If the purpose of writing was to shape random events and disparate characters into a pattern, Greg was perplexed that describing sex, creating erotic scenes for his own pleasure, left him dissatisfied. Why wasn’t there a proper climax in the words, the sentences, the paragraphs, as there was in the act of fucking? Why wasn’t writing, where you were free to invent anything you wanted, why wasn’t it orgasmic? It was exciting, yes, gave you a hard on, but it didn’t make you come.
So what was it for? The untitled screenplay, however he rewrote it, in his head or in notes, had become an indictment of his solitary life. Its intention remained vague. Being alone had metamorphosed into loneliness. The trouble was, he couldn’t think of a title for the damned screenplay. If only he could do that he’d be halfway to where he was going.
It was evening when Greg got back from washing cars. He switched on the light by the door and immediately sensed he was not alone in the flat. There was a faint smell, food or coffee, he wasn’t sure. He ought to have been afraid, but he wasn’t. He needed another human being. Curiosity and hope drew him to the kitchen.
Alec was there, naked, stirring himself a cup of instant coffee. Before he turned to Greg he said: “Is that you, Annie?”
“No, it fucking isn’t,” Greg replied.
“Come here.”
What did he mean, come here? How could Alec mistake Greg for a girl? Was he crazy?
“Come and hold this.” Alec lifted his cock in one hand. He really thought Greg was Annie. Enough.
A cheese-smeared bread knife on the green plastic-topped table invited Greg to pick it up. He advanced on Alec, gripping the knife. Alec’s penis rose to meet it. Action. And later, the plunge, the nightmare.
Greg was still asleep when the phone rang. He jumped. Was he still dreaming? No, the phone was ringing beside the bed. Someone must have re-connected it. Nervously, he lifted the receiver. A woman’s voice.
“Is Annie there?”
“Who?”
“That is 352 0251, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know.” Greg looked down at the phone. There was no identifying number on it. Panic set in. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?” The woman’s husky tone became impatient.
Greg didn’t answer. Should he hang up?
“Look, Where’s Annie?” Demanding now.
Annie? Should he tell the voice that Annie was in Greg’s head? And in the pages of a screenplay.
“This is Kate. Whoever you are, I want to talk to Annie.”
Kate! No. Impossible. Greg panicked and hung up. His hands were trembling.
Almost immediately the phone rang again. He left it. It rang a hundred times, it seemed. When it finally stopped Greg took the receiver off. But it was no solution. Greg felt unsafe. He put a pillow over the receiver to muffle the high-pitched buzz. But he couldn’t suppress his mind. That dialogue. It had come by phone this time. Last time Alec had spoken in the kitchen. But Alec wasn’t real!
Annie and Kate were his characters. They were real to him. Greg forgot they had been drawn from an untitled screenplay. He concluded that he must now be hallucinating. He hadn’t heard or talked to anyone for days, weeks. Apart, of course, from himself. The phone had unnerved him. He left the pillow on it.
Greg had been in the bath for an hour. The water was tepid. He turned the hot tap on. Behind the splashing sound Greg heard another noise. A door closing. He turned off the flow and listened. Footsteps. He sat up. The water slipped over the side of the tub.
He stared at the woman in the doorway. It was Annie. His Annie. She was dressed in a raincoat, but her face… Annie.
Greg must have said the name out loud because she said, “Yes.” Then: “Who are you?” She had the husky voice.
“Greg.”
“Well, Greg, what the fuck are you doing in my bathroom?” The mouth was perfect, an exact version of the mouth he had given her.
“I’m… staying here.”
“No, you’re not. Get out.”
She waited. Greg couldn’t tell whether she was angry or just insistent. Did she mean get out of the bath, or get out of the flat?
“Come on.”
Annie reached down for the fallen bathrobe. She held it up. Greg was now more embarrassed than fearful. He eased himself up. Annie watched him. There was no point trying to cover himself. He climbed out of the bath. He slipped. Annie caught his arm. He felt stupid.
“When you’re dressed you can tell me what you’re doing here.”
Greg pulled the robe round him. Annie left the bathroom. Greg started to dry himself. Keep calm, he told himself. There’s nothing to be afraid of. He had imagined a woman and now she had come to life. Now he had a different role, always provided that he stayed on in the flat. Would there be room for him? Or would he go the way of Rick and Alec?
Annie came out of the bathroom and got into bed beside Kate. They yawned simultaneously and laughed together. Greg loved the way their breasts wobbled when they laughed. It was strange that he hadn’t seen or heard Kate come back to the flat. She was just there. Ah well, he would sleep on the sofa. He had nowhere else to go.
“He’s asleep.”
“What are we going to do with him?”
“We’ll have to give him a name.”
“Who’s going to talk to him?”
Kate took a coin and spun it.
“Tails,” called Annie.
It was heads.
“That’s appropriate,” said Kate.
She went into the dark sitting room. Greg was asleep on the sofa wearing Annie’s bathrobe. He snored faintly. Kate knelt down. She parted the robe without untying it. She smiled. Greg was semi-erect. The tip glistened.
“Halfway house,” Kate whispered. “Unformed, but you’ve got the makings of an interesting character.” She licked him with the tongue of a cat.
Greg awoke.
BEAUTY’S RELEASE by Anne Rice
1 Through the City and into the Palace
BEAUTY OPENED HER eyes. She had not been sleeping, and she knew without having to see through a window that it was morning. The air in the cabin was unusually warm.
An hour ago she had heard Tristan and Laurent whispering in the dark, and she had known the ship was at anchor. And she had been only slightly afraid.
After that, she had slipped in and out of thin erotic dreams, her body wakening all over like a landscape under the rising sun. She was impatient to be ashore, impatient to know the full extent of what was to happen to her, to be threatened in ways that she could understand.
Now, when she saw the lean, comely little attendants flooding into the room, she knew for certain that they had come to the Sultanate. All would be realized soon enough.
The precious little boys – they could be no more than fourteen or fifteen, despite their height – had always been richly dressed, but this morning they wore embroidered silk robes, and their tight waist sashes were made of rich striped cloth, and their black hair gleamed with oil, and their innocent faces were dark with an unusual air of anxiety.
At once, the other royal captives were roused, and each slave was taken from the cage and led to the proper grooming table.
Beauty stretched herself out on the silk, enjoying her sudden freedom from confinement, the muscles in her legs tingling. She glanced at Tristan and then at Laurent. Tristan was suffering too much still. Laurent, as always, looked faintly amused. But there was not even time now to say farewell. She prayed they would not be separated, that whatever happened they would come to know it together, and that somehow their new captivity would yield moments when they might be able to talk.