered an abuse of power.”
“But only the weak allow themselves to be thwarted, right?”
