Lost Souls

Chapter One

Goodness speaks in a whisper, evil shouts.

(Tibetan proverb)

“You’re so good… you’re so big… oh, ooh baby!”

Words loud and explicit. So loud that if they hadn’t just been uttered in a totally soundproof room and the windows and doors hadn’t been so scrupulously closed, they would have flown straight out of the big, lavish, multiple-garaged, cerise hacienda in the Hollywood Hills, soared over the empty golf cart and bounced like swallows in summer off the obligatory but currently unrippled swimming pool, the one shaped like a large pair of breasts, with round, salmon-pink nipples perfectly tiled into its floor.

As Arnie Garth’s nearest neighbours have been heard to say on many occasions, taste no object, which, coming from them, is quite something, considering they have more gold taps than a third-world dictator and a shark tank in the basement.

“That’s it, that’s it, that is it, lover…!”

Anyone who has just managed to catch these words, in all their exotic, Latino-accented lustfulness, let alone the volcanically mounting urgency of their expression (and, of course, who didn’t know Arnie Garth himself too well), would certainly think that this fortunate man must be one hell of a lover.

A description with which the man himself would be forced to agree, although, to be honest, the jury is still out.

You also won’t be surprised to discover that the designer’s vision, whoever he or she might be, made so brazenly manifest to outdoor guests and passing aircraft, is continued in spades once you venture within.

Taking in the décor – and you’d probably need to keep those shades on for this – you would pretty soon recognise that it is the house that IKEA forgot.

All that leopard skin and shiny leather.

And this is just the walls. Don’t get me started on the furniture.

(I know I said I wouldn’t pop in that much, but please!)

Yet it’s the stuff tacked onto these glitzy walls, the prized objects that are so lovingly framed and protected in non-reflective glass, that offer up the final clue.

We are probably not talking here the domicile of PhDs in European literature or even, this being the movie capital of the universe, makers of art-house classics. Or that the owner has ever read a book.

First there are the photos. Plenty of photos.

Full colour. The works. Blown-up shots of a podgy, balding, medallioned man in his mid-forties sporting a lavishly cap-toothed grin almost bigger than he is, a suntanned chest in need of a good mow and a pneumatic, scantily dressed companion (a different but clearly interchangeable one in each picture, this being the only noticeable variation, other than maybe the degree of garishness of the man’s unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts).

In the expensively manicured and flauntily be-ringed hand not occupied in pressing the flesh, the grinning subject holds aloft some sort of Oscar-like award.

At first glance, it looks suspiciously like an erect and gilded phallus, but on closer inspection it can be seen to be exactly what it looked like at first glance.

Between each individually lit photograph is a scaled-down version of a movie poster.

One look at the titles of these movies would confirm to you, in an instant or less, the kind of community that would reward its members with shiny, less malleable members to take away and put on their mantelpieces.

An American in Clarice, Last Year in Marian’s Bed, Seven Brides for Seven Sisters, A Fistful of Dolores – I’m certain you get the picture.

They’re amongst the classics of their genre, big players in the pantheon.

You might even have seen a couple or three yourself, but you maybe didn’t announce it on your Facebook page.

Despite the bordello-style décor, chaises-extra-longues strewn with cushions of all nationalities and a well-equipped if vaguely eclectic bar (Manischewitz?

Absinthe?), the room also appears to serve as an office.

There is a large, mahogany desk by the sliding windows that is almost bowing under the weight of papers and documents, all battened down against the breeze and the air conditioning with a few of the original gilded dicks, most of them speckled with cigar ash, like fake snow at Christmas.

At the far end of the room, an ageing engineer with a silver-grey ponytail and a cowboy shirt frayed enough to match his demeanour sits at an elaborate mixing desk, diligently pushing buttons and adjusting levels.

On a TV monitor above his head, a silent movie plays, but not the kind of which Mack Sennett or Buster Keaton would be particularly proud.

On the screen, in a setting not so dissimilar to this one, only less subtly lit, a visiting pool cleaner, muscles rippling under his tight tee, appears to have taken a shine to the pertly underdressed maid of the house.

Rather than setting about the task for which he is presumably being paid, he is enthusiastically demonstrating his equipment to the visibly interested employee, in a furnished cabana by the poolside.

Despite her obvious excitement, the little mischief is not too lost for words to compliment her agile suitor on the length and efficiency of his hose and to enquire exactly how often he likes to clean his pipes.

Yet it would be plain to even the least technical of observers that, whilst this young woman is apparent mistress of the well-turned phrase and equally sharp moan of total ecstasy, these latter sounds are in fact emerging via carefully placed speakers from the soundproof booth beneath the screen and behind the glass.

Inside the booth, poised almost on top of the microphone, is a matronly, greying Latino lady wearing a bored expression, a large but rather shapeless red jumper and a pair of faded blue denims above solid, sandalled feet.

Who knows whether this is an accepted trick of her own particular trade, but between moans of unbridled and unusually protracted bliss, she is popping considerable quantities of Ice Breakers sugar-free gum.

(Notice the product placement there? Will I get even a free gift pack? Where would they send it?)

“Take me to heaven, baby…”

If she only knew.

Watching all this from his crocodile leather seat behind the engineer (although sitting is quite clearly something this hyperactive and volatile creature is incapable of doing for more than thirty seconds) is a squatter, rounder and infinitely less patient man.

You need only check out the photos on the wall to realise that we are in the presence of the great Arnie Garth himself.

In fact, the shirt alone would give it away.

Splayed out across the desk beside him are a group of manila folders, each with a different description stamped in red on their ash-stained covers.

Sales Figures, Budgets, Actors’ Agreements.

On another even larger pile are scripts, so many scripts, which, as you would probably expect, are a tad slimmer than those you might picture sitting on the desk of a major Hollywood studio executive.

(Action, I hear, takes up a lot less space on the page than dialogue, and these protagonists are nothing if not active.) And scattered all around are colourful fliers for the upcoming annual National Erotic Cinema Awards in Las Vegas, the pornographer’s Mecca – you should pardon the expression.

Right now, this celebrated and much-gilded producer is glaring crossly into the aforementioned booth. He appears just as exercised as the young maid currently being dubbed (among other things) on the screen. But nowhere near so pleased about it.

After some seconds, the young woman in the cabana, and the considerably older one practically eating the microphone, conveniently reach their explosive and highly professional climaxes at roughly the same time (being a microsecond or two out really doesn’t matter so much; the customers aren’t buying these epics for the syncing).

Whilst the on-screen starlet attends to the pressing needs of the pool guy, blissfully gasping out her compliments on his sterling extra-curricular work, the kindly and far-from-spent lady in the sound booth looks beyond the busy engineer to her employer, who is now approaching at some speed.

She pops her gum before smiling hopefully at him.

“Was good, no, Senor Garth?” she enquires in her normal and far huskier voice, which, if you ask me, is just as attractive and actually far friendlier.

Arnie Garth, whose permanent California tan is turning an angry red, shakes his head and vigorously rubs his temples. He stares at the woman as if he can’t believe how very misguided she is.

“You call than an orgasm! Huh? Huh? I’ve heard hornier death rattles. Do it again and keep doing it until you get it right. And like-you-really-mean-it would help. You’ve got thirty minutes or I’m calling immigration.”

At this point, the engineer simultaneously coughs, looks up at Arnie and taps his watch. Arnie stares at him for a second then sighs, as if, yet again, an unfeeling world has conspired against the perfection-driven artiste.

“No time? Fine. Shit! Okay. We’ll go with take forty-three.”

The woman, who is almost in tears by now, smiles gratefully and exits the booth.

“Aw, hey, Dorita,” says Arnie, throwing her a smile.

The woman stops for a moment, slightly thrown by the unexpected warmth of tone, and looks back at her producer for some sort of solace.

“Make some lunch for us now, eh babe? And don’t forget to add plenty of cumin. Ha!”

The woman nods and gives an appreciative little laugh, without quite getting what she picks up from his expression has to be a witticism of sorts, undoubtedly crude, as the majority of the things that emerge from his potty mouth firmly embrace this component.

She makes for the kitchen, humming a Salvadorian folk song of her youth.