Get in Trouble. Kelly Link

on, bite me.

      He bites her shoulder and she says, No, really bite me. Bite harder. I want you to really bite me. Bite me, please. And suddenly he and Meggie are looking at each other and it isn’t fun anymore. This isn’t what they’re into.

      He gets off as quickly as he can, because he’s almost there anyway. And the girl is still begging, still asking for something they can’t give her, because it isn’t real and vampires aren’t real and it’s a distasteful situation and so Meggie asks the girl to leave. She does and they don’t talk about it. They just go to sleep. And they wake up just a little bit later because she’s snuck back into the house, they find out later that she’s broken a window, and she’s slashed her wrists. She’s holding out her bloody wrists and she’s saying, Please, here’s my blood, please drink it. I want you to drink my blood. Please.

      They get her bandaged up. The cuts aren’t too deep. Meggie calls her agent, Pike, and Pike arranges for someone to take the girl to a private clinic. He tells them not to worry about any of it. It turns out that the girl is fifteen. Of course she is. Pike calls them again, after this girl gets out of the clinic, when she commits suicide. She has a history of attempts. Try, try, succeed.

      The demon lover does not talk to Meggie again, because Pilar— who is naked—they are both naked, everyone is naked, of course—but Pilar is really quite lovely and fun to talk to and the camera work on this show is really quite exquisite and she likes the demon lover a lot. Keeps touching him. She says she has a bottle of Maker’s Mark back in one of the cabins and he’s already drunker than he’s been in a while. Turns out they did meet once, in an AA meeting in Silver Lake.

      They have a good time. Really, sex is a lot of fun. The demon lover suspects that there’s some obvious psychological diagnosis for why he’s having sex with Pilar, some need to reenact recent history and make sure it comes out better this time. The last girl with a camera didn’t turn out so well for him. When exactly, he wonders, have things turned out well?

      Afterward they lie on their backs on the dirty cement floor. Pilar says, “My girlfriend is never going to believe this.”

      He wonders if she’s going to ask for an autograph.

      Pilar’s been sharing the cabin with the missing girl, Juliet. There’s Whore-igami all over the cabin. Men and women and men and men and women and women in every possible combination, doing things that ought to be erotic. But they aren’t; they’re menacing instead. Maybe it’s the straight lines.

      The demon lover and Pilar get dressed in case Juliet shows up.

      “Well,” Pilar says, from her bunk bed, “good night.”

      He gets Juliet’s bunk bed. Lies there in the dark until he’s sure Pilar’s asleep. He is thinking about Fawn for some reason. He can’t stop thinking about her. If he stops thinking about her, he will have to think about the conversation with Meggie. He will have to think about Meggie.

      Pilar’s iPhone is on the floor beside her bunk bed. He picks it up. No password. He types in Fawn’s number. Sends her a text. Hardly knows what he is typing.

      I HOPE, he writes.

      He writes the most awful things. Doesn’t know why he is doing this. Perhaps she will assume that it is a wrong number. He types in details, specific things, so she will know it’s not.

      Eventually she texts back.

      WHO IS THIS? WILL?

      The demon lover doesn’t respond to that. Just keeps texting FILTHY BITCH YOU CUNT YOU WHORE YOU SLIME etc. etc. etc. Until she stops asking. Surely she knows who he is. She must know who he is.

      Here’s the thing about acting, about a scene, about a character; about the dialogue you are given, the things your character does. None of it matters. You can take the most awful words, all the words, all the names, the acts he types into the text block. You can say these things, and the way you say them can change the meaning. You can say, “You dirty bitch. You cunt,” and say them differently each time; can make it a joke, an endearment, a cry for help, a seduction. You can kill, be a vampire, a soulless thing. The audience will love you no matter what you do. If you want them to love you. Some of them will always love you.

      He needs air. He drops the phone on the floor again where Pilar will find it in the morning. Decides to walk down to the lake. He will have to go past Meggie’s trailer on the way, only he doesn’t. Instead he stands there watching as a shadow slips out of the door of the trailer and down the stairs and away. Going where? Almost not there at all.

      Ray?

      He could follow. But he doesn’t.

      He wonders if Meggie is awake. The door to her trailer is off the latch and so the demon lover steps inside.

      Makes his way to her bedroom, no lights, she is not awake. He will do no harm. Only wants to see her safe and sleeping. An old friend can go to see an old friend.

      Meggie’s a shape in the bed and he comes closer so he can see her face. There is someone in the bed with Meggie.

      Ray looks at the demon lover and the demon lover looks back at Ray. Ray’s right hand rests on Meggie’s breast. Ray raises the other hand, beckons the demon lover closer.

      The next morning is what you would predict. The crew of Who’s There? packs up to leave; Pilar discovers the text messages on her phone.

      Did I do that? the demon lover says. I was drunk. I may have done that. Oh God, oh hell, oh fuck. He plays his part.

      This may get messy. Oh, he knows how messy it can get. Pilar can make some real money with those texts. Fawn, if she wants, can use them against him in the divorce.

      He doesn’t know how he gets in these situations.

      Fawn has called Meggie. So there’s that, as well. Meggie waits to talk to him until almost everyone else has packed up and gone; it’s early afternoon now. Really, he should already have left. He has things he’ll need to do. Decisions to make about flights, a new phone. He needs to call his publicist, his agent. Time for them to earn their keep. He likes to keep them busy.

      Ray is off somewhere. The demon lover isn’t too sorry about this.