Flowers in a Dumpster (11 page)

Things went on like that for about three years, give or take. We made one hit movie after another. In our personal life, Dirk was completely devoted to me. I ain’t exaggerating when I say it was damn near perfect.

Then came
The Devil’s Pitchfork
.

I curse the day I ever came up with the idea for that film.

I’d recently watched
The Exorcist
on late-night cable, and I got to thinking how cool it would be to incorporate Satanism and the occult and animalistic fucking all into one story. It would piss off the Christian types more than gay porn normally did. Over the years I’d learned that pissing off Christians was a sure-fire way to make some money.

While writing the script, I did a lot of online research into satanic rites and rituals, and found this one ritual for supposedly inviting a demon into someone’s body. I instantly knew I wanted to use it in the film, because from a cinematic point of view, the scene would be breathtaking with all the candles, the pentagram, and the chanting. Plus, having Dirk chained down to an altar would be the perfect segue into a hardcore bondage scene.

So we started shooting, and everything was peachy up until the ritual sequence. We shot the scene and things seemed to go perfectly, but afterward Dirk complained that he didn’t feel well. He did look a bit pale, and he was throwing up. I’m not a tyrant or anything, so I let him have a whole day off before we finished up the movie. It was released, and as predicted there was quite an uproar over it.
The Devil’s Pitchfork
quickly became our most downloaded production to date.

But something still wasn’t right with Dirk. It wasn’t anything obvious, not at first. He simply seemed . . .
different
. At home, there was coldness and distance. There were times when I caught him looking at me, not with the adoration I was used to, but with what I thought might be contempt. I shook it off, figuring it was my imagination.

And then we stopped fucking. Or more to the point, Dirk stopped. All of a sudden he was always tired or had a stomach ache or some other lame excuse. Finally I put my foot down and told him he owed it to me after all I’d done for him. That worked. He let me fuck him. Dirk just didn’t participate. He just laid there like a blow-up doll or something, his expression almost bored. He didn’t even get hard.

After that, he began to go out without me, staying out late, coming home smelling like strange cologne and cigarettes. When I confronted him, he’d get angry, tell me I didn’t own him and he didn’t have to account for his whereabouts every second of the day.

These kinds of arguments became commonplace and soon escalated. He told me I was smothering him, that he needed some space, a life apart from me and the movies we made. Said he wanted to start auditioning for
legitimate
films again. As if the work we’d been doing was shit, you know? He was slipping away from me, becoming a stranger, and it seemed like it happened overnight.

Then I went out of town to receive my fifth Golden Cock for
The Devil’s Pitchfork,
ironically enough. Dirk said he had an important audition and couldn’t go with me. I was supposed to be gone three days, but after two days of not getting any calls from Dirk, I cut the trip short and went back to the city.

I walked into the apartment to find Dirk having a threesome on the living room sofa.

Not even with two guys, one guy and a chick. Dirk was fucking her while he sucked the other guy off. It was disgusting.

I went ballistic, sent those two hetero freaks packing without even giving them time to put on all their clothes. Dirk just sat on the sofa, bare-ass naked, looking not the least put out. He smiled up at me. Not even a smile, more a smirk. I yelled. The longer he stayed silent and detached, the louder I yelled.

Finally I wore myself out and collapsed on the other end of the sofa. Dirk looked at me for a minute then spoke for the first time since I’d gotten home. He told me he was leaving.

I told him he couldn’t leave me. I’d created him for Christ’s sake. Everything he had,
I
had given to him. If not for me, Dirk Vandercock wouldn’t even exist. He was mine.

Dirk said he belonged to no man and that he didn’t know why he’d allowed me to keep him prisoner for so many years. That’s what he said, that I’d ‘kept him a prisoner’. He told me he was finally breaking free, and he didn’t give two fucks if I liked it or not.

He left me there in the living room to pack. At that point, I was too stunned to really react. I mean, this wasn’t the Dirk I had known and loved all these years, this wasn’t him at all.

Then I realized it wasn’t Dirk.

Insane as it seemed even to me, I suddenly knew what had happened, why Dirk had changed so drastically in such a short period of time. He wasn’t himself anymore, he was something else entirely. Something dark and evil.

The ritual in the film had been real, and it had worked. I had allowed a demon to take possession of Dirk’s soul when we were filming
The Devil’s Pitchfork
. What else could it be? It would explain why he’d become so cruel and vicious and ungrateful. I had opened a doorway to Hell. The sweet, devoted man I’d molded into a star was no more, He’d been replaced by a wicked imposter.

Maybe, though, it wasn’t too late to get Dirk back.

I didn’t have an iota of doubt, which is how I knew it was the right course of action. Conviction is always a sure sign of righteousness. I went into the bedroom where Dirk was at the closet, pulling out the expensive clothes I’d bought him and tossing them into the suitcase I’d also bought. I picked up one of the four—soon to be joined by a fifth—golden phallic statues sitting on a table by the doorway, and used it to bash Dirk in the back of the head. He was down but not out. I had to hit him two more times before he lost consciousness.

I dragged him across the room, tied him to the bed and stuffed a pair of red silk boxer shorts in his mouth, putting duct tape over that. Then I got online and did a little research on exorcisms.

Turns out, there’s a hell of a lot of conflicting information on the subject. There seems to be no one accepted method of casting a demon out of someone, so I decided I’d try them all. Holy water, which isn’t as easy to come by as
Buffy
would have you believe, didn’t work. Neither did bleeding, burning, or the ever-popular gospel recitation. Nothing seemed to work. Dirk thrashed around on the bed like . . . well, like he was possessed. When I took his gag out, I endured the foul curses he spit my way. Exactly like Linda Blair, only minus the projectile vomiting and head spin. Luckily my neighbors were used to hearing shouting and obscenities from our apartment.

Finally, not knowing what else to do, I decided I’d try to starve the demon out of him. I left him tied and gagged for nearly a week without food, occasionally removing the gag to let him suck water through a straw. The thrashing gradually became weaker until it practically stopped altogether. His body, which had once inspired such desire in me, seemed to be shriveling up. His skin took on an ashen look. His eyes glazed over like smudged glass.

The last time I took his gag out, he told me in a hoarse croak that he hated me and he would make me suffer if it was the last thing he ever did. And that’s when I knew. Dirk was gone for good. There was no getting him back.

That left me with only one option.

The butcher knife left a clean cut across his throat.

It was easier than I’d thought it would be, because I knew I was probably setting his soul free with this one selfless act.

And that’s what happened. Honest to God, hand me a Bible and I’ll swear on it. I ain’t making excuses or nothing. I’m telling it like it is. If you want to hold it against me then so be it, but I know I did what had to be done.

What killed Dirk was possession, plain and simple.

THE LOCKED TOWER

Alec Stevenson pulled into a space in the school’s small visitor’s parking lot and cut the Cadillac’s engine. He sat there, staring out the window at the campus. Several years had passed since he’d been to his alma mater, Limestone College, but he marveled at how few superficial changes had occurred. There were, of course, little differences—the old wrought-iron sign at the main entrance was replaced by one that looked like a tall brick wall, the driveway had been repaved, a few of the buildings renovated—but for the most part it looked like it had fifteen years ago, when Alec had been a student.

Making sure he had his cell phone with him so he could take a few digital photos, Alec stepped out of the car. The clear sky promised a bright afternoon. The activity on-campus was minimal, which was the reason he’d chosen to come so late on a Friday afternoon.

He started across the quad, past the library and the auditorium, making a direct line for Winnie Davis Hall.

In Alec’s day, Winnie Davis had been in sorry shape, closed off to students. Alec, however, had been inside once. On a dare during his sophomore year, he’d broken through one of the ground level windows and crawled through, taking a tour of the first two floors. He didn’t risk going any higher because the floorboards bowed dangerously under his weight. Each step felt like it could send him plummeting to the basement. The whole place smelled of mildew and rot. When he stood in the rotunda, staring straight up to the tower, he’d seen the skeletal framework of a skylight that would normally have separated the tower from the rest of the building, only there was no glass.

Of course, those days were in the past. Alec recently read on the Limestone website that a massive restoration project for Winnie Davis, costing millions of dollars and lasting many years, had been completed. Apparently the building now boasted such state-of-the-art amenities as an elevator, a flat-screen television mounted to the walls of each classroom, and even automated shades that would lower themselves over the windows at the push of a button. From the outside, Winnie Davis still looked the same, gothic and a bit like a miniature cathedral, but from what he’d read the inside was new and modern.

This was why Alec returned to Limestone after so long.

Winnie Davis Hall had lingered in the back of his mind ever since that dare all those years ago, but reading about its recent renovation brought the memories to the foreground. Inspiration seized him by the balls. As always he had no choice but to follow where it led.

Alec stood before Winnie Davis for a moment, on the newly paved courtyard, appreciating her refurbished beauty. The buildings at Limestone were truly magnificent, both architecturally and historically. Many of them dated back to the early 1900s, some even earlier. That was why so many were on the National Registry of Historical Places. But Alec had eyes for only Winnie Davis Hall.

He climbed the stone steps that led to the double doors, feeling weird about entering this way. He still identified the place as off limits. Once he stepped inside the entryway, he knew this wasn’t the Winnie Davis of his past. Fresh paint, hardwood floors buffed to a shine, marble busts of historical figures housed in alcoves behind Plexiglas—the building had gotten a serious facelift. To either side of him staircases twisted their way to the top floor. Alec stepped to the circular railing of the rotunda. Since the main doors of the building opened onto the second floor, he could look down to the ground level below. Nothing to see but a wooden table with a vase of flowers centered on it. He craned his neck and looked straight up, into the tower. Only he could no longer see all the way into the tower. The skylight had been fitted with opaque glass, and a stunning chandelier hung down for at least two stories. Quite an impressive sight. Alec held up his cell phone and took a picture of it.

He was interested to see what else Winnie Davis had to offer, but the grand tour would have to wait. He’d come here specifically to see the tower and he wanted to get up there right away.

He started up the stairs, his footsteps echoing throughout the quiet building. He paused on the fourth floor, the last one before the tower. The skylight overhead reminded him of a scene from
Titanic
, although he doubted water would break through the glass and sink the building. He would file away that surreal image for later, along with the rest of the random sights and sounds, snatches of dialogue and dream fragments. All tools of his trade.

Off the fourth floor rotunda was a narrow staircase, blocked off with a velvet rope. He assumed it led to the tower. Without giving it much thought, he unclipped one end of the rope and headed up the stairs. Halfway up, Alec noticed a trap door, which opened onto the tower, bolted with a massive padlock.

Alec stopped and stared at the padlock, frowning at the sight. Why would the school lock up the tower? Was it being used for storage? Regardless, Alec knew he had to get up there. He would have to find the right person to—

“Excuse me, do you need some help?”

Alec started at the sound of the voice, nearly losing his balance. Putting a hand against the wall to steady himself, he looked down at an older gentleman with glasses standing in the doorway of an office. Alec recognized the face immediately.

“Dr. Rob,” he said, making his way down the stairs.

The older man frowned quizzically. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“And here I thought I was unforgettable. You’re messing with my self-image.”