AN: Inspired by and shamelessly ripped off from Sex, Lies, and Videotape. (If you haven't seen it, then by all means, DO. However, not seeing it won't prevent you from understanding this fic.) Takes place circa Leonard Caul. Rated M for pervasive sexual themes.
This one is more than a wee bit strange, so I'm very curious to know what you guys think. Thank you so much for reading!
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or anything else, and I'm making no profit whatsoever from this silly fic.
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"Okay, so what happens now? Where do I begin?" asked the demure and somewhat anxious woman who was sitting on the couch in Red's current safe house. She had dark, wavy hair, a slender build, and huge brown eyes. She was just a random bartender, someone he had met that night, but their somewhat unorthodox interaction would be as intimate as anything he was capable of having, with anyone.
He focused the camera and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Okay, we're rolling. Start with your name."
"Alright. My name. Is Cynthia. Patrice. Bishop."
He chuckled and shifted his weight in the chair where he sat across from her. "Use a normal voice."
"Okay." She laughed and leaned forward, toying with her glass of iced tea, giving him an eyeful of her cleavage.
"Tell me about your first sexual experience," he drawled.
"You mean the first time I had sex?"
"Or the first time you saw an erect penis."
"Well, I was fifteen." She set down her iced tea and pulled her legs up on the couch. "It was my boyfriend, and we were fooling around in his basement."
"What did you think? Was it what you expected?"
"Not really." She laughed. "I thought it would be smooth, like a cylinder. I wasn't expecting all these veins and ridges and stuff." She was starting to relax, a far away look in her eye as she remembered the somewhat awkward moment from her youth. "You know it's funny, I just zeroed in on it, and it seemed like a seperate thing to me, like a seperate entity that wasn't even attached to him. I was fascinated. I remember being startled when he spoke to me."
"What did he say?" Red asked softly.
"He said my hand felt good."
"You were stroking him?"
"Not at first. I just touched, real lightly, like it might break or something."
"Then what?"
"Then I wrapped my fingers around it, and he put his hand around mine and showed me what to do. He was moaning my name, and I couldn't, I don't know - I was surprised that I could make him do that, make those sounds."
"Did he touch you?"
"I let him touch my breasts... um, he did it like this." She unbuttoned her blouse, but instead of taking off her black lace bra, she pulled the cups down to expose her breasts, and then she palmed them, one at a time, and briefly tugged at her taut nipples. "He was rather graceless about it, but he was enthusiastic."
Red waited, as he often did when the interviews got steamy, for some sign of life from his cock. A twitch, a slight rush of blood, anything. Like always, it didn't seem to give a damn, but that wasn't much of a disappointment. He knew that it would spring to life later, when he watched the tape by himself. He'd amassed dozens of them. It always worked when he was alone.
"Are you having sex with anyone currently?"
For the first time during the interview, she blushed. "Yes."
"With whom?"
"John. He's my sister's husband."
Well, that was something new. His interest piqued.
"I take it she doesn't know."
"No," she shook her head, "But sometimes I want to tell her. She thinks she's got the perfect life, with her big house and her lawyer husband. They aren't even having sex."
"He told you that?"
"He didn't have to. The way he takes me, there's no way he has anything left for her."
"You seem very satisfied. You get off on the fact that he's your sister's husband?" He canted his head and smirked boyishly.
"Well yeah, in some perverse way, I suppose I do."
He nodded and waited for her to go on, but Cynthia had other ideas.
"When you do these interviews, do the women ever... do things to themselves?" she asked.
"Sometimes, if they want to."
"Would you like it if I took off my skirt?"
He was glad that one of them had found talk of her affair arousing. "Yes."
She unzipped the black miniskirt, lifted her hips, and pushed it down her well-toned legs. She left her heels on, propping them up on the armrest of the couch.
"You aren't wearing any panties," he commented.
"I usually don't."
"Do you ever touch yourself when you think about John?"
She coyly sucked two fingers into her mouth and nodded. "Sometimes. Would you like me to show you?"
"Please do," he replied.
That John guy was obviously an awful bastard, but Red couldn't help thinking that he was a lucky one too.
-...-...-...-...-...-
It was several days before he finally had the time to watch his latest videotape, in his tiny flat in Bethesda. The entire process had become so ritualized that it required no thought at all. He grabbed a handful of tissues and locked the door before inserting the tape and settling down on the bed to get comfortable.
He wasn't always this way, no. His appetite for sex used to be healthy and easily sated.
But then, Elizabeth.
He'd stormed into her life and she into his heart. His heart, which he'd never thought of as a delicate thing, was irrevocably ripped from his chest and transplanted to the soles of her feet, so that wherever she went, and whatever she did, she unwittingly stomped upon it.
Even so, his cock was an eager participant for sex with other women, at first.
But then she came to him after closing the case on The Cypress Agency, seeking comfort. She was so soft and pliable in his arms, so warm and giving under his caring touch. The look in her eye was one that his hopeful heart dared not attempt to interpret.
Until she kissed his neck, and it was as if he'd imagined it. He didn't even react until she did it again, higher, and again, on his jaw, making her way to his disbelieving lips for a kiss that was long, languorous, and deep.
Then she pulled back and fled, horrified by the heady transgression against her hired husband.
And he raged, raged against himself so hard for letting it happen. He'd been such a fool, such a goddamn fool to think that she could ever return the feelings of such a pathetic old man.
He needed only try and fail twice with two other women before he gave up on sex entirely. Ever since Elizabeth, it had felt empty and perfunctory anyway.
The interviews had become a secret little obsession, a very personal project. Pornography would have been easier, obviously, but that never did it for him. He needed to interact with the women, and establish some sort of a connection that he could call upon later, in private.
For the moment, Cynthia was doing it for him just fine. He unzipped his trousers and palmed his thick erection, all ready to go by the time she'd disposed of her miniskirt.
Then the phone on his nightstand began to vibrate. He pointedly ignored it until the buzzing stopped and then began again. Only one person had the audacity to blow up his phone, so he grabbed the remote to press 'pause' before answering, his breath somewhat labored, "Lizzie, how can I help you?"
She went right to the point. "I have the fulcrum."
"Ah... finally."
"Am I interrupting something?"
He sighed. "It's quite all right. I can finish later."