WiP: Rope, "Lie to me*"
Chapter Six: White Noise
Carefully navigating the slippery courtyard steps, Gillian tries not to think about Cal. She especially tries not to think about Wallowski with Cal, or the various ways in which the attractive detective is no doubt thanking him for putting their company at risk… again. Mindful of the heavy plastic bag swinging like a pendulum from her elbow, she transfers her laptop case to her left hand and probes her pocket for her keys. Frost glitters on the pavement beneath her feet, beautiful and treacherous. One wrong move and down she’ll go. Their line exists for a reason.
She lives in Georgetown, just south of the main village. Two and three story brick buildings line thin ribbons of cobblestone streets, adding to the area’s turn-of-the-century charm. When she purchased the little row house just after her divorce, she looked at its neighboring units and imagined a being part of a community, families and lives she could at least glimpse if not touch. As her partner likes to remind her, however, truth and happiness are two entirely different things. Most of the houses on the street belong to people like her, divorced executives who have been marginally more successful in business than in their private lives. The one family she actually did get to know, the Garcias, were forced to move a few months ago, victims of a weak economy and some minor corporate intrigue. They used to live in the property adjacent to hers, and muffled thuds and running footsteps would occasionally penetrate their shared wall. Gillian found the cacophony of family life reassuring, a reminder that contentment did exist. Now their home is wrapped in shadows and drop cloths.
Taking her mail from the box, she lets herself in with a tired sigh. Her narrow rooms are cool and silent, pent-up with the air of disuse. Moving through them quickly, she walks straight through to the back of the house and unceremoniously dumps her things on the kitchen table. The postage stamp-sized kitchen is one of the few rooms she actually spends time in, though she hasn’t cooked anything more involved than a can of soup in months. With seating for four, the table is large enough to accommodate her computer and any number of case files-perfect for working at home. It’s also conveniently located next to her cupboard.
Withdrawing the bottle from the plastic bag she used to smuggle it home, she pours herself a generous glass of Macallan. The latest argument with Cal has her feeling edgy and raw in ways she cannot bear to examine. Contrary to what he seems to believe, she’s well aware not all stories have a happy ending. In fact, she thinks, shrugging out of her coat before refreshing her drink, her tale is becoming more cautionary all the time. She thumbs through her mail-bills mostly, along with a bulletin from the neighborhood association warning of break-ins in the area. Headachy and unable to concentrate, she tosses the envelopes onto the counter.
Clinically, Gillian knows the desire for sex is a healthy function of the human body. To seek physical affection is a basic instinct of any primate. Eat, sleep, fuck: three things every girl needs. Even the good ones.
On a practical level, the solution isn’t so simple. She’s single. Almost forty. Works long hours and doesn’t get out much. When she looks in people’s faces, she sees more than she should. She has terrible taste in men.
Her options are limited.
Of course, casual sex is a possibility-technically, in the same sense that female presidents and virgin births are also considered possibilities. The problem is, despite what she’d sometimes like her partner to believe, she actually was raised with the overdeveloped conscience of a good girl and no clue how to get out from under it. So that excludes most of her remaining possibilities, like picking up strangers in bars or returning the interest of the handsome young contractor working next door. No trolling the Internet. No fucking Cal in the Pornatorium.
She still thinks about it, though. No matter how guilty it makes her feel, she fantasizes about having sex with her best friend. Because when it comes right down to it, shame is fleeting but the ache between her thighs seems to go on forever.
Tonight she can’t get it off her mind.
Cradling her glass in one hand, Gillian peels off her clothes en route to the bedroom she’s never really thought of as hers and considers all the different Cals she could sleep with-provided, of course, she ever speaks to him again. There’s romantic Cal, who dances with her to Frank Sinatra under the stars… Gentle Cal, who wraps her in his coat and sees her safely home… Playful Cal, who turns their offices into soccer fields… Forceful Cal, who pushes her boundaries… Sometimes, she thinks, carefully transferring her drink from one hand to the other while removing her blouse, he’s her favorite one.
By the time she walks into her room, the woman she passes in the full-length mirror wears only a push-up bra, black lace boy shorts, and knee-high leather boots. Gillian blinks at her, somewhat surprised at the picture she presents. The woman blinks back. Just for a second, she sees what the rest of the world must see when they look at her. The reddish, sun-streaked hair of her youth has faded to a honey brown. The tan she grew accustomed to as a little girl exploring the ripe, warm climates of her father’s various business holdings-as if his interests extended only so far as there were nubile young women in bikinis to be found-is nothing more than a memory. Of course her freckles are still as prominent as ever, defying the promises of every concealer on the market. Combined with her baby-wide blue eyes, they give her a look of perpetual innocence that’s hopelessly incongruous with her provocative outfit… ignorance in the truest sense of the word. She turns away from the mirror in disgust.
Three-inch heels may be great for maintaining a bit of psychological leverage around the office, but they’re hell on tired feet. Sitting on the edge of her immaculate bed, she pulls them off with a relieved groan. Then, rubbing the spot under her arm where her bra has been chafing all day, she decides to rid herself of it, too. Air hits her bare breasts, so cold it makes her toes curl. Her nipples tighten painfully as shivers ripple through her skin. But the Scotch is nice and warm all the way down.
On impulse, she decides to forego the robe and defiantly pads semi-naked into the living room. Sliding a Leonard Cohen CD into the stereo, she turns the volume down low, reducing the dusky baritone of the singer’s voice to a vibration more felt than heard. It rumbles through her in all the right places. Closing her eyes, she concentrates on the physical sensations of the moment-the prickle of gooseflesh, the distant tick of the mantle clock marking wasted time, the burn of Macallan on her tongue-hoping the simple mental exercise will quiet her mind. When that doesn’t work, she heads back to the kitchen.
Less thinking, more drinking. God bless Johnny Wheels. She pours another three fingers of pilfered Scotch and silently toasts the latest of Cal’s colorful friends. At least with Johnny, she understands what Cal sees in him.
Enjoying the warm, syrupy glow spreading through her limbs, she sits down at the kitchen table and powers up her computer. Her fingers move over the keyboard more slowly than usual, their cadence uneven. On her third attempt at typing in her password, it occurs to her that M&Ms and Macallan for dinner probably wasn’t the best decision.
Success. She squints against the sudden glare as the dull blue password screen is replaced by her dazzlingly bright wallpaper, a copy of The Lightman Group’s spherical logo. White on white, spinning into infinity. Never going anywhere.
Yes, she decides. M&Ms and Macallan, definitely a poor choice.
Opening her search engine, she switches her preferences to images and carefully types in Jerald Tharp’s name. As her screen fills with dozens of thumbnails, most of them pornographic, Gillian is reminded of yet another version of her partner: Infuriating Cal. Because as much as she hates to admit it, he’s right; she would never permit an argument between them to interfere with her professional responsibilities. The Tharp case is an investigation like any other, no matter how it fell into their hands. And she isn’t through with it yet.
“If you want to know the artist, study his art.” Though not scientifically conclusive, she knows to some degree the maxim holds true. It’s why so many psychological tests require the subject to draw or respond to pictures. (Draw a house. Draw a tree. Can you draw me a person? Tell me about her. Is she happy?) People reveal themselves in the act of creation. Scrolling through the thumbnail images, she tries to decide what Tharp’s photography reveals to her.
His online portfolio is a veritable kink fest. Even so, his talent is undeniable. More Helmut Newton than Robert Mapplethorpe, his slick, highly stylized portraits are voyeuristic fantasies shot exclusively in black and white. Photo after photo of women bound and disciplined for the camera-all meticulously composed, beautifully lit, not a single detail left to chance. Organized. Squirming in her seat, Gillian pushes her face up close to the screen and studies unfocused eyes, clenched teeth, drooling labia. In her expert opinion, none of it looks staged. The arousal she sees is real.
What she doesn’t see is terror. Fear, yes. Pain, yes. But nothing that comes close to the kind of bug-eyed panic she’s seen in victims of violent crimes. Nothing that tells her any of these women believed they were in danger. She clicks through the portfolio repeatedly, until she’s satisfied with her reads. If Jerald Tharp has ever gone beyond the bounds of consensual sex play, there isn’t any documentation of it. Not here, at least. Which isn’t to say that she doesn’t find the material disturbing… she does.
In the worst possible way.
One photo in particular spurs her imagination. The moody mise-en-scene depicts a woman bent over a bulky wooden desk, scattered documents on the ground at her feet. Her skirt is shoved up around her waist. The pale oval of her exposed buttocks gleams luminescent in the camera’s flash. The dark shape of a man’s hand dominates the foreground, cocked and ready to strike.
Gillian stares at the photo for a very long time. Slowly, stealthily, her fingertips graze the lace crotch of her panties, lazily tracing the tiny holes in the pattern before pushing it aside. As if part of her planned this all along.
She’s just beginning to find her rhythm when she hears the first shrill whoop of the security alarm.
Comments and critiques make me happier than pudding makes Gillian... and that's pretty damn happy.
PS Don't forget to email the network (askfox@fox.com) about how badly you want to see LTM's S4.
Carefully navigating the slippery courtyard steps, Gillian tries not to think about Cal. She especially tries not to think about Wallowski with Cal, or the various ways in which the attractive detective is no doubt thanking him for putting their company at risk… again. Mindful of the heavy plastic bag swinging like a pendulum from her elbow, she transfers her laptop case to her left hand and probes her pocket for her keys. Frost glitters on the pavement beneath her feet, beautiful and treacherous. One wrong move and down she’ll go. Their line exists for a reason.
She lives in Georgetown, just south of the main village. Two and three story brick buildings line thin ribbons of cobblestone streets, adding to the area’s turn-of-the-century charm. When she purchased the little row house just after her divorce, she looked at its neighboring units and imagined a being part of a community, families and lives she could at least glimpse if not touch. As her partner likes to remind her, however, truth and happiness are two entirely different things. Most of the houses on the street belong to people like her, divorced executives who have been marginally more successful in business than in their private lives. The one family she actually did get to know, the Garcias, were forced to move a few months ago, victims of a weak economy and some minor corporate intrigue. They used to live in the property adjacent to hers, and muffled thuds and running footsteps would occasionally penetrate their shared wall. Gillian found the cacophony of family life reassuring, a reminder that contentment did exist. Now their home is wrapped in shadows and drop cloths.
Taking her mail from the box, she lets herself in with a tired sigh. Her narrow rooms are cool and silent, pent-up with the air of disuse. Moving through them quickly, she walks straight through to the back of the house and unceremoniously dumps her things on the kitchen table. The postage stamp-sized kitchen is one of the few rooms she actually spends time in, though she hasn’t cooked anything more involved than a can of soup in months. With seating for four, the table is large enough to accommodate her computer and any number of case files-perfect for working at home. It’s also conveniently located next to her cupboard.
Withdrawing the bottle from the plastic bag she used to smuggle it home, she pours herself a generous glass of Macallan. The latest argument with Cal has her feeling edgy and raw in ways she cannot bear to examine. Contrary to what he seems to believe, she’s well aware not all stories have a happy ending. In fact, she thinks, shrugging out of her coat before refreshing her drink, her tale is becoming more cautionary all the time. She thumbs through her mail-bills mostly, along with a bulletin from the neighborhood association warning of break-ins in the area. Headachy and unable to concentrate, she tosses the envelopes onto the counter.
Clinically, Gillian knows the desire for sex is a healthy function of the human body. To seek physical affection is a basic instinct of any primate. Eat, sleep, fuck: three things every girl needs. Even the good ones.
On a practical level, the solution isn’t so simple. She’s single. Almost forty. Works long hours and doesn’t get out much. When she looks in people’s faces, she sees more than she should. She has terrible taste in men.
Her options are limited.
Of course, casual sex is a possibility-technically, in the same sense that female presidents and virgin births are also considered possibilities. The problem is, despite what she’d sometimes like her partner to believe, she actually was raised with the overdeveloped conscience of a good girl and no clue how to get out from under it. So that excludes most of her remaining possibilities, like picking up strangers in bars or returning the interest of the handsome young contractor working next door. No trolling the Internet. No fucking Cal in the Pornatorium.
She still thinks about it, though. No matter how guilty it makes her feel, she fantasizes about having sex with her best friend. Because when it comes right down to it, shame is fleeting but the ache between her thighs seems to go on forever.
Tonight she can’t get it off her mind.
Cradling her glass in one hand, Gillian peels off her clothes en route to the bedroom she’s never really thought of as hers and considers all the different Cals she could sleep with-provided, of course, she ever speaks to him again. There’s romantic Cal, who dances with her to Frank Sinatra under the stars… Gentle Cal, who wraps her in his coat and sees her safely home… Playful Cal, who turns their offices into soccer fields… Forceful Cal, who pushes her boundaries… Sometimes, she thinks, carefully transferring her drink from one hand to the other while removing her blouse, he’s her favorite one.
By the time she walks into her room, the woman she passes in the full-length mirror wears only a push-up bra, black lace boy shorts, and knee-high leather boots. Gillian blinks at her, somewhat surprised at the picture she presents. The woman blinks back. Just for a second, she sees what the rest of the world must see when they look at her. The reddish, sun-streaked hair of her youth has faded to a honey brown. The tan she grew accustomed to as a little girl exploring the ripe, warm climates of her father’s various business holdings-as if his interests extended only so far as there were nubile young women in bikinis to be found-is nothing more than a memory. Of course her freckles are still as prominent as ever, defying the promises of every concealer on the market. Combined with her baby-wide blue eyes, they give her a look of perpetual innocence that’s hopelessly incongruous with her provocative outfit… ignorance in the truest sense of the word. She turns away from the mirror in disgust.
Three-inch heels may be great for maintaining a bit of psychological leverage around the office, but they’re hell on tired feet. Sitting on the edge of her immaculate bed, she pulls them off with a relieved groan. Then, rubbing the spot under her arm where her bra has been chafing all day, she decides to rid herself of it, too. Air hits her bare breasts, so cold it makes her toes curl. Her nipples tighten painfully as shivers ripple through her skin. But the Scotch is nice and warm all the way down.
On impulse, she decides to forego the robe and defiantly pads semi-naked into the living room. Sliding a Leonard Cohen CD into the stereo, she turns the volume down low, reducing the dusky baritone of the singer’s voice to a vibration more felt than heard. It rumbles through her in all the right places. Closing her eyes, she concentrates on the physical sensations of the moment-the prickle of gooseflesh, the distant tick of the mantle clock marking wasted time, the burn of Macallan on her tongue-hoping the simple mental exercise will quiet her mind. When that doesn’t work, she heads back to the kitchen.
Less thinking, more drinking. God bless Johnny Wheels. She pours another three fingers of pilfered Scotch and silently toasts the latest of Cal’s colorful friends. At least with Johnny, she understands what Cal sees in him.
Enjoying the warm, syrupy glow spreading through her limbs, she sits down at the kitchen table and powers up her computer. Her fingers move over the keyboard more slowly than usual, their cadence uneven. On her third attempt at typing in her password, it occurs to her that M&Ms and Macallan for dinner probably wasn’t the best decision.
Success. She squints against the sudden glare as the dull blue password screen is replaced by her dazzlingly bright wallpaper, a copy of The Lightman Group’s spherical logo. White on white, spinning into infinity. Never going anywhere.
Yes, she decides. M&Ms and Macallan, definitely a poor choice.
Opening her search engine, she switches her preferences to images and carefully types in Jerald Tharp’s name. As her screen fills with dozens of thumbnails, most of them pornographic, Gillian is reminded of yet another version of her partner: Infuriating Cal. Because as much as she hates to admit it, he’s right; she would never permit an argument between them to interfere with her professional responsibilities. The Tharp case is an investigation like any other, no matter how it fell into their hands. And she isn’t through with it yet.
“If you want to know the artist, study his art.” Though not scientifically conclusive, she knows to some degree the maxim holds true. It’s why so many psychological tests require the subject to draw or respond to pictures. (Draw a house. Draw a tree. Can you draw me a person? Tell me about her. Is she happy?) People reveal themselves in the act of creation. Scrolling through the thumbnail images, she tries to decide what Tharp’s photography reveals to her.
His online portfolio is a veritable kink fest. Even so, his talent is undeniable. More Helmut Newton than Robert Mapplethorpe, his slick, highly stylized portraits are voyeuristic fantasies shot exclusively in black and white. Photo after photo of women bound and disciplined for the camera-all meticulously composed, beautifully lit, not a single detail left to chance. Organized. Squirming in her seat, Gillian pushes her face up close to the screen and studies unfocused eyes, clenched teeth, drooling labia. In her expert opinion, none of it looks staged. The arousal she sees is real.
What she doesn’t see is terror. Fear, yes. Pain, yes. But nothing that comes close to the kind of bug-eyed panic she’s seen in victims of violent crimes. Nothing that tells her any of these women believed they were in danger. She clicks through the portfolio repeatedly, until she’s satisfied with her reads. If Jerald Tharp has ever gone beyond the bounds of consensual sex play, there isn’t any documentation of it. Not here, at least. Which isn’t to say that she doesn’t find the material disturbing… she does.
In the worst possible way.
One photo in particular spurs her imagination. The moody mise-en-scene depicts a woman bent over a bulky wooden desk, scattered documents on the ground at her feet. Her skirt is shoved up around her waist. The pale oval of her exposed buttocks gleams luminescent in the camera’s flash. The dark shape of a man’s hand dominates the foreground, cocked and ready to strike.
Gillian stares at the photo for a very long time. Slowly, stealthily, her fingertips graze the lace crotch of her panties, lazily tracing the tiny holes in the pattern before pushing it aside. As if part of her planned this all along.
She’s just beginning to find her rhythm when she hears the first shrill whoop of the security alarm.
Comments and critiques make me happier than pudding makes Gillian... and that's pretty damn happy.
PS Don't forget to email the network (askfox@fox.com) about how badly you want to see LTM's S4.