Steamy Screams: Anthology of Erotic Horror

it.”

“Awww… Chelzee, you’re the best!”

After the acrylic fills had set and dried, he filed the tips to a tight, rounded point. This was his canvas. He adjusted the table lamp, bit his lower lip in concentration and got down to the most important part. He applied an initial coat of his special polish. The stuff was watery, not being a professional grade cosmetic, after all. For it to come to life, he needed to add several coats.

Chelz remembered first seeing that color across his cat’s paw. His head had immediately filled with ways to use it. He knew he had to get the pig up to his apartment. Even though it had been smaller then, it hadn’t been willing to follow. Chelz grabbed his cat and ran to his apartment to find something to lure the pig in with. While digging through his fridge, his cat went crazy. It tore itself apart. He had never been attached to the cat, hadn’t even named it, but the scene freaked him out enough that he forgot what he had been doing. He collected the pieces of the cat in a dust pan and brought them out to the dumpster; the pig had been waiting for him on its feet, tongue reaching for the remains of the cat.

“Wow,” Leilani said as Chelz added the final coat. “I can’t even describe that color. It’s like a gem I’ve never seen but definitely want. What’s it called?”

Chelz shrugged and set the bucket aside. He pulled out a bottle of jet black polish, traditional polish. Opening it, he took a deep breath through his nose. The smells of chemical beauty still tickled his brain. As a teenager, the scent of an open bottle beside his bed had been enough for him to get off. That was before he had started dating, before he had gone to school and learned his profession and started making trades. Almost a decade had passed since then and so much had changed, thanks to the pig.

He applied the polish to the base of each nail. Using a clean white rag, he smeared it out just a little. The final effect looked like black flames emerging from the nail bed against the unworldly, metallic sky that covered the rest of the tips.

Despite his ulterior motives and despite the help he had gotten from the pig, he truly believed his art had merit. None of his peers did work like him, not Russo and not Tina W. If his art came in a traditional form, it would appear in the best galleries in the country. As it stood, his galleries were the walls of teenage girls. On these walls, posters and pinups of Leilani and other celebrities he had worked for found homes. His favorite: a shot of Leilani’s face, blonde hair pulled back, puckered lips painted blue, eyelids low over sultry green eyes, hands on cheeks, each curved and square-tipped nail a slightly different shade of silver. It had graced the cover of Rolling Stone before being turned into a poster. The thought of it still warmed his crotch. His art had benefits.

After a few minutes under the dryer, Leilani held her nails out for inspection. “These are amazing.”

“Aren’t they?”

“And to think you almost pulled the old ‘I’m out of that color’ routine.”

“What was I thinking?” Chelz asked, following her to the door.

On her way out, she put her hand on his forearm and opened her mouth to say something. Before she could, Chelz grabbed her hand. He wanted to hold it tight, feel its warmth while he still could. Seeing the look of surprise in Leilani’s eyes, he panicked and pulled her hand to his chest. That wasn’t where he wanted to put it, but he knew he couldn’t put it where he wanted to. Not yet.

“Your hands look so hot. Can you feel my heart beating faster?” He asked in a goofy voice, playing up the cheesiness of the comment for a laugh, but his heart really did beat faster.

“You goofball. You’re so great.” She pulled her hand away and flashed her nails.

Chelz suddenly regretted what he had done. He wished he would have talked her into a different style. She wouldn’t have replaced him. Hell, she would have loved whatever he had done for her. She always did. He easily could have found someone else to wear that color, to appease the pig.

As she walked out the door, she added, “Come to the show tonight.”

“Oh, I definitely will.”

After she left, he wandered around his studio. Picking up one of the mannequin hands, he ran its smooth black and red nails across his cheek, into his mouth. He pulled it out and put it back on the pedestal, stopping himself before he went too far. He took another sniff of the bottle of black nail polish. The scent intoxicated him, sending tingles down his spine, down to his groin. The scent had been much stronger at the West Hollywood salon he used to work at and sometimes, he missed the lack of ventilation.

He looked around at what he had now, amazed at how far he had come since he started using the pig’s gift, since Leilani’s personal assistant had stepped into the salon and hired him on the spot. He knew he hadn’t done it on his own. He knew the pig had fulfilled its end of the bargain, delivering Leilani to him after he had given the pig what it needed. Still, he deserved it. He had spent enough time doing boring manicures for whores, trannies and tranny whores.

He had made sacrifices.

That night at the Zero Club, Chelz made his way backstage. The trendy nightspot held a few hundred at most, all of whom had paid a couple hundred bucks to see the diva preview a handful of songs from her forthcoming album. The smaller venue was better suited for tonight’s events, planned and unplanned. The fewer eyes, the better, as far as Chelz was concerned. Plus, the bouncers weren’t letting cameras in. That meant no recordings, no evidence that could come back to haunt him. Not that anyone would ever be able to trace anything back to him anyway. They never had before.

“You made it,” Leilani greeted him at the side of the stage, taking his hands in hers. Instinctively, he lifted them to his lips. He kept himself in check, gently kissing the back of each. He did so slowly, allowing himself time to pore over the smoothness of her pale skin, the perfect parenthetical wrinkles around each knuckle. He skipped past gold rings to her fingertips and the long nails.

“You got through the day without a chip.” He let her hands fall away.

“I was super careful, Chelzee. I didn’t even wash my hands after going to the bathroom because I didn’t want to chip them turning the water knobs,” she explained enthusiastically. After a pause, she added, “Just kidding.”

Chelz laughed. He would miss her sense of humor. He would miss her warmth. He would miss her. Telling himself the pig would deliver another celebrity to fill his client list didn’t help his building sense of loss.

“Enjoy the show,” she said, as her intro music came on. She stepped onto the stage. Under the spotlight, she blew a kiss to the crowd. Chelz imagined that kiss floating past her soft palm, making its way over her diminutive digits and then engulfing those gorgeous nails, taking them in, becoming one with them.

“Hello!” She giggled conspiratorially. The first song started with a distant tenor sax boiling below words whispered into the microphone, releasing some of the old school rhythm and blues flavor she told Chelz she had been aiming for with her new music. The flavor disappeared quickly, replaced by the cold beats that dominated all modern pop, her voice the only thing to warm them up.

She pulled the microphone from its stand. In her black high heels, she took command of the stage, becoming larger than life by raising her knees just a little higher as she walked, by making each gesture just a little grander.

As the song built, Leilani put her hands to work. The fingertips of her right hand danced over her microphone as if it was too hot to hold. Her left hand caressed the air during a soft part of the song, eventually settling comfortably on her hip, nails gleaming under the white stage lights for the briefest of moments. Then her hand flew up again, high above her head, fingers spread wide as if reaching for all the energy released by her singing, trying to pull it back.

Chelz considered her the perfect vehicle for his art. All the other singers he worked with let their hands hang dead at their sides. Not Leilani. She was one of a kind. Chelz realized he couldn’t let her go. He could find some other way to keep his end of the bargain with the pig. He ran onto stage, ready to snap the nails off her fingers.

He didn’t even get close. A security guard grabbed him, pulled him back and put him into a headlock. Leilani didn’t notice his attempt, and neither did the crowd. He struggled against the guard’s grip, getting nowhere. His failed attempt made what happened next all the more difficult to watch.

At the start of her second song, a ballad, Leilani placed her microphone back on its stand and sang, “We are through… I’ll never miss you.” She placed her hands over her face, as if to mask the flow of tears, a melodramatic