the project. Our things had been transferred from the King James to Miller’s house while we were at dinner and for some reason I imagined a little team of munchkins, ferrying our stuff across the bay on the backs of winged monkeys. This image pleased me and I was about to share it with Jude, but when I turned around I saw something in her face that I didn’t like. Jude looked scared. Jude had obviously not known about this move.
The Mustang glides down the dark driveway. Miller holds the car door open for us and Molly darts ahead to unlock the house. She’s a little too happy, to my mind, and I wonder if it’s the champagne. Jude holds my hand as we go up the steps, then stops and whirls around to kiss me, a long kiss. Her tongue is sweet in my mouth and something is wrong. This is the sort of kiss that resembles love.
What’s the matter? I say.
Nothing.
Uh huh. Why are you being so affectionate?
She jerks her hand away and hisses at me to fuck off, then.
There you go, I say. Doesn’t that feel better?
I wonder if she is feeling guilty about something. Jeremy, perhaps. The meeting for cocktails with Miller that inexplicably lasted a day and a half. It’s always possible that she missed me while I was falsely incarcerated. But somehow I don’t think so.
Inside and the house is warm with soft, rosy light. Jude and I pass through a shadowy entryway that feels very small, as if I should duck my head. Then we come into a large open room, the living room. The furniture is elegant, minimal. Dark wood and leather and red velvet the color of freshly spilled blood. The floors are hardwood. Molly is curled barefoot at one end of the bloody sofa. Her shirt is loose and unbuttoned to the waist, revealing a nearly transparent camisole of white gauze. Molly is small and curvy and probably doesn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds but I notice her breasts are bigger and rounder than Jude’s, who glances at me with a cold little smile. I shrug in response, but I am not stupid. Jude is five foot five. She weighs one hundred twenty pounds and doesn’t have a shred of fat on her body. She has the muscles of a snake. I wrestle with her sometimes and I cannot hold her down. She is too slippery, too fast. Too strong. Her breasts are very small but I have always thought that large ones would only annoy her.
I wonder where Miller is. Jude sits down in a leather chair and slowly pulls off her boots, dropping them to the floor with one distinct crash, then another. I remain standing. There is another armchair, but it is way the hell across the room next to a bay window. I am reluctant to move it and the most logical place for me to sit would be at the other end of the sofa, next to Molly. But I am still conscious of the way I smell and I have a feeling she would promptly put her small white feet in my lap, and she has very nice feet. Jude watches me and I can tell she’s pleased by my confusion. She takes off her leather jacket and tosses it on the floor. The green dress has long tight sleeves and small green buttons all the way down the front and the dress fits her so snugly that I can see the muscles in her arms and stomach. Jude isn’t wearing a bra and her nipples are pretty much always hard.
Do you want to sit down? says Molly.
I have a headache, actually. I see things that aren’t there.
Molly frowns because this is not really an answer but it’s the best I can give her. I have a headache and I wish I’d not stopped at one glass of gin. If there’s one thing I understand, it’s my own fucked-up biochemistry. I wander over to the bar, where I find a set of beautiful highball glasses. They weigh about two pounds each and it would be easy as falling out of bed to kill somebody with one of them. I find ice and a bottle of Bombay and I feel better already. I wouldn’t mind so much if Molly put her feet in my lap. I have a thing for feet, sometimes. And maybe my sense of smell is out of sorts and this is all a lot of misguided body language but something tells me that Jude or Miller or both of them are setting me up to fall for Molly.
What are you babbling about over there? says Jude.
I ignore her. I pour myself a sensible shot of gin and tell myself to be careful, for once.
Miller comes limping out of the dark carrying a black ceramic tray in both hands, and I remember smashing him in the back with that toilet tank lid, and at the same time I remember him not limping the other day. Apparently, I didn’t damage him so badly as I’d thought, and wonder if he’s faking it for my benefit. He has changed clothes. He has undressed, basically. He now wears old, torn blue jeans and nothing else. Miller is dark and hairless. He has a belly but it looks okay on him. It suits him. He passes very close to me, close enough for me to touch him. On the tray is a stack of papers, a pot of espresso and four small cups, a woman’s antique hand mirror and a big, friendly lump of coke chopped up very fine.
Here we go.
Miller places the tray on a short wooden table at one end of the sofa.
I thought some of you might be tired and I want to talk.
He moves across the room with the maddening ease and comfort of a panther at the zoo. You can see him back there in the shadows but he doesn’t want to come out into the light. He moves back and forth in the dark recesses of his habitat. He’s not hungry and he’s not sleepy and you know he’s conscious of you. He just doesn’t want the humans to look upon him. Miller slowly drags a chair over to the circle, the same chair I was reluctant to move.
I stand by the bar, sipping my gin.
Jude and Molly have moved to crouch beside the tray, whispering and giggling and probably plotting something. I love the way women will become temporary allies, even when they don’t like each other. Jude lights a cigarette. Molly takes it from her fingers and has a puff. Jude pours out four small cups of espresso. Molly gives her back the cigarette, then begins to cut up lines with a small pocketknife that she takes from her pocket. Jude rolls up a bill and gives it to Molly, who bends delicately over the mirror. Her fine blond hair falling over her eyes like silk. Jude moves on her hands and knees to give Miller a cup of espresso. I have never seen her quite like this. Molly does another line, then climbs back onto the sofa with Jude’s cigarette between two fingers.
I stand by the bar, sipping at my gin.
Poe, says Miller. Come and sit down.
I’m okay.
I would rather you sat down, he says. He points at the sofa.
I finish my gin and pour another, smaller shot. I don’t move for two breaths, three. Then I walk across the room. I bend over the tray and touch the coke with the tip of my finger, which I rub slowly over my teeth. Miller points at the sofa and I sit down. Molly sighs and stretches her suede legs. She puts her white feet in my lap, curved and serene as two porcelain doves. I don’t touch them but look at Jude, who kneels on the floor. Her dress has slipped up nearly to her hips and I can see that she wears tiny yellow underpants. She holds a cup of espresso in both hands. I wonder if she’s carrying a gun or anything. She seems to be armed all the time, lately.
I begin to rub Molly’s feet.
Now, says Miller. I want to talk about The Velvet.
Finally.
Jude flashes her eyes at me and I’m not sure if she said this or I did. Miller blows thin blue smoke rings. He drinks his espresso like it’s water but I notice he hasn’t done any coke. I want some, though. I want a nice fat line but I don’t want him to know it.
Morality, he says. It’s a morality play like any other.
My favorite, I say.
Jude stands up and I can tell she’s getting anxious. She thinks I’m fucking with Miller and she doesn’t like it. She walks around to the far side of the sofa. She leans over the red velvet edge and places one hand flat on Molly’s stomach. Molly closes her eyes and begins to rub her feet together in my lap. I pull my hands away and watch Jude’s face, her eyes. She is staring at me, at me. Her eyes are narrow and dark, then slipping away. I know that look. She might be seducing me, she might be threatening me. It’s a familiar and useful look. I begin to touch Molly’s feet again. Molly lies perfectly motionless, as if asleep or dead. But she is obviously not asleep. Her face changes like the ocean at the slightest touch. Jude’s finger trails slowly down to her bellybutton then moves away. She remains standing, though. Jude sways slightly from the hip, staring now at Miller. This pleases me, because she is more menacing when she’s moving. Miller coughs. He is becoming rather pissed off, it seems to me. Jude smiles at me, a secret smile that the others don’t see.
Please continue, she says.
Well, says Miller. My vision of this film is old world. It has just a touch of The Turn of the Screw, very Henry
