MELLY writes--- Art wants me to tell what happened in the guest house because I was there when Peter shot Addy, the closest eyewitness. And I do want to tell, but need to note that I'd been heavily drugged and all my perceptions were totally confused at the time. So if I tell exactly what I experienced, it's going to be the psychedelic version of whatever really did happen. When Peter and I went out to the guest house, I had one glass of champagne from a bottle he'd brought along and that was it-- ten minutes later I was stoned out of my mind. I don't drink much, but I'd had champagne before and really wasn't expecting to be blotto on one glass. I wasn't thinking straight after that, so I didn't even figure out why the champagne was so intoxicating, although I do remember wondering why anyone would drink something that made them feel like I did then--it was supposed to be fun, but wasn't. I was hallucinating, pretty much incapable of functioning, paranoid and paralyzed. Of course, I was right to wonder why, later we found out that it wasn't just champagne: it had been heavily laced with three different kinds of psychedelic drugs. The phone calls, guest house, champagne, me: all part of Peter's premeditated plan to murder Addy. Earlier that evening I'd told Peter that I had decided this was to be our last date, for a while at least. I wanted time to think things over without either him or Addy bugging me. Peter said he'd respect my decision, but insisted that we were still a couple this last evening and talked me into coming out to that party at Big George's place. I'd never been there, although who hasn't heard about Big George's wild parties? And since we were on our last date anyway, I was interested in checking out such a notorious scene at least once in my life. It was wild all right, so loud and so many people that we couldn't even talk. After half an hour I'd had enough, but Peter said he had the key to a little guest house in back, where we could make love at least one last time, just the two of us, it would be so cozy and nice. He sounded so reasonable and the cozy part sounded all right. He really wanted his "goodbye date" and I wanted to end our affair on a friendly note, since I was feeling a little guilty about dumping poor Peter. The champagne was part of his little goodbye ceremony. Peter drank some of it too, he had to be almost as stoned as I was and when the drugs started to take effect, he started raving about Adam: about Adam's sick jealousy and the terrible things Adam had secretly done to him, things Adam had said, threats Adam had made. Hs said that I didn't know what a monster Adam was because he always behaved around me, but when I wasn't looking the real Adam came out--Peter had seen the real Adam, he told me. He sounded so convincing and I was so malleable by then, that I began to believe him, began to feel afraid of Adam, which confused me because I knew better. We had taken off our clothes, but Peter wouldn't get into sex right away, like he was waiting for something. Usually he was so eager to get it in and get off, so that was strange. I gave up thinking, just laid back on the bed and watched paisley patterns on the ceiling. Peter's cell phone seemed busy, calls in and out, arrangements being made, although I was too buzzed to follow conversations. Then Peter suddenly gave me the cell phone and said, "It's Adam, he wants to talk to you." I was too surprised and confused to know what to say to Adam, or why I should even want to talk to him while I was in bed with Peter, so I ended up mumbling something meaningless. Just then Peter began to spank me--and I mean HARD! It hurt, I jumped and dropped the telephone, forgetting about it as Peter kept on spanking my bare butt until I was really in pain, really mad, and finally afraid of him. And then he began to-- well, I guess it wasn't exactly rape, I HAD agreed to-- you know --but it felt like rape. It was certainly desperate sex and I never got the chance to say "No". So I just let him, to stop him from hitting me, for this one last time and be done with it all. I was too zonked to resist anyway. Then Peter stopped screwing and said, "Look, Melly, I told you so! He's here, spying on us!" Sounded like something he'd rehearsed. I was lying on my back and had to look upside down to see Adam outside the window, looking in at me and Peter doing it. "Oh no," I thought, "it's all true! Whatever Peter told me..." But at the same time I was thinking, oh no Poor Addy, he shouldn't have to see this! I went into panic, but more from shame than fear. I looked away, covered my face and cringed towards Peter, who started thrusting into me again like a sex maniac. "Look out! He's going to attack us!" Peter shouted and even then it sounded false and theatrical. Then, still in me, he reached under the bed to get something that lay handy on the floor. And up came a very large pistol in his hand. It was the same one he'd brought along for target practice earlier that day, his dad's .44 Magnum. The one he had shown to everyone, and let others at the party shoot too, so that there would be nothing suspicious about him just happening to have that loaded pistol ready at hand. Peter raised the pistol, took aim, but then hesitated, looked disappointed. I looked over in time to see that Adam had turned his back to us and was already leaving. "No, you bastard! Get back here! Come on, attack us!" I guess he didn't dare just shoot Adam in the back, so he started slapping me again. Oh, if I had only not been so stupid, if I'd just let him hit me and NOT cried out: "Addy! Help!" That was all Peter needed. His plan worked. Addy simply had to come to my rescue. The door exploded into a psychedelic spray of colorful wood chips, Addy coming through. Peter was up and doing an elegant dance step over to face the door, aiming for where Addy would be. It all seemed so choreographed. Rehearsed. All this is in slow motion for me: finally I realized what was actually happening here, what Peter was going to do. I could see the smug smile on Peter's lips as he was pulling on the trigger. I started to reach up--but in slow motion, like I said--to shove the pistol aside, but it was too late, the pistol went off with a big loud BOOM and I could actually see a hole punching into Adam's chest and how he was shoved backwards by the impact. He fell outside and out of sight. Peter wanted to shoot again, but now I knew what I had to do and ripped at his arm. He shook me loose, punched me in the face and started to get up to see where Adam had fallen, to finish him off. But I wasn't giving up, I managed a good solid kick at his nuts, which Peter deflected, almost ignoring me. So I bit him on the leg, which he couldn't ignore and he rammed me with a knee to my ribs, knocking all the air out of my lungs, putting me out of the fight. I remember thinking, o yeah, he's a karate expert! He finished turning back to the window, raising the pistol again, ready to fire another shot into Adam. But he had been delayed just enough. The room became shadowed by something REALLY BIG, I even felt a wind like the wall of air before a locomotive approaching at full speed. This part was not in slow motion: what happened next was streaking speed lines, big movements at high speed. Like in a Manga comic book. I was seeing stars anyway, but among them I also saw Adam leaning half into the room, filling it up with his size, reaching far enough that his big speed-blurred fist rammed Peter square in the chest, a clean fast blow with all of Adam's strength and weight behind it. I heard a sudden smacking crunching wheezing rupturing sound. Ghastly, horrible and yet somehow...totally satisfactory. More streaking effects: red teardrops spraying out of Peter's mouth, and him blurring backwards across the room, hitting the wall so hard that he was embedded in the sheet rock and stuck there, plaster chips spraying everywhere. And then all motion, slow or fast, just stopped. That was the end of the fight. There was nobody standing, not even Addy. I was alone. I started collecting myself, despite the drug. I saw that Peter was unconscious, maybe dead, but I couldn't waste any time or sympathy on him just then, crawled to the doorway and looked out, screaming "Addy, where are you?" Addy was gone, but his blood was smeared all over the grass and the ground, lots of it. I started crying hysterically and couldn't stop, even after they came and took me away. |