Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

THE PICTURE OF HEALTH Ray Gorton

Caryl Dunphy was no longer a virgin. At the age of twenty, she had finally done the deed, as the girls used to say in school; she'd lost her innocence, popped her cherry, become a woman. But she had not done it with just anybody. Caryl had done it with somebody.

Hawk.

He stirred next to her beneath the covers, smacking his lips in his sleep and sighing as he rolled away from her, taking his hand from her breast, pulling his moist cock away from her thigh.

Caryl propped herself up on one elbow and just stared at him in the dingy light of the dressing room.

His face was so finely sculpted, its complexion so perfect, that it did not look real; it more closely resembled a beautiful mask. His shoulder-length hair spilled over the pillow in wavy reddish-brown strands. Long lashes rested on his high cheekbones and full lips parted slightly with each exhalation. His broad shoulders spread above a smooth muscular chest which rose and fell rhythmically with his flat rippled belly.

Caryl touched his hair gently with two fingertips and her stomach fluttered with excitement.

I'm actually here! she thought. With him! With Hawk! My first time… and it's with the biggest rock star in the world.. .

He'd first appeared about twenty years ago as the lead guitarist and songwriter for a band called Birds of Prey. Back then, he was Darren Hawke. When the band broke up in 1980 — after only two top-forty hits — Hawke continued to perform on his own, mostly in nightclubs and small auditoriums, but only for a while. He disappeared for three years — the equivalent of a death certificate in the music business — and rumors blew around like the wind: Darren Hawke, the sexiest and most admired member of the Birds of Prey, had died; he was in hiding because he had AIDS; he was in a drug-induced downward spiral; he'd had a sex change operation and would soon reappear as a female rock musician.

But no one really knew what had happened to Darren Hawke during those three years of invisibility. Then, suddenly, as if he'd never been gone, he reappeared as, simply, Hawk. He had a band, but its members were incidental. Hawk was the only star of this show. There was an album from which four songs became number-one hits. A series of steamy videos on MTV just fed the flames of his popularity. The music was at once dark and uplifting, romantic and shamelessly sexual. Suddenly, Hawk was the favorite target of gossip columnists and tabloids. A week did not pass when he was not paired with a new woman: a movie star, a recording star, a model, writer or television actress. Sometimes the tabloids even paired him, both subtly and blatantly, with other men. But his career flourished and his popularity only grew. His reputation as a man who never spent more than one night with the same woman only helped his career.

And Caryl had followed it all. She'd savored every picture of Hawk in every paper and magazine that featured one. And then he'd come to San Francisco. In spite of the limitations of her budget and the complaints of her mother, she'd bought a ticket. She'd gotten a seat in the third row and was shocked when Hawk had pointed at her several times during the concert, smiling and winking. Afterward, as she was making her way out of the auditorium, she was approached by a man in a black leather jacket who gave her a backstage pass and told her that Hawk wanted to see her. At first she thought it was a joke. But when the pass got her past the guards and into his dressing room, she knew it was for real.

Caryl was led down a long poorly lighted corridor with doors on either side. Dressing rooms, she thought. Some of the doors were open and Caryl couldn't keep herself from peeking into a few as she passed. Three half-naked bodies writhed on the floor in one room; in another, a man with long platinum hair injected something into his bony arm as a girl's head bobbed up and down on his lap. Caryl didn't look into any more rooms, but she could hear sounds: muffled laughter… crying… sucking… "Now lick my ass, bitch!" was snarled through clenched teeth. Caryl became frightened and, for a moment, considered running back the way she'd come.

"Right here," the leather-jacketed man said, opening a door.

Hawk was shirtless, barefoot and sweaty as he sat on the edge of a narrow bed drinking from a flask. Smiling, he offered her a drink, but she declined. What was her name? Did she like the show? Did she come alone? Did she need a ride home? Or maybe she'd like to go out? Go to his hotel for a late dinner?

Dinner with Hawk, she thought, her jaw slack. "Yuh-yeah. Sure. That would be nice." Her mother would never have to know; Caryl could say she went out with friends. And that wouldn't exactly be a lie, would it?

"Lemme get dressed." He put the flask aside and stood, removing his tight black pants in one graceful sweep of movement, and Caryl spun around with a gasp, her heart pounding like a jackhammer in her chest.

Hawk chuckled. "What? You never seen a naked man before?"

She closed her eyes but the image would not go away: his perfect body, smooth skin, firm muscular thighs and… and that… smooth and cylindrical… not too big, not too small… at least, as far as she knew. And what did she know?

"A-a-as a muh-matter of fact," she said, her mouth dry, "no. I haven't." She kept her back to him, head bowed, afraid to turn around, and stiffened when she heard him coming toward her.

Hawk stepped in front of her, completely naked and smiling, and said quietly, "Really? Never?"

She just stared at his bare legs and feet, but when he hooked a finger under her chin and slowly raised her head, her eyes traveled the length of his body and her breath caught in her throat. She stopped at his eyes — sparkling and slightly narrowed — and there her gaze held.

"Really?" he asked again, stroking her cheek with a finger, and she nodded; her mouth was too dry to speak now. "Well, you got one right here. Look all you want." He held her hands lightly and, grinning, took one step back so she could look him over.

Her face burned, but, as if with their own will, her eyes moved down his body slowly, lingering on his muscular torso, passing over his hairless, unblemished skin to the patch of hair surrounding his penis. It moved. Twitched. Began to grow. Caryl thought her heart would jump out of her mouth.

His hands were on her shoulders and she found herself moving backward and sitting when her legs bumped the edge of the bed, where her purse dropped from trembling fingers. He knelt before her, closed his eyes and pressed her hands to his face, his hair, moved them down his neck, over his shoulders, down his chest, holding her fingertips to his nipples, and —

— Caryl felt weak, felt a warmth in her middle that she'd never felt before, growing warmer, hotter, and —

— Hawk moved his hands up her arms and began removing her clothes smoothly, gracefully, until she was in nothing but her underwear, and —

— she knew there was something she had to say, something she had to do, to make sure of, but she couldn't remember what, until —

— he pushed her down on the bed gently and laid down beside her, pressing his erection to her bare thigh, and then —

— she remembered. Caryl's mother, Margaret Dunphy, was a devout Christian and disapproved of premarital sex. But, unlike many others who shared her belief, she condemned no one who felt otherwise and always knew Caryl might choose to live her life differently than Margaret had. For that reason, she'd told her daughter to make sure she was prepared and never to engage in sex without protecting herself, not only to prevent pregnancy but also to prevent the transmission of diseases. "The Bible doesn't condemn promiscuity just because God didn't want us to have fun," she'd told Caryl once. "It just took a few thousand years for the reasons to become painfully obvious." It was not Margaret Dunphy's belief that AIDS was God's punishment to the sinful; it was, quite simply, she thought, the result of man's lack of common sense. "Whether you're married or not," she'd said, "screwing around is just not common sense. Right?" So, because of her mother's concern, and with her approval, Caryl kept a few condoms in her purse at all times. And if this was it, if this was going to be her first time, she was going to use them.

"Wait," she whispered hoarsely, the frantic pounding of her heart making her voice hitch rhythmically. "Just a second."

"What?" He raised his head, frowning.

As she reached for her purse, the only thing she managed to say was "Pruh-protection."

He chuckled and wrapped his fingers around her wrist, pulling it away from the purse. "We don't need that."

His words broke through her hypnotic stupor and she pushed herself into a sitting position. "Oh, I think we do. I do, anyway."

He leaned close and gave her a little kiss. "Have you ever heard the phrase, 'It's like taking a shower with a raincoat on'? That's what it's like for a guy. And besides, you don't have anything to worry about."

"Buh-but I know about your repu-reputation," she breathed. "I've heard the stories. All those women… some say men, too…"

He laughed loudly this time. "And you believed them? They're just stories. Anybody in my position has to put up with that. I don't even pay attention to them anymore. It comes with the territory. I just wanna make music. Jeez, you think I'm screwin' around as much as they say? I'd be in an AIDS ward by now if I was!" He stroked her breasts, slipped his fingers under her bra while tugging at the strap with the other hand and kissing her shoulder gently. Electric tingles shot down through Caryl's body from the spot touched by Hawk's lips. "We don't need one of those things," he whispered, kissing her again. "We want skin, right?" Another kiss. "Flesh against flesh." Another. "Our juices mixing with nothing in between." He had the bra off and was working on her panties now as he sucked on her breasts and rubbed himself against her.

But she didn't feel right about it, couldn't enjoy what he was doing to her because her stomach suddenly welled up with fear at the idea of having sex without any protection and her mother's calm, rational voice echoed in her mind: Whether you're married or not, screwing around is just not common sense. Right?

Right? Right? Right?

His tongue was on her nipple and his hand was between her legs, fingers making their way between her lips, which had grown so wet and —

— she reached down and grabbed her purse with one hand, trying to push him away again with the other, gasping, "No! Wait! A second! No!" but —

— he straddled her, held her head between his hands and massaged her temples with his fingers as he looked into her eyes and whispered, "We're going to make love… and it's going to be beautiful."

Caryl's muscles relaxed. Her legs loosened and she allowed him to remove her panties completely and lower his head between her thighs. His lips made her arch her back; his tongue made her whimper like a child; his fingers made her cry out. He moved up her body, licking all the way, and hiked her legs over his shoulders. Slowly, carefully, he slid his erection into her, staring into her eyes during every moment of it. Caryl bit her lower lip so hard she tasted blood and her hands clutched at the bedsheets as if for life. Her breasts rose and fell with pistonlike speed as Hawk began to move inside her, and after a few moments of stinging pain… it was wonderful…

And now she lay beside him, stroking his satiny skin and watching him sleep. His eyes opened suddenly and he turned to her, smiling, as if he'd never been asleep.

"I'll get a car for you," he whispered. "You can go home and get anything you need. I want you to come to L.A. and live with me. Our plane leaves in three hours."

Caryl let herself into the apartment quietly. Something by Mozart was playing softly on the stereo in the living room, and the lamp by the recliner cast a shaft of light into the hallway. Caryl braced herself, hoping that her mother had fallen asleep while reading in her chair so Caryl could just leave her a note, but she suspected otherwise. She suspected correctly.

The recliner creaked as Margaret Dunphy stood up, and her footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor; Caryl's back stiffened as her mother appeared in the hallway.

Margaret Dunphy was tall and slender with graying brown hair and a soft face. She wore a long bathrobe of maroon velour and smiled at her daughter warmly.

"So, how was the concert?" she asked, folding her hands.

Caryl felt herself blushing and turned away, whispering, "It was… guh-good."

"Did you go out afterward?"

"Uh-huh." She nodded.

"What did you do?"

Caryl's gut tensed into a knot. "No," she breathed, "I didn't. I–I'm sorry. I can't lie to you. I didn't actually… go out afterward."

"Oh. What did you do?"

Tears burned the back of her throat as she spoke, trying to control her voice. "I, um… Hawk? The singer I went to see? He… invited me backstage."

"Really?" She smiled as she said it, with no sign of anger, as if she were happy about the honor given her daughter.

Caryl had expected that; although her mother was a Christian, she was neither a Bible-beater nor a tyrant. But that only made it worse, because Caryl knew she was going against her mother's wishes, and that hurt.

"So you got to meet him," her mother said.

"Uh-huh."

"Well, that must have been nice. I know how much you admire him. What was he like?"

Staring at her feet, Caryl said, "Nice." There was a long silence, so long that Caryl could not bear it any longer and suddenly, unexpectedly —

— she told her mother everything. Everything.

The next long silence was even worse. Her mother's smile disappeared, but slowly. And it was not replaced with an angry glare — only a raised eyebrow.

Finally, Margaret said, "I hope you were… careful. You know what I mean, don't you?"

"Yes. I know what you mean." Caryl couldn't bring herself to tell the whole truth about that.

"So, you've decided to go? And live with this man?"

Caryl nodded.

"Do you think it's serious? I mean, do you think there's, you know… marriage in the future? Or is this just… oh, I don't know… an affair?"

Still not looking at her, Caryl said, "I don't know. I only met him tonight. I mean, really met him."

"Well." Margaret put her hands on each side of her daughter's face and smiled. "You know what you want. I just hope what you want is what's best for you. You might think I'm a fuddy-dud, but I'm aware of this Hawk's reputation, you know. I read magazines and papers. I watch television."

"Yeah, we talked about that and… he said they were just rumors and he's not like that at all. He said… well, he told me that… oh, Momma, I don't want you to hate me. I know you think this is wrong and… well, I just don't want you to hate me."

Embracing her daughter, Margaret sighed. "Oh, I could never hate you, Caryl. I just want you to be happy. That's all."

Hawk's three-story house in Bel Air was spectacular. The yard was like a green shaded field with a pond and ducks and so many singing birds, and inside, the rooms and hallways were endless. Secretaries, assistants, butlers and maids attended to Hawk's slightest whim and they all treated Caryl as if they worked for her as well as for Hawk.

She was given free reign of the house and Hawk encouraged her to look around as much as she liked; he would be busy with meetings for the next few days, then he had three weeks free and they could do whatever they wanted, spend all of their time together, stay in bed for days at a time if they felt like it.

So Caryl looked around.

She went from room to room and floor to floor, staring in awe at framed pictures of Hawk with the Who, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Joe Walsh, Roxy Music, Peter Frampton and more, all of them signed. She admired his Grammys and American Music Awards and People's Choice Awards, all on dustless shelves behind spotless glass. She went from room to room, finding giant blowups of his Rolling Stone magazine covers and his album jackets, paintings of Patti Smith and Stevie Nicks and Joan Jett, framed gold and platinum records. The halls were lit by wall sconces — white ceramic hands that held glowing globes — but on the top floor of the house at the end of the hall, the last few globes were dark and the shadows were long. Caryl reached for the knob of the very last door and a hand touched her shoulder. Starting, she spinned around.

Barnes, one of the butlers, a tall, balding, black-haired man, pulled his bony-fingered hand away and smiled, inclining his head slightly as he said, in a low, quiet voice, "Mr. Hawk prefers that this room remain closed. It's locked anyway."

"Oh. Oh, sure. Okay, sure, I'm sorry." Embarrassed, Caryl nodded as if her head were about to bob off. As Barnes walked away, she asked, curiously but timidly, "Um, what's in there?"

Barnes turned slowly, his thin face still smiling. "Just some dusty old personal items. We aren't even allowed to clean in there," he added with a soft chuckle.

Caryl nodded and smiled and said, "Ah, I see," and Barnes headed back down the hall. But before following him, Caryl turned back to the door and stared at it a moment. Above the knob was a second lock, a deadbolt. She tossed a glance back to make sure Barnes was gone, then tried the doorknob. It was, indeed, locked.

But something was wrong.

There in the shadowy end of the hall, Caryl could see the faintest orange glow seeping from beneath the locked door.

The next few days were like a wonderful hazy dream to Caryl. She only saw Hawk for a few minutes in the morning and then in bed after he got home, when they would make love so furiously that a couple of times they actually ripped the sheets. Hawk still refused to wear a condom and it terrified Caryl just as much as it had during their first time in his dressing room. She was scared of picking up any diseases, of course, and she most definitely did not want to get pregnant. Not yet anyway.

"You don't have to worry about that, babe," Hawk told her one night as he moved inside of her. "I can't make babies. I've been fixed."

Caryl thought that was kind of sad, but they were too busy to talk about it then. In fact, they were always too busy to talk about much of anything. When they were together, they were either making love or sleeping, or Hawk was just on his way out. And he went out every day, long after his promise that he'd be busy for just a few days. Caryl was still so overwhelmed by the fact that she was actually living with Hawk that she was able to ignore the inadequacies easily. At first. One morning after breakfast, as Hawk lit up a joint before leaving, she asked him why he was gone so much… every day, in fact.

He kissed her, pulled a wad of cash from his jeans pocket and pressed it into her hand. She shuffled through it and, shocked, discovered twenties, fifties and hundreds. "Whuh-what's th-this for?"

"I'll have Kelsey drive you into town. Go shopping. Beverly Hills is great for shopping. Get some clothes. Some jewelry. Go over to Gucci and get yourself a nice leather outfit. Have lunch. Baby yourself a little. And don't come back till you've spent all of that." He kissed her again, slipped his tongue into her mouth and squeezed her ass as he held her close for a moment. "I've got a few meetings to go to. Some asshole video director wants to tell me his ideas for the new song. Then I'm going to the studio for a while. I'll see you tonight." And then he was gone.

Caryl was afraid she would stick out like the proverbial sore thumb in Beverly Hills, but riding through the immaculate streets in a black limousine with tinted windows made her blend in like a chameleon.

She did buy a leather outfit at Gucci, just as Hawk had suggested, along with a gorgeous pair of shoes. At Tori Steele she bought two dresses (one of which she wore out of the store) and a coat, and at Tiffany's she got a beautiful diamond necklace and a pair of ruby earrings. She'd felt guilty at first and was hesitant to spend so much of Hawk's money, but he had told her to spend it all, so she decided to find someplace quiet and elegant for lunch. Maybe Kelsey the driver would have a suggestion.

On her way out of Tiffany's she stumbled to a halt with a startled gasp when a woman stepped in front of her suddenly, stopping just inches away. She was tall but stooped, leaning on a cane in her left hand; her right hand held the collars of her heavy ragged coat tightly together, although it was a warm, sunny day. Both of her trembling hands were skeletal and blotched with scabrous sores, as was her long, flour-white face. Her scalp was visible beneath her dark greasy hair which fell in thin strings around her skinny, frail neck, where more sores disappeared beneath her collar. The worst of it was that in spite of the pasty skin and the horrible wounds all over her and the stick-thin wrists and the pasty eyes, she looked young… and she looked as if she might have once been beautiful.

"Excuse me," Caryl said, going around her, but the woman stepped in front of her again.

The woman's mouth opened, and a few slow seconds passed before she finally spoke. "Have you been with him yet?"

Caryl flinched and stepped back, but the woman just stepped forward, her cracked lips curling up in a rictus grin around darkening teeth as she nodded knowingly. "You have."

"I'm sorry, but I don't think I —»

The woman leaned even closer, so close that Caryl smelled her putrid breath when she hissed, "Have you been tested yet?" Then she turned and, as quickly as she could on unsteady legs, hurried away, disappearing in the crowd of pedestrians.

Caryl had lunch at a small sidewalk cafe. She ordered a glass of white wine before her cobb salad; the woman had shaken her up. She was obviously some hopeless street person who appeared to have reached the end of her drug-addicted rope and probably had no idea what she was saying. But that didn't make it any less upsetting. What she'd said had been so… so frighteningly appropriate.

Don't be stupid, she thought, sipping her wine. It was warm in her stomach; she wasn't used to alcohol.

She nibbled on a bread stick as she waited for her order, wondering how her mother was, reminding herself that she had to call her soon before she started to worry.

A metallic squeaking behind her made her look over her shoulder. A well-dressed but frail-looking man was walking into the cafe, slowly pulling a green oxygen tank on a dolly at his side. A thin transparent hose stretched from the tank's nozzle to the man's face where it wrapped around his head just beneath his razor-thin nose. Although he walked slowly, he took short labored breaths. He glanced at her, and she saw the dark gray circles under his shadowy eyes, the blue veins in his skull-thin temples and the gray patches of skin on his sunken cheeks. His blond hair was cropped short and his hairline receded halfway back on the top of his head. He looked at her and smiled, and the taut skin of his face looked ready to split and peel back over his skull; there were dark gaps between all of his upper teeth, which were small white beads.

Caryl jerked her head away so quickly she almost spilled her wine.

The man wound his way around the tables to the far corner of the short wrought-iron fence that surrounded the cafe; he seated himself so that he was facing her. Caryl diverted her gaze by reading the small dessert menu. As she sipped her wine, she tossed a casual glance toward the man's table. He was just sitting there without a menu or a glass of water or any food in front of him. But he was still watching her with a hint of a smile on his cadaverous face. Caryl returned her eyes to the dessert menu and studied it as if it were fascinating until her cobb salad and croissant arrived. As she ate, she tried to cheer herself with the thought of all the wonderful things she'd bought that day — the beautiful clothes and jewelry — and with thoughts of what she might buy for Hawk to surprise him when he came home, but she could not shake the feeling of being watched by that gaunt balding man at the corner table with the oxygen hose under his nose.

Finally, she heard the squeaking again. He's leaving, she thought with relief.

She took a bite of salad.

The squeaking stopped beside her. She could hear his ravaged lungs fighting for air. His voice was soft and tremulous.

"He wouldn't wear a condom, would he?"

Caryl gasped, and a few chunks of lettuce caught in her throat, making her choke. She grabbed her ice water and took a few swallows.

"Have you been tested yet?"

She coughed again and water shot from her nostrils. She dropped the glass, and it shattered her salad plate and knocked the wine over. She coughed and fought for air. A waiter approached her in an instant with another glass of water. She drank, caught her breath and looked up but —

The man with the oxygen tank was gone.

"Where did he go?" she gasped.

"Who?" the waiter asked.

"The man. With the tank. The oxygen tank."

The waiter looked confused. "Oxygen tank?"

"Yes. He was just standing here a few seconds ago talking to me!"

He shook his head and looked at her somewhat suspiciously. "Sorry, lady. I didn't see nobody."

After the waiter had calmed her, Caryl left and went straight home instead of buying Hawk a gift. She decided to fix him dinner instead, but once in the kitchen, she realized her hands were too shaky to cook, so she had another glass of wine and sat in front of the television for a while and watched Oprah and Phil.

When Hawk got home that night, she was still upset; she'd spent the day trying to keep those two thin voices out of her head…

Have you —

He wouldn't use —

— been tested —

— a condom —

— yet?

— would he?

When Hawk came into the bedroom to find her trying to read a magazine, she smiled with relief and sat up to embrace him, but he wandered around the room distractedly, undressing, mumbling to himself. Then he said, "Gonna take a shower," and went to a dresser, opened his bottom drawer, removed something that jingled metallically and left the room.

Caryl thought that was odd. They had their own bathroom adjoining the bedroom; why would he leave the room to take a shower? And what had he taken from the bottom drawer of his dresser?

The wine had made her sleepy and she felt even worse than she'd felt before. She put the magazine aside, turned off the light, rolled over and went to sleep. She dreamed of walking corpses that whispered of tests and condoms…

When she woke the next morning, suddenly, drenched in sweat brought about by the visions in her sleep, Hawk was already gone. He'd left a note on his pillow that read, "See you tonight, babe. Think dirty thoughts and have your legs spread when I get home. We'll fuck till our gums recede."

The note depressed her so much she skipped breakfast. She wanted only to get out of the house. Instead of a limousine with a driver, she took one of Hawk's cars, a Corvette, and drove herself into town with no idea of where she was going. As she drove out the front gate, she saw a woman standing across the street near a patch of bushes. She was very thin, wore a sweater and had her arms folded tightly over her breasts as if she were cold. She stood as still as a mannequin, just staring at Hawk's house with deep-set shadowed eyes.

Caryl tried to fight back the shudder that passed through her and just drove. She found herself in the village of Westwood near UCLA and looked for a restaurant where she could have brunch. When she spotted one that looked good, she parked the car and walked back toward the building, strolling past a police officer who was writing a ticket for an illegally parked car. A woman walked toward her on the sidewalk. She was black and, although Caryl didn't think it was really possible, she looked rather pale. Her hair didn't look real; she was obviously wearing a wig. Just as they were about to pass, the woman stepped in front of Caryl and asked, "He's using you, isn't he?"

Caryl stopped and, suddenly angry, fed up with questions from strangers, she snapped, "Who are you? What do you — " She swallowed her words when she saw the woman's throat. It was bulging with hideous lumps, as if a number of small rocks had been slid beneath the skin. " — want from me?" Caryl finished in a breath.

The woman looked deeply into Caryl's eyes, frowning, and asked quietly, "What does he keep in the room upstairs?"

"What do you want?" Caryl shrieked. "Why are you asking me these things?"

"What do you suppose he keeps up there?" the woman whispered. Then she stepped around Caryl and walked on.

"No!" Caryl shouted. "You wait! You wait just a second, lady! Who are you? Why did you ask me that? What do you want?" She broke into a run and almost fell when —

— a police officer stepped in front of her, a ticket book in one hand, a pen in the other. "Excuse me, lady. Can I help you? Do you have a problem?" His voice was firm.

Caryl fought back tears, closed her eyes and whispered, "Thuh-that woman. That woman I was just talking to."

"What woman?" the officer asked, frowning.

Caryl pointed down the walk. "That wo —»

She was gone.

The officer shook his head, trying not to smirk, and said, "I'm sorry, ma'am. You look sane enough. But I'm afraid you were just, um, talking to yourself."

Caryl felt dizzy for a moment, scrubbed her face with a trembling hand, turned and walked away.

Two hours later, she was still wandering the sidewalks of Westwood, staring blindly into store windows, trembling in the warm sunlight as she rounded the same comer she'd rounded just a little while ago.

What does he keep in that room upstairs?… What do you suppose he keeps up there?

Staring at her reflection in the window of a small dress shop, Caryl began to think she'd made a horrible mistake in coming to Los Angeles with Hawk, although she wasn't quite sure why she felt that way. Surely the people who had been accosting her on the street knew nothing of her personal life. It was impossible! She'd never seen them before. They never mentioned any names. They never said anything specific.

What does he keep in that room upstairs?

Well… nothing too specific. And just because other people hadn't seen them didn't mean they hadn't been there. It had to be some incredible coincidence.

But she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd made a dreadful mistake. Maybe her mother had something after all.

The reflection of a woman standing behind her and to her left appeared in the window beside her own, slightly blurry and undefined. Another appeared on her right. And behind that one, a man with a gauze patch over one eye stopped, also facing the window.

A hand touched Caryl's left shoulder and she gasped, started to spin around, but a woman's quiet, weak voice said, "Don't turn around."

"Just listen," the man rasped.

"We want to help you," the other woman said.

"He's doing to you what he did to us."

"Making you feel so important," the man said. "At first, anyway."

"But he's just using you. Someone to come home to."

"Someone to come home and fuck," the man added.

Caryl took in an unsteady breath to speak, but the woman said, "Just listen."

The man said, in his gravelly voice, "What he really did to us was far worse than that."

"It's what he does to everyone," the second woman whispered.

"He doesn't go to the studio," the first woman said. "He doesn't go to meetings. He goes to see his lovers. All day long. Sometimes prostitutes."

"Sometimes bathhouses and gay bars," the man said. "He's insatiable."

The second woman: "And they're always nobodies. Never celebrities."

The first woman: "He saves the celebrities for parties and concerts and premieres, when he knows the press will show up. And the celebrities he never touches."

"Otherwise his secret would be out." The man chuckled.

"Secret?" Caryl muttered, staring at the glass.

The man: "People would find out what he's doing."

The second woman: "He would be destroyed."

The first woman: "Now we come to all of his lovers —»

"His conquests," the man interrupted.

"And try to warn them, stop them before it's too late," the first woman continued.

The second woman whispered sadly, "But it's always too late."

"What're you — " Caryl breathed, her gut swelling with a sick fear.

"Sshhh," the first woman hissed reassuringly, patting her shoulder. "You can stop him."

"Get into that room," the man said.

"The room upstairs. Get into that room and stop him."

"And whatever you do," the first woman whispered ominously, "don't let him touch you again."

"At least," the man added, "not without a condom."

Her fear began to melt away and was replaced with the same anger she'd felt toward the black woman earlier. With teeth clenched, she spun around to shout at them, tell them to go away, threaten them if necessary, but — They were gone.

That night, Caryl pretended to be asleep when Hawk got home, hoping he wouldn't try to wake her so they could fool around. He didn't. Instead, he paced the room and mumbled, as he'd done before. She could hear liquid sloshing in a bottle and, after a moment, caught the stinging odor of whiskey. He chuckled, mumbled some more, then opened the dresser drawer again. She heard the same jingle she'd heard before and he left the room.

Caryl threw the covers back, slipped into her robe and peered out the door cautiously. At the end of the hall, Hawk was just rounding the corner, still mumbling; she heard his feet clump up the stairs as she hurried down to the corner. As soon as she heard him walking down the third-floor hallway, she glanced around to make sure no one was nearby and started up the stairs silently. As she reached the top step, she heard the door at the end of the hall close with a muted click, followed by the sounds of two locks being turned in succession.

Walking on the balls of her bare feet, Caryl went to the end of the hall, where the light was dim, and approached the door carefully. The soft orange glow still flickered through the narrow crack beneath the door, then disappeared… flickered some more, then disappeared…

Hawk was pacing inside. She heard his voice, soft and indecipherable but frantic, breaking occasionally into a soft, breathy laugh, then falling back into sibilant mutterings. Caryl flinched when she heard a loud thump, as if Hawk had fallen heavily to his knees, and his voice rose, but only slightly. She leaned closer to the door, until her ear was almost touching the wood, but could only pick out snatches of what he was saying.

"… am thankful once again… fair and just and… be transferred to my image on this… for you in return…"

Caryl's brow wrinkled so hard that it hurt, and she realized her white-knuckled fists were pressed together between her breasts. She wasn't sure of what she'd just heard and thought she might have misunderstood his words altogether, but for some reason it sent an icy blade of fear into her gut and twisted it.

Keys jingled.

Footsteps approached the door.

Caryl thought her heart would stop as she turned and ran down the hallway as quickly and quietly as she could, and her feet tangled together for an instant as she turned to rush down the stairs, and when she reached the bedroom, she couldn't get the doorknob to turn at first because of the cold, clammy sweat that coated her palms, and when the door finally opened, she fought the urge to slam it behind her and tore a seam in her robe as she ripped it off her body and tossed it aside and threw herself onto the bed, pulled up the covers and turned on her side as —

— the bedroom door opened again and Hawk came inside.

Caryl closed her eyes and tried to breathe normally, tried not to let her chest heave, tried to calm herself so he wouldn't be able to hear the drumming of her heart.

Please don't let him try to wake me, God, she prayed silently. I'll leave tomorrow and never do anything like this again, I swear, I swear, I will, just DON'T LET HIM TRY TO WAKE ME!

The drawer was pulled open again, the keys dropped inside, and she could tell he was moving unsteadily, drunkenly, as he undressed. A match was lit, Hawk inhaled deeply and the cloying smell of marijuana filled the room. The bottle sloshed again: another drink. And then a throaty chuckle, as he walked to her side of the bed.

He touched her shoulder, shook her gently, then a little harder. He pulled back the covers and got on the bed, straddling her and rubbing his erection on her thigh as he took another drag on the joint.

She didn't stir, tried not to move a muscle, kept her eyes closed.

— Hawk slurred, "C'mon, babe, dincha get my note?" He shook her some more, a little too hard this time, and she knew he'd never believe it if she didn't wake up.

She rolled her head slowly toward him, mumbling.

He cupped one breast and squeezed it too hard, then reached down and tried to wriggle his fingers between her closed legs.

"Time t'plaaay," he gurgled through a broad grin. He leaned toward the nightstand, put the joint in an ashtray, picked up his bottle of whiskey and finished it off, then tossed it to the floor, getting off her. He pulled her toward him and said, "Sixty-nine."

Trying hard to feign waking up, she muttered, "Huh? What?"

"C'mon, babe, sit on my face while you suck my cock. S'all nice'n hard for ya."

Her mind raced and her stomach turned. "Oh… oh, honey, I can't."

"What?" He squinted at her, annoyed. "H'come?"

"Oh, honey, I've been sick all evening. Didn't Barnes tell you?"

"Sick? No, he didn't. Wha's matter?"

"Flu, I think. My… stomach." She wasn't lying. Her guts were moving and she felt like vomiting. But it wasn't the flu, it was fear. "In fact…" She sat up slowly. "Well, I don't think I should… oh, no." Caryl slid off the bed, hurried into the bathroom and leaned over the toilet, emptying herself loudly.

"Sheee-yit," Hawk groaned from the bed.

When she was finished heaving, she remained on her knees, trembling and weak, and whimpered, "I'm suh-sorry. Muh-maybe I shuh-should sleep in, you know, another room, so… so you won't cuh-catch this. Huh? You think?" She stood on wobbly knees, leaning on the edge of the sink, and flushed the toilet. After rinsing her mouth she said, "You think so, Hawk? Hawk?"

When she came back into the bedroom, she found him sprawled over the bed, mouth yawning open, snoring.

"Hawk?" she said loudly, then, even louder, "You awake, Hawk?"

He didn't move.

That room upstairs. Get into that room and stop him… stop him… stop him…

Caryl stared at the bottom drawer of the enormous dresser, then again at Hawk. She didn't know if she could take the stress, the pressure —

Get into that room and stop him.

But she had to try. With her robe back on, she crept to the dresser and pulled the bottom drawer out slowly, cautiously. It was full of underwear and socks, a couple of dirty old marijuana pipes, a dildo that looked like a real penis only much too big (and that one surprised her)… Hawk was such a slob.

And there they were, two keys on one little ring nestled in a pair of undershorts in the back corner of the drawer. To keep them from jingling, she wrapped the undershorts around them, put them in the pocket of her robe and closed the drawer silently. Then she left the room.

Afraid of being caught, Caryl instinctively wanted to hurry; terrified of being heard, she was afraid to move too quickly. As a compromise, she went upstairs and started down the hall. It seemed much longer this time and the far end seemed much darker. And the hands… they chilled her… so patient and motionless as they held up the globe lights. All but the ones at the end that held cold dead spheres of darkness.

At the door, holding the keys level with the knob, she froze up.

Just go, she told herself. Just go back downstairs, get dressed, grab some money and go home to Mom.

But other voices spoke to her, too: Stop him … get into that room… stop him… stop him. ..

She tried one key, it didn't work, so she tried the next and the knob turned. She unlocked the deadbolt. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door.

Candlelight. That was all she noticed at first as she closed and locked the door behind her. They were everywhere in the room: fat black candles, at least six inches in diameter, dozens of them arranged in no particular order, flames dancing and flickering in the darkness. There were shelves of them on the walls, shelves on top of shelves, and as she looked up, she saw a three-foot-tall crucifix complete with a bleeding figure of Christ painted black and hanging upside down on the far wall.

Caryl staggered backward and slapped a hand over her mouth as if she were about to be sick again.

"Oh, dear Jesus, I'm sorry," she breathed, "I'm so sorry for being here, for, for, for being with him, please forgive me, please forgi —»

Her breath stopped when she saw what was beneath the desecrated cross.

It was an enormous painting on an equally large easel, a painting of the most hideous creature Caryl had ever seen, something out of a madman's worst nightmare. Gulping at saliva that wasn't in her dry mouth, she stepped forward, wincing as she got a closer look at the painting.

The creature resembled a human being, but in form only. Its arms — which dangled helplessly at its sides — and legs — bent at the knees as if they were about to buckle — were reduced to white, brittle sticks. The ribs pressed dangerously hard against the paper-thin skin, as if they were about to slice through and open the entire abdomen to reveal whatever foul things were being held inside. Shadows were dark just above the collarbone where the skin had sunk into virtual canals below the bony shoulders. The neck was painfully thin except for the dreadful bulges like —

Like small rocks beneath the skin, she thought, remembering the black woman she'd seen in Westwood.

And all over the flour-white body there were sores, dark scabrous sores that glistened and ran, some of them small, some of them huge, as if they'd grown and were still growing, intent upon covering the entire body, devouring it as if it were food. They even covered the face. And the face. .

It was nothing more than a skull coated with a thin layer of paste. The nose was a razor and the cheeks disappeared into black holes beneath the knifelike cheekbones. The lips were so cracked they looked ready to crumble. The mouth gaped as if in a desperate effort to draw in a breath that would not come, and the teeth inside were dark and rotting away; some of them were already gone. The head was bald except for a few patches of colorless, thin, dry-looking hair. The ridges of the forehead stuck out over two pits, from the bottom of which the eyes stared in pure, hellish agony. The eyes… what was it about the eyes? Or was it something else that disturbed her even more deeply than the decayed thing hunched on the canvas?

Caryl wasn't sure what repulsed her more: the image or that indefinable thing about it that moved her, that… haunted her.

She moved closer to the painting and bumped into a wooden dais on which she found a large leather-bound book that resembled a photo album or scrapbook. There was nothing written on the front, and a strip of leather was snapped onto the cover holding it closed. Hesitantly, she unsnapped the strip, and the cover crackled as she opened the book slowly.

At first she turned the heavy black pages looking only closely enough to see that the book was filled with small newspaper clippings, some of which were accompanied by grainy black-and-white photographs. It took a few moments for her to realize they were all obituaries. Frowning, she stopped and read one. A twenty-seven-year-old woman named Phyllis Browning, who died of complications due to AIDS. The next was accompanied by a photo of a handsome man named Walter McClaren; he also died of complications due to AIDS. She began scanning the obituaries of men and women more rapidly, squinting in the candlelight…

"… died of pneumonia due to AIDS…"

"… of complications brought on by the AIDS virus…"

"… of bone cancer due to AIDS…"

"… due to AIDS…"

"… AIDS… AIDS… AIDS…"

Caryl was finding it more and more difficult to breathe as she read and finally stopped breathing for a long, long moment when she saw one particular picture.

A beautiful, smiling black woman. Twenty-nine years old. It was the woman she'd seen in Westwood. But this was her obituary.

She swept through the book until she found another familiar face.

The man with the oxygen tank in the sidewalk cafe.

And the sore-covered woman outside Tori Steele.

Caryl tried to breathe but couldn't at first as she raised her head slowly, her eyes moving up the dilapidated body on the canvas. The same hideous sores… the same sickening lumps under the jaw… and the eyes… those eyes…

Something else caught her attention. It was a shallow wooden box with a glass top on a three-foot-tall platform between the painting and the dais. A single candle burned brightly in front of the box.

Breathing shallowly now, Caryl walked around the dais and hunkered down to look in the box. It held a single sheet of paper — heavy paper, it seemed — on which was written a lot of indecipherable gibberish in black, beautifully formed letters. Even some of the letters were unfamiliar to her. But one word stood out, one word that made her upper lip curl in disgust and made her want, more than she'd ever wanted before, to be with her mother, to see her face and her smile, to hear her warm, comforting voice:

SATANIS

Caryl made a low, miserable whimpering sound in her throat as she began to stand again and then she froze. There was something else at the bottom of the page. Something that was written differently and not in ink but in what appeared to be a brownish-red paint that had dried to a crust. Something familiar. Something that made the confusing writing above much less confusing… and much more frightening.

It was Darren Hawke's signature.

He goes to see his lovers… all day long…

Have you been tested?

She looked up at the painting, at those eyes that looked so familiar.

… sometimes prostitutes…

Have you been tested?

They were Hawk's eyes.

… sometimes bathhouses and gay bars…

Have you been tested?

She looked at the crusty brownish-red signature again.

"Oh, dear God," Caryl whispered, burying her fingers in her hair and pulling… pulling… grinding her teeth together. "Oh, dear God, dear God."

That room upstairs… get into that room and stop him… stop him… stop him… STOP HIM!

Something stirred inside Caryl, something hot and writhing and angry. She no longer felt like herself. She was a different person now… a person denied and filthy and —

Oh God no please no don't let it be God please —

Infected.

She wrapped both hands around the fat black candle before her. "Oh…" She stood slowly. "Dear…" She lifted the candle, paused a moment, then brought it down hard on the box's glass top as she screamed, "GAAAWWWD!"

The glass shattered into half a dozen deadly sharp shards as her scream went on and on, and when that scream was done, she sucked in a deep breath and let out another as she looked up at the painting, swung the candle back and threw it with all her strength. It tore through the canvas, ripping a hole in the dying Hawk's chest and knocking the painting over before thumping the wall behind it.

There was another scream, then, from downstairs. A man's scream. It was just a sound at first, but in a moment it formed words: "What? What? What are you doing? WHAT ARE YOU DOOOIIING?" A door slammed open and feet pounded the floor, then the stairs, as the scream continued. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOOOIIING?"

Caryl continued screaming, too, as she reached into the box and took out one of the glass shards, holding it so tightly in her hand that it cut into her palm. She threw herself on the painting, attacking it, lifting her arm and bringing it down again and again, ripping through the canvas with the shard, slicing through the emaciated diseased body in the painting as she screamed senselessly, spittle spraying from her mouth.

Footsteps in the hall outside. Screaming. Pounding on the door. "STOP IT! STOP IT! NO PLEASE NO STOP PLEASE STOP IT YOU'RE KILLING ME YOU'RE KILLING MEEEE!"

But she didn't stop and the house rang with their screams.

The canvas was little more than shreds, but Caryl didn't stop in spite of the pain in her arm and the heat on her sweaty face. Then her voice became dry and hoarse, and the movements of her arm slowed and she became weaker and weaker because of the heat… the burning heat… and the crackling…

She stopped, heaving for breath, and raised her head.

Flames from the fallen candle were slithering up the wall, licking at the inverted crucifix.

"No, oh-no, no," she croaked, dropping the glass. She ignored her bloody hand as she stood and staggered away from the fire, stumbling toward the door.

There was pandemonium outside, running feet, screams, pounding on the door. Caryl recognized Barnes's voice as he screamed, "Oh my God! Oh my God!" One of the maids shrieked, "What's happening to him?" But Hawk's voice was gone.

Caryl unlocked the door, opened it and looked into the hall. If she had had any voice left, she would have screamed.

Hawk lay on the floor, his back against the opposite wall. He was naked and he was changing rapidly.

As Caryl watched, black-red sores blossomed and spread over his body, which had turned a sickly pale. He convulsed as his skin seemed to shrink around his body. His ribs became more and more visible until there seemed to be almost no skin over them at all. As his neck grew thinner, bulbous lumps swelled on his throat, and he hacked as if he were about to spit up parts of his lungs. His long wavy hair fell away from his head and fluttered around him to the floor. A few teeth fell into his lap. He vomited uncontrollably and his bowels let loose with a sickening sound. The coughing grew worse quickly, as did the convulsions.

In moments, as the fire grew worse in the room behind Caryl, Hawk was a shriveled husk on the floor, motionless, reeking and dead.

Two weeks later, Caryl knocked on her mother's front door at a little after four in the morning, trying hard to hold in her sobs. She had a key and could have let herself in, but it didn't seem right. Not anymore.

In a few minutes, Margaret Dunphy called sleepily, "Who is it?"

"I-it's me, Muh-Momma."

The door swung open and Margaret cried out as she threw her arms open. "Caryl, oh, Caryl!" she cried. Caryl's purse dropped to the porch as she returned her mother's embrace and began to sob uncontrollably.

"Oh, baby, I was so worried, so scared. I heard about the fire but nobody knew anything about you and I thought maybe… I was afraid you'd… oh, thank God, thank God, I'm so glad you're okay, so glad you're home."

But, as she held her mother tightly, all Caryl could say again and again through her tears was "Positive… positive, Momma… positive…"