The Dinner Party

Written By: Heather Drain

Los Angeles. 1983. 

Theo looked at the ebbing streaks of sunset melting into the ocean. The sky's last shades of  blue were slowly being swallowed by deeper and darker colors. Vicious pinks, hungry violets, and ravenous indigos whose darkest nature is never allowed here in the night sky of the city. 

“Ah, what a view.”, he chuckled to himself.

Judging by the sounds of polite chatter, clinking glasses, and false laughter, the party was well underway behind him. Air as salty as it was cool filled his body as he enjoyed these last few moments of serenity on the deck before having to put on his respectable human face on and schmooze with these mid-tiered motley crew of agents, directors, models, actors, rising stars, high rollers, and has-beens with enough juice left in their Rolodex to still get on the invitation list. 

“There you are!”, a girlish voice called to him. 

“Sandy! Hello, lovely. Met any nice directors, yet?”, he warmly responded, taking the cornfed blonde’s tan hand into his. It was a gesture that was more mutantly fatherly than hot date night, though subtlety was something not in the 19-year-old’s limited periphery. 

“No, not quite. I did have Rex Mahogany slip me his number. He said he could help me work on my acting.”

“Ah, his motives are no doubt pure as the driven snow.”, Theo wryly noted.

Her blue eyes rolled. 

“Yeah, more like snow that’s been trampled. I’m pretty sure I saw him hand the same card to the maid and her dog.”, Sandy laughed.

“Sandy, Sandy, you’re far too young to be so cynical and right! Did I ever tell you that there’s a new strain of venereal disease that is nicknamed La Mahogany?” 

“Oh my god. Please tell me you’re joking. I can’t.” 

“I’m no doctor, my dear, so I cannot fully confirm, but let’s just say discretion and proper hygiene are not high on his to-do list.” 

“Gross.”, she spat out. 

“Now, now keep that to yourself and definitely keep yourself from daytime TV’s number -one sex-pest.” 

“Aye, aye, Captain.”, she smiled, her petal-pink lips framing a perfectly fine set of white teeth that will be defined as crooked and not pearly enough if she stays any longer in this town.

Entering the living room, they were greeted with a pastiche of painted-on-like-skin- pressed black and white slacks, tight cocktail dresses with lace and ruffles colored gold, hot pink, and silver. Sandy’s pert frame was dressed similarly, except her dress was snow-white with an arctic blue belt and matching pumps. Ever the outlier, Theo stood out with his favored jewel-toned silk shirts, dark pointed boots, leather pants, and perfectly tailored dress jacket. He was a silhouette of man as dagger in a silken sheath.

Scoping the room, he quietly sighed, inwardly praying to a God that betrayed him long ago for some true excitement. 

Sometimes, even the darkest of prayers are answered, as he noted a scent of sandalwood and aged wine.  The very marrow in his bones shivered. Sight unseen, he knew that she was there. Desire, muscle disguised as pale marble curves, eyes as dark as oiled mahogany, and all clad in a crimson dress. Red skies at night, sailor’s delight…

“My Eleanore.”, he whispered, still not looking at her with his eyes, but yet, feeling every inch of her movement, grace, and purpose. His very tissue knew her better than anyone or anything.

“And my Theodore. At last.", she sighed in a balmy tone.

"Thank the gods and devils, you are here. I was about to fall asleep. I’ve seen more action at seances.”

He finally turned around, with his heart expanding past his slender rib cage. Looking up at her immenent and hot poise of black haired Athena, every ancient vein and pulse within him felt as alive as it did the first time he ever saw her. All back when he was an underfed but keen eyed boy careening into manhood. Time becomes sticky with honey and hurt, while key moments are struggling insects like in drying amber. 

Reaching out and touching the satiny skin of her honey-hued neck, he spoke in heady tones, “My dear, it’s been too long. I've missed you greatly. You must be so hungry.” 

Eleanor’s soft pink tongue subconsciously licked her full, grenadine-hued lips. Her brown eyes nearly glowed a matching red with Theo's. Their gaze reflected glimmers that parked with micro-universes of love, lust, lorn, imminent destruction, and dutiful rebirth.  Theo’s own eyes narrowed. Only in her presence did he ever feel truly alive, as if he could feel his blood pulse in a primal red ribbon muscle. 

“Oh, I am. I’ve been starving for so long.” 

“Me too. You’re all I can ever think about. Everything else is just bread and circuses until the real show begins. My amour fou.”, he nearly whispered with a reverence held often by forbidden lovers and clever thieves and murderers. 

“You picked an absolutely perfect group. Not a clean one amongst them.”, she wryly noted while glancing around at the still very much living Tinseltown ghouls, all super tanned sinews and sinister purposes. “I can practically smell the grease off of them.” 

“Then, tonight will be a perfect night for a feast,” he said looking deep into her eyes, dark like aged wood and deep amber. The rare thing is such a long life that could still strike a clean potent hit to his veins and here she was.

A clean but sharp nail grazed his cheek. Her calm gaze now the thinnest mask for a warm rooted hunger.

“Are you ready, my love?”, she questioned but he could sense the jugular pulse of a demand.

“Almost. There’s a lamb in the den and I need to set her free.” 

“Ah. Please, make it quick. Their fate is inescapable.”

“...and so am I.” 

Her red lips crinkled in a slight snarl of a smile, offering a tiny glimpse of sharp white canines. “I’ll be right back.”

He clipped through the small fashion throng, inhaling expensive perfumes, cheap colognes, and strong cigarette smoke, looking for the towheaded ingenue. He could feel his heart pulse with excitement and adrenaline-laced nerves. It was that nightmare-inducing dance where time sludges its way to sprinting away. 

Finally, he found Sandy, tucked away in a corner, smoking a Virginia Slim, while her baby blues looked off in the distance, her bored eyeline staring at the sliver of blue-black ocean visible through the far window.

“Sandy, my darling.” he greeted in a soft voice, his friendliness belying something conspiratorial. “Listen, this party is a bit of a dud.” 

“You think?”, she said with a small giggle and an eye roll. Such a lamb.

“Here’s my keys. Why don’t you take her out for the night?”

“The Maserati???”, she squealed in a question, before immediately trying to compose herself, as her voice lowered back to a more even tone. “Wait, are you sure? I know this party sucks, but you don’t have to do that.” 

It was an answer like that why he was doing this. 

“Of course, love. I trust you and that’s a commodity more rare than kindness and actual talent in this town. Just be safe and return her safely to my steed tomorrow night. Ok?”

Gently taking the silvery keys from him, she grinned with a mix of appreciation and teenage glee. 

“Thank you, Teddy. I’ll treat her even better than if she was my own.” 

Given the current status of her ‘73 Gremlin, he hoped she was right.

“Wonderful. Now get out of here before Mr. Handsy tries to get your sweet self to host his next key party.” 

Her sweet face looked immediately grossed out, before laughing. Giving him the thumbs up, she hightailed it out like a Laguna beach banshee. 

He waited there until he could hear the distant tell-tale sound of the engine purring before it faded off into the night. Once the air returned to its usual din of mindless chatter and empty promises, Theodore felt his shoulders finally relax. 

“Alright. It’s time to dance.” 

Moving towards her, he could feel his pulse grow bigger.. Bigger than this room and moving to a rhythm far more ancient than anything built in the city of lost angels. Elenore’s eyes were now glowing a fiery green-tinged amber as her hand reached out and caressed his cheek. 

Her pink-hued lips, sensual in repose and full when feral, hovered over his open mouth. 

“Theodore, I’m so…so…hungry.”, she whispered in a whiskey-colored hue. 

“Then, my sweet, sweet Eleanore, let’s feed.”

Their mouths descended upon another. Tongues became teeth, soft and urgent fingertips became claws, as the screams and cries echoed around them until the reverb was inside them. Shrieks moved and pulsed like throbbing flesh around and within them, their expanding bodies slick with mortal blood and grue. Wet lips wrapped around meaty entrails and shredded tan limbs as they cooed and moaned, never taking their eyes off of each other. 

Fiorucci, Klein, and Armani were now unrecognizable threads amidst the chaos of flesh and wet ribbons of tissue. Every remaining heartbeat in the house was a target of their lust and need. Cairo, Pompei, Versaille, Oslo, Osaka, San Juan, Cape Town, Phnom Penh, Athens, and now, Los Angeles. History is a pain-soaked statue that never ceases to weep, so why should the present day be any different?

The house, mere moments ago was all but quaking with the faint animalistic squeals of vain survival and paralyzed terror, now was still save for the fading panting and slick friction of our two lovers. 

“Oh, Theodore. My angel of mercy.”, Eleanore uttered whilst again caressing his firmly angled cheek. 

“Eleanore, my lovely devourer of sin. So many moons…so much corrosion. We have made a right mess, haven’t we?” 

She giggled, almost girlishly, looking obscene as her teeth were cake in rotted shades of rust red and scarlet-black.

“Not bad. Not bad at all.,” she said, wrapping her long arms, all oily and firm, around his neck. 

“Well well, our job is never done, is it?”, he asked, nuzzling her neck tenderly, as his teeth barely grazed her skin.

“No. Not until they thoroughly rut themselves out.”

“Until then?”, he asked, lifting his head up to gaze upon those honey-dipped-moss-colored eyes that seared his very being so long ago. 

“We keep dancing.”, she whispered as they gently kissed as the night sky over the City of Los Angeles glowed purple-pregnant with false promises, dying dreams, and thousands upon thousands of shorn and besotted souls upon a windless horizon. 

Heather Drain is a writer of both nonfiction and prose, as well as an occasional videographer. Her work has been published in Rue Morgue, Diabolique, No Toner, Late List Zine the Women in Horror Annual (WHA Book 1), and the 2020 anthology, The Blind Dead Ride Out of Hell: A Literary Tribute to the Amando de Ossorio Films, to name just a few. She has also contributed audio commentaries, as well as both written and video essays for home video labels like Vinegar Syndrome, Umbrella Entertainment, Saturn's Core, Arrow Video, Synapse, Melusine, and TerrorVision. She currently lives in Northwest Arkansas with her husband, writer/painter C.F. Roberts, and their two rescue animals, Presto McGee and Brodie Lee.