Sex and Murder Magazine

By Tyler Knight

The one-lane dirt path snakes up the hillside. On one side, a cliff. I summon all my concentration to keep my car from plummeting over the edge. Ulric’s home, a gated compound perched at the top of the hill. For surviving the climb I’m rewarded with an unobstructed 360° view of the basin below, and the soot-stained air that’s coating my lungs.

I park my rusted-out Chevy Nova next a Porsche, then wipe my hands dry on my pant legs. If it’s dark when it’s time to go back down, I’m spending the night and waiting till morning.

The house looms over the western end of Porn Valley. Life-sized metal statues scattered about the property. Bronze still lives of people...a statue of Stalin with one arm shielding his face in a defensive posture, eyes cast up to the sky, mouth agape in a silent scream...and a what looks like...Vlad the Impaler getting hewn in half by a Cro-Mangon wielding a two-handed meat-axe...and...Lenny Bruce, chasing a crowd of people in togas with a syringe, laughing his ass off...

At the front door, a statue of an Amway salesman “ringing” the doorbell with a finger that blocks the button. I’m standing there trying to solve the Gordian Knot when the door opens.

A man in soiled coveralls says in an Eastern European accent, “Hello, I am Alyosha, Ulric’s brother.”

He opens the door wide and gestures for me to step inside the house. “This way, he is in his office.”

The interior is minimalist. Natural light cascades through skylights and floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s a smell...firecrackers? I follow Alyosha. Aside from a few non-functional looking chairs—some of them with twists and geometry that looks impossible to actually exist in three-dimensional space--there is nothing inside. Not a picture or any kind of personalization in the way of decoration.

“Did you have trouble finding the house?” asks Alyosha.

I’m following him from one passageway to the next.

“No.”

We stop at a door with a keypad next to it. Alyosha enters a combination on the pad and there is a buzz and a click. The door swings open and rock music throttles my senses. The smell of gunpowder is stronger here.

A man wearing a velvet track suit and a cowboy hat is standing on top of an aircraft carrier of a desk. He’s thrashing riffs on a plastic Guitar Hero Gibson to The Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter. This chamber must be sound proof because I couldn’t hear shit from the outside:

Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'
My very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away...

A golden name-plate sits on the desk. It says, Ulric-Ef’n Kalashnikov, H.N.I.C., Brothers Kalashnikov, LLC. Upon reading the name, a flash of adrenalin screams through my body, saturating me with dread on a cellular level, but I don’t know why.

The man shouts over the music. “Hold on, bro, I am almost finished!” Arms flailing and head bobbing, he is keeping up with the cartoon band on a wall-mounted flatscreen quite well.

“I am shredding it up now!”

He must be a lefty because he’s playing the guitar upside down. The music blares:

Rape, murder!
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Raaape, muuurder! Yeaaah!
It’s just a shot away!
It’s just a shot away!”

Alyosha hands me a clipboard with a contract that releases my rights to the use of my image in perpetuity. I fill it out and hand it back.

He says to Ulric, “I will make sure the girl is out of makeup and ready for pretty-girl stills.”

I feel the music vibrating in my teeth. Ulric is now in trance-like ecstasy, doing his best lumberjack impersonation by hacking away at the great desk with his plastic axe in downward chops between his feet. I cover my face with my arms as guitar shards fly about. He pulls a remote from his pocket, kills the TV and hops down.

Ulric says, “I am sorry, bro. I did not mean to hit you. Come, sit. I want to talk to you.”

He flops down into a red executive chair, takes off his hat, and smiles at me. He’s got a botched hair transplant that grows in clumps, teeth of a Medieval Englishman, and eyes that do not blink.

He says, “This is a Gordon Gekko chair from the movie Wall Street. I have seen that movie a thousand times. Do you like it?”

“Yeah,” I say. “‘Greed is good...Rich enough to own your own jet...’”

He laughs, then swivels in his chair and scoots to the wall behind him, where a photo of what looks like milk in flight hangs. A card beneath it says:

Andres Serrano
Untitled VII (Ejaculate in Trajectory)
1989

He removes the photo, revealing a wall safe. Inside the safe, an AK-47 and what looks like a giant staple gun menace in plain view. He takes out the AK and cradles it, resting his finger outside of the trigger well.

“Great fucking movie!” he says. “You Americans will sell your grandmother’s ass for the cash money!”

I ricochet a glance off the gun and back to his eyes. He notices and stands.

“The Avtomat Kalashnikov. It has claimed more human souls than any other weapon known to mankind. More than spears and stones, my friend.” He reaches back into the vault, snatches cardboard box and plops it on the desk between us. Then he grabs a magazine.

I chuckle, but nothing’s funny. “Um...yeah...I read that in the Gangstas-R-US catalog at the dentist’s office.”

The curved magazine is stuffed with vile looking 7.62mm rounds. They resemble sharpened, feces coated, VC pungi sticks thrusting up from the bottom of a twig-and-leaf hidden pit. Except these death sticks are crammed with gunpowder.

He says, “You would not believe the blind respect people give that profession in my country.”

“Gangstas?”

“Dentists.”

His mouth...where a specimen with four different shades (none of them tooth-colored) grabs my attention. Because it’s his good tooth.

I say, “Uh huh.”

Ulric slaps the banana clip in place and racks a round. He emits an asshole puckering shriek, “Weapons hot!”

I feel the open office door behind me, beckoning me to its safety. Futile. I won’t be able to turn around before a double-tap punches through my ten ring.

With the AK’s muzzle, he nudges the box across the desk towards me. “Open it!”

“What’s in it...a head?” I let out a half-hearted chuckle.

His index finger is a frisky teen in a movie theater, caressing his lover, the trigger guard. He says, “No. Eyes and ears.”

My eyes lock on him as my hands open the box flaps. I steel myself for a glance inside...goggles and ear protectors.

He smiles. “Safety first.”

I put safety gear on in time to see him carrying a cardboard cutout of some goth-boy actor down the room to a pile of sand bags that I didn’t even notice was there. Sphincter-shaped pock marks dot the wall all around the sandbags.

He returns, and with a sweep of an arm he clears a spot on the desk, sending a stack of contracts and a keyboard flying. Next, he unslings his rifle, sprawls prone on top of his desk and hollers, “Weapons free!”

Bullets scream “down range,” filling the confines of the office/bunker with ear drum bursting, thunder claps. I jump with each volley in spite of myself. Smoldering, brass casings fly toward the safe, clanking off the metal door.

He fires in a well-measured rhythm.

Clak-CLAK!-Clak-CLAK!-Clak-CLAK!

He stops shooting. Even with the ear protection I hear tone reserved for dogs. Smoke seeps from the barrel and the room smells like embers of a kicked campfire.

“Hey,” Ulric says, “I am rude. Let us find you a gun. Not the AK though. This is not for you.”

He hops off his table and snatches the overgrown office-tool looking, device.

“This, my friend, is a Fabrique Nationale P-90.”

He cracks a ruler-length tray in place into the top of the contraption.

“Weapons hot!” He hands H.R. Giger’s device to me.

I heft it. Light.

I say, “French?”

“Fuck no, Belgian. The French are complete pussies.”

I turn it over in my hands making sure to keep my finger out of what I’m guessing is the trigger well. “This a rifle?”

“Sub-machine gun. It will put fifty rounds right on top of each other faster than you can say ‘Freeze, motherfucker!’”

“Go ahead,” he says. “It is like the Kodak. Just point and shoot.”

I’m a feet-pajama clad, eight-year-old running down the stairs on Christmas morning who can’t wait to tear into the big boxes with the red, oversized bows. I aim down range, and wrap my finger around the trigger, and squeeze with twice the effort necessary. The gun emits the faint whirl of an electric screwdriver overlapped with the sound of bubble-wrap popping in rapid succession as it spits hot metal exactly where my mind thinks them to go. Zero recoil.

In seconds, there is a clear view of the sandbags where the kid’s spleen should be.

“Fuckin-A!”

“You are Goddamn right! Nice grouping, bro,” he says.

“Hey!” He reloads his AK. “Let us light this bitch up!”

And with that, he flicks a selector switch on his rifle to full auto and goes apocalyptic on the effigy.

He shoots. I shoot. Lead and paper mix until there is no more paper to shoot at but we do not stop until we’re out of lead. Then we reload, and unload into burlap and sand.

“Where the hell did you get these?” I ask.

“I stole them from in front the houses in Malibu during the rain storms last year. These very bags of dirt were the only things standing between millions of dollars worth of property, and a wall of mud—”

“No,” I say. “Not the sandbags, the guns. They can’t possibly be legal in California.”

He jogs around to the back of his desk and rips open a drawer. When he comes back, he has red rings in his hand.

“Here,” he says. “Check out this shit.” He takes one of the rings and fits it to the end of the AK’s barrel with an easy snap. “And one for you...” Taking my gun, he clicks a smaller day-glow ring in place.

“Now they are toys! I walk go everywhere with the AK like this. Nobody says anything. He sighs, frowns at the rifle, then says, “If only this was ambidextrous like the P-90...”

An unseen cell phone rings and Ulric fits a Bluetooth in his ear. “Da?” He listens and winks at me, which is good because I was beginning to think the man had no eyelids. He finishes his conversation in Russian, then hands the FN back to me.

“Okay, wheels up,” He says. “Let us roll.”

I set the sub-machine gun down.

“No, no! Bring the gun, my friend.” He reaches into the safe for a few magazines of ammo, stuffs them into a satchel which he slings over his shoulder, and we are off.

*****

I follow him through the compound. “You live here?” I ask.

“The City of Angeles? Ha ha, fuck no. I live in Vegas. This is a shoot-house only. I own and lease this property and other houses just like it to porn production companies to use as locations. This pays my mortgages for now, but the things are slowing down. I’m bleeding the money.”

I say, “I find that hard to believe.”

“No, no. It is true. Torrent and piracy are killing us. The economy does not help of course, but the only hope to remedy this stealing is government intervention, which will never happen, of course.”

“Why is that?”

“We are basically doing the Attorney General’s work for them,” he says. “There is a saying from China. ‘When your enemy is destroying himself, get out of the way.’ This is not the half of it. The stupid American counterparts flooded the market with product so cheap not even with the economies of scale can a profit be turned. This is complicated further because the product flow is bottle-necked by a handful of distributors who are slightly less stupid than the studio heads. I, of course, am left to sell into this soft market, so I got into the horizontal integration to hedge the cash flow.”

“Why not be an agent for these girls?”

“Like the Oscar-winning song goes, ‘It is hard out there for a pimp.’ Same problem, different name.

By supplying shooting locations to the entertainment industry—mining the miners—I build my equity and I never have to shoot a single frame to make the money, and those that do make movies give me their money, anyway.”

We pass through a living room expansive enough to host a seminar.

“When I came here from Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, I had $87 and three words of English,” he says. “Socialism...talk about evil...anyway, the United States is a beautiful place, but most of you Americans are too lazy to take advantage. Immigrants risk their lives crossing your borders just to have a chance, win lose or draw. Americans are too hung up on looking good and status and do not want to make the sacrifices. This is good for me because it gives me opportunity.”

Reaching into his satchel, he takes two AK-47 clips that are taped together and feeds one end to the underside of the rifle. He digs out another magazine tray for my P-90 and hands it to me. “Alyosha came to the States last year and is learning the business.”

Without breaking stride, Ulric cracks off a volley of rounds into a foot-stool that looks too small to hold more than one Triscuit. The backside of the Ottoman explodes like a sheep rigged with C-4. Stuffing hangs in the air, and it’s snowing indoors.

“Truth be told, I hate that fucking Porsche,” he says. “I bought it because nobody in this town took me seriously when I drove my Buick. The Buick is a perfectly good car made by the sweat of your own working class laborers and it is still not good enough.”

He shakes his head.

“Meanwhile, nobody seems to talk about the tanks that Professor Porsche made for the Nazis. Amazing. There, shoot the chaise!”

I squeeze the trigger and the weapon spits fire and lead. The gun is silent enough to hear the brass tinkling at my feet like jar of pennies poured on cement.

And we continue the trek through the estate, hunting furniture along the way.

He says, “You don’t talk much. A wise cracking smart-ass to be sure, but even this in its place is a good quality. You are not a complete idiot, so why do you desire to make the porno?”

“Money. But from what your telling me, I’m too la—”

He shoots. The sound of his Kalashnikov crackles off the walls. The shape of the building amplifies the sound when it comes back to us. I feel reverb in my teeth.

“Apologies. That was a Barcelona chair. Have you tried to sit in one of those? Most uncomfortable,” he says.

“I can’t be that smart,” I say. “I’m fucking broke.”

“Sure, sure, but there are plenty of things you can do for money in Los Angeles for an ambitious person—get the Wassily!”

I stop firing at the chair when I hear the metal-on-metal sound of my rounds puckering the metal frame.

“Thank you,” he says. “What kind of sycophant names furniture after another man? Even Kandinsky. Most perplexing.”

Ulric yanks the spent banana clip out, flips it over and slaps the other magazine home.

“What were we talking about? Ah, yes! Why don’t you open a HIV testing center for aspiring porn actors. This requires no skill, just a little capital, which I can lend you. Do what I do with the shoot-houses and emulate what your Levi Strauss did in the gold rush of 1849. Mine the miners.”

“That’s a good idea but—”

“Le Couvroisier Lounge!”

Side by side, our weapons scream an unholy chorus of death as we fire in unison. Obliterating the chair as our muzzle-flashes strobe bursts of light on our faces the way a zoetrope flickers images on muslin. And we shoot. Our sweeping and spraying are jerky as if we’re stop-motion animated characters in a flip-book read by candle light. Steaming brass casings jingle and jump hot at our feet. The corridor smells of pine cones set ablaze.

The bullets spent, our instruments of killing click on empty chambers, Ulric and I run through the halls. We howl like wolves.

“Ahhwooooooooooo!”

“Aaahhwooooooooooo!”

“Ahhwooo-Ahhwooo-Ahhwooooooooooohooohoooooooo!”

My lungs burn, but I don't give a fuck.

“And here we are,” he says.

We’ve come to a pair of side by side doors. Rifle slung over his shoulder, his hands on his hips. Me, resting on my haunches. Both of us sucking air.

“You can have... a million excuses, or...a million dollars, but you cannot...have both, my friend. Hold on...I will call my brother.” Ulric slides off the ear protection, removes his shooting glasses and presses a Bluetooth into his ear. He waits a moment before speaking a sentence in Russian, then presses it to hang up.

“How do you feel?” he asks. “Good?”

“Better than I’ve felt in...a long time. Thank you. I really needed that.”

The door to the right buzzes open. Alyosha emerges and takes our guns.

Ulric smiles. “We can not have guns on the set. Accidents waiting to happen.” He peeks inside the room. “Alyosha,” Ulric says, “Where is Gabriel?”

Alyosha says, “I thought he was with you.”

Ulric says, “Did you forget to take all the mirrors in the house down?” He closes the door until it’s ajar. “Please, go find him.”

Alyosha heads down the corridor Ulric and I just came from.

Ulric leans over and talks in a confiding tone. “Sometimes I feel like I am a shepherd.”

I laugh. He doesn't, so I stop. He just stares at me....and stares. I pull my cell phone out and pretend to check for text messages, but I can still feel him staring at me. Oh-kay...

He says, "I didn't always look like this, you know..."

“I have found him!” Alyosha jogs toward us.

What the fuck was that all about?

I hear the slapping of slippers against heels as a man wearing a bathrobe, fluffy slippers, and holding a video camera, struts behind Alyosha; his hair flows and bounces as he walks. When he stops in front of me.

He says, “You are now in the presence of Gabriel. Tell us what you are called. Quickly, before Gabriel looses interest.” Gabriel looks like the spawn of Jessica Alba and Wesley Snipes.

I look at Ulric.

Ulric says, “He means your name.”

“Eric,” I say.

A halo of cologne fumes leaps off his body, and the air around him flickers like a heat mirage on a desert road.

“Eric?” Gabriel says.

I wince and take a step back. “Correct.”

Gabriel sighs and extends his hand. I just look at it.

He draws his hand back, clenching it into a fist for maximum pathos. “Did you just disrespect the Gabriel?”

I say to Ulric, “Is this guy on something?”

Ulric shrugs. “Gabriel,” he says. “I want you to go next door and shoot the other side of the scene and I will shoot this side.”

“As you wish, master.” He enters the left side door, the vapor trail him follows him.

Other side?

I follow the Kalashnikov brothers into the right-side door and take a moment to look around.

“I admire your restraint. He is a gifted cameraman, but a so-so male talent. I helped him and he won the award for Performer of the Year. He needs some...humility,” Ulric says.

Linoleum floor, wood-paneled walls. Nothing special about this room...I kick off my flip-flops and jeans.

I say, “Where’s the girl?”

“Oh, she is here. Feel free to put your sandals back on if it makes you feel more comfortable.”

“Can I see her HIV test?”

Alyosha says, “Oh, that will not be necessary. The last time she got laid, Iraq was a garden.”

He laughs. Ulric shoots him a look, and Alyosha cowers.

What the fuck is that? There is a waist-high hole the size of a fist in paneling, framed by ornate brass.

I can’t help but laugh. “A glory hole!”

“That is correct.” He gestures with one hand. “Please, stand in front of the hole, my friend.”

I stand in front of the hole. Dick to the edge of the hole’s metal frame. It’s dark.

“I feel like I’m gonna be on the wrong end of a ‘Whack-A-Mole’ game.”

In an instant, I hear a door scrape open and light from the x-rated confession booth washes over my cock. Voices. I recognize one of them as Gabriel’s.

“No!” he says. “Don’t take the blindfold off, Yvette.”

“But, I wanna see. Why can’t I look if this is a glory hole scene. I can’t see anything anyway.”

“Listen to Gabriel. You want to get paid, right?”

“Yeah.”

I turn around. Ulric is busy wiping his camera’s lens with a chamois cloth. Alyosha is gone. My attention goes back to the hole.

“Look,” Gabriel says. “You saw his test. He’s clean and that’s all you need to know.”

“No faaaaaiiir.”

“If you don’t want do this then fine. Gabriel is rich and beautiful, he doesn’t care. You can go back to the front yard.”

Yvette capitulates. “Oh-kay.”

“You have to answer these questions I read to you. Are you at least 18 years of age and here of your own free will?”

“Um, you’re kidding, right?”

“Please answer me ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ Yvette.”

“Yes.”

“Are you under the influence of drugs or alcohol?”

“No.”

“And what are you here to do today?”

“I’m gonna shoot a porn scene.”

“Okay, take off your clothes and we’ll start. But keep the blindfold on.”

There is the sound of clothes dropping on the floor and then a buzzing like electric hair clippers. Brzzzz...

“Give me your hand.” Gabriel says. “Take this, play with your pussy until I tell to fake an orgasm. Don’t stop until—”

“You’re gonna be telling me what to do? Cuz I can’t see anything.”

“Yes. Gabriel will be right here.”

Brzzzzzzz...

Yvette says, “Can you do me a favor and don’t stand close to me?” Yvette says. “You kinda smell like my Father.”

Except for the vibrator, the hole is silent. Behind me, Ulric is staring into space.

Brzzzzzzz...

“Fine,” Gabriel says. “Whatever, bitch.”

“Hey!” the girl says.

“Okay,” Ulric says. “Let us begin.”

I go to put my cock in the hole.

“Not yet, my friend.” Ulric says. “Rolling! And…action!”

Brzzzzzzzzzzzz...

“Hi, I’m Yvette Blew. You wanna see me play with my little pussy?”

Brzzzzzzzzzz-rwwommm-rwwwrom...

“Oh my!”

Brwooommm-rwwommmm—

“Oohh!”

—wrooommmm

I can’t see a Goddamn thing on the other side of this wall, but the sound of humming plastic on wet pussy is redirecting my blood flow.

rwwaaaaaaahhhhhhmmmm...

She takes sharp breaths between groans. I see her in my mind. A young, dumb piece of ass...

mmmmrwwoaoaoaoaaahhhzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

“Ohmigod! I’m really coming!”

My dick is already standing straight up and I can’t wait to put it in this hole. Goodness can only ensue.

Yvette comes and comes. This is killing me. Come on! Let’s go-go-go!

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

“Okay, we got the orgasm,” Gabriel says. “Suck some cock.”

The buzzing stops. The hole falls dark. Ulric gives me the nod from behind his hand-held camera and I plunge into the glory hole. My plugging of the hole seals out all sound from the other side of the wall. I do not see, hear, smell, or taste what happens next. I feel...

Tickles...like eyelashes...random locations, random intervals. Just as I believe I can guess the next touch, there is the feeling of a red-hot, goodness gliding up and down my shaft. The room is shifting sand in the desert wind and the wall becomes ephemeral and I am nowhere...my eyes lose focus...an air-tight encapsulation...no...suction expanding me from all directions at once in steady rhythm of massage and release...massage and release.

Then, nothing.

Exposed to the ambient room temperature again, there’s a wet chill of laundry drying in the breeze.

That ain't right, I didn't even get off—

A gooey gasket pressed against my tip, as someone is forcing a comfy sweater over my head. There is a pop, like an airtight seal has been broken, and then the feeling of a warm sock fresh out of the dryer rolled on...except the sock is several sizes too small and still quite damp.

I drift. Colors flash. Convulsions come in waves and the room and the wall are re-sketched in front of my refocusing eyes. I’m aware of my breathing, and the wood paneling at my face is covered with a layer of dew.

“Cut! We got it,” says Ulric. “You can take your dick out of the hole now.”

I’m pressed up against the brass-hole frame. When I step back, there is an impression of it left embedded into my skin like a tight watchband would leave on a wrist. My dick glistens, slick with pussy juice, and there is a stringy stalactite of come on its tip.

Ulric offers me a box of baby wipes. Behind him, my pants are folded on the floor next to a pair of stop sign sized cardboard sheets and a pair of those Segway, two-wheeled chariot things that go when the rider leans forward.

Ulric touches his Bluetooth and says, “Okay, Gabriel, bring her in here.”

Pussy drunk, I support myself with the legs of a newborn fawn and step into my pants.

“Holy shit, I've never been blown and fucked like that in my life. That girl really knows what she's doing.”

Ulric inspects his fingernails. He says, “You have no idea...”

I’m zipping up when the door opens and Gabriel prances into the room. He guides her by the hand and it’s now that I get my first look at Yvette.

I wait for Ulric to say he’s just fucking with me. I spin to Ulric to say—something—but nothing comes out of my mouth.

Ulric isn’t even looking at me. He says, “Come in Yvette. Gabriel, guide her over here in front of my camera.”

“Can I take the blindfold off now?” she asks.

“No. Eric, take your dick back out and stand next to me.”

What the hell...how is this possibly the same girl? She sounded so young.

Ulric says, “Okay, Yvette. You can take the blindfold off now.”

Yvette’s fingers fumble a long time with the knot and the rag comes undone. She rubs her milky, clouded eyes and allows light to flood them. Yvette looks at me, then to Ulric, who is videotaping her, and back to me again. She understands what happened the way an ant understands the magnifying glass. Then she sees my hanging, wet penis.

“Ohmigod,” she says.

Ulric places a cardboard sheet at his feet, directly in front of Yvette. There is marker writing on it.

I’m getting somewhat used to her face, as-is, when she fucks that all up by contorting it. “You tricked me! Everybody knows I don’t work with his kind. It’s common knowledge!”

Ulric says, “Oops.”

Yvette stabs a bony finger at me, and says, “His test says his name is Eric! I mean, it’s not like his name is Tyrone or...or Leroy! How am I supposed to know he’s a colored?”

“You are not,” says Ulric. “This is the point.”

Yvette cries, “If my Father ever found out I had sex with one of them he’d smite me!”

“Yes, I know,” he says. “I tricked you, most terrible. Now if you will kindly read the sign at my feet.”

Yvette’s lips move as she reads the message in silence. “No way, no. I’m sure I can get you in trouble for this.”

Ulric is stoic. “If there was a special place in hell for fucking a nigger, then you would be correct. My dear, please hurry. I have other scenes to shoot today.”

She glares at me, like this scenario was all my idea. “No! I won’t do it!”

I say, “Look granny, do you think I'm pleased about this—”

“We have a deal.” Ulric says, “Remember, I already have your signature on the contract and release forms so I can do what I please with the scene, and you, with or without your further cooperation. Considering that, I am quite sure you would prefer to have what I promised you. Your body is dying while you are still in it. This cannot be fun...”

Yvette’s shoulders slump. She reads from the sign. “Hi, my name is—”

“Stop!” Ulric says. “I cannot have you crying. Take a moment and please start again. Let us see those teeth.”

“Oh-kay.” She shoots me another death-ray my direction, composes herself, and squeegees the tears from her cheeks. “Hi, my name is Yvette, and you just saw me get tricked in Surprise Bitch! You Sold Your Soul! A Brothers Kalashnikov Production.”

*****

Ulric and I ride the scooter-chariots through the complex, back to his office.

“Come on,” he says. “Let us race.”

“I’m really not in the mood, man.”

We pass the blown-to-hell Barcelona that looks like it gave birth to an Alien. He says, “Don’t tell me you are letting her bother you.”

The smell of fired guns still hangs in the air as we weave though the greatroom. The floor-to-ceiling windows are starred and spider webbed where our shots got away from us. Mostly mine. Scooter wheels roll over jingling shell casings.

“No. I can deal with her. I’m bothered by what you did to set the both of us up.”

He doesn’t respond to this.

Ulric leaves his scooter propped against the wall and I do the same. We enter the office. A bottle of Colt 45 chills in an ice bucket on his desk. The munitions safe is closed. We sit side-by-side on the giant desk as we face down range toward the sandbags and shredded cardboard. Ulric takes a hit of the malt liquor and passes the bottle to me.

I look at the bottle for a moment before taking it. I drink. “What I’m saying is, I feel used, Ulric.” I pass the bottle back to him.

Ulric is silent, his dangling legs swing over the edge. “Both of you painted images of each other in your respective minds based on what you wanted to see. You were not kind to her once you saw what she looked like. You are a hypocrite, Eric. She made her choice just as you have made yours. I do not make people do anything. You all have free will.”

He takes a swig from the bottle, “Yes, I used you. Everybody uses to some degree. The key is reciprocity. Be grateful. To be used confirms your value. When the day comes that you have nothing to offer anyone else would want and you are of no utilitarian value, that is the time for sadness, my friend. Because then, you are a charity case.

Alyosha enters.

“My brother! While you were filming, I had most glorious dream. Jesus Christ...he came back—”

Ulric cuts a nervous glance at me and says, “Ha ha, not now, Alyosha. We do not want to bore our guest.”

Alyosha says, “Well, anyway, the next girl said she will be twenty minutes late, but her makeup and hair are already camera-ready.”

“Fine, thank you,” says Ulric. “And Yvette?” He takes another swig and sets the bottle down on the desk between us.

Alyosha says, “Yes, she is...waiting outside...”

Ulric looks at me. “Can you do more scenes today?”

I snatch the bottle. “I don’t know,” I say, “Maybe, but I don’t want to fuck up.”

I kill the last of the malt-liquor in a single chug.

“Do not worry, my friend. It will probably be an hour by the time the next girl gets here.”

He hops off his desk, opens a drawer and produces a pill box. I take it. It’s stainless steel with a picture of a ‘50s pin-up model holding an apple. Above her, the words, Rotten To The Core. I open it. Viagra.

“Problem solved.”

*****

It’s sunset. The warm Santa Anna breeze sways the palm trees and the sky is a glowing ember. Ulric, an AK slung over his shoulder, rides a Segway and I walk. We crunch along the loose stone driveway as grey flakes drift down from the heavens like a black snowfall in August. I hold out my hand. Ashes. I rub my singers together and the flakes melts away. From our elevated vantage, we see the hills on the opposite side of the Valley’s basin are ablaze with wildfires. The hills glow red, the soot chokes out the stars. We stop at the Porsche and my Nova.

Ulric's Segway takes off in a sprint toward the cliff’s ledge and he dives off at the last second, launching the unmanned vehicle over the edge. He tumbles and rolls to a stop next to a statue, dusts himself off, and says, “Wow, that was close, ha ha ha!”

The statue he stopped next to is of an old man making out with a male angel in the backseat of a convertible. The angel kisses with his eyes open. Next the the lovers, a sign that says “Archimedes' Point.” Ulric, back to the sprawling vista of flames, spreads his arms wide and calls back to me.

He says, “Did you that if you stand in this exact spot right here—” he jumps up and down, “—you will have the only point of view where you can see the entire Valley, the Pacific Ocean, and the LA basin at the exact same time? You would not believe the price I paid for this property.”

He places his hands on his hips and stares out over the bluff. Flames devour multi-million dollar homes.

“In the end,” he says, “what you really pay for is the view...”

I say, “Umm...sure.”

He jogs back to me and says, “Well, here we are, my friend. Here is your money.”

He hands me a knot of cash. We ended up shooting three scenes. With a little chemical assistance, it was the easiest money I’ve earned in my life. He lights two cigarettes and hands me one. We smoke.

“Thank you,” I say. “I really needed the cash.”

Ulric smiles at this. “The pleasure is mine, bro. I have business in New York, so you will not see me for a few days. Serrano is showing in a gallery I own... Hey, you should come with me to the Big Apple! So much I can show you there.”

I say, “I think I’ve seen enough for one day.”

Ulric shrugs. “Very well. Please, go now. I have to take care of something.”

He unslings the Kalash from his shoulder, digs a sound suppressor from his pocket and twists it in place. I back away from him. The cigarette, defying gravity, is glued to his bottom lip as he strafes the Porsche with a few passes of the rifle. Windows crackle. Head lamps burst. The upholstery shreds, and the 996’s tires explode. The famous Stuttgart horse hood-emblem flips end-over-end into the air. Bullets reduce the smoldering machine to a mastiff-chewed hunk of gristle and steel. Ulric chucks the spent clip over his shoulder with the nonchalance one would discard an apple core, and reaches into his ammo satchel for another...

*****

As I creep down the serpentine hillside in the black of night...something nags at me...the nameplate on his desk...I tumble the letters around in my mind...

Ulric Ef’n Kalashnikov...

Ulric Ef’n...

Ulric Ef...

...and the letters click into place. My hands shake and I almost miss a turn and drive off the cliff.

I stop the car. In the rear view mirror, the Kalashnikov house is burning.