Red liquid flowed across a glass dresser towards golden tubes of lipstick, quartz blocks of jade and indigo perfumes, black brushes caked in mascara. In the center of the enormous sheet of glass, a beautiful girl was lying face-down. She had been dead for only a few minutes. Her white wig was visible in the dresser mirror, framed in bright electric lightbulbs. Puff powder floated above her corpse in turrets of glittering clouds.
She was like an opalescent swan drowned in glass.
The red continued to flow towards the end of the dresser, drip-dripping onto her exposed thighs. A pair of white vinyl stilettos were still strapped to her feet and crossed at awkward angles. She had a green scorpion tattooed on her shoulder, close to the bone.
Through an open window, a moth flew inside to escape the warm Naples night. Softly, it began to kiss at one of the lightbulbs. It kissed and kissed at the boiling glass, trying to reach the orange filament inside until finally, unseen by human eyes, it burst into blue ash.
Suddenly, from the other side of the room, a number of young women appeared. They tottered towards the mirror, ignoring the dead girl and the bottle of red nail polish in her hand that had spilled all across the dresser and the body slumped over. Instead, the women chose to look at themselves in the mirror.
“Eroina,” a dark-haired one sneered, pointing at the syringe stuck in the girl’s arm, a few inches down from the scorpion tattoo.
The other women burst into laughter and began painting their faces. Just another overdose in just another brothel. Heroin imported from the Swiss mountains. It passed through the pale graveyards of Milan, down towards the golden end of Italy. They had seen many young girls freeze to death in hotel rooms like blind statues.
Each of the women in the mirror had a tattoo of a green scorpion, all them branded by the madam that owned the building. It had once been a hotel frequented by sailors and fishermen all along the coast. A red neon sign flashed through the window.
Casa Scorpione.
Casa Scorpione.
The women each finished decorating their faces with blue eye-shadow and a sheen of pink lip gloss. The oldest woman took off a violet wig and replaced it with a modern black bob. They all left the room, except for one. A young girl. She wore a white satin dress and blonde plastic hair. Slowly, she painted her mouth in lipstick. Her kisses smacked loudly in the mirror. Laughing, she dipped her finger into the acrylic polish pooling around the dead girl, and rubbed it over her mouth.
None of the women had noticed the dead girl’s bloodied throat, only visible from beneath the sheet of glass. It had been slashed whilst she was shooting up. The red nail polish flowed and mixed with the dead girl’s blood. It shone as bright as costume jewelry.
Outside, the rundown suburb of Naples was busy with evening traffic. The woman in the white satin dress reached down to open her purse and pulled out a cigarette. Her dress pulled apart and revealed a green scorpion tattoo on her inner thigh. She staggered down the cobbled street towards a row of parked cars. Homosexuals had gathered around the first ones, posing in front of their windscreens. They combed back their oily hair and modelled for the drivers. A pair of them were fighting in the street. Another was dressed in a shimmering baby-doll and walked towards a large parked truck and got inside.
The woman in the white satin dress moved to the far end of the street where a single car was parked. The vehicle was sunk in total darkness. From the window, she could see a wad of lira notes dangling from his black gloved hand. Like an exquisite fish, she gobbled towards the money.
“What is your name?” he asked, in a deep and distorted voice. It almost sounded like a machine.
“Cherry,” she lied, pouting and pushing out her breasts as she smoked the last dregs of her cigarette. The plastic wig swam behind her in phantom blue smoke.
“Get in the car, Cherry.”
They drove for a few minutes, down towards the water. His face was still hidden in darkness. She looked at the money in his hand as he steered the car towards the ocean which was black and went on forever. In the distance, a red ship sailed towards them.
Suddenly, from his pocket he pulled out a silver switchblade. It glowed sharply in the moonlight. She saw he was wearing a black mask.
“No,” she panted, reaching for the door. She dragged herself out of the car and began running along the port, screaming at the ship as it slowly approached the harbor. Onboard, bourgeois tourists drank wine and played cards around a table as an orchestra performed. A ruddy-faced man stabbed wildly at a cello.
“Auito! Auito!” howled the woman wildly at the approaching ship, pleading for help.
But they could not hear. A white gloved hand turned over a card. It was a joker. The tourists around the table began to laugh, crashing their wine glasses together. The music swelled even louder, drowning out her screams.
The madman ran and grabbed the woman. He slowly dragged the switchblade across her throat. The indigo metal shone in the night as it tore the flesh apart. Red blood gushed from the wound. It ran down her satin dress and along the tattoo of the scorpion, before she fell forwards into the black Mediterranean. The killer headed back to the car and drove towards the city. The sign for Casa Scorpione continued to glow like a beacon out across the pitiful sea.
It was the following morning at Naples airport. A beautiful actress had come all the way from New York to audition for a film.
“I saw the advert in a magazine,” she told an old woman on the plane, who was falling asleep. “It’s about a woman being pursued,” she explained, “She keeps getting phone calls from a strange man. We can all relate to that. I had this one guy who worked at the video rental store. A real creep. And he wouldn’t stop phoning me at like four in the morning, saying how he liked…” The old woman was now snoring. “I wonder what Italy is like,” the actress continued, more to herself, watching white clouds drift into azure.
From the airport, she hailed a taxi. She had written down the address for the audition, which a strange, robotic voice had told her on the phone. After arriving, she paid the driver and dragged her suitcase all the way up the stairs of an old villa. Its walls were crumbling and covered in pale frescos of baroque chimeras.
When she knocked on the door, it swung open. There was no one inside. She pulled out the sheet of paper again and checked the address.
“Hello? Pronto?” she shouted, entering the hallway, placing her suitcase at the door that slammed shut behind her.
She walked into a large room. The floor was covered in white sheets. A projector and camera had been set up on a black tripod at the back of the room, alongside an enormous set of speakers. At the front of the room was a small oak table with a red telephone. She could make out a small glass window above the projector. At the end of the room, she suddenly noticed a man in a wheelchair. He was dressed in a black hat, trench-coat and Ray-Ban sunglasses.
“My God!” she shouted, jumping backwards in fright, “I didn’t see you there! You must be director Fabio Marino! I’m Evelyn, we spoke on the telephone, I didn’t…”
“Evelyn,” a strange voice suddenly announced on the speakers. It was the same voice she had heard back in New York. “This is Signore Marino. I am in the next room.”
The projector came on and shone a blinding light onto the bare wall, forming a shadow of the table and telephone. Dazed, she looked over at the window at the back of the room where a gloved hand waved.
“That is my assistant director, Evelyn. Signore Bernardi. He is completely paralyzed.”
Through squinting eyes, she looked across at Signore Bernardi.
“Nice to meet you,” she said.
“I will be directing the scene from here, whilst Signore Bernardi studies how you work. I believe you will be perfect, Evelyn. From the photographs you sent. Perfetta. We thought we could try out the phone call scene at night. Page 46?”
“Uh huh,” she mumbled, still confused, running back to the suitcase to pull out the script. On the wall, she noticed framed butterflies pressed beneath sheets of glass. Quickly, she scanned the pages he had faxed her a few days ago. She was able to memorize them again quickly.
“OK,” she said, strutting into the light. Her shadow joined the telephone and table.
“Azione!” commanded Fabio, and suddenly a vortex of colors projected onto the wall behind Evelyn; a whirligig of bright reds, blues, yellows, all twisting around her body as she picked up the phone receiver.
“Pronto? Pronto?” she gasped, exasperated.
“Evelyn,” the robotic voice interrupted, causing her to look up, “English is OK. We dub afterwards.”
“Oh,” she said, looking more beautiful than ever, lost and alone in the vortex of green.
“Azione!” repeated Fabio.
“Hello? Hello?” she spoke into the receiver, slightly more upset.
“Vittoria,” a voice replied through the speakers. It was the distorted, machine-like voice of Fabio. She tried not to look surprised. She didn’t realize the director would read the scene with her.
“Who is this?” she continued, pleading desperately. She looked around with growing dread, “How did you get my number?” Silence on the end of the line. “The man in the chapel earlier today, and then at the boating lake. Was that you? Why were you following me?”
“Vittoria,” purred the voice again.
“What do you want from me?”
She started to sob. Tears were running down her face as she stepped towards the camera. Colors streamed across her body as she gripped the red phone even tighter.
“Evelyn,” Fabio’s voice suddenly said. Her eyes widened with surprise. “Those photographs you sent me, all the way from Manhattan. I knew you were perfect.”
“Fabio,” she said, half-laughing, “That isn’t in the script. I’m Vittoria.”
Her face was still sparkling with diamante tears.
“I have been searching for many months now, all across Naples, for the perfect Vittoria. When I saw your photographs, I knew it was you. You remember how my script ends, don’t you?”
Suddenly, at the far end of the room, Fabio appeared in a black trench-coat and black mask. He was wielding a silver switchblade.
Evelyn let out a blood-curdling scream as she fell to the floor beneath the mad cauldron of colors. She scrambled towards the assistant director.
“Signore Bernardi! Signore Bernardi!” she wept, clawing at his feet, “I need your help! He is insane! Signore Marino is insane!”
She fell, scared onto his breast. His entire body jerked backwards at an awkward angle. When his hat and sunglasses fell off, she saw that Signore Bernardi was simply a plastic mannequin. Evelyn let out another scream, her face filled with terror. The killer walked towards her and grabbed her throat, pulling her close.
“I have dreamed of Vittoria since I was a little boy, Evelyn. She visited me on a summer’s day, not unlike this one, in a beautiful meadow near my father’s house. On that same day, I was stung by a scorpion. Isn’t it strange, Evelyn? The dance of pleasure and pain?”
And then he brought the switchblade down across Evelyn’s dress and tore a bloody cut into her shoulder. Howling, she elbowed him sharply in the stomach. When he fell, she grabbed the switchblade from his gloved hand. Half-naked, she staggered into the whirligig of colors spinning on the bar wall. She looked like a demon. Her face possessed with emerald fear.
“I’ll kill you, coglione!”
He hunched over before drawing himself back up.
“Such a dirty mouth for such a clean girl,” the robotic voice replied. “When I confessed to my father about my dream of Vittoria, do you know what he did to me, Evelyn? He punished me in strange ways. He was an inventive man, my father. A director of sorts. He liked to film his punishments with a camera. So that I would remember, when I was awake, what to never dream about again. Do you like to play in the dreams of others? All actresses do. Look at my colors, Evelyn. All my butterflies on the walls.”
“Stay back!” she screamed, running from the madman into the hallway. Desperately, she pulled at the main door but it was locked. He then appeared in the hallway. She picked up a vase of yellow tulips and threw them in his face. Running towards her, wet and deranged, he wrestled her to the ground and grabbed the switchblade from her hand, before dragging it across her arm.
“No!” she yelled in pain, watching blood trickle down the skin.
She ran from the hallway into the next room. Clumsily, she fell over into a number of large objects that crashed onto the concrete floor. She looked around, frightened. The room was filled with mannequins. There must have been over a hundred of them, laid in vague piles.
Bloody and bewildered, with her dress torn; she watched as he walked towards her. He dragged her by her hair into the projector room and tied her to a chair with some rope. She watched the colors dance on the wall. He vanished and appeared again, this time without his mask. She could see his face was badly disfigured. In his hands, he carried a small glass box.
“Every time, I dreamed of Vittoria, you see Evelyn, mio padre would punish me. I tried to stop dreaming but I couldn’t. Eiaculazione. An orgasm in the sleep, capisci? Do you understand? I couldn’t hide from my dreams or my father. He would drip acid on my face and throat. That’s why I sound like this, Vittoria.”
“It’s Evelyn,” she spat at him, before he sealed her mouth shut with duct tape.
“At first, the mannequins were enough. I would dress them up like Vittoria and it was like that beautiful dream I had as a boy. But soon, I needed more. My father would kill me if he saw the women I made love to, the pouting omosessuale down at the port. But some of those women. They had tattoos of scorpions on their flesh and it reminded me of the day I met Vittoria .Capisci?”
She shook and screamed through the duct tape.
“I wrote all my dreams down in a script. I knew my dreams would lead me back to her.”
He took the switchblade and dragged it softly across her face, wet with tears and blood.
“And the dream ends with my favorite game.”
From the glass box, he pulled out a single scorpion. He held it by the tail. Its elegant body and pincers were wriggling wildly. She began kicking her feet and screaming.
“You read the script so you know already.”
He tore off the tape and she screamed wildly.
“Fottuto bastardo!”
Another fountain of spit landed on his face as he crammed the scorpion inside her mouth and sealed the duct tape back.
“Enough!” he shouted, returning to the other room and putting the black mask on again. Her eyes widened as she felt the scorpion explore the insides of her mouth. She looked at the vortex of colors of the wall: red, blue, yellow, green.
A kaleidoscope of evil.
“The scorpion’s kiss is perfect. Its venom is slow and non-lethal. When I was stung as a boy, I thrashed about in the dirt beneath the summer sun. I couldn’t breathe. My heart was beating so fast for Vittoria. I wanted the ecstasy of its venom to never end, you see. In my dreams, the kiss of Vittoria is entwined forever with the venom of the scorpion.”
He then licked the side of her crying face.
“When we have finished this film, we will make many others. All my dreams of Vittoria and I finally have the star I need. You will live in my dreams now, Evelyn. You want to live in my dreams, don’t you?”
She nodded, her face softening.
“You do? Oh, Vittoria!” he exclaimed, embracing her. Carefully, she wriggled her hands free of the rope. Whilst he sobbed quietly, she held him closer and reached down to grab the switchblade at his feet. With one furious motion, she brought the blade upwards and hacked at his acid-rotten throat, causing a geyser of orange blood to fling into the zone of projected light. It flecked madly across the cold lens of the camera and frozen butterflies that covered the walls of the apartment as he lay choking to death.
Her shadow rose from the chair and spat out the scorpion. She pulled a key from his pocket. The scorpion ran away and hid in every room of the house. Evelyn staggered towards the door and walked out into the dark Italian night.
— Matthew Kinlin lives and writes in Glasgow. His published works include Teenage Hallucination (Orbis Tertius Press, 2021); Curse Red, Curse Blue, Curse Green (Sweat Drenched Press, 2021); The Glass Abattoir (D.F.L. Lit, 2023); Songs of Xanthina (Broken Sleep Books, 2023); Psycho Viridian (Broken Sleep Books, 2024) and So Tender a Killer (Filthy Loot, 2025). Instagram: @obscene_mirror.