Snuff

Over the next several weeks, I will be posting the first parts of several of the short stories I've been working on, between other actual blog entries. Any feedback is welcome.

Here is the first part of another longer story, about a broadway play that skirts the edge of a live snuff film. It's also about love.
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“So, you’re comparing yourself to a torture victim,” she said. A look of disbelief twisted her features, wrinkles above her nose adding character to Emily Natchez’s otherwise flawless face. Too flawless, Paul had once told her. She could use the character of a couple of wrinkles. He’d been hoping to hurt her with that. He could never say exactly why.

“No, not…I’m not saying…” Paul stammered, his hands moving around and framing his thin, stubble-darkened face. “Look, I’m just saying …”

He took a breath. He hated that she could still fluster him this way. He considered himself pretty articulate. It was a skill gained over countless cups of coffee in their East Village java hangout after film class, and years more after graduation. It was one of the few skills he took pride in, and became known for in their small circle. Since those days of being one of the golden boys of the class of 92, pride hadn’t taken him far. Lately he’d been subsisting on film reviews and other small journalistic bones from former classmates while he worked on yet another screenplay that he couldn’t sell. He was an excellent craftsman, or so he’d been told. But he was always just waiting, and looking and dreaming of that great idea he could craft into something epic. Instead, he’d found a series of almosts, a love that broke his heart, and a life that left him uninspired. Still, he considered himself a good writer, and a fairly good speaker. But being around Em seemed to wipe all of that away. She knew how to cut him off at the knees, making him feel preposterous and every bit of that insecure freshman who had first fallen in love with her. Running a hand over his forehead to smooth back stringy brown bangs, he tried to regroup.

“Torture victims…people in the military… that, you know, liked war movies or action flicks before…before whatever happened to them? After they’d had an experience in real life like that was—you know, where they really experienced that kind of violence? They’d say they couldn’t watch that kind of movie again. The reality, like, taints the film experience. The more real it seems in the film, the less they can stand it. You know?” He paused, anticipating a nod of understanding from Emily as his cue to continue. Instead, she tilted her head to one side. That gesture always reminded him of his old pet parrot, Ronald Mac. Paul had taught the bird only three swear words before the unclipped parrot skirted the bars of a partially opened window and took to the skies of lower Manhattan, never to be seen again. Emily’s gesture heightened Paul’s annoyance.

“What I’m saying is that love stories hit me the same way. I can’t stand to watch them," he said, gesturing absently in movements that reminded Emily of shucking corn. “ I just... It’s too raw, too...”

She folded her arms, head cocking in the opposite direction before bouncing into a nod. “You’re comparing yourself to a torture victim. “ she said.

He surrendered, flopping back on the worn cloth convertible couch that served as his living room and guest bed. Lately that was here he spent most nights, in fact, not bothering to fold the metal frame out, instead just flopping back onto the sofa cushions, fully clothed, to sleep off his nightly toxic elixer of scotch and coffee. To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub. For in that sleep, who knows what dreams may come?

“Okay. I’m comparing myself to a torture victim, “he said through his hands, “and you’re the head whipmaster, Em.”

“That’d be whip mistress,” she smiled.

“Doesn’t matter how much you shame me, I’m not going.” He said.

“Paul, it’s just a play, for Christ’s sake.” She said. She absently checked her watch, gauging which argument she’d have to pull out to get her way in the...thirty-two minutes, twenty seconds...she had left before they had to be at the theater, “it’s a free play, past that. You haven’t been out of this dump all day, your skin’s turning to parchment, for crissake.

“I have a bit of work to do, Em,” he said, “an interview to transcribe and polish, and then two other reviews to write for tomorrow’s…”

“But what’s the point of writing reviews if it stops you from seeing the art? Come on, Pauly, the reviews are just an excuse for free invites, anyway!”

“Beg to differ, darlin’,” he said.

“And if you only review the big movies," she said, not allowing him to interrupt, “you lose out on the inside track to these kind of small art pieces, which was your purpose in getting the review gigs in the first place! This tiny, little, important play has been sold out for weeks, and you’re about to let free passes go to waste.”

“Big flicks pay the big bills. We don’t all have a loaded boyfriend to take care of our every need. Some of us work for a living."

“All of us work for a living. And Clive isn’t my boyfriend. Not anymore.” She said, checking her watch again.

That got his interest. His eyes went wide, before he caught himself and looked away. But she’d seen it; the interest, the surprised mix of curiousity and possibility, and the subtle shifting of will. Nothing escaped her. But his worry now was how to cave, slowly and without obvious intention, to her will.

“Okay, small play, small venue, but big buzz. Not bad for a show with no apparent advertising budget. And a one-night shot to get the inside scoop. Maybe worth peek,” Paul said, eyes drifting over the passes on the coffee table between darts at Emily’s face. “If it means that much to you, maybe I could sell it to one of the downtown art papers.”

Emily pursed her lips. Twenty-eight minutes. Plenty of time. She still had it.

Paul picked up the tickets distractedly, to give him something to look at other than her stare, those blue eyes that seemed to pierce to his core. He studied the play’s logo at the center of each pass, with intensity, willing the flush on his face to disappear. And, for the first time, he read the title.

Snuff.