Ted couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'Did she know who it was?'
'Yes, although she never told anyone,' said Lori. 'It was a bit player in the picture. A guy by the name of Trevor Hall.'
'Trevor Hall,' repeated Ted. The name sounded familiar, but Ted had difficulty matching it with a face. There had been hundreds of bit players in the industry back then, some only lasting a picture or two.
Lori stared at Ted for a long moment, watchful. Then she continued. 'After the attack, Mama found out that she was pregnant,' said Lori. 'She decided to leave Hollywood and come home, to this house that once belonged to my grandparents. She had dreams of going back to California and taking up where she left off, but she never did. I was born and that was the end of it.'
'Oh, I see,' said Ted. He raised the tea glass to his lips, but it seemed strangely heavy in his hand. 'You know, it wasn't your fault,' he assured her. 'It was that Hall jerk who screwed it up for her.'
Anger suddenly flared in Lori's eyes. 'My father was never as bad as folks made out,' she snapped. 'He was just. misunderstood.'
Ted was surprised. He couldn't understand the outburst, especially considering what the man had done to her mother. Ted couldn't figure out why he was beginning to feel so exhausted, either. He guessed the long drive was catching up to him.
Almost as quickly as her anger had surfaced, it was gone. She smiled, eyeing him in that odd, attentive way of hers. 'You haven't told me about yourself, Ted,' she said. 'What do you do for a living?'
Ted's head began to swim. His eyelids felt heavier than lead, as if they could hardly stay open. 'Uh, what did you say?' he asked.
'I asked what you do for a living,' she repeated. Her smile was fixed, unwavering.
Ted had to think for a moment before he could answer. 'Nothing yet,' he said. His words seemed to flow as slowly as molasses. 'I'm still in college.' He looked over at Lori. Two of her wavered before his eyes. 'What do you do?' he asked softly.
'I make movies,' she said.
Before he knew it, Ted could no longer sit up. He slumped forward and rolled off the sofa, onto the parlor's hardwood floor. He looked up at Lori, expecting to see a look of alarm on her pretty face. But it wasn't there. Instead there was a peculiar look of satisfaction.
'I make movies,' she repeated, as if making sure that he had heard. 'Just like my mother.' Her smile broadened a little, curling wickedly. 'And my father.'
Then her face turned into a blur and faded to black.
Ted was in the midst of a dream. One of the dreams that starred Fawn Hale.
He was on a big round bed that seemed to take up the entire room. He was naked, except for his glasses. Even then, his vision was a little hazy, like a camera fitted with a soft-focus filter.
The mattress sagged a little as someone joined him. It was Fawn Hale, also naked, her platinum hair gleaming in the harsh glare of a klieg light. She wore the sunglasses she had worn in
Without a word, she crept across the bed toward him with the predatory grace of a cat. He moaned when she reached him and her flesh touched his. A tiny grin crossed her lips as she moved over his midsection and mounted his hips. Ted stared up at those wondrous breasts. They stared back at him, transfixing him, like the eyes of a Svengali. Fawn purred down deep in her throat, then lowered herself. Ted groaned. They joined effortlessly.
The platinum-haired beauty seemed to ride him forever, her head thrown back, her huge breasts bouncing in time to the rhythm. Ted found himself to be powerless. He simply lay there and let the actress have her way with him.
Eventually Fawn could contain herself no longer. Her thighs tightened around his waist and her pace began to quicken. Ted felt himself begin to climax, too. The mounting pleasure in his groin seemed to clear his head a little and the sluggish, weighty feeling began to lift.
That was when he saw the black object at the far end of the bed. It was a video camera on a tripod. Aimed straight at him and Fawn.
Ted remembered something Lori had told him. I
Suddenly he knew that he wasn't dreaming.
And there was something else. Something that he had failed to recall before. Trevor Hall. He knew who he was now. Hall had not been a bit player, but a stuntman. A hulking stuntman big enough to play a convincing monster. And he had played them, too: werewolves, robots, swamp monsters. But that was not all that Ted remembered about Hall.
The stuntman had been a serial killer. In the early seventies he had been convicted of brutally raping and murdering several dozen women over the span of two decades. The evidence had been what had bought him a seat in the electric chair: an entire library of sixteen-millimeter reels Hall had filmed himself. Snuff films of those he had violated and slaughtered.
Ted stared up at the woman on top of him. He reached up slowly, his arms as heavy as concrete. He removed the white-framed shades. Lori's eyes sparkled down at him. They looked as crazy as the photos Ted had seen of her father. Gleaming with a fiendish satisfaction that was a mixture of ecstasy and blood- lust.
He reached out for the platinum wig, but it was beyond his grasp. Lori leaned in closer, smiling. Her shoulder flexed as she brought her right hand from behind her back.
'Scream for me,' she whispered.
Ted felt the coldness of steel against his throat. He opened his mouth, perhaps to reason with her. But just staring into those lovely eyes and seeing the legacy of darkness that danced beyond them, Ted knew that any attempt would be futile.
As the edge of the knife stung his flesh, he braced himself and, regretfully, gave her what she wanted.
The images on the screen were color. Sharply defined, perfectly lit. The sound was minimal. The creaking of bed springs and the low murmurs of passion. There was no music. No sound track was necessary.
Lori Hale lay on the round bed, naked, her eyes glued to the television at the far side of the room. She watched as the image of a platinum-haired beauty straddled the hips of an overweight boy with brown hair and glasses.
She watched the scene unfold, slowly snaking her hand past the flat of her stomach to the cleft just beyond. Soon her fingers were at work, stroking.
The video — one of many — continued at a leisurely pace; finely orchestrated and leading toward a familiar finale. Lori watched as the woman reached be neath the edge of the circular mattress and withdrew a long-bladed butcher knife.
As the scene reached its climax, Lori found herself reaching her own. Her fingers worked furiously as she awaited the command she had given more times than she could remember.
Waves of ecstasy gripped Lori, washing through her, giving way to abandonment. Gritting her teeth, she clutched the bedcovers and felt the stiffness of dried blood in the fabric of the sheets.
Then she closed her eyes tightly and listened for the sound of the scream.
HIDEYHOLE
Billie Sue Mosiman
At the entrance into the restaurant area, a girl dressed in skinny black jeans and matching black tank top waited for Bastine Rendeaux to open the door. She smiled, lips full and new as red smoky moons. He smiled back. 'Eating alone?' he asked, feeling especially horny and turned on by how her breasts rounded the material of her shirt and how her hips swelled the jeans. 'Want company?'
'Sure.' She fell into place at his side as he went for a back booth.
