The Skunge (5 page)

He sat and smoked, playing idle pocket pool through his shorts, thinking about the night before. He was having trouble remembering just what he had done, out there on the decadent streets of Los Angeles. It had left him sexually sated, but something about it nagged at him. Even with the two Viagra he'd popped a half-hour ago, he knew he was going to have trouble getting wood today. His stomach growled, and he wondered idly when he had last eaten.

Finally the director, Monty, arrived. People started hustling, shaking off the languorous California afternoon mood. The director gathered the two starlets and wandered over to Christian.

"Hey, guy, how's it goin'. This little blond honey is Sugar. And that one," he pointed to the black-haired one, "is Jynx Spin. Go ahead and get to know each other."

"Hey." The brunette, who looked more like fifteen than eighteen, didn't look up from her phone. Her nails were long, squared off, and tipped with hot pink rhinestones. Christian's eyes followed them as they danced over the phone's tiny keyboard. Monty wandered away, beating his tablet computer against his thigh and shouting about the lighting set up. The director's mustache carried a fine dusting of leftover cocaine, and Christian could not drag his eyes away from the way each flake caught the sun and sparkled: blue and red and pink and gold—the colors of California.

Christian turned to Sugar and a bolt of panic shot through him. For a moment he thought the girl was Katrina, back from the land of the dead. Blond hair hanging over her shoulders, long legs. The memory of Katrina as she gasped out her last bloody breaths welled up out of his mind like groundwater. Katrina's eyes, the churned horror of her face, the tears tracking down her skin, the blood dripping. All of it appeared as a ghostly overexposure laid overtop Sugar's face.

Then she turned to face him, and her dollar-green eyes bored into his.

Christian pushed the lingering images of Katrina away and stood. "Name's Christian. Nice to meet you." They shook hands bloodlessly.

"Sugar," she said. "Good to meet you." There was something curious and bold in her eyes that made Christian want to look away,

The director strode back into the room, rubbing at his nose and sniffling. "OK people, let's go! T-minus ten minutes to magic hour, let's make it count and get out of here on time!"

"Yeah, right," Sugar said. She smiled crookedly at Christian, who smiled uncertainly back. Once upon a time, girls like her had intimidated him. The pretty, perfect girls in school, always so imperious and cold. He'd never found them attractive sexually, but revered them in the way you would an untrustworthy and possibly dangerous deity.

The Viagra began to thrum in his head, and with it a warm, thrusting hunger that stirred his belly. The thought of the night before, with all its chaos, danger, and sudden crashing violence, was enough to get his cock semi-hard. He loosened the tie on his robe and waited for everyone to take their places. The light from the accent lamps burned against the back of his neck.

The script had the actresses playing a couple of college girls (though dressed to look younger) studying in a bedroom, until one thing led to another, and they started kissing and touching each other. Then Christian, playing the role of Sugar's brother, would wander in. He would say a few flirty words, and get right down to fucking the brunette. Sugar would only watch and touch herself. Nothing too rough or crazy, mostly a vanilla fuck, with only a little spit and name-calling. No anal at all—both girls had that in their contract.

After a couple of false starts, when Sugar and Jynx started giggling and couldn't stop, they were almost ready for him. Christian bounced on his toes like a boxer warming up, slipping off his robe. Underneath he worse only a pair of cargo shorts.

He was supposed to play the part of a surfer boy, just off the beach, though he didn't really look the part any more—he was too skinny now. Fortunately in the porn world, no one would even notice his pasty skin and the hollow shadows under his eyes. Too many sleepless nights, haunted still by nightmares of Kansas and Nick. Meth or E kept him up all night dancing in the clubs—this city had so many he could visit a different one each night. He hadn't been to the same one twice. And the pills: glossy black, mournful blue, calm green. Any of them, when mixed with enough wine or vodka, would feather his brain with enough comfort to allow him a few hours of restless sleep. Until, with distressing predictability, he would awake panting and terrified, terrorized by the dreams. The nightmare was always the same. Katrina rising from her lonely murder on the gurney, her remaining staring eye as black and soulless as a shark's. She would rise and approach Christian, watching him with solemn and predatory hunger, and he would stand frozen with fear. Unable to catch a breath, let alone run. Her cold fingers would be reaching for him, about to touch, when his panicked breathing woke him.

Monty snapped his fingers under Christian's nose, and he blinked away his reverie. "Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey. You're up, pretty boy." He cocked his head and appeared to be examining Christian's face. "And you
better
be up, too. My gaydar is lit up like a twink in a leather bar, honey." Christian looked at the girls, sitting on the massive bed, looking bored. Sugar was filing her nails, and the brunette stared into space, chewing gum like she was being paid by the chomp.

"And, action please." Monty stood back, arms crossed.

Christian stepped forward, his eyes fixed on Sugar's face. She smiled up at him, cooing as Jynx reached for his cock.

He grunted, feeling tension coil in his belly. He tried to fantasize that the girl in front of him was a delicate twink, like the kind from Thailand he'd seen online, or the pre-op sissy boys from Brazil. Jynx sucked him into her mouth, eyes tilted up to him with fake adoration. He pumped listlessly, ignoring Monty's hissed imprecations.

"Fucking show us some
action
, nancy-boy!" the director said. Christian started. Monty's voice had, for a second, sounded so much like Mik. And so close, as if he were standing directly behind him. He cut his eyes to a mirror, skin crawling. No one behind him, no Mik. He shook his head and began pumping in earnest, placing his hand on the back of Jynx's head, holding her down just long enough to make her gag. He smiled at the anger in her eyes.

"Hey, don't be an asshole," Sugar stage-whispered at him. "No rough shit."

He grinned at her, feeling a sudden rush of power. For a moment, he felt like he could just fuck and fuck, jack-hammering away until they cried for mercy. Then he would fuck the old faggot director, just for good measure. Sweat poured down his face and dripped into Jynx's face.

"Mm, why don't you fuck her on the bed,
brother
?" Sugar said, eyes flashing. Jynx coughed and scowled at him, even as she arranged herself on the bed. He grabbed her ankles and she guided him into her.

"Yes baby, yes." Even to Christian, their voices sounded pissed off. He looked down at the girls, at their smooth, well-fed skin, caressing each other, sneering up at him. Sudden anger stirred his guts, bubbling through him.

"Fuck her good, big brother, that's right," Sugar said. She sounded like she was ordering a hamburger from a particularly dense counter-jockey.

He grabbed Jynx by her pale white thighs until his fingers left red marks. In his eyes, her legs resembled uncooked cuts of chicken, juicy-plump and freshly plucked, and saliva squirted into his mouth. He hunched his hips forward, humping like a dog. She squealed feigned delight and surprise, but then she giggled, and he felt his rage jack up another notch. She was laughing at him—that much was obvious. Her piggy California face split in a wide white grin, giggling at him as if he were a joke.

He pushed the alien thoughts away. Apparently he had been drifting in his own daydreams—the director was already calling for the pop shot, and he panicked when he felt his erection starting to wilt.

Jynx bit her lip, playing for the camera, before kissing Sugar. He watched their tongues touch delicately, then reached down to wrap his hand around Jynx's throat. He squeezed, slowly, inexorably, At first, she only moaned deep in her throat, playing along, then she whimpered. Sugar brushed a hand over his, glaring at him, then tried to pull his hand loose, digging in with her nails.

"Go easy on her,
brother
," Sugar snarled, raking at his arm with her nails, trying and failing to make it look playful for the camera.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Monty hissed. "I said no rough stuff."

Christian's mind filled with images of Katrina. The fear in her eyes, the way it made her tighten around him, her panting, those delicate white puffs of air from her lungs in the cold air of the schoolhouse, the subtle creak of Skin's finger on the trigger. The delicious seconds before the moment of the blast, watching with memory's eyes as the light glinted from Skin's gun. Jynx struggled, trying to get her foot up between them to push him off.

"Goddammit, you're going to choke her out," The director staged-whispered from behind him. Christian barely heard. His arms were stiff as steel cables, holding her down while he fucked her into the bed. His balls slapped against her ass, her eyes beginning to roll back in her head. Her face darkened to red, and still he squeezed.

In his mind, Skin pressed the gun against Katrina's head, and when it went off, so did Christian. Brains and teeth flew. In his vision, he painted himself with the gore, smearing it over his mouth, over his cock. Heat bloomed in his belly, and his balls tightened. He pulled out and sprayed cum so far it hit the back of his hand around her throat, then the brunette's face, and then one glob launched itself straight into Sugar's eye. She flinched but held her composure, smiling as if showing her teeth was painful.

"Fuck!" Christian shouted, his mind filled with blood, the gore spouting from Katrina's head, the weeping red ruin of her face. The Californian sun streaming through the windows blinded him, but the visions overpowered even that.

Everyone in the room paused, the silence broken only by Christian's panting breath.

"Cut!" The director shouted. Before he had finished speaking, Sugar was up shrieking in Christian's face.

"You fucking prick! You signed the same paper we did, and you just pissed all over it." She turned to Monty. "I want you to make sure this faggot never works in this town again. He came in my fucking eye!" She scrubbed furiously at the corner of her eye with a tissue.

He opened his mouth to apologize, but she was already pulling Jynx into the bathroom with her. The door slammed behind them.

"Sorry, man," Monty said, shrugging. "But that was kind of a dick move. Pardon the pun." He sighed, rubbing at his nose, perhaps in anticipation of another bump of coke. "I should be able to salvage something with a couple of cuts. Now, I can't have you back, you understand, but I'll put in a good word for you with someone else. Have you ever heard of Golden Eagle pictures?" Monty motioned for Christian to follow.

Christian, still dazed, followed him to another room to get paid.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The freaks were out tonight. They swarmed as soon as Sugar signed in and turned on her webcam. Friday was a real moneymaker, and even as shitty as she felt, Sugar could use the cash.

She had been feeling poorly for weeks; ever since that Midwestern douche-nozzle had pulled his little stunt on the set of
College Hunnies 27
. Her stomach hurt, her head hurt, even her nipples were sore. Worst of all, there was an incessant, burning itch in her eye, where his cum had landed. If she had actually fucked the guy, she would more than suspect a dose of the clap or gonorrhea, but she'd been tested, and she was clean. No such thing as too safe, she had told Jynx. The younger girl scoffed at Sugar's suggestion they get tested afterward. Jynx was satisfied with the computer-printed sheet declaring the stunt cock as STD-free. Monty had provided it, and he was known as a stickler.

For tonight's show, she decided on the 'no one likes me' act; in her current state, it would be easy. She mussed her hair and smeared her mascara just enough to show up on cam, but not enough to actually hurt her looks. The freaks were a dichotomy, both simple and complex in their wants and needs. If she overdid the sniffles and the mournful looks, they would sense the untruth and stay away. If she underplayed it, they would get bored and leave.

She had a long list of these performance pieces, tricks to maximize her income every session. The men were suckers, and one created an account every minute. A 'birthday party', where she downed shot after shot of water, poured from an old Grey Goose bottle; 'tipsy for tips' she called it. Then there was the 'raffle' where high tippers were entered into a draw to win a date. Sometimes the 'trip' would be to a vacation destination like Fiji or the Dominican, and sometimes it would be a plane ticket and a hotel room to her location (she listed it as Northern California). Not once had she ever gone through with the date. Most of them were too shy to actually meet her, and would take any excuse to back out of the trip. Any guys who showed even an inkling of going through with it, she would claim a family emergency and promise to reschedule. It wasn't hard; most of them were older, married men—even the ones that pretended to be hip DJs, or tattoo artists—and they only played the raffle for the idea of what could happen on a private date.