Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

THREE

There was no reply from within, nor any sound of movement in response to his knocking. He knocked a second time, and then—after a short pause—a third. Still there was no response, so he tried the latch. The door was unlocked. He pushed it open, and stepped out of the sunlight into the cool interior of the house.

At first glance he assumed that he'd misunderstood what Katya had told him, and the house was not occupied after all; merely used as a storage space of some kind. The room before him, which was large and high-ceilinged, was little more than a junk-room, filled with furniture and bric-a-brac. But as his eyes became more accustomed to the murky light, after the blaze of sun outside, he began to make sense of what he was seeing. Yes, the place was over-filled, but the contents of the room were far from junk. On the wall to the left hung an enormous tapestry depicting a scene of medieval revelry; on the wall opposite was a series of white marble bas-reliefs that looked to have been filched from a Roman temple. In the far corner, close to a great oak door, were more slabs of stone, these carved with hieroglyphics. There was an elegant chaise longue in front of the massive fireplace; and a table, its legs elaborately carved with baroque grotesqueries, stood in the middle of the room. All of this had presumably been removed from the big house at some point, but that hardly explained the strange confusion of periods and styles.

Moving deeper into the room, Todd called out again to announce his presence. Again, there was no reply. He didn't linger now to study the furniture or the antiquities, but crossed the room to the large oak door. Here again he knocked, but receiving no reply, he turned the carved handle, and pushed the door open. Given its size, he'd expected it to be heavy, but it wasn't. On the other side was a wide hallway, the walls of which were hung with white masks. No, not masks, life-casts; white plaster faces, all caught with that expression of eerie, enforced repose that such masks always wore. He'd had similar things made of his own face, by special effects men. Once for the face wound in Gunner, once for a bullet wound. It was an eerie experience, to look at the finished work. This is what I'll look like when I'm dead, he'd thought when he'd been shown the final results.

There were thirty or forty masks displayed on the wall; mostly of men. He thought that he vaguely recognized some of the faces, but he couldn't have put names to any of them. They were all handsome; some of them almost beautiful. He remembered Katya's crazy talk about the parties she'd had in the house. How she'd seduced Valentino. Was this collection the inspiration for that fantasy? Had she dreamed of fucking the famous because she had plaster copies of their faces up on her wall?

The door at the other end of the wall of life-masks was, like the last, deceptively light. This time he paused to puzzle out why, and examining it a little more closely, had his answer. It was fake. The large rusted nails weren't iron at all, but carved and stippled wood; the patina of antiquity had been achieved by a skilled painter. It was a door from a movie-set; all illusion. And if the doors had been made that way, what about the tapestry and the bas-reliefs and table carved with grotesqueries? They were all most likely fakes. Stolen off a back-lot, or bought from a studio fire-sale. None of it was real.

He pushed the door open, and came into a second room, this one much smaller than the first, but just as cluttered. On the wall opposite him hung a large mirror, its gilt frame elaborately carved with naked figures, men and women knotted together in configurations which looked both sensual and tormented. He seldom let a mirror go by without putting it to use, and even now—knowing he wouldn't like what he saw—he paused and assessed his reflection. He was a sad sight, his clothes in disarray from his trip through the shrubbery, his face like an inept copy of its finer self. He wondered if perhaps he shouldn't turn back; he was in no condition to present himself to Katya. Even as he was thinking about this the door to the left of the mirror creaked a little, and—caught by the wind—opened a couple of inches. Forsaking his sorry reflection, he went to the door and peered into the room beyond.

The sight before him put all thought of retreat from his mind. Inside was an enormous four-poster bed, its columns decorated in the same lushly erotic style as the gilded frame of the mirror. A swath of dark purple velvet hung in ripe folds like a half-raised curtain. The red pillows heaped on the bed were just as excessive, creamy silk fringed with lace. The sheet, which was also silk, was pulled back, so that the sleeper was left uncovered.

It was Katya, of course.

There she lay, face down; her hair unloosed, her body naked.

He stood at the door, enraptured. The pillow she lay on was so soft and deep that her face was almost concealed, but he could still see the high curve of her cheek, the tender pink of her ear. Was she awake behind her pale lids, he wondered, her nakedness a deliberate provocation? He suspected not. There was something too artless about the way her legs were splayed, too childlike about the way her hands were tucked up against her breasts. And the final proof? She was snoring. If this was indeed a performance then that was a touch of genius. The perfectly human thing which made all the rest so believable.

His eyes went to the cleft of her buttocks; to the gloss of the hair that showed between her legs. He was suddenly stupid with lust.

He took a step toward the bed. The floor creaked under his weight, but thankfully the noise wasn't loud enough to stir her. He continued his approach, his gaze fixed upon her face, looking for the merest flutter of a lash. But there was none. She was deeply asleep; and dreaming. He was close enough now to see that her eyes were in motion behind her lids, watching something happening in another place.

At the bedside, he dropped down onto his haunches, his left knee popping loudly. There was a faint dusting of gooseflesh on her limbs, he saw.

He couldn't resist the temptation to reach out and touch her skin, as though he might smooth the gooseflesh away with his fingertips. Surely she would wake now, he thought. But no, she slept on. The only sign that she might be surfacing from sleep was the slowing of the motion of her pupils. The dream was leaving her; or she was departing from the dream.

He was suddenly alarmed. What would she think if she woke to find him this close to the bed, his intent so unquestionably voyeuristic? Perhaps he should go; quickly, before she woke. But he couldn't bring himself to move an inch. All he could do was kneel there, like a suppliant, his heart beating furiously, his face a furnace.

Then, in her sleep, she murmured something. He held his breath, trying to catch the words. It wasn't English she was speaking, it was an Eastern European language; probably her native Romanian. He could make no sense of what she was saying, of course, but there was a softness to the syllables; a neediness, which suggested they were supplications. She turned her face up from the pillow, and he saw that her expression was troubled. Her brow was furrowed, and there were tears welling beneath her lids. The sight of her distress bothered him. It brought back memories of his mother's tears, which he'd watched her shed so often as a child. Tears shed by a woman left to raise her sons alone. Tears of frustrated rage, sometimes; but more often tears of loneliness.

"Don't . . ." he said to her softly.

She heard him speaking, it seemed. Her entreaties grew quieter. Then she said: "Willem?"

"No . . ."

The frown nicking her brow deepened and her lids began to flutter. She was waking up now, no doubt of that. He got to his feet, and began to retreat to the door, keeping his eyes fixed on her face. Only when he reached the door did he finally, regretfully, relinquish sight of her and turn away.

As he slipped through the door he heard her speak. "Wait," she said.

He was sorely tempted to exit rather than turn and face her, but he resisted his cowardice and looked back toward the bed.

She had pulled the sheet a little way up, to partially cover her nakedness. Her eyes were open, and the tears her dreams had induced were now running down her cheeks. Despite them, she was smiling.

"I'm sorry," Todd said.

"For what?"

"Coming in here uninvited."

"No," she said sweetly. "I wanted you to come."

"Still, I shouldn't have stayed . . . watching you. It's just that you were talking in your sleep."

"Well it's nice to have somebody listening," she said. "It's a long time since anyone was with me when I slept." She wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

"Yes, I'm fine."

"Were you having a bad dream?"

"I can't remember," she said, glancing away from him. He knew from his acting coach what such glances indicated: a lie. She knew exactly what she'd been dreaming about; she just didn't want to tell him. Well, that was her business. God knows everybody was allowed their share of secrets.

"What time is it?" she said.

He glanced at his watch. 'Almost four-thirty."

"You want to go for a walk before it gets too dark?" she said.

"Sure."

She threw off her sheet, and got up out of bed, glancing up at Todd as she did so, as though to assure herself of his scrutiny.

"I'm going to bathe first," she said. "Would you do me a little favor in the meantime?"

"Sure."

"Go back to the Gaming Room, where we met last night, and—"

"Don't tell me. Fetch your whip."

She smiled. "You read my mind."

"As long as you promise not to be beating me with it."

"Nothing could be further from my mind," she said.

"Okay. I'll get it. .. but no beating."

"Take your time. There's still plenty of light in the sky."

He left her feeling oddly light-footed, pleased to have an errand from her. What did that say about their relationship? he wondered as he ran. That he was naturally subservient? Ready to do her will at the snap of her fingers? Well, if so, so.

He found his way back down to the big house without difficulty. Marco heard him in the Gaming Room, heavy-footed as ever, and came to see what all the noise was about.

"You okay?"

"That's all you ever ask. Am I okay? Yes. I'm better than okay."

"Good. Only I heard from Maxine—"

"Fuck Maxine."

"So it doesn't bother you?"

"No. We had a good run together. Now it's over."

He picked up the switch from the mantelpiece.

"What the hell is that?"

"What does it look like?"

He beat the air two or three times. The switch was beautifully balanced; he could imagine learning how to use it with considerable cunning. Perhaps she would let him stroke her body with it.

Marco studied him in silence for a few moments; then he said: "You never told me why you took your bandages off. Were they too tight?"

"I didn't take them off. She took them off."

"Who's 'she'?"

"The woman who owns this house. Katya Lupescu."

"I'm sorry, you've lost me."

Todd smiled. "No more explanations," he said. "You'll meet her later. I gotta go."

He left Marco standing at the door with a befuddled expression on his face, and headed out into the light again, climbing the slope toward Katya's house, aware that he was behaving like a man who'd just been given a new lease on life.

He didn't call her name as he entered this time. He simply made his way through the rooms of fake relics.

The sound of running water came from the room adjacent to the bedroom. Apparently, Katya was still running her bath.

He paused and looked around the bedroom. There were several enormous posters on the wall, which he had not noticed until now. Framed posters: one-sheets for movies, many decades old to judge by the stylized graphics and the yellowing of the paper they were printed on. The same image dominated all seven posters: that of a woman's face. She was represented in two of them as a waif, a child-woman lost in a predatory world. But in the others she'd matured beyond the orphan, and these were the images that reminded him of the woman he'd met last night— an exquisite femme fatale glowering from the frames as she planned her next act of anarchy. There was, of course, no question who the woman was. Her name was on the posters, big and bold. The Sorrows of Frederick, starring Katya Lupi. The Devil's Bride, starring Katya Lupi. She Is Destruction, starring Katya Lupi.

What the hell was he to make of this new piece of evidence? Of course it was possible that Katya had paid to have seven posters representing fictitious films printed on aged paper and framed to look like objects of antiquity, but it wasn't very likely. Was it possible this Katya Lupi—who bore such a resemblance to the Katya he knew—was hardly the same woman at all but a granddaughter, with an uncanny resemblance to her older relative? It was a more plausible solution than any other he could think of. Certainly the flawless woman he'd seen naked minutes before, her face without so much as a wrinkle upon it, could not be the woman who'd starred in these movies. There had to be some other explanation.

He was about to call out and announce his presence when he heard a soft intake of breath echoing off the bathroom walls. He went quietly to the door, and glanced in. In a large, old-fashioned ceramic bath, half-filled with water, lay Katya, her legs spread, her hips lifted clear of the water so that he could see how her fingers slid inside her. Her eyes were closed.

Not for the first time this afternoon, Todd could feel the head of his dick tapping out the rhythm of his pulse against the inside of his pants. But he had no desire to interrupt Katya's game. He was perfectly happy to watch her: her face in ecstasy, her breasts clearing from the water as her body arched, her legs lifted up and straddling the sides of the bath. The mysteries of who she was and how she came to be here suddenly seemed absurdly irrelevant. What the hell did it matter? Look at her!

"Did you bring it?"

He'd had his eyes on her cunt; but when he looked back up at her face she was staring at him, her expression fierce with need.

"The Teroarea. Did you bring it?"

He was mortified with embarrassment, but plainly she couldn't have cared less. She had other priorities.

"Yes," he said, showing her the switch. "I brought it."

"So use it."

"What?"

She lifted her hips even higher, spreading her legs to give him a full view of her sex. It was ripened by her own touches; but also, he knew, from the anticipation of his return.

"Touch it," she said. "Lightly."

His target stood proud of its hood, presented for his delectation.

"Please," she begged.

He took four steps to the bottom of the bath, keeping his eyes fixed upon her. He felt the weight of the switch in his hand. He'd never done anything remotely like this before, but something about the way her body was contorted to offer her sex up to him lent him confidence.

"Are you ready?"

"Just do it!"

He lifted the Terror. Her clitoris looked as hard and as red as a ruby. He lay the switch on it with a short little stab that made her sob.

"Again!" she demanded immediately.

The ruby was already a little redder.

"Again!" she said.

He struck her again, twice, three times, four and five and six, while every muscle in her body went rigid so as to be his perfect target.

"More?" he said.

There were tears on her face, but she simply growled at him between gritted teeth. He took it to mean yes, and went to work again, until the sweat was running from his face, and down his back, his breath was rough with exertion. But she would not let him stop. Her gaze, her sneer, her offered body spoke the same demand, and he dutifully answered it, over and over and over and—

Suddenly her eyes rolled up in her head. Her mouth opened. He could barely make sense of the words, they were so thick with feeling.

"Again." Her pupils had almost gone from sight. "Once."

He lifted the Terror, which for all its litheness, its lightness, suddenly felt brutal in his aching hand. Her body had started to shake. He was shaking too, now. But the Terror had its own imperative. Down it came once more.

She let out a cry that sounded more like something a bird would utter than a woman. Then her limbs lost their solidity, and her legs slipped gracefully off the sides of the bath. A tiny plume of crimson tinted the water.

He dropped the switch and retreated to the door, in a kind of childish terror at what he'd done; and at how much it had aroused him. Katya's eyes had closed. The expression on her face was one of childish contentment; an infant sleeping in the arms of innocence.

He slid down the doorframe into a squatting position, and there, exhausted by the intensity of the previous minutes, he must have briefly fallen asleep, because when he opened his eyes again the water was still moving, but Katya had vacated the tub. Vacated the bathroom too, in fact. He didn't have to get up to find her. He merely had to swing his head round, to see that she was sitting on the edge of the bed, her legs open, looking at her reflection in the long oval mirror. The expression of contentment had not left her face; but now there was a little smile on her lips too.

She had a wide repertoire of smiles, he thought; or at least it seemed he'd seen a lot in the short time they'd known one another. There was her teasing smile, her mischievous smile, her dark smile, her dry smile. This one had a little of everything in it. She knew he was watching her, so there was something of her performance smile in it. But it certainly wasn't phony. How fake could someone be when she'd just let her body lead her into such extremes? Surely he was one of a rare order of men: those to whom she'd given herself in that profound way. He thought of the tinted blood rising up between her legs, and felt a peculiar mingling of retroactive alarm (what had he been doing, risking her most tender anatomy with nothing but the look on her face to guide him?) and exhilaration that they'd come through it together: their first shared insanity. Whoever she was, trespasser, lunatic, stalker, star, all other possible definitions paled before this: she was the woman who had taught him how insignificant the flesh between his legs was when it came to the pleasuring of certain women.

"Come here," she said.

He pushed himself up off the doorframe and went over to her. "Let me see," she said, unbuckling his pants.

"I came . . ."

"I know."

His trousers were massively too big, which was the way he liked to wear them. As soon as his belt was unbuckled, they fell down. He was afraid his dick would make a sorry show by now, shriveled up in a crinkled skin of dried semen. But no. His erection had been so furiously hard it remained quite impressive, even though it was sodden. He could not imagine any other woman with whom he'd had sex taking such guileless pleasure in the perusal of his quarter-hard dick. Nor would any of those women have leaned forward, as Katya now did, and kissed it.

"May I look at you?" he said.

She assumed he didn't mean her face. She spread her legs. He hoisted his pants back up and went down on his knees.

"Does it hurt?" he said.

"Yes," she said. She put her hand on the back of his head, gently pressing him toward her body. "Look inside me," she said. "Don't be afraid. You did it. See what you did?"

He could see without opening her up. Her whole pubic region was puffy and inflamed.

"Go on, look," she said. "Enjoy what you did."

He gently parted her labia, which were sticky beneath his fingertips. Not blood, not sweat. Just the natural juices of an aroused body.

"You see?" she said, pressing his fingers deeper into her. She was like a furnace in there. "You've got thoughts going round in your head you never imagined having. Am I right?"

He replied by gently scooping her juices out on his fingers and putting them deep into his mouth.

"You want to lick me out?"

He shook his head.

"I'm afraid I'd draw more blood."

"Maybe I'd like that."

"Give me time."

She took his fingers out of his mouth and replaced them with her tongue.

"You're right," she said, when they'd finished kissing. "We've got all the time in the world."

She stood up. He stayed where he was, at her feet, still not quite believing they'd come so far so fast.

"It isn't a dream," she said, reading his doubts as she'd read so many other thoughts of his in the last twenty-four hours. "Sometimes it seems that way, but that's just the Canyon."

He held on to her leg for a moment, kissing the inside of her thigh.

"We were going to walk, remember?" she said.

"You still want to?"

"Oh yes. I'd love to. It's a perfect night for introductions."