1 Orbit

I don’t know what to do about this. Funny I should echo his words.

I’ve tried so many times to imagine how it is for him. Does he feel tortured? Trapped? Miserable? I do.

He watches when he thinks I’m unable to see, eyes following me everywhere, giving me no reprieve. I’m not sure if it would be easier if he didn’t. I can feel the want, heavy like a physical thing.

He keeps me at a fixed distance, arm’s length. I haven’t worked a case with him in months. I’ve started counting the words he speaks to me, for amusement purposes only. In the last month, there have been forty.

I’m stuck in his orbit. I want to fall to him, to touch him, do everything that feels so natural. Some classical physicist posited that everything has a natural place to which it returns, a primitive explanation of gravity. He is my natural place, and the way we circle each other leaves me empty.

Months have passed since we contemplated a corpse who could have been my twin, and I was banished to the perimeter in more ways than one. He poured his heart out to a murderer while I watched behind glass.

The butterfly metaphor is not lost on me. He has them on his walls, fixed and pinned behind glass. Sometimes I can feel the pin that holds me down, like a physical thing between my shoulder blades. I want to leave but I haven’t yet been able to look for another job. I can’t bring myself to do it.

I’ve rehashed and pondered our relationship and the lack thereof for years. It has been rich with metaphor, if nothing else. Hunter and hunted, teacher and student, master and apprentice, the ascetic and his ripe temptation. All have applied strongly at one time or another.

The one that appeals most to my mind, not surprisingly, is this: we are two objects in space, each moving in its own trajectory, lost in an inorganic void, each confined to a path dictated by a mathematical function. It is cold and airless there, and we never meet. There is attraction between bodies, but it is never enough to draw us together. It is sufficient only to send us circling in orbit around one another.

I feel the cold on nights like this, hot Vegas nights just before dawn when the lab is overly air conditioned. I feel his terse words and the emptiness within, and without.

It’s been like this for weeks. I don’t sleep, but I don’t want to leave my bed, either. For the first time in years I do not love my job. I walk through the night like a zombie. The lightening-quick thought that once came so naturally to me now takes gargantuan effort, and I arrive home exhausted and unable to rest. There is inside me an urge to be very still. I often cry. I’ve lost weight I can’t afford to lose even though I am trying to take care of myself.

There is no air in my life. Just dark, empty metaphor. I feel the stillness. After shift I sit on the bench and stare through the space where my locker is. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting like this. The stillness feels almost good.

I can’t break from this trajectory for a simple reason: I could pack up and move to another city with another job but I can’t see it making a difference. One void is as barren as the other. Call it inertia.

There is noise at the door, someone coming in, and I know I should care but I don’t. I just want to be still. I don’t look up, don’t care who it is.

“Sara, are you okay?”

Him. I close my eyes for a long second and open them again.

The question hangs there. This is the part where I tell him I’m fine, but I just can’t.

I shrug instead, get up and meet his eyes briefly, and open my locker. I take my purse and leave. “Night, Grissom,“ I say. My voice sounds flat in the empty room. He doesn’t stop me.

I need to break from this torturous arc. Either I will break free, or I will fall to him. I can’t keep living like this.

2 Dark Circles

The laws of physics are working against me in more ways than one. I’m growing older, aging, it seems, faster than the others. In the last two years I have aged five. My very bones betray me, larger ones aching when it rains, the tiny bones in my ear fusing together to forbid sound and motion, enclosing me in vacuous silence.

I am tired, and probably, I admit to myself only in the wee hours when sleep is imminent, clinically depressed.

The inexorable passing of time I can handle. My physical defects are even tolerable. What has to stop is what I am doing to her.

She thinks I don’t see the dark circles under her eyes, notice the vacuum where her laughter once was. The easy banter between her and the others is now gone. Their compassion and concern is crystal clear, but they try without luck to engage her, to draw her out. They also know that something is wrong.

Space at a crime scene or at the lab is to me measured by our proximity, which waxes and wanes as we work the grid. We each move as if the other doesn’t exist, yet somehow we never occupy the same space. This, we have down to a science.

I pretend to ignore her but am always keenly aware of her. The only constant is my attraction to her. Unlike the laws of physics, our proximity does not effect it. She is always there, just under the surface of my mind, whether I am working or showering or eating or sleeping. I live under the delicate arch of her brow, the lush brown of her hair, the husky earthen tone of her voice. I have for years, and these things are mental geography, as constant as mountains or lakes. I want her as much as I ever have, if not more. Definitely more. Exponentially more. Her fragility makes me want to hold her close and warm.

It has to stop, somehow. I can’t stand to see a creature so vital slowly lose color and dimension.

Hold her close, or set her free, one way or another I have to end this.

3 Big Bang

He lifts the knocker and taps it against the door three times. There is no sound from inside, no music, no words, nothing.

She opens the door and stands there, pale and stark. If she were him, her lack of response would be carefully studied and deliberately forced. In reality it isn’t a construct at all, just the naked face of a soul sucked dry. She glances at him, then away, and steps aside, letting him enter.

“Sara?”

“Hmm?” She sinks into her couch, craving nothing but stillness.

“Are you high?”

Her eyes meet his for the first time. In the flash of a second the starkness is gone. In its place there is incredulity, and slowly building anger.

“Do I look high,” she spits bitterly.

“You looked downright spacey, earlier.”

She leaps up to her feet.

“No, I’m not fucking high!” I’m low, she wants to shout. I’m so fucking low I don’t want to live.

He keeps trying to find some words to defend himself but she just keeps going.

“I couldn’t be more the opposite if I tried! Would you like a urine sample? Would you like to breathalyze me? Maybe you could lock me up for observation, or how’s this, give me a polygraph!”

“Sara-”

“Maybe you’d like to fire me! Or maybe you’d like to demote me. You could always transfer me to day shift, where I can be Ecklie’s bitch-”

“Stop yelling at me!” he shouts, snapping.

“Why the hell shouldn’t I yell at you, Grissom?”

“Because I’m your fucking boss!” he shouts, stalking closer to her. “Because I’ve tried everything I could to be good to you, to protect you.” He walks closer until he is right in front of her, so close she can smell his aftershave. She juts her chin out defiantly.

“What?” she hisses. “If that’s your idea of being good I’d hate to think what it would be like if you actually tried to hurt me."

She steps closer to him, invading his personal space even more than he has done to her, refusing to let the intimidation become one-sided. Her voice is low and dangerous.

“Yeah, Grissom, you’ve done a bang up job. Don’t protect me, though, because I might want it too much!”

“What are you talking about?” he spits.

“Don’t promote me, because I might want it too much! Don’t have dinner with me, because I might want that too much. God forbid you should speak more than forty words to me in a month.”

“Sara, I can’t believe you’re letting your personal feelings influence what you’re saying.”

“Well I can’t believe you aren’t! And don’t fucking deny it. I feel your eyes on me. I know what you want, but your stupid fucked up sense of asceticism or high and mightiness or stupid Zen bullshit thing about wanting too much, god forbid that should in any way make you feel human.”

“Go to hell!”

“I am in hell!” He sees tears glossing her eyes over. He wants to simultaneously hold her and punch her lights out.

“Don’t you dare tell me I’m not human.”

“Whatever. I don’t know why I care what you are.”

“What is it you want? What the hell do you want from me? Why is it never enough? Why do you always torment me, challenge me, question me?”

“Maybe because I deserve to be treated like something other than shit, Grissom! Oops, I guess that’s another thing I want too much! Either give me what I want or stop ogling me like a horny teenager one second and ignoring my existence the next! Get a set of balls and act like a man!”

“Shut up!”

“Fuck you!”

“You wish.”

“At least I have the balls to admit that I want it. Too much, I might add.” She turns to walk away form him.

His hand clenches like a vice on the flesh of her shoulder and he whirls her around. “Will you shut up about the wanting too much thing!”

“You can dish it out but you can’t take it, can you? Just like with Lurie.” Her eyes are glittering with excitement and in his peripheral vision he can see that her breath is coming roughly.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he shouts. He is so close she can feel the heat of his body.

She grins bitterly, face twisting almost in a laugh. “Oh, this is too good. You didn’t know I was there, did you?”

“What?” He looks somewhat green, despite the red flush of his face.

“Oh, yeah, I saw it all. You poured your heart out to a goddamn murderer! God forbid you could say any of those things to me! No, you don’t know what to do with this! But damn, you were so eloquent when you told Lurie about all the ways you were so alike.”

“Shut up!” He shouts, so loud she can feel the breath of it on her face.

“You’re a coward, Grissom.” she whispers hoarsely. “A giant fucking cowardly recluse who wants his cake and wants to eat it to. Like a pissy little child. You’re a fucking coward!”

“I know!” he shouts back, at the top of his lungs.

They stand that way stock-still and quiet, both surprised. Her eyes are huge. He stares at her and she stares at him and they each can tell the exact second where something other than anger enters the equation.

He is no longer yelling. His voice is now just as low and dangerous as hers, slow, almost drawling. “What do you want, Sara? You want me to tie you up, pin you down?” He takes a step closer and despite herself, she steps back. “You want to reenact a few rape scenes? You want me to give in and fuck your brains out just to tell you that that’s all I can give you? Tell you I’m a deaf, damaged old man and I’ll never be what you need? Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” she whispers. His eyes move over her face and he sees that it isn’t just defiance, that god help him, it is the truth.

“You want me to bend you over my desk and fuck you like a whore, just so I can leave you there bruised and hurting?”

“Yes.” She realizes that she is moving backward again, despite herself.

“Then why are you backing away from me, Sara?” She doesn’t answer. He raises his hand and slowly moves it closer to the side of her head. He strokes it over her hair and she begins to shake. He holds her face in one of his hands and forces her to look at him. She feels his fingers rough on each side of her jaw.

Her eyes narrow more and the defiance is back. He can’t stand it anymore. “Do you want that enough? Do you?” He whispers it into the skin of her temple. He can feel her shaking.

Tears are falling down her face and she can’t speak, only nods.

His hands are on her shoulders lightening quick and her back is against the wall. He is kissing her so hard, hands everywhere on her. The violence of it is shocking, insulting, arousing. She stands pliant under the onslaught for a second or two, then her nails curl like claws into his flesh and she kisses back. His hand moves roughly over her breast, then down to cup the juncture of her legs. She bites his lip and tastes blood. She shoves him, and she is strong. He stumbles back and she uses the momentum to push him again, onto his back on her living room carpet.

She kisses him roughly, the stubble of his jaw irritating her skin, her nails raking the skin under his ear. She moves her knee roughly between his thighs, just hard enough for him to gulp, but not to cause him pain.

She pulls away, breathless, and then slaps him in the face hard.

“Yeah, that’s what I want, and don’t you dare ask me if I want it too much.” With one smooth motion she is up on her feet and she stalks across the room, slamming her bedroom door so hard the walls shake.

On the other side she sits at the edge of her bed, shaking. Something rises up in her chest and she isn’t sure if it wants to be a sob or something else. Tears don’t come. She just shakes, unable to stop.

The door opens and he comes in. He sits down next to her.

“I can’t be what you want.” he says.

“You already are.” God help me, but you are, she thinks.

“I can’t be what you need.”

“It couldn’t be worse than this. Tell me you don’t love me.”

He swallows. “I can’t.” They are silent for a long time. “I can’t be what you need,” he repeats dumbly.

“How could you even begin to know what I need, when you don’t even speak to me?”

“I can’t do it.”

“Who are you trying to convince, you or me?”

He is quiet. He knows that she is right. He knows that he has been teetering on the edge for some time. He licks blood from his lip.

“I’m weak.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Don’t try to talk me out of loving you. I’ve tried for years, and it doesn’t work.”

She presses her face into her hands and leans far over. He can tell without looking that she is shaking.

“Me neither.” he whispers.

She breaks like glass, and the shaking turns to sobbing. I hate you so much, she thinks. She is making awful, wretched sobs and a small distant part of her is horrified by their indelicacy, but the rest of her doesn’t give a damn. For the most part she feels loose and uncontained like water, as if she could disperse easily and soak into the world, never to regain solidity.

He sits and is very aware of the ticking of her bedside clock. The space between each tick stretches like a discrete, separate infinity.

Then he crushes her to him, holding her close. She presses her palm flat on his chest, over the fabric, clutching there, and she can’t stop sobbing. She doesn’t care.

“Sara, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep killing you inside.” he whispers into her hair, unaware if she even hears him. “I can’t hold you back anymore.” His words barely reach her mind until he rocks her and whispers “please don’t hurt me. Please.”

They sit like that for a long time. When she pulls away her face is red and covered in tears. With gentleness that hurts like the edge of a knife he pushes her hair back from her face. She closes her eyes, forcing another wave of tears from them. “Please don’t hurt me,” he says again, and kisses her. “Please,” he whispers as his hands move up under her shirt, holding her close.

She stops crying, pulls him close to her. She is beyond hungry for his mouth, his kisses. He falls back on top of her and they stay like that for a long time, hands moving all over each other’s bodies. He tugs at the string at the neckline of her top and kisses the skin there.

She moans, a loud, ragged sound. Their fighting, and this kiss, have turned her on more than she has ever been in her life. He pulls back, a bit startled, but when he sees the lust in her eyes he is gone. He removes his shirt and she instantly raises up to kiss and nip his bare skin. She wants to lose herself in the hot silk of his flesh. She spreads her legs and wraps them around one of his legs, pulling him close as he pushes her top up over her head.

He curls his fingers around each side of her bra and pulls. The lace rips and she is free. His mouth moves to one nipple, sucking hard, causing her to shriek. This startles him and he looks up, afraid he has hurt her. She just claws her fingernails over the denim covering his pants, then furiously works to unbutton his jeans. They gracelessly undress each other until they are both naked, skin to skin, on the bed. He can feel her soft body from the tip of her toes to the soft flesh of her neck, which he kisses and nips.

“Now, Grissom.” she commands, in a voice lower than normal. She is shaking still and this turns him on so much, knowing that he affects her that way. He moves his hand slowly from her breast to her inner thighs, and she violently bucks up. “Now!” He is shocked at the genuine fury in her eyes.

“I don’t have a-”

“I’m on the pill. Please.” She doesn’t wait though for him to comply, just hooks one long leg around him. She guides him inside and he thrusts, hard. It hurts, indelicate and brutal, and her eyes flutter shut with pleasure. He cries out and starts moving within her. She makes a wild harsh keening noise and he sees tears still oozing from her eyes. From he sound of her breathing and the tension of her muscles, he can tell that she is close.

“Harder!”

“Sara, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Please,” she begs. “Please...damn you...More!”

His face becomes steely and he captures her ankles in his strong hands, lifting them. At this angle everything heightens, everything changes, and she is so spread out for him, so receptive, so hot and god, so wet from the beginning. He thinks that he can’t last long and when he realizes that she is rubbing herself with two furious fingers, he needs to grit his teeth and bite his tongue to hold back.

He tries with all his might to ignore the way her thighs are tightening in quickening spasms, the way her breasts are shaking like jello with every thrust.

He bites the tip of his tongue again and just at that second she starts to wail, a long scream he fears will bring Brass’ men to her door. She meets his eyes and holds his gaze as she goes over the edge, bucking and undulating and shaking, though she can barely stand to look at him.

Just after, he lets himself go. It only takes three more delicious thrusts until he is spent. “God, Sara!” he is screaming, too. He comes and comes and comes rivers inside her, then opens his eyes.

She is laying with her eyes closed, mouth open, breath huffing out quickly. Tears are still flowing from her eyes.

“Sara,” he whispers, and this time it is a declaration, soft and sweet. He kisses her cheek, her forehead, her temple, tasting the salt of her tears.

She turns away, rolling over on her side. She is still shaking. He has shrunken and fallen from her body, and he feels suddenly cold.

He crushes her close to him, warm hands moving tightly over the curve of her hip. She shakes again, reeling in space, unsure of how to be, and it is all too much.

He reaches for the hem of the comforter, then pulls it up and over them. She is quiet, but slowly he feels her relax, and sleep.

“Please don’t hurt me," he whispers again, and tries hard to breathe against the icy fear that clenches his heart.