Tribute

well. The character of Cass behaves in certain ways, and expects certain behavior and attitudes toward her because she was raised by a domineering, unsympathetic father. She’s sexually repressed and emotionally clogged, has been reared to accept the superiority of men and accept a certain lack of respect in her male-dominated field. You see a great deal of that in the single portrait. The one you just put back.
    “She’s betrayed, and left for dead, because she’s so indoctrinated to taking orders from male authority figures. To subverting her own intellect and desires. And by facing death, by fighting against it, she becomes a leader. Everything that’s been trapped inside her, and more, is released in the form of Brid. A warrior. Empowerment, through power.”
    Fascinating, he thought, and flattering, to listen to her synopsize his story, and his character. “I’m going to interpret that as you like it.”
    “I really do, and not just due to the recent sexual haze. It’s like a screenplay, a very strong screenplay. You even have camera angles and direction.”
    “It helps remind me how I saw it when I wrote it, even if that changes.”
    “And you add in these little boxes like the ones on the art.”
    “Helps with the layout. That may change, too. Just like the story line took some turns on me.”
    “You added Steve. You added the Immortal. He’s going to be so . . . well, insane over that.”
    “She needed the bridge, the link between Cass and Brid. A character who can straddle her worlds, and help the two sides of our heroine understand each other.”
    Not unlike, Ford thought now, how Steve helped Cilla. “Adding him changed a lot of the angles, added a lot of work, but it’s stronger for it. And something I should’ve thought of in the first place. Anyway, it’s still evolving. The story’s down, and now I have to tell it with art. Sometimes, for me anyway, the art can shift the story. We’ll have to see.”
    “I especially like the one up there, of Brid in what’s almost a fouetté turn, as I assume she’s about to kick out her leg against a foe.”
    “Fouetté turn?”
    “A ballet move.” Cilla crossed over to tap the sketch she spoke of. “This is very close, even the arms are in position. To be precise, the supporting foot should be turned out slightly more, but—”
    “You know ballet? Can you do that?”
    “A fouetté? Please. Eight years of ballet.” She executed a quick turn. "Of tap.” And a fast-time step. “Jazz.”
    “Cool. Hold on.” He opened a drawer, pulled out a camera. “Do the ballet thing again.”
    “I’m mostly naked.”
    “Yeah, which is why I’ll be posting these on the Internet shortly. I just want the feet business you were talking about.”
    He had no idea what an enormous leap of faith it took for her to do the turn as he snapped the camera.
    “One more, okay? Good. Great. Thanks. A fouetté turn. Ballet.” He set the camera back down. “I must’ve seen it somewhere, sometime or other. Eight years? I guess that explains how you did those high leaps in Wasteland Three , when you were running through the woods, trying to escape the reanimated psycho killer.”
    “Grand jetés.” She laughed. “So to speak.”
    “I thought you were going to make it, the way you were flying. I mean you got all the way back to the cabin, avoiding the death trap and the flying hatchet, only to pull open the door—”
    “To find the reanimated psycho killer had taken a convenient shortcut to beat me there. Sobbing relief,” she said, miming the action, “shock, scream. Slice.”
    “It was a hell of a scream. They use voice doubles for that stuff, right? And enhance.”
    “Sometimes. However . . .” She sucked in her breath and let out a bloodcurdling, glass-shattering scream that had Ford staggering back two full steps. “I did my own work,” she finished.
    “Wow. You’ve got some lungs there. How about we go down, have some wine, while we see if my eardrums regenerate.”
    “Love to.”

SEVENTEEN
    S he didn’t think about the vandalism. Or when thoughts of what waited for her across the road crept into her mind, Cilla firmly slammed the door. No point in it, she told herself. There was nothing she could do because she didn’t know what she wanted to do.
    There was no harm in a day out of time. A fantasy day, really, filled with sex and sleep inside the bubble of rain-slicked windows. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been content