dissolved in desperation. By the end of it, Skinny’s synthesized words were lost in human sounds— quavers, sniffles, maybe tears— and I was surprised by the bud of sympathy that had grown for the bastard.
“Just leave my wife out of it, for chrissakes. Please, she’s got nothing to do with this— nothing at all. Just tell me what the hell you want from me. Please…”
Finally Cassandra did:
“I want to see you again, one last time.”
Like the investigation sequence, the final scene— the interrogation, Monroe called it— was shot in black and white, though the blacks were somehow deeper and the grays more silvery. It brought Cassandra and Skinny back to what looked like the same hotel room, where the drapes were still drawn but the bed was made up. Skinny was awkward, and stiff with anger, but he sat as directed in a straight-backed chair. Cassandra was perched on the edge of the bed, with her white hands on her knees. She wore a white blouse, a dark suit jacket, and tailored pants, and her auburn hair looked black and lacquered. Her bearing was military and her tone was clinical. Her questions were simple and direct.
“Why did you do it…” “Did you think about your wife or your children— what would happen if they found out…” “Did you think of the risk…” “Was it just the sex…” “Is that all it takes?”
Skinny reached for defiance at first, but he was beaten before he ever walked through the door. His resistance degraded quickly, from combative, to petulant, to whiny, and the last fight went out of him in a shuddering breath that left him folded and shrunken before the camera. But when his first answers came, they didn’t please Cassandra.
“ ‘I don’t know’ is no answer…” “How can you say it has nothing to do with her…” “I didn’t just happen—you came looking for me, and you came back for more.” She shredded Skinny’s evasions like a terrier and flung the scraps aside until he was spent and she had the bone in her teeth.
“I did it because I wanted to, because I wanted you. Once we got started, the things we did— I couldn’t think of anything else. It made me feel handsome— powerful. I didn’t think about her or the kids…I didn’t give a damn about them.”
Skinny’s voice wound down like a tired spring and his narrow frame slumped in the shadows. Cassandra was perfectly still and her face was a white mask.
“And you’d do it again, wouldn’t you?” she asked. “You’d do it now if you could?”
Skinny looked at her, dazed and uncertain. When he spoke, there was pleading in his voice. “If I could,” he said softly. The screen went dark.
A shadow fell across the table and Chaz Monroe returned with his drink and a bowl of salted nuts. The noise of the bar crowd came back with him. He raised his glass to me again and drank.
“Hard to get out of your head, aren’t they?” he said. I nodded. “They have that squirmy-sexy thing going on: the utter submission of a beautiful woman to a nameless, faceless man, and all before the cameras— except that she’s the only one who knows the cameras are there, and she’s the one who set the whole thing up. Abuse, self-abasement, voyeurism: it’s quite the trifecta. And then she turns the tables.” He tossed some cashews into his mouth and washed them down with scotch.
“Todd didn’t steer you wrong on the reliquaries,” he said. “They only make sense after you’ve seen the videos, and then they pack a punch.”
They did indeed. An empty condom wrapper, Cassandra’s torn hosiery, her underpants, a soiled washcloth— all last seen on screen, in Cassandra’s hands or in Skinny’s. Their presence behind the glass of the curio cabinet gave the events in the video a reality, an immediacy, that was undeniable and invasive. But those mementos, from Interview Two, were positively quaint next to the souvenirs in the other cabinet: the spent matches, the dollops of melted
“Just leave my wife out of it, for chrissakes. Please, she’s got nothing to do with this— nothing at all. Just tell me what the hell you want from me. Please…”
Finally Cassandra did:
“I want to see you again, one last time.”
Like the investigation sequence, the final scene— the interrogation, Monroe called it— was shot in black and white, though the blacks were somehow deeper and the grays more silvery. It brought Cassandra and Skinny back to what looked like the same hotel room, where the drapes were still drawn but the bed was made up. Skinny was awkward, and stiff with anger, but he sat as directed in a straight-backed chair. Cassandra was perched on the edge of the bed, with her white hands on her knees. She wore a white blouse, a dark suit jacket, and tailored pants, and her auburn hair looked black and lacquered. Her bearing was military and her tone was clinical. Her questions were simple and direct.
“Why did you do it…” “Did you think about your wife or your children— what would happen if they found out…” “Did you think of the risk…” “Was it just the sex…” “Is that all it takes?”
Skinny reached for defiance at first, but he was beaten before he ever walked through the door. His resistance degraded quickly, from combative, to petulant, to whiny, and the last fight went out of him in a shuddering breath that left him folded and shrunken before the camera. But when his first answers came, they didn’t please Cassandra.
“ ‘I don’t know’ is no answer…” “How can you say it has nothing to do with her…” “I didn’t just happen—you came looking for me, and you came back for more.” She shredded Skinny’s evasions like a terrier and flung the scraps aside until he was spent and she had the bone in her teeth.
“I did it because I wanted to, because I wanted you. Once we got started, the things we did— I couldn’t think of anything else. It made me feel handsome— powerful. I didn’t think about her or the kids…I didn’t give a damn about them.”
Skinny’s voice wound down like a tired spring and his narrow frame slumped in the shadows. Cassandra was perfectly still and her face was a white mask.
“And you’d do it again, wouldn’t you?” she asked. “You’d do it now if you could?”
Skinny looked at her, dazed and uncertain. When he spoke, there was pleading in his voice. “If I could,” he said softly. The screen went dark.
A shadow fell across the table and Chaz Monroe returned with his drink and a bowl of salted nuts. The noise of the bar crowd came back with him. He raised his glass to me again and drank.
“Hard to get out of your head, aren’t they?” he said. I nodded. “They have that squirmy-sexy thing going on: the utter submission of a beautiful woman to a nameless, faceless man, and all before the cameras— except that she’s the only one who knows the cameras are there, and she’s the one who set the whole thing up. Abuse, self-abasement, voyeurism: it’s quite the trifecta. And then she turns the tables.” He tossed some cashews into his mouth and washed them down with scotch.
“Todd didn’t steer you wrong on the reliquaries,” he said. “They only make sense after you’ve seen the videos, and then they pack a punch.”
They did indeed. An empty condom wrapper, Cassandra’s torn hosiery, her underpants, a soiled washcloth— all last seen on screen, in Cassandra’s hands or in Skinny’s. Their presence behind the glass of the curio cabinet gave the events in the video a reality, an immediacy, that was undeniable and invasive. But those mementos, from Interview Two, were positively quaint next to the souvenirs in the other cabinet: the spent matches, the dollops of melted
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