2019-08-05 - Act I: Vanity
(Work safe, but very dark and gritty in places, be forewarned.)
Somewhere, in Seattle, a man named Grant Turner keeps tabs on Lilith. He has a very different perspective and perception of the woman than the people in Gray Harbor might.
IC Date: 2019-08-05
OOC Date: 2019-05-16
Location: Somewhere-- Seattle, WA
Related Scenes: 2019-05-28 - Of Cords and Cards 2019-10-23 - A Seattle Situation: Intrusion 2019-12-07 - Cornered
Plot: None
Scene Number: 708
(Madness)
When Grant Turner was six years old, he wanted to be King of the Castle. So he was. He pushed his way to the top of the jungle gym and dethroned the existing king. It was very easy. No child or teacher contested his claim. The previous king that had something to say about it was lying on the cement bleeding out from the head.
In fact, no one had much to say about it. Some people are born into a life without consequences.
Grant never thought about that boy again. He just remembers what it felt like to be King of the Castle. He liked it, so he lived it. No one told Grant Turner he couldn't have what he wanted.
Not one person.
Then he met her.
Vivaldi is playing over the surround sound while Grant runs laps in an indoor pool. The intercom is buzzing and he doesn't hear it. He hears his breath, he hears the water, he hears the cello strings playing the madness that's in his head. He's agitated. He keeps hearing her. He's fantasizing about cutting off all of that lovely breath, stopping the words that come out, squeezing his fingers around her pale throat.
"If you contact me again in any way... I will fucking ruin you."
Ungrateful bitch. All he's ever done is try to offer her the world. He can't keep up the rage, though. Fantasizing about choking her is only making him hard. They used to play such a lovely game together. He misses it. No one else understood him like she did. The intercom is incessantly beeping and trying to get his attention.
"Mister Turner? Your two o'clock..."
He swims harder, faster, remembers the name on the report that was sent to him. Ah, there's the rage again. She adjusted her emergency contacts with insurance last she was in the hospital. She had none before. Now she has one.
Byron Thorne.
"Mister Turner!" Grant's secretary is standing blurred to his vision as he comes up from the water, right at the edge of the lap pool. He takes her in, the chignon-blonde hair, the pretty rose and black suit-dress arrangement, the generic beauty, the way she steps back when his sharp, dark eyes land on her. She called out loudly to try and get his attention through the water and music and distraction. Now she regrets it.
He hates being interrupted. He hates his secretary. She's like every other woman that gets put to task. Irritating. Vapid. Made to be told what to do, like so many women. But.. he's a man of a certain position and bearing. And appointments and interruptions do happen. After raking his hands back through his dark hair to slick off some of the water and irritation, he gives the woman a signature debonair smile and velvets his voice to amiable.
"Blanche. My apologies, were you buzzing, dear? I'm afraid I didn't hear. But I appreciate the vision you're bringing poolside."
"Yes, sir. I was buzzing, I apologize for interrupting." Blanche blushes some at that sudden turn of smile and placating complimentary response after the flash of hard and sharp eyes. It's easy for him to fool her, just like he fools everyone else. Sheep. "Your two o'clock appointment is waiting. It's two-fifteen. Would you like me to reschedule him? I can call the masseuse to unwind you after your swim instead." She pauses, "Or perhaps you'd like something else?"
(Now he's fantasizing about choking her too. The idea doesn't make him hard this time. He just wants to do it. She's blushing and hopeful. They're always like this.)
"No, no. I didn't realize the time. Please apologize to Collins for the delay. I'll buzz when I'm ready for you to send him in."
The secretary quickly departs, but she lingers just long enough to watch Grant pull himself up out of the water, handing him the towel she had on standby. He cuts a lovely solid figure, after all. And she's still hopeful. He politely takes the towel and wanders to ignore her on her merry way, calling to the speaker system with snap of command.
"Stop music." The music stops, all that beautiful string and wild madness of symphony cut from loop into silence. Grant considers for a moment. Then he snaps another command at the system, this one begrudging, "Play her song." It's not really her song, precisely, but for him, it is.
He wants to remember that night they met while he dresses. It reminds him that the game isn't really over. She just wants him to think it is. He came all this way to Seattle, ready to launch and invest in new business just because he knew it was close to where she is. It will be time for them to play again, one day. But not yet.
She's being horribly stubborn about everything, really. Isn't that just like her? Grant smiles some to himself and the music changes entirely.
November, 2016 -- Miami, FL -- Underground Nightclub
Grant Turner isn't often in nightclubs, but tonight he is. He had to meet a client from out of country that was insistent on seeing the club scene in Miami, so he found the most exclusive, top-scale nightclub without a public advert or sign to be had through a contact, got on the list, and made it happen. The visiting construction mogul wanted a unique experience filled with dance music and energy, he can have that if it means sealing this business deal with a little woo and comply. Grant understands vices.
There's cage dancers wearing as much as they would in a strip club as decoration and the club beats are excessive at this point. He left the VIP section to sit at the bar and watch the dance floor, leaving the client time with a particular Puerto Rican woman he knows to be quite accommodating to men with money. She generally keeps an entourage around, so really, he doesn't have to entertain anything now that it's all ducks in order. He did his part. And when the other part is done, he'll take the man back to his hotel and go home to bed. He hasn't been sleeping enough, everything has started to taste and sound and feel the same.
But maybe he'll have Camilla send someone home with him, her girls run the gauntlet as far as special and discerning tastes and preferences go.
Then he notices commotion on the dance floor. A brunette woman is dancing and then suddenly she's not dancing at all. She's throwing an elbow back into someone who's stepped into trying to dance in her space, then stomped his foot with a heeled boot. The man's friends are trying to pull him back as he spits what are no doubt drunk profanities her way. The music makes it impossible to hear anything, but suddenly Grant isn't bothered to headache from the constant thump and dark beats.
The woman is dancing again like nothing happened, turning her back to approach a near blonde woman to dance with, instead. She reaches to bring their hips together in grind with slam force and undulation, rubbing in the violent snub with simulated sex to taunt as the spurned (and beaten) man is pulled into the crowd and away. But soon the partner she commandeered is forgotten too and it's just her. She seems to want things that way. She's lost in a moment and blowing it all to the wind.
And good god, when she turns and he can really see her, she's one of the most beautiful pieces of female work he's ever seen. It's not just that she's pretty. He's seen plenty of lovely women, of course, he has very high standards. But her general devil-may-care attitude and confidence out on the dance floor while so many pieces of alluring movement, skin, and burn of something that comes from the inside, it's all over her and he sits up straighter. It's triggering something in him he can't quite explain.
Grant Turner sees a challenge. Do you know how hard it is to challenge a man who has everything and can buy anything else?
He watches. She dances. Eventually she comes to the bar where the bartender seems to know her. While he's making whatever she asked for, Grant gets his attention and gestures her way before pointing to his own glass of very expensive champagne. The flute is delivered instead of whatever she ordered and eventually she makes eye contact with Grant from a distance. After studying him for an impassive moment, she plucks the glass from the bartender's hand, then drops it to smash on the floor while looking right at him. He smiles one of his best smiles. Then he tries again.
She wants him to try again, he noticed she didn't order a new drink.
The most expensive scotch comes over in a tumbler next. The brunette turns, looks right at Grant again, hefts the glass up like a salute, then lets it fall and shatter too. Her lips twitch. Then she turns back to the bartender and pulls out a folded portion of cash while a bar-back comes to clean up. Apparently, she's paying for her mess with a very amused looking bartender, now, someone who seems to know she's not about to accept any glass he sends over.
Grant ups the ante. He orders the one of most expensive bottles of wine, not a glass, then sends it her way. This one? She keeps. But not for long. Instead, she turns to a couple schmoozing it up nearby, passes it to them like a four thousand dollar charity gift, then tilts her head at Grant across the way. He can't figure out if he's pissed or impressed. Who acts like this? It's honestly rather childish. And just plain bitchy. Maybe she's high. Casual entertaining drug use is fine, but he's not into junkies. However, he tries one more time. No one rejects him, this is where persistence comes in.
This time? He sends ice water. And that makes her smile. He feels something come a little undone inside with pride and ego.
After a few drinks and a glance Grant's way, the brunette heads right back out onto the dancefloor. He starts to get up, but suddenly Camilla is in his ear, "Ay, papi, not that one."
Grant turns to look at Camilla and she's smiling like a spider would seeing a fly trapped in a web. He doesn't like Camilla, she's manipulative and brash and probably a sociopath, but she's handy to know. She's essentially a madam that serves girls for all tastes to rich men and makes it all seem very on the level when most of it very much is not. Not that he minds those kinds of things, but... his eyebrows go up and he steals a look at the dance floor before looking back, "She's one of yours?"
Camilla just laughs aloud and pushes on his shoulders to put her lips to his ear, tongue darting out to ear edge to punctuate her close words with heated tickle of play, "No, papi. That girl belongs to no one. But I've had my taste--I had to break her. She couldn't break men without knowing what it felt like to be broken too. Took a bit of doing." Manipulative. Sounds like bullshit Camilla made up to fuck a girl that didn't know any better. And if he knows the madam as well as he thinks he does, he can guarantee she used drugs to seal the deal.
Grant isn't a nice guy, but something about him twitches irritably at the idea while eyeing that brunette piece of fire on the floor. People should take what they want, sure, but where's the real fun in fucking a chemically limp doll and calling it submission? He pulls away from Camilla and eyes her. She just continues to smile her spider smile and shrugs some.
"... she's a pain dominatrix, isn't she?" Grant understands, suddenly. She's not a whore or escort of variety. He knows what he's looking at now. And he wants her twice as much. Camilla laughs again and he wants to knock those whitened, perfect teeth out of her mouth when she does it, "Ay, papi, but she doesn't play your way. She's for the special clients."
Special. He's fucking Grant Turner, who the hell is more special than he is? He has an odd urge to play white knight in his own dark way. He gets up stiffly and grabs Camilla hard at the upper arms, fingers squeezing, voice deadly low and serious with whipsnap command as he leans down to speak, "Book her next week. Call my secretary. And pull your whores off of my construction client, for fuck's sake, it's been two hours. I'll meet him out front. And Camilla?"
The music thumps. Grant looks at the dance floor and that woman he can't stop looking at. Then he looks back at Camilla before releasing her with shove and warning, and the madam suddenly isn't laughing because there's rumors about Grant Turner, just like there's rumors about her, "Don't you dare touch her again. She's mine."
Turning, he leaves, and part of him wonders why he said it. But does it matter? He decided that before they ever spoke a word.
Their wordless exchange made him feel more alive than he had in months.
Grant is dressed. The music has turned off. Now he's seated with Collins. He doesn't quite remember how he got from one point and place to another, so lost in obsessive reverie. His therapist and psychiatry doctor calls this 'fixating' and explains over and over that it's a part of his 'condition' which he likes to hear about, sometimes. He doesn't actually believe there's anything wrong with him, of course, but there's something exciting about the phrases 'malignant narcissism' and 'psychopathic tendencies'.
It makes him feel special. But mostly, he likes to hear himself talk, so he keeps a doctor on weekly employ for that.
Collins used to be a cop, but now he does PI work for Turner. The men talk a moment, then a manila envelope is exchanged. When the papers are pulled out, it's Byron Thorne on paper this time, not information on Lilith Winslow herself. He can't see anything in the information that links them. But he does notice the sheer amount of assets (meager compared to his), the dark eyes in the photo set in a handsome face (he finds himself more attractive), and the man's general suited bearing (he cuts a suit better) from candid, captured photographs around Gray Harbor. He notices the model of car (a Wraith, tsk, he prefers Bentleys), he notices the...
This bitch. This fucking bitch. She's trying to replace him with a different (cheaper) model. And here he is with his oh-so-patient reminders she could have it all.
Collins leaves in a hurry as Grant Turner starts to rage and destroy the office. But when he's finished, he picks up his phone and goes out onto the balcony to think about how to address this new development.
He's running out of patience.
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