#the intimate art of found friendships and a criticism on how happiness is ever so fleeting even if it's in the small things? τσεκ

[gleek-runner]

Μετα απο ενα διαστημα θα πρεπε να βγαζουν σε βιντεο θεατρικες παραστασεις για να μπορω να βλεπω τη Μαυρη Σαμπουκα καθε φορα που εχω καταθλιψη

[letterboxd]

Careful How You Go.

Ella Kemp explores how film lovers can protect themselves from distressing subject matter while celebrating cinema at its most audacious.

Featuring Empire magazine editor Terri White, Test Pattern filmmaker Shatara Michelle Ford, writer and critic Jourdain Searles, publicist Courtney Mayhew, and curator, activist and producer Mia Bays of the Birds’ Eye View collective.

This story contains discussion of rape, sexual assault, abuse, self-harm, trauma and loss of life, as well as spoilers for ‘Promising Young Woman’ and ‘A Star is Born’.

We film lovers are blessed with a medium capable of excavating real-life emotion from something seemingly fictional. Yet, for all that film is—in the oft-quoted words of Roger Ebert—an “empathy machine”, it’s also capable of deeply hurting its audience when not wielded by its makers and promoters with appropriate care. Or, for that matter, when not approached by viewers with informed caution.

Whose job is it to let us know that we might be upset by what we see? With the coronavirus pandemic decimating the communal movie-going experience, the way we accommodate each viewer’s sensibilities is more crucial than ever—especially when so many of us are watching alone, at home, often unsupported.

In order to understand how we can champion a film’s content and take care of its audience, I approached women in several areas of the movie ecosystem. I wanted to know: how does a filmmaker approach the filming of a rape and its aftermath? How does a magazine editor navigate the celebration of a potentially triggering movie in one of the world’s biggest film publications? How does a freelance writer speak to her professional interests while preserving her personal integrity? How does a women’s film collective create a safe environment for an audience to process such a film? And, how does a publicist prepare journalists for careful reporting, when their job is to get eyeballs on screens in order to keep our favorite art form afloat?

The conversations reminded me that the answers are endlessly complex. The concerns over spoilers, the effectiveness of trigger warnings, the myriad ways in which art is crafted from trauma, and the fundamental question of whose stories these are to tell. These questions were valid decades ago, they will be for decades to come, and they feel especially urgent now, since a number of recent tales helmed by female and non-binary filmmakers depict violence and trauma involving women’s bodies in fearless, often challenging ways.

Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman, in particular, has revived a vital conversation about content consideration, as victims and survivors of sexual assault record wildly different reactions to its astounding ending. Shatara Michelle Ford’s quietly tense debut, Test Pattern, brings Black survivors into the conversation. And the visceral, anti-wish-fulfillment horror Violation, coming soon from Dusty Mancinelli and Madeleine Sims-Fewer, takes the rape-revenge genre up another notch.

These films come off the back of other recent survivor stories, such as Michaela Coel’s groundbreaking series I May Destroy You (which centers women’s friendship in a narrative move that, as Sarah Williams has eloquently outlined, happens too rarely in this field). Also: Kata Wéber and Kornél Mundruczó’s Pieces of a Woman, and the ongoing ugh-ness of The Handmaid’s Tale. And though this article is focused on plots centering women’s trauma, I acknowledge the myriad of stories that can be triggering in many ways for all manner of viewers. So whether you’ve watched one of these titles, or others like them, I hope you felt supported in the conversations to follow, and that you feel seen.

Weruche Opia and Michaela Coel in ‘I May Destroy You’.

* * *

Simply put, Promising Young Woman is a movie about a woman seeking revenge against predatory men. Except nothing about it is simple. Revenge movies have existed for aeons, and we’ve rooted for many promising young (mostly white) women before Carey Mulligan’s Cassie (recently: Jen in Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge, Noelle in Natalia Leite’s M.F.A.). But in Promising Young Woman, the victim is not alive to seek revenge, so it becomes Cassie’s single-minded crusade. Mercifully, we never see the gang-rape that sparks Cassie’s mission. But we do see a daring, fatal subversion of the notion of a happy ending—and this is what has audiences of Emerald Fennell’s jaw-dropping debut divided.

“For me, being a survivor, the point is to survive,” Jourdain Searles tells me. The New York-based critic, screenwriter, comedian—and host of Netflix’s new Black Film School series—says the presence of death in Promising Young Woman is the problem. “One of the first times I spoke openly about [my assault], I made the decision that I didn’t want to go to the police, and I got a lot of judgment for that,” she says. “So watching Promising Young Woman and seeing the police as the endgame is something I’ve always disagreed with. I left thinking, ‘How is this going to help?’”

“I feel like I’ve got two hats on,” says Terri White, the London-based editor-in chief of Empire magazine, and the author of a recently published memoir, Coming Undone. “One of which is me creating a magazine for a specific film-loving audience, and the other bit of me, which has written a book about trauma, specifically about violence perpetrated against the body. They’re not entirely siloed, but they are two distinct perspectives.”

White loved both Promising Young Woman and I May Destroy You, because they “explode the myth of resolution and redemption”. She calls the ending of Promising Young Woman “radical” in the way it speaks to the reality of what happens to so many women. “I was thinking about me and women like me, women who have endured violence and injury or trauma. Three women every week are still killed [in the UK] at the hands of an ex-partner, or somebody they know intimately, or a current partner. Statistically, any woman who goes for some kind of physical confrontation in [the way Cassie does] would end up dying.”

She adds: “I felt like the film was in service to both victims and survivors, and I use the word ‘victims’ deliberately. I call myself a victim because I think if you’ve endured either sexual violence or physical violence or both, a lot of empowering language, as far as I’m concerned, doesn’t reflect the reality of being a victim or a survivor, whichever way you choose to call yourself.” This point has been one many have disagreed on. In a way, that makes sense—no victim or survivor can be expected to speak to anyone else’s experience but their own.

Carey Mulligan and Emerald Fennell on the set of ‘Promising Young Woman’.

Likewise, there is no right or wrong way to feel about this film, or any film. But a question that arises is, well, should everyone have to see a film to figure that out? And should victims and survivors of sexual violence watch this film? “I have definitely been picky about who I’ve recommended it to,” Courtney Mayhew says. “I don’t want to put a friend in harm’s way, even if that means they miss out on something awesome. It’s not worth it.”

Mayhew is a New Zealand-based international film publicist, and because of her country’s success in controlling Covid 19, she is one of the rare people able to experience Promising Young Woman in a sold-out cinema. “It was palpable. Everyone was so engaged and almost leaning forwards. There were a lot of laughs from women, but it was also a really challenging setting. A lot of people looking down, looking away, and there was a girl who was crying uncontrollably at the end.”

“Material can be very triggering,” White agrees. “It depends where people are personally in their journey. When I still had a lot of trauma I hadn’t worked through in my 20s, I found certain things very difficult to watch. Those things are a reality—but people can make their own decisions about the material they feel able to watch.”

It’s about warning, and preparation, more than total deprivation, then? “I believe in giving people information so they can make the best choice for themselves,” White says. “But I find it quite reductive, and infantilizing in some respects, to be told broadly, ‘Women who have experienced x shouldn’t watch this.’ That underestimates the resilience of some people, the thirst for more information and knowledge.” (This point is clearly made in this meticulous, awe-inspiring list by Jenn, who is on a journey to make sense of her trauma through analysis of rape-revenge films.) But clarity is crucial, particularly for those grappling with unresolved issues.

Searles agrees Promising Young Woman can be a difficult, even unpleasant watch, but still one with value. “As a survivor it did not make me feel good, but it gave me a window into the way other people might respond to your assault. A lot of the time [my friends] have reacted in ways I don’t understand, and the movie feels like it’s trying to make sense of an assault from the outside, and the complicated feelings a friend might have.”

Molly Parker and Vanessa Kirby in ‘Pieces of a Woman’.

* * *

A newborn dies. A character is brutally violated. A population is tortured. To be human is to bear witness to history, but it’s still painful when that history is yours, or something very close to it. “Some things are hard to watch because you relate to them,” Searles explains. “I find mother! hard to watch, and there’s no actual sexual assault. But I just think of sexual assault and trauma and domestic abuse, even though the film isn’t about that. The thing is, you could read an academic paper on patriarchy—you don’t need to watch it on a show [or in a film] if you don’t want to.”

White agrees: “I’ve never been able to watch Nil by Mouth, because I grew up in a house of domestic violence and I find physical violence against women on screen very hard to watch. But that doesn’t mean I think the film shouldn’t be shown—it should still exist, I’ve just made the choice not to watch it.” (Reader, since our conversation, she watched it. At 2:00am.)

“I know people who do not watch Promising Young Woman or The Handmaid’s Tale because they work for an NGO in which they see those things literally in front of their eyes,” Mayhew says. “It could be helpful for someone who isn’t aware [of those issues], but then what is the purpose of art? To educate? To entertain? For escapism? It’s probably all of those.”

Importantly, how much weight should an artist’s shoulders carry, when it comes to considering the audiences that will see their work? There’s a general agreement among my interviewees that, as White says, “filmmakers have to make the art that they believe in”. I don’t think any film lover would disagree, but, suggests Searles, “these films should be made with survivors in mind. That doesn’t mean they always have to be sensitive and sad and declawed. But there is a way to be provocative, while leaning into an emotional truth.”

Madeleine Sims-Fewer in ‘Violation’.

Violation, about which I’ll say little here since it is yet to screen at SXSW (ahead of its March 25 release on Shudder) is not at all declawed, and is certainly made with survivors in mind—in the sense that in life, unlike in movies, catharsis is very seldom possible no matter how far you go to find it. On Letterboxd, many of those who saw Violation at TIFF and Sundance speak of feeling represented by the rape-revenge plot, writing: “One of the most intentionally thought out and respectful of the genre… made by survivors for survivors” and “I feel seen and held”. (Also: “This movie is extremely hard to watch, completely on purpose.”)

“Art can do great service to people,” agrees White, “If, by consequence, there is great service for people who have been in that position, that’s a brilliant consequence. But I don’t believe filmmakers and artists should be told that they are responsible for certain things. There’s a line of responsibility in terms of being irresponsible, especially if your community is young, or traumatised.”

Her words call to mind Bradley Cooper’s reboot of A Star is Born, which many cinephiles knew to be a remake and therefore expected its plot twist, but young filmgoers, drawn by the presence of Lady Gaga, were shocked (and in some cases triggered) by a suicide scene. When it was released, Letterboxd saw many anguished reviews from younger members. In New Zealand, an explicit warning was added to the film’s classification by the country’s chief censor (who also created an entirely new ‘RP18’ classification for the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, which eventually had a graphic suicide scene edited out two years after first landing on the streaming service).

“There is a duty of care to audiences, and there is also a duty of care to artists and filmmakers,” says Mayhew. “There’s got to be some way of meeting in the middle.” The middle, perhaps, can be identified by the filmmaker’s objective. “It’s about feeling safe in the material,” says Mia Bays of the Birds’ Eye View film collective, which curates and markets films by women in order to effect industry change. “With material like this, it’s beholden on creatives to interrogate their own intentions.”

Filmmaker Shatara Michelle Ford is “forever interrogating” ideas of power. Their debut feature, Test Pattern, deftly examines the power differentials that inform the foundations of consent. “As an artist, human, and person who has experienced all sorts of boundary violation, assault and exploitation in their life, I spend quite a lot of time thinking about power… It is something I grapple with in my personal life, and when I arrive in any workplace, including a film set.”

In her review of Test Pattern for The Hollywood Reporter, Searles writes, “This is not a movie about sexual assault as an abstract concept; it’s a movie about the reality of a sexual assault survivor’s experience.” Crucially, in a history of films that deal largely with white women’s experiences, Test Pattern “is one of the few sexual-assault stories to center a Black woman, with her Blackness being central to her experience and the way she is treated by the people around her.”

Brittany S. Hall in ‘Test Pattern’.

* * *

Test Pattern follows the unfolding power imbalance between Renesha (Brittany S. Hall) and her devoted white boyfriend Evan (Will Brill), as he drives her from hospital to hospital in search of a rape kit, after her drink was spiked by a white man in a bar who then raped her. Where Promising Young Woman is a millennial-pink revenge fantasy of Insta-worthy proportions, Test Pattern feels all too real, and the cops don’t come off as well as they do in the former.

Ford does something very important for the audience: they begin the film just as the rape is about to occur. We do not see it at this point (we do not really ever see it), but we know that it happened, so there’s no chance that, somewhere deeper into the story, when we’re much more invested, we’ll be side-swiped by a sudden onslaught of sexual violence. In a way, it creates a safe space for our journey with Renesha.

It’s one of many thoughtful decisions made by Ford throughout the production process. “I’m in direct conversation with film and television that chooses to depict violence against women so casually,” Ford tells me. “I intentionally showed as little of Renesha’s rape as humanly possible. I also had an incredibly hard time being physically present for that scene, I should add. What I did shoot was ultimately guided by Renesha’s experience of it. Shoot only what she would remember. Show only what she would have been aware of.

“But I also made it clear that this was a violation of her autonomy, by allowing moments where we have an arm’s length point of view. I let the camera sit with the audience, as I’m also saying, as the filmmaker, this happened, and you saw enough of it to know. This, for me, is a larger commentary on how we treat victims of assault and rape. I do not believe for one goddamn minute that we need to see the actual, literal violence to know what happened. When we flagrantly replicate the violence in film and television, we are supporting the cultural norm of needing ‘all of the evidence’—whatever that means—to ‘believe women’.”

Ford’s intentional work in crafting the romance and unraveling of Test Pattern’s leading couple pays off on screen, but their stamp as an invested and careful director also shows in their work with Drew Fuller, the actor who played Mike, the rapist. “It’s a very difficult role, and I’m grateful to him for taking it so seriously. When discussing and rendering the practice and non-practice of consent intentionally, I found it helpful to give it a clear definition and provide conceptual insight.

“I sent Drew a few articles that I used as tools to create a baseline understanding when it comes to exploring consent and power on screen. At the top of that list was Lili Loofbourow’s piece, The female price of male pleasure and Zhana Vrangalova's Teen Vogue piece, Everything You Need to Know about Consent that You Never Learned in Sex Ed. The latter in my opinion is the linchpin. There’s also Jude Elison Sady Doyle’s piece about the whole Aziz Ansari thing, which is a great primer.”

Sidney Flanigan in ‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’.

Even when a filmmaker has given Ford’s level of care and attention to their project, what happens when the business end of the industry gets involved in the art? As we well know, marketing is a film’s window dressing. It has one job: to get eyeballs into the cinema. It can’t know if every viewer should feel safe to enter.

It would be useful, with certain material, to know how we should watch, and with whom, and what might we need in the way of support coming out. Whose job is it to provide this? Beyond the crude tool of an MPAA rating (and that’s a whole sorry tale for another day), there are many creative precautions that can be taken across the industry to safeguard a filmgoer’s experience.

Mayhew, who often sees films at the earliest stages (sometimes before a final cut, sometimes immediately after), speaks to journalists in early screenings and ensures they have the tools to safely report on the topics raised. In New Zealand, reporters are encouraged to read through resources to help them guide their work. Mayhew’s teams would also ensure journalists would be given relevant hotline numbers, and would ask media outlets to include them in published stories.

“It’s not saying, ‘You have to do this’,” she explains, “It’s about first of all not knowing what the journalist has been through themselves, and second of all, [if] they are entertainment reporters who haven’t navigated speaking about sexual assault, you only hope it will be helpful going forward. It’s certainly not done to infantilize them, because they’re smart people. It’s a way to show some care and support.”

The idea of having appropriate resources to make people feel safe and encourage them to make their own decisions is a priority for Bays and Birds’ Eye View, as well. The London-based creative producer and cultural activist stresses the importance of sharing such a viewing experience. “It’s the job of cinemas, distributors and festivals to realize that it might not be something the filmmaker does, but as the people in control of the environment it’s our job to give extra resources to those who want it,” says Bays. “To give people a safe space to come down from the experience.”

Pre-pandemic, when Birds’ Eye View screened Kitty Green’s The Assistant, a sharp condemnation of workplace micro-aggressions seen through the eyes of one female assistant, they invited women who had worked for Harvey Weinstein. For a discussion after Eliza Hittman’s coming-of-ager Never Rarely Sometimes Always, abortion experts were able to share their knowledge. “It’s about making sure the audience knows you can say anything here, but that it’s safe,” Bays explains. “It’s kind of like group therapy—you don’t know people, so you’re not beholden to what they think about you. And in the cinema people aren’t looking at you. You’re speaking somewhat anonymously, so a lot of really important stuff can come out.”

The traditional movie-going experience, involving friends, crowds and cathartic, let-loose feelings, is still largely inaccessible at the time of writing. Over the past twelve months we’ve talked plenty about preserving the magic of the big screen experience, but it’s about so much more than the romanticism of an art form; it’s also about the safety that comes from a feeling of community when watching potentially upsetting movies.

“The going in and coming out parts of watching a film in the cinema are massively important, because it’s like coming out of the airlock and coming back to reality,” says Bays. “You can’t do that at home. Difficult material kind of stays with you.” During the pandemic, Birds’ Eye View has continued to provide the same wrap-around curatorial support for at-home viewers as they would at an in-person event. “If we’re picking a difficult film and asking people to watch it at home, we might suggest you watch it with a friend so you can speak about it afterwards,” Bays says.

Julia Garner in ‘The Assistant’.

But, then, how can we still find this sense of community without the physical closeness? “It’s no good waiting for [the internet] to become kind,” she says. “Create your own closed spaces. We do workshops and conversations exclusively for people who sign up to our newsletter. In real-life meetings you can go from hating something to hearing an eloquent presentation of another perspective and coming round to it, but you need the time and space to do that. This little amount of time gives you a move towards healing, even if it’s just licking some wounds that were opened on Twitter. But it could be much deeper, like being a survivor and feeling very conflicted about the film, which I do.”

Conflict is something that Searles, the film critic, knows about all too well in her work. “Since I started writing professionally, I almost feel like I’m known for writing about assault and rape at this point. I do write about it a lot, and as a survivor I continue to process it. I’ve been assaulted more than once so I have a lot to process, and so each time I’m writing about it I’m thinking about different aspects and remnants of those feelings. It can be very cathartic, but it’s a double-edged sword because sometimes I feel like I have an obligation to write about it too.”

There is also a constant act of self-preservation that comes with putting so much of yourself on the internet. “I often get messages from people thanking me for talking about these subjects with a deep understanding of what they mean,” Searles says. “I really appreciate that. I get negative messages about a lot of things, but not this one thing.”

Michaela Coel in ‘I May Destroy You’.

* * *

With such thoughtful approaches to heavy content, it feels like we’re a long way further down the road from blunt tools like content and trigger warnings. But do they still have their place? “It’s just never seemed appropriate to put trigger warnings on any of our reviews or features,” White explains. “We have a heavy male readership, still 70 percent male to 30 percent female. I’m conscious we’re talking to a lot of men who will often have experienced violence themselves, but we don’t put any warnings, because we are an adult magazine, and when we talk about violence in, say, an action film, or violence that is very heavily between men, we don’t caveat that at all.”

Bays, too, is sceptical of trigger warnings, explaining that “there’s not much evidence [they] actually work. A lot of psychologists expound on the fact that if people get stuck in their trauma, you can never really recover from PTSD if you don’t at some point face your trauma.” She adds: “I’m a survivor, and I found I May Destroy You deeply, profoundly triggering, but also cathartic. I think it’s more about how you talk about the work, rather than having a ‘NB: survivors of sexual abuse or assault shouldn’t see this’.”

“It’s important to give people a feel of what they’re in for,” argues Searles. “A lot of people who have dealt with suicide ideation would prefer that warning.” While some worry that a content warning is effectively a plot spoiler, Searles disagrees. “I don’t consider a content warning a spoiler. I just couldn’t imagine sitting down for a film, knowing there’s going to be a suicide, and letting it distract me from the film.” Still, she acknowledges the nuance. “I think using ‘self-harm’ might be better than just saying ‘suicide’.”

Mayhew shared insights on who actually decides which films on which platforms are preceded with warnings—turns out, it’s a bit messy. “The onus traditionally has fallen on governmental censorship when it comes to theatrical releases,” she explains. “But streamers can do what they want, they are not bound by those rules so they have to—as the distributors and broadcasters—take the government’s censors on board in terms of how they are going to navigate it.

“The consumer doesn’t know the difference,” she continues, “nor should they—so it means they can be watching The Crown on Netflix and get this trigger warning about bulimia, and go to the cinema the next day and not get it, and feel angry about it. So there’s the question of where is the responsibility of the distributor, and where is the responsibility of the audience member to actually find out for themselves.”

The warnings given to an audience member can also vary widely depending where they find themselves in the world, too. Promising Young Woman, for example, is rated M in Australia, R18 in New Zealand, and R in the United States. Meanwhile, the invaluable Common Sense Media recommends an age of fifteen years and upwards for the “dark, powerful, mature revenge comedy”. Mayhew says a publicist’s job is “to have your finger on the pulse” about these cultural differences. “You have to read the overall room, and when I say room I mean the culture as a whole, and you have to be constantly abreast of things across those different ages too.”

She adds: “This feeds into the importance of representation right at the top of those boardrooms and right down to the film sets. My job is to see all opinions, and I never will, especially because I am a white woman. I consider myself part of the LGBT community and sometimes I’ll bring that to a room that I think has been lacking in that area, when it comes to harmful stereotypes that can be propagated within films about LGBT people. But I can’t bring a Black person’s perspective, I cannot bring an Indigenous perspective. The more representation you have, the better your film is going to be, your campaign is going to be.”

Bays, who is also a filmmaker, agrees: representation is about information, and working with enough knowledge to make sure your film is being as faithful to your chosen communities as possible. “As a filmmaker, I’d feel ill-informed and misplaced if I was stumbling into an area of representation that I knew nothing about without finding some tools and collaborators who could bring deeper insight.”

Carey Mulligan and Bo Burnham in ‘Promising Young Woman’.

This is something Ford aimed for with Test Pattern’s choice of crew members, which had an effect not just on the end product, but on the entire production process. “I made sure that at the department head level, I was hiring people I was in community with and fully saw me as a person, and me them,” they say. “In some ways it made the experience more pleasurable.” That said, the shoot was still not without its incidents: “These were the types of things that in my experience often occur on a film set dominated by straight white men, that we're so accustomed to we sometimes don’t even notice it. I won’t go into it but what I will say is that it was not tolerated.”

Vital to the telling of the story were the lived experiences that Ford and their crew brought to set. “As it applies to the sensitive nature of this story, there were quite a few of us who have had our own experiences along the spectrum of assault, which means that we had to navigate our own internal re-processing of those experiences, which is hard to do when we’re constructing an experience of rape for a character.

“However, I think being able to share our own triggers and discomfort and context, when it came to Renesha’s experience, made the execution of it all the better. Again, it was a pleasure to be in community with such smart, talented and considerate women who each brought their own nuance to this film.”

* * *

Thinking about everything we’ve lived through by this point in 2021, and the heightened sensitivity and lowered mental health of film lovers worldwide, movies are carrying a pretty heavy burden right now: to, as Jane Fonda said at the Golden Globes, help us see through others’ eyes; also, to entertain or, at the very least, not upset us too much.

But to whom does film have a responsibility, really? Promising Young Woman’s writer-director Emerald Fennell, in an excellent interview with Vulture’s Angelica Jade Bastién, said that she was thinking of audiences when she crafted the upsetting conclusion.

What she was thinking was: a ‘happy’ ending for Cassie gets us no further forward as a society. Instead, Cassie’s shocking end “makes you feel a certain way, and it makes you want to talk about it. It makes you want to examine the film and the society that we live in. With a cathartic Hollywood ending, that’s not so much of a conversation, really. It’s a kind of empty catharsis.”

So let’s flip the question: what is our responsibility, as women and allies, towards celebrating audacious films about tricky subjects? The marvellous, avenging blockbusters that once sucked all the air out of film conversation are on pause, for now. Consider the space that this opens up for a different kind of approach to “must-see movies”. Spread the word about Test Pattern. Shout from the rooftops about It’s A Sin. Add Body of Water and Herself and Violation to your watchlists. And, make sure the right people are watching.

Brittany S. Hall and Will Brill in ‘Test Pattern’.

I asked my interviewees: if they could choose one type of person they think should see Promising Young Woman, who would it be? Ford has not seen Fennell’s film, but “it feels good to have my film contribute to a larger discourse that is ever shifting, ever adding nuance”. They are very clear on who can learn the most from their own movie.

“A white man is featured so prominently in Test Pattern as a statement about how white people and men have a habit of centering themselves in the stories of others, prioritizing their experience and neglecting to recognize those on the margins. If Evan is triggering, he should be. If your feelings about Evan vacillate, it is by design.

“‘Allies’ across the spectrum are in a complicated dance around doing the ‘right thing’ and ‘showing up’ for those they are ostensibly seeking to support,” Ford continues. “Their constant battle is to remember that they need to be centering the needs of those they were never conditioned to center. Tricky stuff. Mistakes will be made. Mistakes must be owned. Sometimes reconciliation is required.”

It is telling that similar thoughts emerged from my other interviewees regarding Promising Young Woman’s ideal audience, despite the fact that none of them was in conversation with the others for this story. For that reason, as we come to the end of this small contribution to a very large, ongoing conversation, I’ve left their words intact.

White: I think it’s a great film for men.

Searles: I feel like the movie is very much pointed at cisgender heterosexual men.

Mayhew: Men.

White: We’re always warned about the alpha male with a massive ego, but we’re not warned about the beta male who reads great books, listens to great records, has great film recommendations. But he probably slyly undermines you in a completely different way. Anybody can be a predator.

Searles: The actors chosen to play these misogynist, rape culture-perpetuating men are actors we think of as nice guys.

White: We are so much more tolerant of a man knocking the woman over the head, dragging her down an alley and raping her, because we understand that. But rape culture is made up of millions of small things that enable the people who do it. We are more likely to be attacked in our own homes by men we love than a stranger in the street.

Mayhew: The onus should not fall on women to call this out.

Searles: It’s not just creeps, like the ones you see usually in these movies. It’s guys like you. What are you going to do to make sure you’re not like this?

Related content

Sex Monsters, Rape Revenge and Trauma: a work-in-progress list

Rape and Revenge: a list of films that fall into, and play with, the genre

Unconsenting Media: a search engine for sexual violence in broadcasting

Follow Ella on Letterboxd

If you need help or to talk to someone about concerns raised for you in this story, please first know that you are not alone. These are just a few of the many organizations and resources available, and their websites include more information.

US: RAINN (hotline 0800 656 HOPE); LGBT National Help Center; Pathways to Safety; Time’s Up.

Canada: Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centers—contacts by province and territory

UK/Ireland: Mind; The Survivors Trust (hotline 08088 010818); Rape Crisis England and Wales

Europe: Rape Crisis Network Europe

[stillnotoverstillstarcrossed]

Wherever You’re Going, I’m Going that Way

(Also on AO3). 

Benvolio was hopeless. His fingers tapped incessantly on his phone screen, doing the same thing he’d done for the last 20 minutes. Turning it on. Off. On. Off. The glowing white numbers that read the time seemed to be taunting him.

It was already 11 o’clock and she still hadn’t called.

And here he was, pathetically lying upside down on the gross couch Mercutio mooched off some garage sale in South Central. Benvolio had turned down Merc and Romeo’s offer to get a few drinks, and the open slot for teaching a class at the art studio. He even took an earlier afternoon shift at the bar. All so he would be right there when she called.

At first, Benvolio felt rather proud of himself for taking care of business so quickly. Clearing his whole schedule the day before seemed like a very grown-up thing to do. But now he just felt foolish.

Perhaps she meant “I’ll call you” in passing. Maybe he’d over-anticipated the meaning of the call altogether. For one thing, Rosaline didn’t even owe him a call at all. Because they weren’t exclusive. Because he wasn’t her boyfriend. He knew that.

Rosaline had made that very clear after that first night all those weeks ago. The night Rosaline had let him in for some coffee and conversation. At some point their conversation turned dangerously intimate. But Benvolio figured being as worn out as they were, a venting session was bound to happen. She had spoken softer than he’d ever heard her speak. Her skin had glowed in the moonlight that fell through the paned windows. One thing led to another and he woke up wrapped around her, her warm skin heating him to his core.

But before he could even flash her a smile or press a kiss into her shoulder, she told him she didn’t need anything serious. That this wasn’t going anywhere. Just some fun.

Benvolio nodded as casually as he could and agreed. And at the time, he probably thought he wanted that too. But Benvolio knew himself well enough to know that he fell hard and fast. Much too hard and fast to be trusted with this situation. He should’ve stopped this the moment Rosaline warned him.

But he stayed. That was in January, a cold and lonely month. Maybe that’s why this whole thing between them was ever allowed to happen. Convenience. He lived across the hall. He just happened to be nearby when Rosaline needed someone.

He didn’t particularly mind being needed by Rosaline. He didn’t mind at all. There was just a part of him that wished she needed him, Benvolio, not just a warm body.

Benvolio's phone was now laid face down on his chest. Still as bare and as dry as it was 20 minutes ago. Benvolio sighed and lifted himself off the grimy couch. Why waste time waiting up for a girl a whole country away who probably forgot about you when you could get a few hours of desperately needed sleep? he reasoned. That’s not a sad use of my time at all.

Benvolio stretched his arms out, loosening his stiff muscles from his awkward position. He made his way to the bathroom to prepare for bed. After a quick and rather melancholy brushing of his teeth, he tread to his room.

He tossed off his shirt and jeans and threw himself on the bed, hastily getting under the covers. He tried his best to ignore the thoughts of Rosaline, who's figure had laid here just a few days ago before she had left for New York.

“Don’t think that once I leave, you and Mercutio can just watch Scandal without me. I swear our friendship will be over,” she had said, with a scrutinizing look on her face. Benvolio’s white sheets wrapped around her chest and her curls splayed wildly over her face.

“Capulet, I wouldn’t dare. Besides, Olivia Pope is no fun unless your constant criticisms about her wine addiction and so-called ‘white-man problem’ accompany her.”

Rosaline threw her head back and laughed. She shoved Benvolio playfully at his cheeky use of her own term.

“You’re not allowed to say white-man problem, Benvolio, because you, yourself, are a white-man problem.”

“Your words, not mine.” He shrugged before he wrapped his arms back around her. She closed her eyes and muttered something about white boys again under her breath.

Try as he might, the memory still twisted Benvolio’s insides.

Benvolio tried to close his eyes again and push all Rosaline thoughts from his mind. As soon as he found himself finally drifting off, his phone rang.

Benvolio jumped up fast, glad no one was there to see his embarrassingly quick reaction time. He scrambled for his phone, almost knocking over everything else on the nightstand in the process.

The screen’s bright light made him squint, unable to make out the words for a few seconds. Once his eyes focused, he didn’t hesitate to hit the answer button. It was Rosaline.

“Hello?” Benvolio answered breathily.

“Benvolio? Were you sleeping? Why is it so dark?”

Benvolio stuttered out an apology and reached to turn on a bedside lamp.

“Better?” he asked, hoping he sounded more put together now that he'd caught his breath.

“Better.” Rosaline said with a soft smile. Benvolio took in her appearance through the small screen. Her hair was wrapped up in a bun and she was wearing an old t-shirt Benvolio had seen a few times on his bedroom floor. She seemed to be outside somewhere, most likely extremely high up, as there were city lights lined up at her shoulder. She looked wide awake, despite the time there being ahead of L.A.

“Sorry I called so late, we got caught up.”

Benvolio’s cheeks heated up slightly. Her apology only reminded him of his recent dramatic episode on the couch. That was a short but depressing time of his life that he really would like to forget.

“Where are you?” he asked, trying to move the topic along.

“You’ll never guess.” Benvolio nodded nonchalantly. “Yeah, I probably won’t.”

Rosaline rolled her eyes.

“You’re no fun.”

Benvolio shrugged. A fond smile reached his face at the sight of her frowning lips.

“Maybe. But tell me.”

“Well, the hotel we were originally booked at had a little mouse problem. Guess who got transferred to the 4 Season’s Hotel as an apology for the inconvenience? We did!”

In the background, Benvolio heard a “Hell yeah we did!” which could only be Juliet. Another voice could be heard saying “Hi, Benny boy!”. It was followed by a glimpse of Livia’s face popping up behind Rosaline’s shoulder. Isabella also joined in, wiggling her eyebrows and putting up a peace sign when she entered the frame. Benvolio simply smiled and waved back.

Rosaline shooed them away and looked back at him, waiting for his response.

“Congratulations, Capulet, you’re rubbing elbows with the elite now. Better be careful before a rich boy comes and tries to sweep you up.”

“I already have a rich boy, Montague. Don’t act like you’re so far removed from the life of glamor when you literally owned a Mercedes Benz in high school.”

Rosaline beamed challengingly at Benvolio. He inhaled at the mention of being “hers” but quickly recovered.

“I left the life of luxury behind a long time ago. No more Mercedes Benz for me. I’ve been enlightened. I’ll stick to renting the tourist bikes.”

Rosaline scoffed. “Whatever you say, Ben.” The familiar nickname never ceased to make Benvolio’s chest squeeze.

“Now tell me, Rosaline. How’s the trip going?”

Rosaline told him the events of their first 2 days in the city with a bright grin and wide eyes. He knew that Livia, Juliet, and Isabella had taken great pains to convince Rosaline to actually take her head out of her books for spring break. Rosaline needed it. Benvolio was happy to see her so excited for once and not anxious over the next paper or the coming exam.

“But enough about me. Montague, how have you been? Is Mercutio still alive?  Did Romeo cry every 5 minutes over Juliet’s tragic absence?”

“I’m good. I’m assuming Merc is still breathing, but I haven’t seen him or Romeo. They headed out to some club.”

“Aw, did poor Benvolio get left out of the fun?” she teased in an unexpected baby voice. “Now you know what it's like to be the one who stays home while everyone else goes out. How’s it feel?”

Benvolio took in Rosaline’s amused face. Her soft lips were lifted in a smile. Her dark eyes seemed to be beckoning him to a city miles and miles away. He felt a surge of bravery run through his spine.

“Actually, Capulet I turned them down. I wanted to be here when you called.”

Rosaline was visibly taken off guard, as her mouth slightly dropped open and she didn’t respond immediately with some light joke. Benvolio swallowed and anxiously tapped his fingers against his side.

“Well, I’m really glad you picked up, Ben.” Rosaline answered back, her initial shock replaced with an inquiring, but kind, gaze. Benvolio could only stare back, lost in her eyes that even over the grainy connection seemed to shine clear as day. His fingers itched for a pencil and his sketchbook.

“Rosaline, come on, the pool closes in an hour!” screamed Juliet from a distance.

Their moment was promptly ended, and Rosaline sighed.

“I’ve been summoned,” she said in a grave voice as Isabella and Livia’s giggles sounded in the background.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow at a much earlier time. I swear.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Benvolio answered quietly, half-hoping Rosaline hadn’t heard, half-hoping she had.

She apparently had, as she responded, “I sure hope so.”

Rosaline’s eyes met his one last time. “Goodnight, Ben.”

The phone buzzed, ending the call. With a resounding thud, Benvolio dropped his phone onto his chest. His lips slowly lifted in an easy grin. Maybe he wasn’t so hopeless after all.

[smartgirlsaremean]

Wedding Dress

Fandom: OUAT

Pairing: Rumbelle

Rating: T

Summary: When Neal sees the wedding dress his father’s been working on, he knows this is a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad idea. Meanwhile, Belle is in love and she’s getting married, and she’s not very happy about either circumstance.

AO3

“Whoa.”

Neal Gold stopped dead in his father’s workshop, arrested by the sight of the gown on the dress form. Standing in pride of place in the middle of the room, the form was draped in icy white satin that shimmered with beads and crystals in intricate patterns. On closer inspection, Neal realized they formed trailing vines and roses, winding their way up and down the ruched bodice and flowing skirt.

“Pops, this...this is something else!”

From his drafting board in the corner, Roderick Gold gave a very small smile. “You think so?”

“Don’t you?”

Gold shrugged and bent his head so that his son couldn’t see his eyes.

“It’s…” Neal was a bit lost for words. “I mean, it’s incredible. This woman’s gonna cry when she sees it.”

“That’s usually the goal.”

Neal stepped a little closer still, careful not to touch the shimmery fabric. He didn’t have an extensive dressmaker’s vocabulary, but he’d been around his father’s business long enough that he could make out the fine details that made the dress so exquisite.

The beading was unusually beautiful, of course, but the stitches in the seams were so tiny and perfect as to be almost invisible. The cut of the fabric was so immaculate that the woman would look like the dress had grown on her. Gold was known for his taste and craftsmanship, as well as his ability to make the simplest dress appear as a work of art: a critic had once joked that he could transform burlap into cloth-of-gold, and from that moment he’d been known as Rumplestiltskin. He’d been dressmaker to the stars for years before decamping to sleepy little Storybrooke, Maine, to raise his preteen son and take over his father’s pawn shop.

Neal had hated the stupid shop as a kid, despised the junk and the clutter and the suspicious car stereos that were not at all stolen, no sir, just salvaged. He’d hated the desperate looks on people’s faces as they pawned the few valuable things they owned, hated his grandfather’s malicious smiles as he gave them a fraction of the objects’ real worth and claimed he was doing them a favor. When his father had taken over and slowly but steadily revamped the store into an antiques shop with tailoring services, Neal had been relieved.

The younger Gold drove a hard bargain and only accepted genuine antiques, but at least he never cheated anyone, and he never, never went back on his word.

Unfortunately, his refusal to acknowledge dear old Aunt Nancy’s porcelain doll collection as anything but a terrible monstrosity, or his outright disgust when presented with forgeries, had made him scarcely more popular than his own father. Neal understood their feelings - everyone wanted to believe that their family heirlooms were worth at least as much as their sentimental value, and his old man wasn’t exactly shy about expressing his opinions - but he’d always, even as a teen, been slightly resentful of the suspicious stares and uneasy murmurs directed at the man who had, more or less, always been his hero.

Things were even worse around prom season when, despite the fact that they were paying exorbitant amounts of money for their daughters to wear custom-made gowns that would get trampled and torn and stained, the parents of the town whispered maliciously about what kind of man willingly measured young girls in such an intimate manner. Neal had boycotted prom on principle both years, which had been just fine with his then-girlfriend Emma. Emma hadn’t cared much for dresses anyway, and she and her parents were pretty much the only people in town who didn’t consider his father a monster.

The last wedding gown Gold had designed had been for Emma herself, when Neal married her three years ago. It had been perfect too, simple and chic and pale blue without a single stitch of lace or even one bead. Emma had been in tears when she saw it, and no woman had ever looked so beautiful when she walked down the aisle.

The more Neal examined this dress, though, the more he had a gut feeling that something was wrong. There was too much of his father in this gown; the stitches almost looked handsewn, and the fact that Gold had bolted to his drafting board and hadn’t so much as looked up since Neal came in was suspicious in itself. Pops had never minded working in front of him before.

“Papa?”

Gold looked up cautiously. “Yes?”

“Who’s this for?”

His father’s shoulders tensed and then slumped a little, and Neal had almost guessed the answer before he said it.

“Belle French.”

Neal’s heart dropped to his shoes.

“Belle? Belle’s getting married?”

“Yes.”

“And...she asked you to make the dress?”

“Of course she did,” Gold said hoarsely, twirling a pencil between his thumb and forefinger. “I’m her best friend.”

“Oh, God, Papa.”

“Don’t.”

“But you…”

“Knew this was bound to happen.” Gold pushed back from his table and ran a hand through his hair. “She’s young and beautiful and vibrant. You were the one who hoped for more, Neal, not me.”

This didn’t make sense. None of it made a single lick of sense. Belle was crazy about his father, Neal was sure of it. He hadn’t been home as much in the last year or so, as Emma’s job was starting to pick up and someone needed to stay home with two-year-old Henry while she was away on jobs, but he’d been around enough to pick up on the sweet shy smiles, the come-hither glances, the coy flirting. And she touched him all the time, she was always touching him: smoothing his lapels and straightening his ties and flicking lint off his sleeves and tucking her hand into the crook of his arm when they walked anywhere together. Once or twice she even brushed strands of hair out of his eyes and Neal was pretty sure pride alone kept his father from melting into a puddle.

Belle had been in Storybrooke all of a month before the town was buzzing about the strange friendship that had sprung up between the bookworm and the beast. Neal knew his father had been long gone in a matter of weeks, and he’d been sure, absolutely, positively, felt-it-in-his-bones certain that Belle felt the same way.

But now she was marrying someone else?

What the hell happened?

“Nothing happened,” Gold said a little angrily, and Neal realized he’d asked that last question aloud. “There was nothing to...we were only ever friends. She didn’t love me, Neal. She was never going to love me.”

“Does she know how you feel about her?”

“Do you think she’d have asked me to make this dress for her if she did?”

Of course she wouldn’t. Belle wasn’t cruel. In fact, she was so soft-hearted that if she ever found out how much it hurt his father to make this dress she would probably burn it herself.

“She’s gonna know the second she sees it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I knew.”

“You’re you.”

“Astute observation.”

“I mean, you have an artist’s eye and you’ve been around my work all your life. You see things the layman can’t.”

“So what else are you doing for her? Baking the cake? Arranging the flowers? Walking her down the aisle?” At his father’s shifty look Neal groaned. “Papa...no.”

“Her father had a heart attack recently and can’t walk very far. He’ll meet her at the altar and give her away. I just have to get her there.”

“That’s crazy, Papa. This is...why are you torturing yourself like this?”

“It is not torture to help give my best friend the wedding of her dreams.”

“Stop saying that. I know the truth, okay? Stop lying to me.”

“I’m not.”

“You are!”

Gold sighed. “Fine. I am. But mostly I’m lying to myself, alright? I have to if I’m gonna get through this in one piece.”

Neither of them heard the bell on the shop door ring.

She was supposed to go in for her final fitting the next day, and she was on tenterhooks. Ever since she’d asked Mr. Gold to sew her wedding gown, she’d been on edge, and she didn’t want to admit that she knew why. He’d agreed readily enough, taken her measurements with professional efficiency and not even a hint of impropriety (though the memory of his being so close still left her breathless), and just yesterday had called her to schedule her final fitting.

The last time she saw the gown, it was a mass of white satin with wide basting stitches in the seams and no adornment. Draped over her figure she got a better idea of how it would look, but her brain still couldn’t supply her with a picture of the finished product. She wasn’t sure she wanted to picture it.

Belle had always longed for love and marriage and a family and for the last year or so she thought she’d found the man who would make those things possible. Roderick Gold was everything she’d ever dreamed of in a man, intelligent and handsome and witty and God, so irresponsibly sexy, and she’d never wanted anyone so much in her life, and after almost a year she was certain he felt the same way about her. And then…

Well, not much had happened. Ever. Belle didn’t consider herself the subtlest person, and she thought she’d made her feelings extremely clear. When Greg Gaston asked her out about four months ago and Belle had asked Gold for his advice, Gold had shrugged and said that anything was worth a try.

His complete indifference had broken Belle’s heart.

And now she was marrying Greg because, quite frankly, she couldn’t think of a reason not to. Not one that mattered or would ever come to anything. Being hopelessly in love with a man who would never want her wasn’t a reason.

At least, she hadn’t thought so.

“What is wrong with you tonight?” Ruby huffed, setting their drink glasses down with a huff. “It’s girls’ night. We’re supposed to be having fun and you’re sitting there moping like the world’s about to end.”

Belle blinked and deliberately dragged her mind back to the Rabbit Hole and the booth she and Ariel and Ruby shared.

“Did someone ruin a library book?” Ariel asked sympathetically.

“No.”

“Greg being a knucklehead?” Ruby swirled the ice in her drink.

“No.”

“Then…”

“I have my final fitting tomorrow.”

The girls stared at her in total bafflement. “That’s...that’s supposed to be a good thing, sweetie,” Ruby said gently. “Shouldn’t you be happy about that?”

“Are you worried you won’t like the dress?” Ariel reached out and put a hand comfortingly on Belle’s. “You shouldn’t be. Mr. Gold designed my senior prom dress and it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You looked like a real-life mermaid,” Ruby grinned. “I remember that thing.”

“That’s not it. I’m sure it’ll be gorgeous.”

“Okay, that’s still not the tone of voice we expect from brides-to-be,” Ruby sighed. “Try again.” She widened her eyes and clasped her hands to her chest. “I’m sure it’ll be gorgeous!” she exclaimed in the sappiest, breathiest, Disney-princessiest voice Belle had ever heard. Ariel laughed and Belle smiled.

“So if it’s not that, what is it?” Ariel asked.

Belle shrugged, but she could feel tears welling up in her eyes, and to her horror when she tried to speak a little sob broke out. Ruby was out of her seat in a second and sliding onto the bench next to Belle; she took Belle in her arms and stroked her hair. Across the table, Ariel looked horrified.

“What...what’s wrong? Did...did he do something? Say something?”

“No,” Belle hiccuped. “He didn’t do anything. Say anything. That’s what’s wrong.”

“What are you talking about? He asked you to marry him!”

“Not Greg,” Ruby sighed, stroking Belle’s hair. “She’s not talking about Greg.”

Ariel’s mouth dropped open, and understanding washed over her face.

“Oh, hon,” Ruby said quietly. “When did you tell him?”

“Huh?” Belle gulped. “I didn’t.”

“Wait...what? You didn’t?”

“No, of course not!”

“Not...not even before Greg?”

“No!”

Ruby pulled away and stared at her incredulously. “Seriously? All this time...all those dinners and movie nights and strolls in the moonlight and you never mentioned to the guy that you wanna make mad, passionate love to him and have his babies?”

“Well, I...I thought I made it obvious. When he didn’t respond I thought…”

“Belle, I love you, but wow, you really messed up there.”

“Me? How?”

Ariel shook her head. “I keep forgetting you didn’t grow up here,” she said. “Mr. Gold is...well, he’s never shown an interest in anyone in town.”

“I know that, he told me himself he’s never dated anyone…”

“No, I mean he’s never shown any kind of interest. In anyone he’s not related to. For any reason.”

Ruby nodded. “Even the Nolans - y’know, his in-laws? - he only seemed to care about them after Neal married Emma.”

“So when he started hanging around you all the time...well, it threw us all for a loop. And when you seemed to like him back…”

“I didn’t know you never asked him out. I thought you were dating him!”

“If I were dating him, why would I start dating Greg?” Belle rubbed her eyes.

“Because…” Ariel’s voice trailed off and she looked worried, “because he’s Greg. He’s kind of gorgeous and charming, y’know? I guess we figured you’d...moved on.”

“You mean ‘traded up,’” Belle snapped. “You thought I broke up with Roderick and chose Greg?”

“More or less,” Ariel said apologetically.

“And from the way Mr. Gold moped around for a month, so did he.”

Belle slumped back into the booth, her mind whirling. If the girls were right, she’d gone about everything the wrong way.

“I can’t marry Greg,” she said finally.

Both women gave huge sighs of relief.

“I’m so glad you said that,” Ruby confessed. “‘Cause I wanted to, but I know how much you hate being told what to do.”

“I haven’t been fair to him, have I?” Belle said sadly. “All this time I knew I was still in love with Roderick. I just pretended I wasn’t so I didn’t have to deal with it.”

“Well, it’s not like it’s all on you,” Ariel pointed out. “Mr. Gold could’ve said something, after all.”

“Yeah.” Belle sat and stared at her barely touched drink for a moment more, then nodded decisively. “It’s still early. I’m gonna go have a talk with Greg and then...I guess I’ll go see Roderick and figure this out once and for all.”

The conversation with Greg was blessedly short. He was a nice guy, but he wasn’t exactly the deepest or most romantic of souls. He took back the ring with very good grace, told her to make sure Gold treated her well, and sent her on her way. Probably this time next month he’d even have a new girlfriend; Greg was just that kind of guy. In retrospect, that was probably why she’d agreed to be with him: he made no demands on her heart.

Gold’s antiques shop was empty, but the sign wasn’t turned and she could see the light from his workshop around the edges of the curtained archway. He was still there, possibly even working on her wedding dress, and at that thought her heart lurched. If her friends were right, and he felt as strongly for her as she did for him, every stitch would be torment. Every conversation about invitations and flowers and groomsmen and cake must have been agony.

Oh, God, he’d agreed to walk her down the aisle.

Steeling herself, Belle pushed open the door and was surprised when he didn’t emerge from the back room. Voices were coming from the workshop, and Belle could discern Neal’s as well as Gold’s. Frowning, she turned to leave again - she didn’t want to interrupt the very little time Gold got with his son - but her name floated out from behind the curtain.

“If you love Belle, why are you watching her marry someone else? Hell, forget watching. Why are you helping?”

“Because I love her. I want her to be happy. If this is what makes her happy, I’ll perform the damn wedding service myself.”

Belle raised shaking hands to her mouth.

“But what if you can make her happier?”

“Neal…”

“I’m just saying, you never gave it a chance. Did you ever even ask her out?”

“We have dinner regularly, you know that.”

“No, I mean a real date. Where you wear one of your expensive suits and she wears a dress and you go out for a fancy dinner and then neck in the car a little bit before you drop her off at her place. And then she asks you in for coffee and...”

“For Christ’s sake, stop.” Gold’s voice was strained.

Belle inched closer to the curtain, her heart racing.

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Because?”

“Because she didn’t want to.”

“She told you that?”

“She didn’t have to.”

“God, you’re arrogant,” Neal huffed. “What, did you read her mind? How could you possibly know that?”

Twisting her hands nervously in front of her, Belle stepped from behind the curtain and took a deep breath.

“I’d like to know the answer to that myself.”

Neal spun around and Gold nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Uh...hey, Belle.” Neal smiled frantically. Gold looked as if he might bolt or vomit. Maybe both. “I, uh, I...I was just...leaving.”

Belle nodded, her eyes still fixed on his father. Neal dashed through the curtain, and seconds later the bell on the door gave a very loud clang and then went silent.

The air between them was thick with unspoken words and long-buried feelings. Gold hung his head and tried to his best to will the floor underneath him to swallow him whole, but the polished hardwood remained stubbornly intact. The click of Belle’s heels told him she was walking toward him, and he was steeling himself for a very loud scolding or a very hard slap when she gasped and he couldn’t stop himself from looking up.

She’d caught sight of her dress and was staring at it, her eyes huge and bright with unshed tears. Inching closer, she grasped a fold of the satin and caressed it, then dropped it to trace the beading with her finger.

“Roderick, this...this is…”

When words failed her she turned her luminous gaze on him and he was powerless to look away. He shrugged, hoping she would just leave him to his humiliation if she wasn’t going to yell at him. But she stayed where she was, studying him, and he began to feel hot and twitchy.

After what felt like an eternity she dropped her eyes from his face. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, then marched toward him, her expression determined. Gold clenched his hands into fists, steeling himself for her ire, but she stopped only when the toes of her shoes touched his. She looked up and caught his gaze - they were almost eye-to-eye her heels were so tall - and her entire being softened, her eyes glowing and her skin turning a delicate pink.

He still could not speak.

Slowly, as if giving him time to turn tail and run, she lifted her face to his, closer, so close he could feel her breath tickling his chin, and then her lips were on his and he wasn’t sure whether he was awake or not anymore. The kiss was brief, gentle and sweet, and when she pulled away her eyes were fluttering over his face as if searching for something.

“What’s happening?” he croaked, his voice returning at last.

“I’m not marrying Greg,” she whispered, and moved in for another kiss, but he leaned  away.

“What? Why?”

Her hands were on his shoulders, he realized, and she was squeezing as if trying to ground him, to remind him that she was real. “Because I don’t love him. I never did.”

“Then why did you…”

“You didn’t want me. I mean, I...I thought you didn’t want me. But I was wrong.” Her brow creased and she looked nervous again in the face of his stunned silence. “W-wasn’t I?” He blinked, trying to clear his head and make sense of her words, which were contradictory to everything he’d ever known about their relationship. “If I’ve crossed a line, please just tell me. But I realized tonight that trying on my dress was the last thing I wanted to do, because it was just one more thing that made the wedding real.”

“You’ve had a change of heart, then.”

“No,” Belle sighed, “that’s just it. It’s always been you, Roderick. I’ve always loved you. Greg was just...the guy who asked. And I was sure you never would, so I thought...why not? Then you were so happy for me, and so helpful, and I thought, see I’m right, he doesn’t want me. And then you agreed to make the dress and…”

“You…” That couldn’t be his voice. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You love me?”

Belle nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t say something sooner. And if you don’t want this, I’ll completely understand, but I…” Her little speech ended in a squeak as he leaned in and caught her lips with his own. Not want this? Not want her? He couldn’t imagine a reality in which that would be possible. He pulled away after a few blissful seconds and took in her flushed cheeks and wide eyes.

“I love you, too,” he said hoarsely.

Throwing her arms around his neck, Belle lunged at him, nearly knocking him off balance. By instinct he wrapped his own arms around her waist in an attempt to keep them upright, but that had the effect of pulling her flush against him, which did nothing for his equilibrium. He maneuvered them so that his back was to his drafting table, and now there was a whole world of possibilities for hands and lips because he didn’t need to worry about toppling to the floor and crushing her.

Gold pulled away just long enough to slant his lips over hers more securely, thrilling when she moaned and her fingers tightened in his hair. His doubts and fears were dissipating like shadows exposed to light. How could he not believe that she wanted him when she was pressing her chest to his, scratching her nails over his scalp, and pulling at his lower lip with her mouth? He pushed his hands under the wool of her coat and dug his fingers into her lower back, pulling her closer still. She gasped, and he dove in again, his tongue dancing with hers and finally gaining dominance, flicking up against the roof of her mouth.

Her hands left his hair and she shrugged out of the coat, which fell to the floor with a dull thump. Slipping her hands under his arms and around to his back, she dragged her lips away from his and pressed a kiss to his jaw, his neck, the hollow of his throat, and then back up again on the other side. He’d never been so glad in his life that he tended to shed his suit jacket and tie when he was working. Her fingers were working at the buttons of his shirt and he was toying with the zipper of her dress when something near their feet began to buzz. He tried to ignore it, but the sound was just low enough to register and whoever was calling was really quite persistent.

“Your phone, sweetheart,” he rasped. She huffed and bent to retrieve it, and Gold drew in great gulps of air, his head whirling from lack of oxygen. Or proximity to Belle. Probably the latter, actually.

“What, Ruby?” she nearly snapped. “Oh, for God’s sake, I’m fine...yes, that kind of fine...yes...yes...no! Look, I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? What do you mean what time? Whenever I get around to it!” She blushed. “Goodbye, Ruby.” She turned the phone off for good measure and looked up at Gold sheepishly. “Sorry. She, uh...she was worried.”

“Or nosy.”

Belle giggled. “That too.”

Gold reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, pulled back out of habit, then followed through with a little thrill when he remembered that she wanted him. He let his hand brush against her cheek for good measure, his heart pounding when she sighed and leaned into his touch.

“So...what now?” Belle asked, sounding just a touch insecure now that things had calmed a bit.

“Well, I need to close the shop,” he pointed out. “Unless Neal had the foresight to do so when he left, which I doubt, and anyway he doesn’t have a key. After that...well it’s a bit late for a proper first date, but…”

Belle smiled meaningfully, and his heart skipped a beat. “I’ve already eaten, and we’ve had our bit of necking. How about a cup of coffee at my place?”

“I...uh...coffee? Or coffee?”

Leaning up, she gave him a quick peck on the lips. “Close the shop and find out.” She headed for the front of the shop, but paused by the dress form. “I really do love this dress,” she said, brushing one hand against the silky skirt. “I...I hope I’ll get a chance to wear it some day.”

He smiled and pulled her into a kiss. “So do I.”