Part 13

I continue to stare at her for what must be close to sixty seconds. What am I supposed to say to that? Why yes, Sara, I was hoping you'd strip and give me lessons in dressing and undressing you?

She seems to wilt in front of me. "You were kidding," she decides in a flat voice.

"No! I mean, I was serious about wondering. I just didn't expect...this." Her eyes narrow when she hears the last word. I try again: "I didn't expect this reaction from you. The...enthusiasm."

Her face turns pink and she closes her eyes. Probably trying to wish me to Timbuktu. "I'm sorry," she finally says. "I was...I must be drunker than I thought." Even she doesn't sound convinced by that explanation.

Before I can come up with something to say to make her understand what I'm trying to convey, she jerks open the door between our rooms and disappears through it.

"Sar-" I start, only to be cut off by the soft snick of the door closing behind her.

I did not handle that well.

At all.

I sit for a moment, knowing that I just screwed up my best - and probably last - chance at changing my relationship with Sara.

And she'd looked so beautiful...and then forlorn.

Too late now, I tell myself sternly. Go to bed, forget about it, and allow Sara to pretend it never happened. I try lying back on the bed, but all I can do is fidget. After five minutes of that, I sigh. Doing the forget-it-happened thing isn't helping tonight, and probably won't in the future.

I give up.

I sit up and run my fingers through my hair nervously, staring at the door and trying to psych myself up. After a minute, I stand up, walk to it, and knock.

"It's not locked," I hear her say.

I pull the door open. She's lying on her back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She doesn't look at me as I enter.

"I apologize..." I begin.

"Don't." She's still not looking at me. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. That was...inappropriate of me." Her voice tells me nothing - it bears no anger, no fear, no happiness or sadness.

The complete absurdity of that statement is so blatant that without thinking I reply, "Like I was being completely appropriate?"

She's still not looking at me. She turns onto her left side, facing away from me. "Two wrongs don't make a right."

"That's ridiculous."

She shrugs.

Now I'm annoyed. I'm trying to apologize to the woman, and she won't let me! "I'm the one who started it, the one who asked you the question." I walk to the side of the bed and look at her back, which is the only part of her facing me. Some of the drape-y fabric that had framed it earlier has slipped down, so that now her back is fairly well covered.

"You look nice," I say slowly - a tactic change and a peace offering.

"I look disheveled," she corrects, speaking not at me but at the wall.

I look down at her. Ok, maybe her hair isn't neatly pinned up anymore, and her outfit has a few wrinkles from being worn, but I would not in a million years use the word disheveled to describe Sara as she looks now. "No," I say firmly, sitting on the edge of the bed. "You look nice. More than nice." I pause, then decide to just go ahead and say what I'm thinking: "You look beautiful. You should have known that from the way every man at the cocktail party was looking at you." Like she was dessert, I think, but don't add.

"Not everyman," she says pointedly. At least there's some emotion in her voice now, even if it is just irritation.

"Every man," I say again, this time with heavy emphasis on every.

Now she turns onto her right side, so that she's facing me, but she says nothing - just stares.

She's obviously not convinced. I reach out and finger some of the fabric hanging off her side. "Shiny. Nice."

She pulls away slightly. "I said, don't."

"Why not?" I say - and is there a hint of a whine in my voice? I think so.

Finally, she looks me in the eye. "Because I don't like being pitied."

Pitied? What the--? "I don't pity you."

"Then tell me why you just came in here, after showing your real opinion in the other room?"

That's an easy one. "Because I wanted a do-over."

"A what?"

"You know," I say suspecting she's being deliberately obtuse. "A do-over, like kids have, where you erase what just happened and try it again as if it was the first time."

Her mouth twitches at that, I'm sure of it. "Exactly what did you plan on doing over?" she says. She's still skeptical.

"What...just happened. In my room." I stop, lick my lips nervously. "We can pretend we just walked in, and start again from what you said...uh..."

" 'You want to know how my shirt stays on?'" she supplies.

"Yes."

Instead of giving me an answer, she traces a finger over the flowery pattern on the bedspread, tracking a vine that runs from near her shoulder to the edge of my thigh. When she gets there, her hand stills and she cocks her head to the side. "Were you really looking at me? Down at the cocktail party, I mean?"

I smile nervously. "Whenever I thought I could get away with it."

"Why only then?"

I blink. "It's rude to stare," I remind her. "So I didn't."

"Hmm." Her hand moves from the bedspread to my knee, stroking it so lightly that if I wasn't watching it, I might not notice.

"Sara?"

"Hmm," she says again, this time ending the sound on an interrogative pitch.

"Are you going to let me have a do-over?"

"Mmm." She concentrates harder on my leg. I'm pretty sure there's nothing that terribly interesting about my knee.

Impatient for an answer, I scoot down the bed an inch, just out of her reach. "Well?"

She flops onto her back and folds her hands over her stomach. I watch them rise and fall for a few seconds as she breathes. She twiddles her thumbs.

"Sara..." I say, starting to get worried. Maybe that was my last chance that I blew in the other room.

"What are you going to do different this time?" she asks from the depths of the pillows, just when I've decided she's gone to sleep.

I think about that. "I'm...uh...not sure. I just know that I need to actually say something in response to what you said."

She sighs. "A good starting point, but this could be a night full of do-overs." I gulp; she's probably right. Then she surprises me by saying, "Do you want a script?"

"A what?"

"A script. I could supply you with a couple possible answers and a cheat sheet; then all you have to do is read one of them."

I stare at her. "Does this mean I get to try again?"

"Not until you know what you're going to say as a response this time." She sits up and shoves at me. "Move." Afraid I'm about to get the boot, I jump up and back away, but all she does is feel around the floor for the notebook and pencil that are fortuitously there. She waggles the notebook at me. "Script, see?"

I decide to accept my fate. In the long run, it's probably wiser to get her to explicitly tell me what I need to do. Less chance for misunderstanding that way. I walk back to the bed. "I'm not in trouble?"

She's busy scribbling in the notebook and ignores my question. Resigned, I stand and wait to be presented with my script, and after a few minutes she tears a page out and shoves it at me. "Here."

I look at the sheet she's handed me. It looks like a cross between a screenplay and a multiple-choice test:

Sidle: So...you wanted to know how my shirt stays on?

Grissom: choose from G1-G6 below

G1: Yes

G2: No

G3: I was kidding about that part, although it is a very nice shirt, Sara. Grissom smiles

G4: Well, I've been pondering the physics of it. The suspension has to be coming from somewhere, but damned if I know where. Grissom walks closer and examines the shirt

G5: Yes, in between bouts of wondering how to get it off Grissom tugs experimentally on the shirt

G6: You imagined it; I never said that. It's all an alcohol-induced hallucination that you'll forget in the morning. Grissom smiles sympathetically and escorts Sidle back to her room

I look up from the paper. She has, indeed, provided me with a comprehensive selection of answers. "So are we going to do this again?"

She nods. "But not here." Pointing to the door, she clarifies: "In your room."

"You're the boss," I say, ushering her through the door ahead of me.

She points to my bed. "On the bed, like you were."

That's just about the last order from Sara that I'd ever want to disobey, so I oblige.

She walks back to the adjoining door and for a second I'm afraid she's going to bolt, but then she turns around and smiles at me. "And I'm coming from my room." She walks through the doorway until she's just out of my line of sight. "Ok, now we're starting. As of this second, 'before' never happened."

I wait impatiently for something to happen.

A few seconds later, she knocks gently on the doorframe and one of her feet appears over the threshold. "Gris?"

I forgot to pick up my book of crosswords, so I just sit up and give her my best attempt at a charming smile. "Yes? You need something?"

She takes another step into the room. Watches me.

I fidget. I know we're replaying the scene and all, but couldn't we leave out the uncomfortable pauses?

She keeps looking at me.

"Sara?" I prompt, tired of waiting.

"Yeah." Another step into the room. She looks behind her and gently closes the adjoining door. That same feeling of closed-in-ness settles over the room.

I shift positions, moving to sit on the edge of my bed. This, I remember, is when things started to get interesting.

So I wait for something interesting to happen.

"So..." she begins again. She touches whatever that mysterious necklace/shirt at the nape of her neck is, and smiles, looking like she feels a little silly.

My turn to speak again. "Yes?"

She backs up until she hits my dresser. Then, deviating slightly from what happened before (I make a mental note to tease her about breaking character), she hops up to sit on the edge of it, swinging her legs slightly.

I'm a little bit hypnotized by those legs. I watch one of her heels hit a drawer and think that it will probably leave a mark on the wood.

"Grissom?" she says, snapping her fingers to get my wandering attention. Whoops. I return my attention to her.

She drops her head in a near-perfect replay of earlier and pauses just long enough to make me nervous, then looks up at me with a slow smile. "So..." she says, almost teasingly this time, "you wanted to know how my shirt stays on?"

I look down at the sheet of paper I'm clutching. "Well, I've been pondering the physics of it," I read. "The suspension has to come from somewhere, but I'll need to do a closer inspection to determine where." I'm rather proud of myself for improvising on that last bit. I hope she's equally impressed.

She's smiling - that must be good, right? I wait. She lets another few seconds pass - I'm sure she's doing it just to irk me - and then lowers herself off the dresser and walks toward me.

Oh my god, she's walking toward me. I take a deep breath and try to keep from panicking.

She stops mere inches in front of me. Since I'm still sitting and she's standing, my face is just about at belly-button level on her. I take another breath, then look up at her, waiting for a hint. The script didn't cover this part!

"Well?" she says. "You said you needed to examine it." She spreads her arms in an I'm-yours-to-examine gesture and watches me.

For a moment my anxiety slips away and I'm genuinely curious about the top, and in that second my hand creeps up toward her, but then I jerk it back. She didn't say if touching was allowed. Then again, she hasn't protested so far. I raise my hand again and lightly touch her side, playing with the slick material.

She's still silent, just looking down at me and smiling slightly, and I become a little bolder. I slip the tips of my fingers under the side of the shirt, wondering if maybe there's a hidden set of straps.

Well, and because of the Oh my god I'm touching Sara factor.

I don't feel anything but her skin. Is she not wearing any undergarment at all under this? My hand shakes slightly; I try to make it seem as if I meant to move it, to feel her skin. She's still just...standing there. Watching me. I take a deep breath and raise my other hand, touching the same area on her other side and feeling nothing but skin there either.

It feels almost like I have my arms around her now, even though in reality it's only the tips of my fingers that are touching her. I'm on sensory overload.

I enjoy the feel of her skin for a few more seconds, then slide my hands around to her back. This brings us so close that I if I wanted, I could cushion my head on her belly while I explored her back. I decide against that, however - if I did that, I wouldn't be able to watch her face - and simply concentrate on my hands. Her back is just as soft as her sides. I run one finger up her spine and am rewarded by seeing goosebumps rise on her skin.

I wonder if this feels as strangely intimate to her as it does to me. Barely touching, and I can already feel sparks trying to shoot between us. This is why I've kept away from her for so long. This feeling of being tightly bound and overwhelmed by her, and how I can't think of anything else, can't function, when it's happening.

I think that right now, the hotel could probably burn down around us and I wouldn't notice.

One of her hands brushes my shoulder, bringing me back to whatever version of reality I'm currently existing in. "You stopped," she says quietly.

I must have been so absorbed in the mental aspect that my fingers forgot to move. "Sorry." I trace her spine again and announce, "No straps here either."

"Of course," she says. "I'm telling you, it's only female magic that's holding this top up right now."

I move my hand back to her side, exploring a little more toward the front now, until suddenly my fingers hit something adhesive. I stop and look up at her questioningly. "Ok," she admits, "female magic and some gaffer's tape."

We stare at each other for a second and then crack up. Just the way she said it, so sheepishly...I snort a laugh.

"You snorted!" she charges, using one of her fingers to tweak my ear when she's not busy laughing too hard to move.

I laugh harder, clutching at her sides to hold myself up. "Sorry!"

She steps back, out of my reach, and although she's only a few more inches away, I feel deserted and stop laughing. "What?" I ask.

She just looks at me. Not the same way she did earlier; there's no annoyance or impatience in this look. She's just...studying me.

"What?" I ask again.

She quirks a small smile. "I can't remember the last time I saw you really laugh. I don't know if I ever have, actually."

What meaning am I supposed to get from that? My confusion must show on my face because she adds, "It's nice. I like hearing you laugh." She pauses, then moves closer to me and squats down, putting us roughly eye-to-eye. "I like being the one who made you laugh. It makes me feel...good."

"You always feel good," I reply, and although I didn't exactly mean to use a double entendre, she grins.

"How would you know? Tonight's the first time you've ever felt me."

Little does she know how many times I "accidentally" brushed against her at scenes, or didn't pull my hand back quickly enough when passing her a tool. "I wouldn't say that."

Catching me by surprise, she wraps her arms around my waist and squeezes. After a moment, I squeeze back. "I like this," she whispers into my ear.

"Me too."

The phone in my room starts to ring.