Dinner is Prompt-ly at Eight - 17. Prompt #413 Cyr

Cyr

Prompt 413 – The Death

You were hired to do make up on a new science fiction show. You went in to do the makeup on the star only to find him dead on his couch, wearing only his robe. What do you do?

“Jenny, where’s my eye liner?”

“Right where you left it in the bathroom,” she called back from the kitchen table. Jenny Cavanaugh was reading the style section of the newspaper and drinking her morning coffee. She returned to reading the story about Taylor Swift’s new tattoo and how it was trending internationally.

“It’s not here,” her brother yelled from the other room. “Where did you see it last?”

Jenny snorted and looked up from the article. She still couldn’t imagine why people would get a tattoo because a celebrity did. But, the world was filled with people who desperately wanted to fit in and be fashionable. “It’s on the second shelf in the medicine cabinet. Why are you getting so dressed up?”

“Found it,” he hollered back.

Jenny folded the paper back up and sighed. She didn’t know what to do today. Should she start looking for a job or should she call her therapist? It had been a couple of days so perhaps Dr. Randall was her best bet. However, the money wasn’t going to last forever. In time she’d need to start earning some kind of income.

“Okay, how do I look?” her brother asked making a grand entrance into the kitchen. He was wearing a long white linen coat with an enormous blue flower on the lapel. Underneath it were a peach colored blouse and some voluminous green pleated pants. The overall effect was that of a large tent billowing in the wind. “Do you like?”

“Why are you wearing such big clothes?” Jenny asked, her eyes scanning his doughy face.

“I want to look my best for my favorite star. Is it too much?” he asked, pausing in his twirl to gauge her reaction. “I’m so excited for this job.”

Jenny took in her brother’s carefully painted and powdered face and smiled. “You look amazing as always. Go get ‘em, sweetie,” she said, beaming.

“Thanks!” Cyril Sawyer said as he pranced out of the room. “I’ll be back in twelve.”

“Have a great day,” Jenny called after him. She really should stop sponging off of him and get a job.

*****

“Let me show you to his dressing room,” Todd, the assistant director, said. I was trying not to drool on his luscious caramel skin and magnificent derrier. “It’s down this hall and third door on the left. It’s across the hall from, well, you’ll find it.”

I held my makeup case so tightly I could feel my pulse in my wrist. This was so exciting. I’d never had a job on an actual movie set. Sure, it was a SyFy channel movie and therefore outrageous and silly, but a movie nonetheless. Besides, science and fantasy fiction movies were the perfect canvas for an artist like me. I could finally hone my craft of creating monsters and heroes out of ordinary human beings. Well, maybe they were extraordinary human beings since they were actors, but still the idea was sound.

I paused before the dressing room door and lifted my hand making a fist. I hesitated and worried I would interrupt him reading lines or something. “This is stupid,” I said to the plastic gold star with his name on it. “Your job is to apply makeup for his scene.”

Now I realized a person walking by with an armful of towels had heard me talking to myself. “Hi,” I said to her. She grinned and smirked as I finally gathered up the courage to knock.

I stood there waiting and there was no response. I knocked again, this time a little louder. Another person walked by me, chuckling. “What?” I said turning to him.

“Just go in. He’s probably got headphones on or something. We do it all the time,” the man with a handful of bagged clothes on hangers said. “Don’t be shy. If you’re lucky he’ll be naked as a jaybird.”

I blushed and scowled at him. He snorted and continued down the hallway. Steeling myself, I reached out and grasped the door knob. I turned it and leaned forward poking my head inside. “Hello? Mr. Sawyer, are you ready for me?”

The room was quite dim. The overhead lights weren’t on but a side table lamp and the lights at the dresser were. To some degree, it illuminated a large, bulky lump lying on the sofa against the far wall. I walked into the room. “Mr. Sawyer? Is that you?”

The bulky mass didn’t move. Obviously he was sleeping. “Mr. Sawyer? I’m here to do your makeup. They’ll need you on the set in thirty minutes.”

The man wasn’t responding and as I got closer, I saw shoulder was splotched with something. It also smelled weird in the room, something I was not entirely familiar with. “Cyril, you need to wake up,” I said, touching his shoulder. It was only a light amount of pressure, but he flopped towards me. I jumped as I saw him more clearly. His face looked calm but I knew what I had smelled. It was blood. His long white robe was drenched in it. A wilted blue flower was pinned to the lapel. It too was red and sticky too.

I didn’t know what to do at first. It isn’t every day you walk in on a dead body. It’s even rarer to walk in on a science fiction television star like Cyril Sawyer lying bloodied and lifeless on his dressing room couch.

My next reaction wasn’t very original or manly. It was, however, entirely natural. I screamed and dropped my makeup case. I kept screaming until somebody started shaking me.

Then I fainted in a puddle of my own urine.