Aphrodite Shuddered - Chapter 9

Chapter 9:

It Never Rains in California

Revenge of the Amazons was now in its third day of shooting at Mammoth Studios in Burbank, California. After an overnight stay at Alex’s and Marta's mansion in Rolling Hills - where Tina and Angie had been living all week - I got up early to see the women off to work. Staggering out of our private bathroom, I saw Angie's copy of the latest National Rag lying on the nightstand. The headline caught my blurred eye:

Aliens Prefer Lovers

I lit a cigarette and read:

Jerry Klein, a high school biology teacher and self-proclaimed alien contactee, theorizes that aliens are partial to contacting people who lead abnormally active sex-lives. Mr Klein says, "During the past five years, my Abductee Counseling Clinic has seen a large influx of prostitutes of both sexes, swinging couples, and bi-sexual people. The aliens are manipulating human DNA, and sexually active people have a better chance of passing on these chromosomal changes.”…."

Another headline:

Aliens Caused AIDS!

Sam Lumpkin, who lost his medical license in 1989 after claiming to be abducted by aliens, revealed to the National Rag: "The Gray beings accidentally exposed humans to an alien retro-virus in 1977. I was informed of this by my blonde-humanoid alien lover, Julia. Julia comes from the planet Looreed in the constellation of Orion…"

As I read the tabloid and finished my cig, Angie rolled to her back and yawned: "God I'm so sleepy. I have to stand under hot lights all day setting-up shots while Queen LaTina and Tammi make-out in their trailer."

Tina poked her head around the doorway. "I heard that! You get 200 bucks a day and a free lunch for doin' basically nothin', so get your ass up, Prima Donna," Tina blared. "You smokin' again, Herc? Don'tcha dare kiss me til ya brush yer teeth."

Throwing the covers over my head, I said, "Have fun, you two - I'm going back to sleep."

The room phone woke me at 9 o’clock. A sweet Spanish-accented voice said: "Mister Denny, this is Serena.” Serena was Alex’s lead housekeeper. “Would you like someone to bring you your breakfast?"

"Someone like you, I hope." I teased.

"You are so terrible! I will be there in five minutes."

Coming into my room first was Marta in a tight white mini dress and Gucci heels. Pearls ringed her delicate neck. "Alex never came home last night."

"Serena's on her way with breakfast in bed," I forestalled defensively, not needing ESP to understand the heavy-lidded look in her eyes.

"That's too bad. We could have spent some time together. I don’t have to leave for a half hour." Her words gave me an unwelcome half-boner.

"I, I'd be abusing Alex's hospitality." Just then, Serena carried a silver breakfast platter into the room.

Marta tossed me a key fob. "You need a car, Denny. Here, take the Trans-Am." Marta then waved farewell and departed for the KPOX -TV studios.

I teased Serena: "Serena, would you like to take a ride with me later? Take me home to meet your sainted mother?"

"I'm a good Catholic girl, Mister Denny, so I don't accept rides from dangerous men. But at least you asked about mama." Her dark eyes sparkled, and a finger lay across her amused lips as she turned away.

Five minutes later, as I ate breakfast in bed, the room phone next to my bed rang. "Denny, could you come to the garage? I'd like to show you something in the car."

My mouth suddenly went dry. "Um - sure, Marta. I'll be down in a minute."

Marta opened the front door of her Mercedes, and I slid into the soft sheepskin seat. With a Beethoven piano sonata playing in the background, Marta instantly planted her plump lips on mine, and her warm tongue jammed against my tonsils, instantly making my cock spring to attention. "I still want you, Dennymmmm." Slim fingers unbuttoned my cut-offs. "I still think about the time we spent together in Seattlemmmmmm...and Las Vegasmmmmm," she whispered between red hot kisses. Marta had been 16 years old when I first met her in Seattle. After she had become a recording artist, Angie and Tina and I ended-up in bed with her in a Las Vegas hotel penthouse.

Then her mobile phone rang, and to my utter dismay, she answered it. "Alex, you could have called sooner - asshole." While Alex talked, Marta pressed the mute key on her phone, lowered her head and mouthed my nuts. Then she released the mute key. "...Hurry home, Alex." I heard Alex’s tinny-sounding voice on the phone as Marta leered up at me, waggling her tongue obscenely. She stopped sucking cock long enough to tell Alex: "I lent the Trans-Am to Denny - he just took it out...What?" Then she began slowly pumping my erection, getting faster by the second. "You’re leaving for San Francisco?” She pushed the mute key again, just as I let out a drawn out gasp. “No, I didn't hang-up on you - I was in the middle of swallowing my juice."

* * *

"Herc, we're lucky - we get to go home early. I'm doing location shots around Vegas next week," Tina announced.

"I don't think I want to leave L.A., now."

"I thought you hated rich folks."

"A person could get used to this. Marta isn't happy, though, because Alex won't be home tonight. I guess he skipped town last night...” My voice failed me as I twisted up my courage. “Uh, ah, I took Mar-Marta to bed.” That was fudging the truth. I had shot my messy wad all over the dashboard and upholstery of the Mercedes - nowhere near a bed. “So, are you gonna hit me now?" I was ready to put up my dukes, just to protect my glass jaw.

"I don't care what you did with her, ‘cause I did the same thing before you even got here.” With incredible hypocrisy, she chided, “Good thing you ‘fessed-up, lover boy. Marty would have told me everything eventually.” Mixing her similes, she threatened: “’And if I ever catcha sneakin’ around like a rat, I’ll crush ya like you were a pop can."

"I hope you use your thighs - “

She cut me off with a wave of her hand. "Aw, horseshit. Now go get dressed up nice for a change - we're goin' out tonight."

"I hate L.A. nightlife - what, hair bands and disco?"

"Marty's takin' us, dunce. She can go anywhere and do anything."

"This could get interesting."

"More fun than you can handle. Maybe ya should stay here and read yer bird book, Herc."

I flatly stated, "No."

* * *

Marta's chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud cruised silently to the front of the mansion. Three pairs of lovely gams clambered into the back seat. Tina and Marta were wearing micro-mini skirts, and Angie was stuffed inside matching white spandex tube-top and pants; her wiry little 30-year old body could still pull it off. I tickled Angie and playfully bit her throat; Tina said, "Herc has a spandex fetish."

We stopped at the Ecstasy Club on Sunset Boulevard, in West L.A.. Upon seeing Marta, the bouncers waved us past the adoring line of hopeful entrants. Inside the noisy disco, I recognized a lot of young showbiz people and fashion models. Beautiful people kissed Marta's cheeks. Electronic dance music and thousand of colored lights disoriented the revelers, who drank fruit juice laced with MDMA, otherwise known as Ecstasy.

A hundred people were jumping and screaming out on the huge dance floor. Angie led me by the hand to the center of the floor. Hot asses bumped into us as we clung to one another. The reverberating bass pounded the mindless mob into submission. "Denny, they're fuckin' out here!" Angie yelled into my ear.

"What! Get the fuck outta here, did you say?"

"What!" Angie climbed my body like a snake, her short legs locked around my waist - she had been getting trampled.

Disorienting strobe lights flickered about 20 times per second as I slowly carried Angie through the packed dance floor, and then we ran into a road block: a pair of blonde, identical twin sisters wearing pink teddies fellated any available penis while a multitude of hands clutched and stroked the sisters.

The edge of the floor seemed to be a mile away. Two feet to our left, a black supermodel stood on her head while fingers and tongues prodded her inner thighs.

The dj mixed Donna Summer's Love to Love You Baby with the distorted bass and hip-hop rhythm tracks. With Angie clamped around me, I shuffled through the "dancers." Donna Summer began moaning, "Ahh! Ahh!" An unknown person unhooked the fly of my slacks, and then the zipper unzipped itself as I edged away.

After we became wedged between three surfer dudes and a tall brunette with enormous tits, the brunette pushed her hot-panted ass against my exposed crotch. The zipper in the back of the pink plastic short-shorts worked its way down as she wriggled against me.

The throng finally thinned-out enough for me to put Angie down and to zip my fly. Tina said, "Yer a mess, Herc. What the fuck was goin’ on out there?"

"You'd never believe it. Where's Marta?"

"She walked off with the guy who owns this joint. He took her to meet Lance Steele - yeah, that Lance Steele.” Steele was a famous 70-year old movie sex symbol. “He’s in the back office or whatever."

Marta soon re-joined us. "Eddy just came around front with the Rolls. We may go to a party at Lance Steele’s house later."

Next, we visited a "Goth" disco which played Seattle grunge-rock at 120 decibels. Ghostly white-faced kids wearing fangs dragged themselves around the small dance floor. Here, heroin appeared to be the drug of choice, as it was in Seattle at the time.

Tina said, "I'm freakin'! C'mon, Marty, let's get outta here - this scene is muthafuckin’ wack."

"Wait just a minute, Tina. I see a friend of mine from channel 46. She's Draculyn, the horror-movie host. Lynn's her real name. Lynn, liebchen!" Lynn had a tiny waist and huge breasts. Smooth black hair hung to her hips. She wore a slinky black gown.

To Lynn, I said, "I wish we had someone like you on TV in Vegas." Her smile at me was perfect and white, albeit featuring a pair of sharp fang implants.

Marta said, "Lynn, would you like to roll with us?"

Lynn nodded. "I need to get home and change clothes. It's only a few blocks from here."

It being late Saturday night, parties raged out of control in many of the units in Lynn's condominiums. Musical cacophony boomed out inside her building.

Once we were inside Lynn's condo unit, Lynn's obligatory gay neighbors walked through the open door. "Look, it’s Marta! Love your show! You're such a Barbie - isn't she, Ben? This is so exciting! I'm Pauly, and this is Ben. May I kiss you, Marta? Ooh, she's luscious, Benji!" Pauly was a tall, beefy black man who while being gay, could beat me to a pulp if he was so inclined.

Lynn had changed into a studded, black leather hot pants and studded leather halter. Lynn asked, "Marta, do you mind if these retards come along? Ben, Pauly - wanna cruise with us?"

"Party! Woo-hoo!" cried Ben, a short, greasy-spiked-haired white guy in parachute pants.

On the way back to the Rolls, I told Tina: "I don't think I could stand this more than once a month, and these people do it every night."

A rainstorm pelted us outside the condo. The weatherman had said that L.A. hadn't had this much rain in June in 10 years. Angie pawed me on the jump seat, and Marta threw a golden thigh across my lap. Lynn teasingly kissed Ben and Pauly, who acted like her little boys, looking slightly embarrassed as if their mom were fussing over them. Marta talked on her mobile phone for a minute and then told us, "Lance Steele invited us to a party at his house in Pacific Palisades. Got that, Eddy?" Eddy the chauffeur tipped his cap and nodded.

Lance Steele had been a top movie star in the 60s and 70s, starring in a series of successful Italian westerns. Marta said, "I don't want to miss this party. I'm trying to get Lance on my next Hollywood Hunks show." I had heard rumors about the unusually long length of his schlong.

Ben wistfully said, "Lance is still such a big star." Then he added, "With the accent on big."

Pauly asked in a surprisingly deep bass voice, "Denny, are you in show-biz too?"

"No, but Jim Walter said I'm a Barrymore look-alike. Tina and Angie are the actors in the family."

"You're a good-looking fella," Pauly observed.

Tina said, "Aw, that's just bool-shit, brutha. Hercules is homely as hell." Then she licked my earlobe.

* * *

At 11pm we arrived at Lance Steele's mansion. Surrounding a huge open courtyard were marble pillared galleries. Battlement-like towers decorated with terra cotta cornices rose from the four corners of the main house. More than a dozen cars were parked on the circular drive. Marta now called Steele to announce our arrival.

The moon broke through galloping clouds and reflected off the Pacific, which sloshed hundreds of feet below. Steele's property sprawled on many acres on a cliff. For some reason, construction barricades were set-up near the edge of the cliff. We ran to the front door amidst flashing lightning and sheets of rain.

"Welcome to my home, folks," said Steele. His white hair set-off his dark eyes. "Marta, you are the most beautiful woman in the world, present company excepted." Steele was sandwiched between blonde bimbo Tamara Stevens, the star of Beach Rescue Squad, and a gorgeous oriental woman with long and shiny black hair. Famous actors, rock stars, and unknown starlets yammered at each other. Marta sat on Steele's lap and rubbed a silky thigh against Tamara, who discreetly ran two fingers over the thigh.

A short time later, Angie and I walked into the inner courtyard, where flowers were being pummeled by the now fierce rain. We stood under an arcade. "Even Seattle doesn't get rain like this," said Angie. "Look, Den, there's naked people dancin' in the rain! Over by the fountain."

"I see ‘em. They're nuts! Did you see the lightning when we got here? I see they've stopped dancing."

The four women and three men now caressed each other the downpour. I recognized one woman as Katarina Wellington, a news anchor at an L.A. TV station. Another woman was Crystal Schwartz, co-host of TV's popular syndicated Showbiz Today. The three young men were members of a moderately successful heavy metal rock group. Their teased blonde hairdos were matted and dripping. Two unknown starlets dropped to the flagstone footpath and began enthusiastically flapping their tongues in a 69.

A flash of lightning revealed the news anchor and the co-host as they began blowing the rockers. I yelled, "Hey you guys, get indoors!" Then I said to Angie: "Let's check out the rest of the house, Angie - these people are insane." Something about the rain vaguely worried me. Then I recalled the barricades standing near the edge of the cliff. I suddenly felt a ripple of nameless anxiety. After the events of the past year, I had begun to trust that feeling of dread. "Angie, we gotta get outta here.”

"What! Aw, c’mon, Den - we've only been here an hour!"

"I’m worried that mudslides could take out the main road. I'm serious. Maybe a foot of rain has come down in the past 12 hours. Let’s find Marta and go back to our snuggly bed." Angie squeezed my arm and lay the side of her head against it. Now I tried using my rusty psychic powers, which I hadn’t exercised in weeks, although I had been diligently practicing Transcendental Meditation. I focused my concentration on an image of the edge of the cliff in front of the house and attempted a Remote View. But the moon had ducked back behind the clouds, so it was too dark to see anything there.

"Den, are you drunk?"

"Oops, sorry." In my distraction I had tripped on Angie's foot. "I'm fine - let's go and find Marta."

From the vaulted ceiling, an 18th-century crystal chandelier softly illuminated the living room, where I told Marta, "We need to leave pretty soon."

"What's wrong, Denny?"

"I'm worried about mudslides - that happens all the time around here. Ask Lance about it."

She spoke in an urgent whisper to Lance, who, slapping his forehead, suddenly put two-and-two together. I suppose he had forgotten the danger since they hadn't had a major landslide in this area in years. He said, "Hey everybody! We should break-up the party so you can get home on time. This isn't the greatest place to be in a storm - I mean, the road might get washed-out."

I walked out out of the house and down the gentle slope of the lawn near the cliff overlooking the sea. Then lightning flashed, enabling me to see that a gaping crevasse had formed on the edge of the continent, on which we were perched. The wooden barricades now only stood just a few feet from the edge. Floodlights came on, and then Lance trotted outside to see his real estate crumbling away inch by inch. "Help me get everyone out, would you?" he said to Angie and me. "There's a dozen or more people still here."

"There are seven or eight fools out in the courtyard. I'll get 'em," I said.

In the house, Tina asked, "Why the gloomy look, Herc?"

"We need to leave shortly, unless you want to stay here all weekend. If you want to see something interesting, follow me." We went to the courtyard.

Tina stayed under the arcade while I ran into the downpour. "I can see just fine from here. White people are fuckin’ nuts!"

A block away from us, a slowly cruising police car's p.a. loudly squawked: "You must evacuate the area as soon as possible. Flash flood alert. You must evacuate!" Then the police car made a turn into Lance's driveway.

Within a circle of rose bushes, one of the glam-rockers lay on a long bench while the woman newscaster rode his skinny cock. Water streamed down her spine. I said, "Break it up you two. Didn't you hear the cops? We gotta leave!"

Her muscular ass slowly rocking, Katarina Wellington mumbled, "Mmm - I thought I heard something.” Now her ass started bouncing. “Oh! Oh! Christ, I'm coming! Fuck my pussy! Argh!"

"A-hem...any time you're ready," I impatiently said. "Do me a favor and round up your friends. I'm outta here. This might make a good story on the news tomorrow, Katarina."

Tina and I walked around the four arcades and looked for stray guests. "Meet me at the front door in five minutes!"

She saluted snappily and barked, "Aye-aye, Cap'n!"

I entered the inside corridor at the back of the house and checked the rooms. When a low, subtle rumbling sound came from up the hill five minutes later, I climbed the stairs leading to the tower that faced the hillside above. Part of a retaining wall had just given way, causing minor flooding, but with mud and concrete debris blocking the road leading west down to Malibu. The route east to Beverly Hills looked passable - blue police lights flashed their way down the main road east.

I scampered down two flights of stairs to the front entrance. "Mr Steele, I found people in the back of the house. They're coming, as it were."

"I'm not sure who's all here! This place has 40 rooms. " Lance’s voice was tinged with panic, belying his macho movie image.

"Do you have intercoms?"

"How stupid of me! Of course."

People trickled to the front door, and then the crazy rain dancers finally got into their cars and went home. The only ones left were Marta and her six guests, and Lance. Eddy was bringing the Rolls up to the front of the house. Everybody casually made their way to the door when there came faint popping and cracking noises from up the hill, and the house rumbled slightly. "Hurry - everybody get in your cars!" Lance urged.

Lance threw a bag into the trunk of his Porsche. He started to close the trunk, but then he ran back to his house. When I heard a gushing sound, I looked to the right. The barricades had fallen into the sea. I ran after Lance. "Get back in your car, you idiot!"

He turned to me and shouted, "I got to get my collection of autographed glossies of silent movie stars - they're irreplaceable!"

"So are you - wait!"

Tina trotted up to me. "Ain’t' you gonna stop 'im?"

"I'm trying to but he’s gone fucking nuts!"

Tina sprinted to Lance, tapped him on the shoulder, and then slugged him cleanly on the jaw with a left upper-cut. "Don't just stand there, you dumb shit! Help me carry 'is ass!" I grabbed Lance's arms while Tina hauled him by the feet. We dumped him in the front seat next to Eddy. Now the Rolls was crammed with shivering people.

"Haul ass, Eddy," I breathlessly said.

"With pleasure, sir." At the end of the driveway, Eddy started turning left.

I yelled, "Oh, shit, NO! We gotta turn right - it's the only way that ain't blocked! Back the car up - hurry!" Suddenly it sounded like a runaway logging truck coming down the hill.

"Denny! What the fuck is that!" Angie screamed.

“Come on-come on-hurry!” I said between clenched teeth. Two seconds after Eddy had turned the car with agonizing slowness, he jammed the accelerator to the floor just as thousands of tons of mud - along with the concrete abutments that were meant to reinforce the terraced hills - roared across the road behind us and gushed onto Lance's driveway and back yard before spilling over the cliff. Eddy sped us to safety as the sound of cracking wood echoed behind us. A vivid mental picture of the southwest battlement of his hacienda toppling over and being swept over the cliff suddenly filled my mind.

Lance returned to consciousness. "I gotta go back."

"Mr Steele, I'm sorry, but I think your house was just washed over the cliff," Tina said in her usual blunt fashion.

"It's all over! Young lady, I should thank you for saving me life, but I don't know if I can get through this. My life!" Now his voice got caught in his throat.

* * *

By noon on Sunday the media had caught wind of Lance Steele's whereabouts. Earlier that morning, news crews in helicopters reported the loss of three expensive homes in Pacific Palisades.

Katarina Wellington was, of course, the first reporter to contact Marta - she knew that Marta had been one of the last people to leave the party. Marta gave her an exclusive interview, which told the details of Tina's Hollywood Heroics.

I found Tina in Marta's dining room. I said, "That woman from channel 46 is here - Katarina what's-her-name. Get ready to be famous."

"I'm not ready, Herc."

"Welcome to Hollywood."

* * *

"Hurry, Den! The news is comin' on!"

I sat down with Angie, Tina, and Marta and watched the L.A. local news. Cue announcer and annoying intro music: “Now, the Southland’s most highly rated Sunday night newscast, ExtremeActionNews46 with Katarina Wellington.”

Tight-shot on Katarina: "Good evening. Disastrous floods and mudslides struck the coastal communities near Malibu last night. The worst damage occurred in Pacific Palisades."

A video clip showed an aerial shot of the remains of Lance's house. One tower had fallen into the sea, as had the driveway where we had been parked. Katarina continued: "The legendary actor Lance Steele was rescued from certain death by two party guests. I had an exclusive interview with channel 46’s own Marta Eichenburger, star of Morning with Marta, whose Rolls-Royce whisked Mr Steele to safety after a mudslide destroyed his multi-million dollar home."

Cut to Marta: "My friend Denny ran after Lance, and Tina Kincaid, an actress friend of mine, knocked Lance unconscious after he refused to leave - heh-heh."

"She actually hit him?"

"It saved his life, there's no doubt." Tina's mischievous mug popped onto the screen - she was born to be photographed.

Cut to a clip of Katarina and Tina: "Tina, what films have you appeared in?"

"Jim Walter's Revenge of the Amazons. It should be at a theater near you by Thanksgiving..."

I said to Tina: "That was so-o-o subtle, Amazon. You probably just made a million dollars." Tina's left brow rose most attractively then.

* * *

Under the blankets, Tina kicked me in the butt. It was 6am. "Hey, wake up. I want you to come with us to the studio today, Herc. You can watch the media circus."

"All right - I'm up." I looked forward to seeing Tina, Tammi, Chesty, Kitty, and Francine, all wearing woman-warrior get-ups while being photographed for low-rent movie magazines.

On a spaceship movie-set at Mammoth Pictures studios, the makeup and wardrobe people fussed over the five actors. Jim and I were pleased to see a couple of network-affiliate TV stations covering this non-event. Reporters from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter were also present.

Strobes flashed as if we were back at the Ecstasy Club. The pushy photogs shouted, "Tina! Look this way! Show more leg - yeah! Smile sexy, Tina!" Tina, Tammi, and the phony females snarled viciously for the lenses. They wore identical two-piece, spangled black leather outfits and black, spike-heeled boots. By brandishing a Turkish scimitar above her head, Tina provoked another frenzy of strobes.

Lance Steele caused an instant commotion when he strolled onto the set, accompanied by a storm of photo flashes. "Hey Lance, pose with Tina! Tina, pretend yer punchin' Lance in the face - that’s it - beautiful!"

Copyright 2011 by K.D. Bishop