Everything was coming at Eileen almost faster than she could process.  And yet, most of it didn’t require any thought at all.  There was never a question whether or not she’d sign the contract, move to LA permanently, and take the position she’d been offered.  She’d had a taste of money when the book started selling.  Imagining how that would translate to Hollywood didn’t require a writer’s imagination.

The decision required absolutely no discussion with Mason.  That was not the nature of their young blossoming relationship.  His input was zero, and neither of them had any misconceptions that it was any more than that.  Of course she’d take the offer.

They made the most of the four days that followed.  Bronson shuttled them to all the places they wanted to see in southern California.  A disproportionate amount of time was spent upstairs in their suite at the Roosevelt, or down by the pool that their room overlooked.  “I certainly can’t argue with you taking the offer,” Mason said as they lay naked in bed the day before their trip back to Texas.  “That amount of money is ridiculous.  Especially just to research and write stories.”  

Eileen looked at him as though he was being dismissive about her abilities, which was not his intention.  “Don’t get me wrong.  There’s no way I could do what you do.  It’s a gift.  I get that.”  Mason was trying to dig himself out of the hole he’d dug.  “I’m just saying, you are being very, very well paid for it.  And then to be able to live out here, in this weather, this atmosphere. It is amazing.  I’m glad it all worked out for you like it did.”

The status of their embryonic relationship was something neither of them was sure exactly how to address.  The thought of attempting to maintain something that had barely even hatched made no sense.  And yet, enough had been shared physically and emotionally that neither wanted it to just come to an abrupt end once they got back to Fort Stockton.  “Transitions are never smooth, nor easy.  We’ll figure it out as we go,” she told him.  It was right at the end of his refractory period from the early round, so the discussion ended there.  Bronson was waiting with the Town & Country downstairs to take them to dinner.  

“Screw Bronson.  He gets paid the same whether he’s driving or waiting in the lobby,” Mason told her.

“It’s not Bronson that’s going to get screwed.”  And with that, Eileen pulled the sheets back and took full advantage of Mason’s gift of youth.  And his other gifts, as well.

Mason woke up the next morning to an empty bed, Eileen sitting at the desk on the phone with Franklin Danbury back in Fort Stockton.  He’d reviewed the contract, had a few small suggestions that he’d already taken the liberty to send to the studio and they’d agreed to.  Things Eileen would have never thought of, but was glad Franklin had.  “So they’ll have the updated documents ready to sign before we leave?” she asked him.  Mason couldn’t hear the reply, but assumed that would be the case.

An hour later, after breakfast by the pool and an extended shower, Eileen and Mason made their way downstairs where Bronson loaded their luggage into the barrel shaped back end of the Chrysler Town and Country and whisked the couple back to the studio for the formalities and then to LAX for the flight back to Texas.  Buckled into their first class seats, Mason tried to replay the events of the last four days in his mind. The whole thing seemed like a movie he’d watched rather than something he’d really experienced first hand.  Eileen had already moved on from what had just taken place and was focused intently on what would be happening in the next few weeks.

The two of them discussed loading up Eileen’s new Mercury Marauder X-100 with all of her things and driving it out to Los Angeles once they got back home and then realized the impracticality of it.  Mason was working with Kenny Dillon on some deals that he’d already spent too much time away from.  Eileen needed to hit the ground running and couldn’t afford more time off to drive half way across the country.  The studio had already made arrangements to have her moved, and that included the Mercury.  She’d have two days to pack and get ready.

Back at the Alamo Arms in Fort Stockton, negotiations were held with Gloria to work out the details on the remainder of Eileen’s lease.  Mason moved into Eileen’s one bedroom.  Luckily, someone was wanting his studio, a young woman getting ready to marry Don Drury who needed someplace to call home till the nuptials were performed in the spring.  She’d just moved out of her parent’s house and gotten a job at the Piggly Wiggly.  She was a pretty little thing.

“You can keep most of this stuff,”  Eileen told Mason as they packed up her things and moved his into the larger apartment.  “It was mostly garage sale and thrift store finds.  Not worth moving.  I’ll get new things once I find a place in LA.”  He was glad to be able to keep the bed, just for the memories.

There were only a few days before the truck would come for the car and Eileen’s possessions and then she’d be on yet another flight back out to California.  She and Mason spent a lot of that time together, although each were getting overwhelmed with details that needed their attention.  The last night before she left, they went to dinner at the Silver Slipper Super Club and had a quiet meal at the table right by the window overlooking the lake.

Towards the end of dinner, the sunset reflecting on the lake and a couple glasses of wine to relax the her, Eileen leaned forward across the table and looked at Mason intently.  She was going to miss the man-child.  She didn’t really want the relationship to end, but knew there wasn’t enough there to get beyond such a change as the one that was about to happen.

“Here’s the thing,” she began.  “I don’t want this to end.  I know you don’t belong in California, and I get that.  But I do.  For now and the foreseeable future.  That’s just the way it is.”  Mason looked at her, trying to follow where she was going, not wanting to be surprised by anything she might say.  “You’ve got a life here in Fort Stockton.  Businesses you’re involved in.  A partner you have to work with.  I don’t even know what all it is you do when you’re not with me.”

Mason still couldn’t tell exactly what she was trying to say. He assumed it wasn’t a rundown of his business endeavors.

“We have no commitment to each other.  Haven’t know each other long enough to forge one at this point.  Me moving 2,000 miles away will make that almost impossible.  And I don’t anticipate returning to Fort Stockton any time soon.  You’d be the only reason and, well . . .” Eileen’s voice trailed off.  “The point is, I don’t expect anything from you.  I’m not asking you to wait for something to happen, or become a monk.  But I’d like this to continue until, well, until there’s a reason for it not to any longer.  I’ll fly you out to California whenever you want to come.  Or meet you someplace.  Whatever.  That’s up to you.”

Mason wasn’t sure if she was expecting an answer to that because he wasn’t sure if there had been a question asked.  So he just nodded.  That didn’t really seem to satisfy what she was looking for.

“So, just to clarify, you’re telling me you’d like to continue seeing me whenever it’s possible.  No strings attached.  When it works, you’ll fly me to sunny southern California so we can spend time together, I can bang you like a drum, and then come back to Texas and life goes on.  Till the next time I get the call.”  Mason had a grin on his face.

“When you put it that way, there may not be a next time.”  Eileen acted put out, but in reality that was exactly what the arrangement was she had proposed.

“Let me think about it.”  Mason took the last sip from his Lone Star Longneck.  “Okay.  I’m in.”

And that’s pretty much the course their lives took for quite awhile after.

Parker McHale became a big name in Hollywood.  It remained somewhat of an industry secret that the successful screenwriter, author, and later director was actually Eileen Parker.  About six months after returning to Fort Stockton, Mason came home to his apartment at the Alamo Arms and hadn’t been there twenty minutes when a special delivery envelope arrived. It contained a round trip ticket to LAX and a set of black and white photos that would probably have gotten the delivery man arrested, had he been caught with them.  Mason was on a flight the next morning.

Seven months after that, right after the film version of The Town That Was Afraid Of The Dark had premiered there was another delivery.  As they relaxed in bed, Eileen told Mason she’d purchased a new home.  “Next time I call you, you’ll see it.  Old Hollywood.  Classic.  Private pool,” she said.  

“I look forward to it.  And all the possibilities.”

During the third or fourth trip to California, sometime between the release of Dahlia in Death and Kidnapped for Cash, he was staying at Eileen’s new Hollywood place when she mentioned there was going to be a party that evening at her home.  Several of her friends would be there, and she was looking forward to Mason meeting them.  He didn’t think that much about it.

Out by the pool, Eileen seemed different.  Of course, it had been two years, maybe more since the relationship began.  Changes in people aren’t as noticeable when you see them everyday.  When months go by at a time, subtle changes aren’t as subtle.  She seemed to have a bit more of an edge.  Of course, Mason figured, she’s become a powerful and successful woman in a powerful and high profile industry.  An edge is probably what was needed to make all that work.

For her part, Eileen felt much the same way.  Mason had lost the aura of innocence that first caught her eye, the man-child aspect that had initially drawn her to him.  She suspected he might have a girlfriend back in Fort Stockton, but never asked.  Mason never asked her what her relationships might be in LA, but assumed she must have some.  She was far too attractive and well known in her field not to.  Somehow, asking would only spoil it for each of them. The secrets, whatever they were, served as a way of making each of them even more attractive to the other in the absence of commitment or full disclosure.

The other thing that Mason noticed was Eileen’s level of aggression when they were in the act.  That was new.  Unexpected.  He was caught off guard, at first, but quickly learned to appreciate the surprising ways in which she managed to take control and force her will on him.  He assumed that was also one of those things that came from her living in Hollywood, doing what she did, and being exposed to a world outside the boundaries of whatever he might be used to.  She was, after all, a writer.  Someone who created scenes that others would find entertaining, titillating even.  Her specialty was closer to the dark side; that’s what made her screenplays and books sell like they did.

That night, the ‘party’ turned out to be something much more than Mason had anticipated.  The house was full of people he’d never dreamed he would see in person.  Every room of the house was filled with a handful of Hollywood stars he’d seen in movies or read about in magazines.  Out by the pool, the scene looked like Mason imagined would take place at the Playboy Mansion.  When he mentioned that to Eileen, she threw her head back and laughed, “It’s nothing like the Playboy Mansion, trust me!”  The fact that she’d obviously been there made the whole thing surreal.

At one point Mason grabbed a beer, went out the big sliding doors that lead to the pool and took a seat off to the side, under a palm tree.  Nicholson and Redford were across the pool, both attempting to woo a young woman who was lost in the thought of being wooed.  She may have been lost in the influence of something else, it was hard to tell.

At the shallow end Sybil Sheppard seemed to be arguing with Fay Dunaway about something.  Mason got up and went to the kitchen for another beer and ran right into Kris Kristofferson.  He thought he might have been mistaken as to who it was until Angelica Houston walked up and he heard Kris respond with the gravel-toned voice that couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else.  It was a lot for a boy from Fort Stockton, Texas to take in.

It was nearly four in the morning when Pacino and Keaton finally left, the last of the party goers to make their drunken exits.  

“They all call you Parker,” Mason said.  “I can’t get used to that.”

“That’s who I am to those people.  To everybody but you now, really.”  Eileen looked like she hadn’t even thought about that in a long time.  “Parker McHale.”

“Are all the people that were here tonight your friends?”  Mason was still in a bit of a daze.

“As much as people are friends out here.”  Eileen looked at Mason and found it strange to be answering his questions.  Each one seemed to point out how different they were now.  “Hollywood, California is nothing like Fort Stockton, Texas.  Nor are the people.”

“You don’t have to tell me that!”  Mason replied.

“Go take a shower.  I’ll make us some Bloody Marys.  Maybe take a dip in the pool.  Meet you back here in fifteen minutes.”  Eileen was specific in her instructions.  Mason always appreciated specificity.  Among many of Eileen’s personality traits, that was near the top.  Maybe the middle.

When he got out of the shower and made his way back into the bedroom where they’d been talking, Eileen was standing in the middle of the room, wet, naked, and backlit by soft lighting that made the silhouette of her body seem as mysterious as anything Mason had seen before.  There on the nightstand was a Bloody Mary, salt all the way around the rim, a shrimp hanging over the edge, as if hanging on for dear life, and a celery stalk sticking out the top.  Mason didn’t know if it was a drink or a glass of soup, having never seen vegetables or seafood in a drink.  Beside it was something else he’d never seen.  A set of handcuffs.

By the time he had been released from the headboard, the sun was rising and streaming in through the windows.  The help had arrived to begin cleaning up from the party the night before.  And Eileen, aka Parker McHale, was outside the French doors, swimming.  Just like Mason’s head.

The trip to the airport later that morning was unusual in that it was usual.  It was just like every other trip to LAX the couple had made after one of his visits.  Eileen guided the black Marauder through traffic like threading a needle through silk.  She wore dark sunglasses, a big floppy hat, and a dress that was small but expensive.  She looked like she could blend in anywhere, which was the purpose, Mason was sure.  Was he actually sleeping with a celebrity?  Or was he sleeping with someone who thought nothing of being amongst celebrities?

He tried to think of different ways to broach what had taken place after the party, but by the time he thought he had the right questions to ask the big black Mercury was pulling into the LA airport.  At the terminal, Eileen pulled up, but didn’t stop the car and didn’t get out.  “I’m going to drop you here, if that’s okay.  I’ve got to get back.”  She smiled at him.  The old smile.  The Eileen Parker smile, not the Parker McHale smirk.  “I enjoyed it.  I want to have you back out soon.  No party next time.  Just you and me.”

With that Mason got out, shut the massive back door behind him and poked his head back into the car.  Eileen bent over the front seat and kissed him.  A long kiss.  At the end of it she bit his lip.  On purpose, he thought.  It startled him.  She smiled, put the Mercury in gear and slowly pulled into traffic.  Mason could actually taste blood on his tongue.

Back home Mason met his buddy, Whiskey, at the Lucky Lady Lounge for a couple beers to catch up.  Whiskey was working for him on a part time basis that was slowly becoming full time, but they remained best of friends more than anything.  Whisky was one of the few that knew where Mason went on his trips out of town.  Not much was ever said about those trips, but Whiskey knew enough that he kept from asking details.  Mason would tell him anything he felt like sharing when he was ready to.

At the bar the two talked about projects Mason had for Whiskey to be working on in the coming weeks.  Mason had moved out of the Alamo Arms a while back and into a barn he’d built on some property outside Fort Stockton.  He was actually negotiating to buy the Alamo Arms and refurbish the place into condos in a partnership with Kenny Dillon.  When the discussion of what all would be involved in that was over and there was a break in the conversation, He wanted to tell Whiskey what had happened in California.  But then, he thought better of it.

It was nearly a year later when the phone rang at the barn.  Mason picked it up, wondered who’d be dumb enough to call so late.  “Yeah?”

“Can you get away?”  Eileen asked.

Mason didn’t know what to say.  It had been long enough he figured the relationship had changed, maybe even ended.  He figured his trips west were over.  He was caught off guard.  “When?”

“Tomorrow.”  Eileen was short in her answers, long in the mystery that surrounded them.

“I’ll get my own ticket.”  Mason wanted to feel like he had some measure of control.

When Eileen picked him up the next morning, it wasn’t in the Mercury.  “What the hell is this?” Mason asked as he tried to figure out where to put his small bag.

“It’s a Porsche.  A 356A Speedster 1600 to be exact.  1957.”  The low slung, tight quartered convertible was as small of a car as Mason had ever tried to get into.

“What happened to the Marauder?” he asked.

“It was time for a change.”  Eileen replied.  “And this was it.  The damn thing handles like a bat out of hell.”

“And kind of looks like one.”  Mason wasn’t sure what to think as he looked around the cockpit.  He couldn’t determine if the cabin was blood red or the exact same shade as Eileen’s lipstick.  There was no question that the smooth bodywork had been painted as black as her soul.  About then his head snapped back as Eileen’s foot went nearly to the floor, cutting off some poor bastard in a Ford Galaxie just coming to drop off his mother-in-law at the airport.

They were back at her place in Hollywood in no time, naked, and in the pool.  Mason was surprised when a middle-aged hispanic woman came out into the backyard with a tall pitcher of margaritas and two frosted glasses.  He quickly tried to cover himself up.  Eileen watched and laughed as she got out of the pool naked as a jaybird right in front of the help.  “You can take the boy out of Fort Stockton . . .”

Put off by the comment, Mason grabbed the edge of the pool and hoisted himself out, proving he could be seen naked just as easily as anyone else.  The woman in charge of refreshments was not impressed.  Mason figured he wasn’t the first naked man she’d seen crawl out of the pool.  He didn’t bother with a towel, just walked over and grabbed a drink.

He sat down in the chaise lounge next to Eileen facing the sun.  “A house from the 30s.  A car from the 50s.  Books and movies based on crimes committed decades ago.  Have you ever considered that maybe you were born too late?”

“I’ve considered a lot of things.”  Eileen kept he eyes closed as she soaked up southern California rays beside the pool of her Hollywood home.  “I’ll share some later.”

Mason was concerned and titillated at the same time, something that was difficult to disguise, naked on a lounge chair.  “If only the maid were here now,” he thought to himself, “she’d be more impressed.”

The plan had been to go to a new place Eileen wanted to show him for dinner, then come back and turn in early.  A phone call changed that.  The maid brought an extension out to the patio and set the white phone down atop a glass table.  Eileen went over and picked it up.  He could see her become physically agitated, try to argue, then give in, defeated.

“The plan has changed.”  Eileen said when she came back and sat down.  “They’re filming the next movie, Stroke of Midnight.  They need three whole scenes rewritten.  Everyone’s on the clock.  I’ve got to go into the studio.  I don’t know how long it will take.”  She looked disappointed and pissed at the same time.  “I’m sorry.  I don’t have any choice.”  Twenty minutes later Mason heard the roar of the throaty Speedster’s engine wailing down the street, getting fainter and fainter till it was silent.

He got dressed, poured the last of the margarita into his glass and went inside.  Apparently the maid had been sent home.  Mason wandered the house, noting details he missed in previous stays.  Artwork that had to have been expensive was hanging on the walls.  In Eileen’s study, Mason saw things on the shelves that he surmised were mementos from the sets of movies she’d written screenplays for, some of them haunting.  He sat down in the worn leather chair behind the desk and looked around.  “If these walls could talk,” he thought to himself.

Not really thinking, he slid open the middle drawer of the desk.  Inside, under some random papers, he found what looked like a manuscript.  It was old, kept together with three brass brads on the left side.  On the top page, the title read EILEEN PARKER, By Parker McHale.  “Odd,” he thought to himself.  His intention was not to read the thing.  But there he was, alone in the house, a slight buzz from the margaritas.  Eileen wasn’t coming back for hours.  “Why not?” he thought.

The story was one of a little girl who witnessed a horrifying event at the age of 7, one that impacted her in ways she never fully understood.  It was the suicide of a beautiful young woman.  That was followed up by the death of her own father shortly after, poisoned by her mother at breakfast, but made to look like a heart attack so the murder would never be discovered.  The mother remarries quickly.  Possibly to the man that was actually the girl’s biological father.  A younger man of questionable character, his relationship with his stepdaughter was unhealthy, if not downright illegal. That chapter was light on facts but heavy with innuendo.

As Mason turned each page a chill ran up and down his spine, having no understanding as to whether the story was fiction or nonfiction.

The girl is called home from college under the pretense of her stepfather disappearing without a trace.  The mother explains that it was always a possibility and accepts his fate without question, never revealing all she knew about her husband’s sordid past.  Later, the girl finds out that the mother has actually hoarded all the cash she could get her hands on, placing it in safe deposit boxes in her hometown bank, as well as banks in other nearby towns around southwest Texas.  She learns her missing stepfather is, in reality, buried behind the garage in the yard of the home her mother had been quickly forced to move out of.

The girl becomes fascinated with true crime, particularly unsolved crimes, and they soon become a compulsion.  She studies violent unsolved murders from the past, writing about them, embellishing the details in order to make the stories more graphic, and more sellable.

Mason doesn’t even realize, till he looks up, it has gotten dark outside.  Hours have passed while he’s been in the den, caught up in the details typed on each of the crisp white pages.

After finding out that the interest in crime drama is not one that is unique to her, she makes a career of packaging stories of violent crime to a public hungry for it.  It makes her wealthy.  It makes her famous, in a sense, except that it’s all done under a pseudonym, allowing her a level of anonymity.  She finds, however, that instead of scratching the itch she has for such things it only increases her appetite for them.  She takes her growing penchant for violence into the bedroom, fantasizing about binding her partner.  

There is a chapter that seems all too familiar to Mason involving the heroine, bondage, and a young boyfriend from out of town whom she calls to come out for visits. One she’s been grooming.

Having eased him into the idea, she plans for his next trip where she will carry out the plan she’s carried with her for years.  Since before a motel clerk in Missouri belittled her. Since before her stepfather abused her. Almost since she saw a beautiful woman leap to her death trying to escape from her own demons.  She painstakingly plans the details of tying him to the headboard of her kingsized bed. Pleasuring him with acts of tantalizing romance while slowly wrapping a silk scarf around his stubbled neck.  It grows tighter slowly.  At the moment of the climax of his pleasure, the scarf is pulled tightly, causing the apex of hers.  

She quickly releases the scarf so he remains unconscious, but breathing.  That’s when she releases his wrists, pulls out the sheet from under the bed, lies him on it and pulls him out the French doors to the pool.  The furniture has already been moved out of the way.  The housekeeper has seen him drinking all afternoon, and then been sent home early.  He slides over the edge of the pool easily as she pulls out the sheet from underneath him.  As she walks back to the house, a quick glance over her shoulder shows small bubbles coming to the surface as his lungs fill up with water.  Back in her room, she casually dresses, grabs the keys to the Porsche and heads to the driveway, then to the studio where she is due to meet friends.

Suddenly, frighteningly, the lights come on in the previously dark study.  In front of him stands Eileen.  She’s as lovely as he’s ever seen her, hair pulled back, lips bright red with fresh lipstick.  Naked, but for a scarlet scarf loosely draped around her neck.