Post by Kyle Shane on Feb 12, 2017 16:55:06 GMT -5
I was skeptical about the girl, at first.
It seemed like such an empty diversion for Patrick to send me on. And such suspect timing, too. Just when my daily talks with Kyle had begun to chip away at the ever-guarded, aloof wall of glass that separated Kyle Shane from what we in the clinical profession call "The real world", the Voice in the Grey decides he wants me out in the field for another recruitment. That meant another installment as a therapist. That meant that some poor working joe who was close to the subject matter had to suddenly be ruined via incriminating evidence, doxxing falsified records to the wrong people, or just out and out thug leg breaking. That meant that somebody had to conveniently lose their job so that Krista Greer, MD, LPCC, can slide in. And that means I have to put on Doctor Krista's skin, again. It feels strange, after being in the trenches with the Grey, to slip into such severe business attire, the shoes that cut, the hair back in a bun, the silk blouse, black-cherry nails, pearl necklace combo. I'm not her. I was, once, but this one feels like a shallow lie, a cruel reminder - thanks, Patrick - of what I was forced to walk away from. Play-acting, Playskool My Little Therapist, a mummers farce of psychiatric work again. I'm a sickening lie. A defanged and scrawny wolf who's been wrapped in a lambskin and kicked into a herd, told to mingle.
And then I realize, I'm being both too harsh and making the assessment more about myself than I am on the client I've been sent to ingratiate myself with, and I focus on her again.
Little Array Kadeena. Girl, what is so special about you? I watch from the sidelines as production assistants bustle around, trying to get lighting fixtures and spotlights ready. For what, I have no idea, I'm as out of my element in this world as this young girl. This poor, slim necked, achingly pretty young girl. Who, from the time she'd been entirely too young to know better, had been pulled and prodded by forces she couldn't understand. I check my notes for important backstory, for anything a casual observer just meeting Array wouldn't know. She was 14, maybe 15 at the outside when she and some of her girl pals went to a frat kegger at Sigma Mu, one that had it's refreshments facilitated by the neighborhood dopeman, the game boy himself. Hm. Interesting. Seemed that that night, Kyle had given a rancid piece of shit bro named Tyler some rohypnol, aka the date rape drug, and a goodly dose went into a Solo cup, and it was passed around to one young girl who was at a party she definitely shouldn't have been at... and she collapsed into the arms of a tall, necky, baby-faced savior... Or creepy cradle robber, depended on your point of view. And if you believed the stories of whether Kyle was the one that gave her the cup, or Tyler. Or any of the confusing events of that night.
...Yeah, a college sophmore waking up in bed with a fifteen year old can do that. How about it got worse and the fifteen year old ran away from home and lived in a flat with the boy when he was expelled from school for the drugs at the party.
I read all of this from the sidelines as a frumpy makeup artist applies dust to cover Array's cute constellation of freckles. My eyebrows raise behind my affected coke-bottle glasses. This was a disturbing turn of events, but it had notes of... sweetness? Pain? What drew the two of them together, despite barriers? And no, I'm not advocating the May-Decemberness of it all, but why was it that when I look at the archived screenshots of Array's journals about Kyle did it all sound so... hopelessly romantic? And doomed? Perturbed, I glance over at Array. She smiles brightly at the PA as a gaggle of her model friends pass by. She raises a hand, acknowledging them. But as soon as they go on to the sound stage where the photo shoot is waiting, Array looks after them and her smile melts away. She clutches the oversize t-shirt around herself, pulling it lower over her bare knees so she can hide herself a little more. My heart melts for this girl. And for the first time, I don't think I want her to be a part of this. I do, and I don't.
There has to be a reason why Patrick wants her. As leverage, maybe, a poker chip to be put on the field. Or a shiny distraction, to make Kyle Shane chase after something familiar. A wild card. Or just another player in the game. That's if you weren't of the sneaking suspicion that the Voice in the Grey wanted to assimilate Array Kadeema into our order for the reason that his broken mind wasn't calling out to his one true love, and wasn't calling the one person that could make Kyle Shane whole. Oh yes. There was still that.
I have to see it first hand. I want to know. I want to..... I touch her, gently, reassuringly on the arm. "Miss - Kadeema? Am I pronouncing that right?" I know I am, but my tone is just warm enough that my tentativeness and nervousness begs "trust me". I soften the ice queen severity of my look just enough to come across as a friendly face, as I enter the bubble of her makeup session. "I'm here to speak with you, I'm replacing Doctor Farley."
Array's expression locks up, goes from polite interest to hostility, and I can see approaching her this way may have been a mistake. She's been poked at and prodded for as many times as anyone could count. And I can look in her eyes and tell she's sick of it. "I don't want a refill on the meds, thanks."
I have a contingent of the psychedelic poison dipped cards, like the one I dosed Kyle with in the office weeks back, but to get one in her hand would take more trust than she was willing to extend. I forge on, coming across non-threatening. "I'm not here to give you anything, it's just time for a check up, the higher ups at the modelling agency were, ah- "
Array huffs a little, and then narrows her eyes. "Look, sweetheart, I get that you're probably just doing your job, but if Morrie is worried that I'm chasing the pills the doctor gave me with anything, or if I'm going out too much, it's not any of his concern. I'm a big girl, okay?" She pats my hand, and some genuine sweetness beneath the brusque exterior wins out. "I'm fine. You can make an official report of that, tell Morrie I'm fine and I'm going to knock out his calendar in one take, and everything's fine. Okay?"
I step back, knowing I've lost my in, but there's something that draws me to this girl that makes me think - no, know, Kyle's right, there is something about this girl, her innate sweetness, her light that no surrounding can completely dim. Even here, in this garishly lighted setting. Array turns back to the mirror, and I can see she's holding a script in her hands that she seems engrossed with. She recites some lines from it, speaking in fragmented but passable Russian, doing it once in the mirror, then trying it in a softer tone of voice. It's a quiet moment that speaks to a lot of her character, and that makes it harder when it's broken by the voice of the photographer, breaking through like raucous nails and jagged glass. "Array, sweetie, you were due on set ten minutes ago, come on, get out of that sweatshirt and into wardrobe..." He plucks the script out of her hands, throwing it and scattering pages. She squawks, and then bites her lip, bitterly. "Yes, Armand..." she parrots.
"Useless fucking models, I swear..." he intones, walking away, like some mad British reality show auteur, "Nobody has patience for your trying to be a serious thespian, you twit... we just came to film you in your knickers and be off..."
It's such a shocking, degrading display, that it takes only moments. I want to immediately wade in and throw his stupid camera back in his pretentious, goateed face. But I can only watch as Array peels off the sweatshirt, the oversized shirt from MIT that fits her like a coat (but would wrap perfectly around the muscles of a tall, fit young man.) and exposes herself. The act isn't erotic or titilating. It's like watching a bird be stripped of it's feathers. The sad girl trudges towards the waiting stage, which has a backdrop and set of a day at the beach like someone who has been to the gallows. The photographer is still yelling at her, telling her to suck in her midsection, poke out the ribs, and to pose out with her long leg extended and her toes drawing a line in the sand. Camera shutters click and whir furiously. He tells her to do it again.
"Bloody useless. And this one thinks she can be an actress... Arch your back more, you useless, stupid cow!" Array has to do all she can not to bite her lip. She pokes her shoulder out and tosses her hair sultrily instead. The camera whirs in life.
I watch it go on for so long, even I'm not sure why I'm there. Armand stalks off, yelling at an assistant to get him a macchiato as he changes film. The artificial wind machine dies down. Array is sweating, drawn, pale. Her hair is plastered to her forehead and shoulders, and the makeup on her face makes her look like a skull. She wraps herself in a towel while the rest of the crew puts down the lighting equipment and takes a break. And I ponder her some more. This is a girl who's lived a life and a half. She has been a pawn for so long. Even Kyle knew this, he knew that on a profound level their love wasn't equal. That he was using her. She didn't know how deep it felt for Kyle, because Kyle never let anyone in. The relationship that ended both of their respective tenures from school and cut Array off from her family was built on an unequal and problematic balance of power. And Array, judging by her childish but earnest journals, was giving it her all. She learned from Kyle all that he cared about teaching her, whether it was how to get away with petty theft or the art of selling nickel and dime bags. But what could she have been teaching him? Or, maybe the problem was that Array was indeed teaching Kyle something. She was opening his heart for the first time since his mother had passed and left him all alone with the demon that lived in his mind forevermore. The flash of intensity that came with that exchange had to have been terrifying.
Is that why Kyle had had to give her up? Why he had kicked her out of the penthouse flat, had sent a seventeen year old girl out into the world where she had only the small gifts of grifting and selling taught to her to survive on her own?
No wonder the girl looked so sad.
That she was here, wrapped in an expensive sports bikini and surrounded by a professional crew taking glossy magazine worthy photos and not turning tricks was a miracle in itself.
And yet...
Array was still first and foremost in Kyle's orbit. Always. He kept the one keepsake of that penthouse apartment, the watch she had given him, always in his pocket. Whenever he had a moment to himself, he sat in disaffected quiet, sending text messages to a phone that never answered back, and Krista knew now that he was always texting her. She was always on his mind.
"Array!" Armand screeched, pulling out a bigger 35 mm. He had more glossys to shoot. "Get back here in the sand. This time I want you to pose on your knees. I want you to make like you've just made that sandcastle there and you're very happy, so you have to freeze in mid shot of you throwing sand in the air. And I want the expression on your face to be equal parts childlike wonder and sexy, flirty cuteness. You know what market we're attracting here. Do it right this time."
Array squirmed uneasily. "Armand, can we just take another break, the lights and the chemicals are making me woozy, I need to lie down - "
"They're making you woozy!" He laughed in incredulous amusement, "Oh this is good, my model thinks she's a shrinking violet now. If you can't toughen up, sweetheart, you can get the fuck off my set."
"No, Armand, I don't- " she protested, but he overrode her savagely, "No, you listen. Morrie Bench represents you and he told me you were professional, but you are the most talentless, vapid, pathetic girl I've ever seen. You lounge around the set all day moping, you never get in the moment, and you look like you want to be anywhere but here. Do you know how many girls would kill to have this shoot, little girl. I have shot for fashion magazines in Milan, New York and Tokyo. There is not shit to this that any girl wouldn't kill for a chance to, all you have to do is arch your bloody back, poke your teeny tiny tits out and pout like you're a fifteen year old and you'd be in glossy magazines that fifty year old men salivate over. If you can't do your job get the HELL off my set."
Her face crumbled. She sputtered out a few fragments, but then she looked so indescribably sad. She took the towel and put it over her top, and slunk down, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.
I searched for her the rest of that afternoon. None of the people working on the set knew where to find her. Not her trailer, not close by in the offices. A few people gave me sidelong looks that spoke to a lot of sympathy; that this girl had touched them, had made an impression on them and they were sorry that something happened to her. Too, cruelly too many people on set, however, just shrugged it off with apathy, one more model that couldn't cut it. I continued looking. I felt a curious... kinship with the little lost lamb. And I wondered why it was so easy for Kyle Shane to cut her loose into this environment, this harsh world, to finish doing the growing up she never got to experience as a teenager in the harshest environment ever. Maybe my assessment of Kyle was true. Maybe he just didn't allow himself to care.
Maybe the fact was that to him, Array was just another conquest. Another trophy unlocked. Another little milestone. It explained why he moved so fast when he wasn't tied down, why his stories in the WGWF always revolved around an ever expanding roster of one and done girls. Kyle Shane saw people as NPC, side quests for him to active and conquer. It was his coping mechanism. Kyle Shane was all coping mechanism, all he did was game, and drug, and fuck. Because those were cheap, easy distractions, and they numbed his mind so that he wouldn't have to think about the real demon in his room. He did it to Array, and she had fallen for him hard. And she had been the one who had gotten closest to his heart. But he pushed her aside. And now he was doing it again in the PCW, moving on to another cheap conquest, at least in his mind. Another cheap and easy trophy for him to unlock. Only she wasn't going to let that happen. She wasn't going to let him try to turn Olivia Xavier into another Array Kadeema. Too many times Kyle's coping mechanisms, his darker instincts, had broken those around him, while he just went on, as aloof and uncaring as a lighthouse in a storm.
She wasn't going to let that be the legacy he left behind, whether it was as Kyle Shane, or the Voice in the Grey, by dragging her back into his orbit. No sir.
She texted Kyle, So I have a question for you[/]
Spent an afternoon watching one of your old conquests and her life couldn't be going shittier without you.
And I have to ask you Kyle
Are you at all concerned with what you left behind?
Kyle Shane is typing...
Kyle Shane is typing...
Kyle Shane is typing...
Of course I am, what kind of question is that?
Ha. What kind of question indeed. I finally find Array, she's sitting by herself on a curb block in a parking space. She has the MIT hoodie, baggy and hanging down over her arms and turning her torso formless. She's made as much effort to get out of the glitz and glamour of the photo shoot. She's got the script in her hands again, and she's trying to reassemble pages in the order they were in again. Her face is streaked with tears, but she's calm. I lean over to her. Glasses are off, hair is down, and when I hand her a wipe for her eyes, she looks up at me gratefully. And I look down at her, not as a therapist, but just as a person. She thanks me quietly.
"He was wrong, you know, about you. You're more than this, more than some pinup girl for a modelling calendar or an FHM magazine."
Array's mouth quirks in a little half smile. She's a lot friendlier and less on guard now, but maybe it's because I've seen her at her most vulnerable. "Thanks." And then, my phone buzzes from Kyle again.
Maybe what you're making a snap judgment on is that I've left a lot of damage in my wake. I own that. I know I have embodied the worst in my stereotype, I've been a rabid fuckboy. I've made and dropped connections with a lot of people, a broke a lot of hearts, because I was looking for someone as broken as myself.
But what I've found is that that's not worth it to me. It's empty, it's hollow. And I regret the damage I've done to some people I really care about. Because the real connection was never about how broken somebody else was, how our similarities made me feel.
It was that they were a reminder to me that, even when my world was at it's darkest, there was a light that wouldn't go out.
Array finally assembles the script pages back in a working order. "Ha, perfect." Then, she looks over at me. "Listen, I want to say I'm sorry for snapping earlier. And you know, you're right. That modelling shit is not what I was cut out for. I'm still looking, I guess. I've just been looking for ways to go legit for a long time. I've spent enough time as somebody's sex object, ya know? I was a wrestling valet, I was the centerpiece of a feud between two wrestlers, I turned into a nasty little vixen, you know, a whole lot of baggage. But that's never been me. I want to do something good that leaves a mark on the world, you know?" She looked down at the script in her hands. She was, obviously, trying to figure out if the opportunity it entailed was that mark, or if there was something even better she could be doing.
"I just want to make my story matter, and not be part of somebody else's. You know?" She said. And I did understand. That was why I wasn't going to report success to the Voice in the Grey, and why I wasn't going to induct Array Kadeema into our order. She deserved better than to be a pawn yet again. Whether I could help it, or even if I couldn't. I just hoped it wasn't out of my hands. I let the case with the drugged cards slip out of my back pocket from my hand, and it clinked and clattered as it fell down a storm drain. I don't know why I do it. Maybe I see in her a humanity that working with Patrick has made me lose. Maybe I just like the girl.
So if Array wasn't going to be the one that Kyle turned to try and make a break from his self destructive ways, then that just left one question.
Nice little speech...
But what exactly are your intentions with Olivia Xavier then? Because it sounds like you're letting her fall into the same mold as Array. But she could have very different ideas about where you should go from here.
Plus the fact that you may actually have to physically fight her in order to keep your Underground championship. I guess I'm just asking, what's the endgame here, game boy?
Are your intentions for Olivia as pure as you want them to be, or are you reading into something with her that isn't there? And what happens if the first thing that comes between you two is the competition to see which one of you is better?
Can you handle fighting her in the same breath as trying to get her on your side?
There's a long, long pause. I don't think he's even going to answer. I just watch the little bubble pulsing on my screen.
Kyle Shane is typing...
Kyle Shane is typing...
Kyle Shane is typing...
It seemed like such an empty diversion for Patrick to send me on. And such suspect timing, too. Just when my daily talks with Kyle had begun to chip away at the ever-guarded, aloof wall of glass that separated Kyle Shane from what we in the clinical profession call "The real world", the Voice in the Grey decides he wants me out in the field for another recruitment. That meant another installment as a therapist. That meant that some poor working joe who was close to the subject matter had to suddenly be ruined via incriminating evidence, doxxing falsified records to the wrong people, or just out and out thug leg breaking. That meant that somebody had to conveniently lose their job so that Krista Greer, MD, LPCC, can slide in. And that means I have to put on Doctor Krista's skin, again. It feels strange, after being in the trenches with the Grey, to slip into such severe business attire, the shoes that cut, the hair back in a bun, the silk blouse, black-cherry nails, pearl necklace combo. I'm not her. I was, once, but this one feels like a shallow lie, a cruel reminder - thanks, Patrick - of what I was forced to walk away from. Play-acting, Playskool My Little Therapist, a mummers farce of psychiatric work again. I'm a sickening lie. A defanged and scrawny wolf who's been wrapped in a lambskin and kicked into a herd, told to mingle.
And then I realize, I'm being both too harsh and making the assessment more about myself than I am on the client I've been sent to ingratiate myself with, and I focus on her again.
Little Array Kadeena. Girl, what is so special about you? I watch from the sidelines as production assistants bustle around, trying to get lighting fixtures and spotlights ready. For what, I have no idea, I'm as out of my element in this world as this young girl. This poor, slim necked, achingly pretty young girl. Who, from the time she'd been entirely too young to know better, had been pulled and prodded by forces she couldn't understand. I check my notes for important backstory, for anything a casual observer just meeting Array wouldn't know. She was 14, maybe 15 at the outside when she and some of her girl pals went to a frat kegger at Sigma Mu, one that had it's refreshments facilitated by the neighborhood dopeman, the game boy himself. Hm. Interesting. Seemed that that night, Kyle had given a rancid piece of shit bro named Tyler some rohypnol, aka the date rape drug, and a goodly dose went into a Solo cup, and it was passed around to one young girl who was at a party she definitely shouldn't have been at... and she collapsed into the arms of a tall, necky, baby-faced savior... Or creepy cradle robber, depended on your point of view. And if you believed the stories of whether Kyle was the one that gave her the cup, or Tyler. Or any of the confusing events of that night.
...Yeah, a college sophmore waking up in bed with a fifteen year old can do that. How about it got worse and the fifteen year old ran away from home and lived in a flat with the boy when he was expelled from school for the drugs at the party.
I read all of this from the sidelines as a frumpy makeup artist applies dust to cover Array's cute constellation of freckles. My eyebrows raise behind my affected coke-bottle glasses. This was a disturbing turn of events, but it had notes of... sweetness? Pain? What drew the two of them together, despite barriers? And no, I'm not advocating the May-Decemberness of it all, but why was it that when I look at the archived screenshots of Array's journals about Kyle did it all sound so... hopelessly romantic? And doomed? Perturbed, I glance over at Array. She smiles brightly at the PA as a gaggle of her model friends pass by. She raises a hand, acknowledging them. But as soon as they go on to the sound stage where the photo shoot is waiting, Array looks after them and her smile melts away. She clutches the oversize t-shirt around herself, pulling it lower over her bare knees so she can hide herself a little more. My heart melts for this girl. And for the first time, I don't think I want her to be a part of this. I do, and I don't.
There has to be a reason why Patrick wants her. As leverage, maybe, a poker chip to be put on the field. Or a shiny distraction, to make Kyle Shane chase after something familiar. A wild card. Or just another player in the game. That's if you weren't of the sneaking suspicion that the Voice in the Grey wanted to assimilate Array Kadeema into our order for the reason that his broken mind wasn't calling out to his one true love, and wasn't calling the one person that could make Kyle Shane whole. Oh yes. There was still that.
I have to see it first hand. I want to know. I want to..... I touch her, gently, reassuringly on the arm. "Miss - Kadeema? Am I pronouncing that right?" I know I am, but my tone is just warm enough that my tentativeness and nervousness begs "trust me". I soften the ice queen severity of my look just enough to come across as a friendly face, as I enter the bubble of her makeup session. "I'm here to speak with you, I'm replacing Doctor Farley."
Array's expression locks up, goes from polite interest to hostility, and I can see approaching her this way may have been a mistake. She's been poked at and prodded for as many times as anyone could count. And I can look in her eyes and tell she's sick of it. "I don't want a refill on the meds, thanks."
I have a contingent of the psychedelic poison dipped cards, like the one I dosed Kyle with in the office weeks back, but to get one in her hand would take more trust than she was willing to extend. I forge on, coming across non-threatening. "I'm not here to give you anything, it's just time for a check up, the higher ups at the modelling agency were, ah- "
Array huffs a little, and then narrows her eyes. "Look, sweetheart, I get that you're probably just doing your job, but if Morrie is worried that I'm chasing the pills the doctor gave me with anything, or if I'm going out too much, it's not any of his concern. I'm a big girl, okay?" She pats my hand, and some genuine sweetness beneath the brusque exterior wins out. "I'm fine. You can make an official report of that, tell Morrie I'm fine and I'm going to knock out his calendar in one take, and everything's fine. Okay?"
I step back, knowing I've lost my in, but there's something that draws me to this girl that makes me think - no, know, Kyle's right, there is something about this girl, her innate sweetness, her light that no surrounding can completely dim. Even here, in this garishly lighted setting. Array turns back to the mirror, and I can see she's holding a script in her hands that she seems engrossed with. She recites some lines from it, speaking in fragmented but passable Russian, doing it once in the mirror, then trying it in a softer tone of voice. It's a quiet moment that speaks to a lot of her character, and that makes it harder when it's broken by the voice of the photographer, breaking through like raucous nails and jagged glass. "Array, sweetie, you were due on set ten minutes ago, come on, get out of that sweatshirt and into wardrobe..." He plucks the script out of her hands, throwing it and scattering pages. She squawks, and then bites her lip, bitterly. "Yes, Armand..." she parrots.
"Useless fucking models, I swear..." he intones, walking away, like some mad British reality show auteur, "Nobody has patience for your trying to be a serious thespian, you twit... we just came to film you in your knickers and be off..."
It's such a shocking, degrading display, that it takes only moments. I want to immediately wade in and throw his stupid camera back in his pretentious, goateed face. But I can only watch as Array peels off the sweatshirt, the oversized shirt from MIT that fits her like a coat (but would wrap perfectly around the muscles of a tall, fit young man.) and exposes herself. The act isn't erotic or titilating. It's like watching a bird be stripped of it's feathers. The sad girl trudges towards the waiting stage, which has a backdrop and set of a day at the beach like someone who has been to the gallows. The photographer is still yelling at her, telling her to suck in her midsection, poke out the ribs, and to pose out with her long leg extended and her toes drawing a line in the sand. Camera shutters click and whir furiously. He tells her to do it again.
"Bloody useless. And this one thinks she can be an actress... Arch your back more, you useless, stupid cow!" Array has to do all she can not to bite her lip. She pokes her shoulder out and tosses her hair sultrily instead. The camera whirs in life.
I watch it go on for so long, even I'm not sure why I'm there. Armand stalks off, yelling at an assistant to get him a macchiato as he changes film. The artificial wind machine dies down. Array is sweating, drawn, pale. Her hair is plastered to her forehead and shoulders, and the makeup on her face makes her look like a skull. She wraps herself in a towel while the rest of the crew puts down the lighting equipment and takes a break. And I ponder her some more. This is a girl who's lived a life and a half. She has been a pawn for so long. Even Kyle knew this, he knew that on a profound level their love wasn't equal. That he was using her. She didn't know how deep it felt for Kyle, because Kyle never let anyone in. The relationship that ended both of their respective tenures from school and cut Array off from her family was built on an unequal and problematic balance of power. And Array, judging by her childish but earnest journals, was giving it her all. She learned from Kyle all that he cared about teaching her, whether it was how to get away with petty theft or the art of selling nickel and dime bags. But what could she have been teaching him? Or, maybe the problem was that Array was indeed teaching Kyle something. She was opening his heart for the first time since his mother had passed and left him all alone with the demon that lived in his mind forevermore. The flash of intensity that came with that exchange had to have been terrifying.
Is that why Kyle had had to give her up? Why he had kicked her out of the penthouse flat, had sent a seventeen year old girl out into the world where she had only the small gifts of grifting and selling taught to her to survive on her own?
No wonder the girl looked so sad.
That she was here, wrapped in an expensive sports bikini and surrounded by a professional crew taking glossy magazine worthy photos and not turning tricks was a miracle in itself.
And yet...
Array was still first and foremost in Kyle's orbit. Always. He kept the one keepsake of that penthouse apartment, the watch she had given him, always in his pocket. Whenever he had a moment to himself, he sat in disaffected quiet, sending text messages to a phone that never answered back, and Krista knew now that he was always texting her. She was always on his mind.
"Array!" Armand screeched, pulling out a bigger 35 mm. He had more glossys to shoot. "Get back here in the sand. This time I want you to pose on your knees. I want you to make like you've just made that sandcastle there and you're very happy, so you have to freeze in mid shot of you throwing sand in the air. And I want the expression on your face to be equal parts childlike wonder and sexy, flirty cuteness. You know what market we're attracting here. Do it right this time."
Array squirmed uneasily. "Armand, can we just take another break, the lights and the chemicals are making me woozy, I need to lie down - "
"They're making you woozy!" He laughed in incredulous amusement, "Oh this is good, my model thinks she's a shrinking violet now. If you can't toughen up, sweetheart, you can get the fuck off my set."
"No, Armand, I don't- " she protested, but he overrode her savagely, "No, you listen. Morrie Bench represents you and he told me you were professional, but you are the most talentless, vapid, pathetic girl I've ever seen. You lounge around the set all day moping, you never get in the moment, and you look like you want to be anywhere but here. Do you know how many girls would kill to have this shoot, little girl. I have shot for fashion magazines in Milan, New York and Tokyo. There is not shit to this that any girl wouldn't kill for a chance to, all you have to do is arch your bloody back, poke your teeny tiny tits out and pout like you're a fifteen year old and you'd be in glossy magazines that fifty year old men salivate over. If you can't do your job get the HELL off my set."
Her face crumbled. She sputtered out a few fragments, but then she looked so indescribably sad. She took the towel and put it over her top, and slunk down, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.
I searched for her the rest of that afternoon. None of the people working on the set knew where to find her. Not her trailer, not close by in the offices. A few people gave me sidelong looks that spoke to a lot of sympathy; that this girl had touched them, had made an impression on them and they were sorry that something happened to her. Too, cruelly too many people on set, however, just shrugged it off with apathy, one more model that couldn't cut it. I continued looking. I felt a curious... kinship with the little lost lamb. And I wondered why it was so easy for Kyle Shane to cut her loose into this environment, this harsh world, to finish doing the growing up she never got to experience as a teenager in the harshest environment ever. Maybe my assessment of Kyle was true. Maybe he just didn't allow himself to care.
Maybe the fact was that to him, Array was just another conquest. Another trophy unlocked. Another little milestone. It explained why he moved so fast when he wasn't tied down, why his stories in the WGWF always revolved around an ever expanding roster of one and done girls. Kyle Shane saw people as NPC, side quests for him to active and conquer. It was his coping mechanism. Kyle Shane was all coping mechanism, all he did was game, and drug, and fuck. Because those were cheap, easy distractions, and they numbed his mind so that he wouldn't have to think about the real demon in his room. He did it to Array, and she had fallen for him hard. And she had been the one who had gotten closest to his heart. But he pushed her aside. And now he was doing it again in the PCW, moving on to another cheap conquest, at least in his mind. Another cheap and easy trophy for him to unlock. Only she wasn't going to let that happen. She wasn't going to let him try to turn Olivia Xavier into another Array Kadeema. Too many times Kyle's coping mechanisms, his darker instincts, had broken those around him, while he just went on, as aloof and uncaring as a lighthouse in a storm.
She wasn't going to let that be the legacy he left behind, whether it was as Kyle Shane, or the Voice in the Grey, by dragging her back into his orbit. No sir.
She texted Kyle, So I have a question for you[/]
Spent an afternoon watching one of your old conquests and her life couldn't be going shittier without you.
And I have to ask you Kyle
Are you at all concerned with what you left behind?
Kyle Shane is typing...
Kyle Shane is typing...
Kyle Shane is typing...
Of course I am, what kind of question is that?
Ha. What kind of question indeed. I finally find Array, she's sitting by herself on a curb block in a parking space. She has the MIT hoodie, baggy and hanging down over her arms and turning her torso formless. She's made as much effort to get out of the glitz and glamour of the photo shoot. She's got the script in her hands again, and she's trying to reassemble pages in the order they were in again. Her face is streaked with tears, but she's calm. I lean over to her. Glasses are off, hair is down, and when I hand her a wipe for her eyes, she looks up at me gratefully. And I look down at her, not as a therapist, but just as a person. She thanks me quietly.
"He was wrong, you know, about you. You're more than this, more than some pinup girl for a modelling calendar or an FHM magazine."
Array's mouth quirks in a little half smile. She's a lot friendlier and less on guard now, but maybe it's because I've seen her at her most vulnerable. "Thanks." And then, my phone buzzes from Kyle again.
Maybe what you're making a snap judgment on is that I've left a lot of damage in my wake. I own that. I know I have embodied the worst in my stereotype, I've been a rabid fuckboy. I've made and dropped connections with a lot of people, a broke a lot of hearts, because I was looking for someone as broken as myself.
But what I've found is that that's not worth it to me. It's empty, it's hollow. And I regret the damage I've done to some people I really care about. Because the real connection was never about how broken somebody else was, how our similarities made me feel.
It was that they were a reminder to me that, even when my world was at it's darkest, there was a light that wouldn't go out.
Array finally assembles the script pages back in a working order. "Ha, perfect." Then, she looks over at me. "Listen, I want to say I'm sorry for snapping earlier. And you know, you're right. That modelling shit is not what I was cut out for. I'm still looking, I guess. I've just been looking for ways to go legit for a long time. I've spent enough time as somebody's sex object, ya know? I was a wrestling valet, I was the centerpiece of a feud between two wrestlers, I turned into a nasty little vixen, you know, a whole lot of baggage. But that's never been me. I want to do something good that leaves a mark on the world, you know?" She looked down at the script in her hands. She was, obviously, trying to figure out if the opportunity it entailed was that mark, or if there was something even better she could be doing.
"I just want to make my story matter, and not be part of somebody else's. You know?" She said. And I did understand. That was why I wasn't going to report success to the Voice in the Grey, and why I wasn't going to induct Array Kadeema into our order. She deserved better than to be a pawn yet again. Whether I could help it, or even if I couldn't. I just hoped it wasn't out of my hands. I let the case with the drugged cards slip out of my back pocket from my hand, and it clinked and clattered as it fell down a storm drain. I don't know why I do it. Maybe I see in her a humanity that working with Patrick has made me lose. Maybe I just like the girl.
So if Array wasn't going to be the one that Kyle turned to try and make a break from his self destructive ways, then that just left one question.
Nice little speech...
But what exactly are your intentions with Olivia Xavier then? Because it sounds like you're letting her fall into the same mold as Array. But she could have very different ideas about where you should go from here.
Plus the fact that you may actually have to physically fight her in order to keep your Underground championship. I guess I'm just asking, what's the endgame here, game boy?
Are your intentions for Olivia as pure as you want them to be, or are you reading into something with her that isn't there? And what happens if the first thing that comes between you two is the competition to see which one of you is better?
Can you handle fighting her in the same breath as trying to get her on your side?
There's a long, long pause. I don't think he's even going to answer. I just watch the little bubble pulsing on my screen.
Kyle Shane is typing...
Kyle Shane is typing...
Kyle Shane is typing...
