Disclaimer: I don't own CSI.

Silk

Sara runs her hands along the edge of the fabric. It is soft, sensual, with a smoothness that makes her keep running one finger back along the edge of the blouse. She idly thinks that she doesn't own anything made of silk yet. It is expensive, but maybe just this one thing. It is red and form fitting, and she wonders how it would feel against the skin on her torso. Or how it would feel if Gil was running his hands along the fabric…

"Gil," she calls, trying to get his attention.

He walks over at looks at her.

"Look at this," she says, and runs his hand over the fabric.

"Silk?" he asks with a slightly raised eyebrow.

"Do you think…" she suggests. She doesn't have to finish, because Gil will know what she is thinking. They are Christmas shopping after all.

"As long as you don't mind where it comes from," Gil says.

That makes Sara think. Of course she knows where silk comes from. "Silk worms made it."

"They have to boil the silk worm pupae alive," Gil adds.

She had forgotten about that part. "Couldn't they just use the cocoons after they emerge?" Sara asks with a frown.

"There's one continuous strand of silk," Gil explains. "If the moth emerges, the strand gets broken into a lot of pieces and isn't usable."

"You think I shouldn't get it then?" she asks.

"As long as you can appreciate where it comes from, I don't mind," Gil says. "It's not wasteful, since the dead pupae are used to make roasted silk worm pupae and silk worm soup."

"Eww. That's gross."

"Not in Korea," Gil responds. "It's a delicacy there."

And then Gil walks off to look at some fishing lures.

Sara is left with the blouse in her hand and a dilemma. She runs her hand along the fabric again, imagining what it would feel like…

But what she imagines this time is very different. She can't help it. Her find is filled with thousands of silk worm pupae as they meet their watery demise. Boiled alive, they feebly move their partially formed legs in a silent supplication. Are they capable of feeling pain? Nobody knows for sure. Every casing became a coffin with a dead pupa pressed up against the thread. Then it was unwound, and the thread sent off to be made into this fabric. The pupae were sent off to be made into silk worm soup.

Can she enjoy the piece of fabric now that she knows the full history of its grotesque origins?

Sara puts the blouse back on the rack, and wonders darkly if it really would have been better not to know. But she also understands Gil. And that is what matters most.