CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
MILES POINT OF VIEW
After her transfixing metamorphosis into that avant-garde psychodrama, I settled back and regarded Hailey with newfound calculation.
The girl’s unruly tresses hung disheveled around her brow, dampened curls of chestnut clinging to the sheen of perspiration.
Her chest still heaved slightly from exerting the full, unrestrained force of her talents into that disquieting exploration of the id.
For all appearances, she seemed nearly as spent and disoriented as I felt from the experience of witnessing it.
The perfect opportunity to yank the figurative stage floor out from under this ingenue.
“Not bad, girl. Not… bad at all,” I drawled, trying to bleed my tone of any inflection whatsoever. “You managed to summon the most miniscule flickers of conviction; I’ll grant that much.”
Rising to my feet, I favored her with a contemptuous lip-curl as I tossed the next script into her lap. “But let’s see how you fare with something a tad… lighter, hmm? After all, versatility is the hallmark of any TRULY gifted performer.”
I allowed myself a vindictive smirk, secure that wit and comic timing would prove her ultimate undoing. This banal, mass-produced pabulum represented everything poisonous about modern culture – cheap laughs, hollow caricatures devoid of depth or nuance. All empty amusement to placate the vapid masses.
Of course, a true artiste held such fare in lofty contempt for its emotional dishonesty and intellectual paucity. Which was precisely why I intended for Hailey to choke and flail upon its shoals like a landed fish. To cede back any shred of respect I might have begun affording her dangerous authenticity.
“Oh goody – Withering Loins, the RomCom,” she muttered in a tone of light sarcasm after scanning the title page. “I’m sure this will prove the height of dramatic craftsmanship.”
Despite her drollery, I caught the nervous swallow, the slight quiver of her fingers splaying the pages. There – the first hairline fractures beginning to show already.
This guileless cow likely hadn’t even sniffed the intricacies of farce since her ill-bred high school theatrics. Now the real flaying could commence.
“Don’t get too ahead of yourself, little girl,” I chided with saccharine condescension. “The masters adored injecting their comedies with as much insight and depth as their tragedies. But… I somehow doubt you’ve the chops for mustering anything beyond eye-rolling drollery.”
Hailey bristled, jaw tightening as she rose to her feet. But then, totally against my expectations… she seemed to settle into a different posture. One of loose, languid grace and… was that a glimmer of haughty self-possession?
“Oh Carson, your insufferable prick,” she sighed in a dulcet, melodic cadence. “Just because Rita Vander Tuft has more couture gowns than brain cells don’t mean she isn’t an absolute SCREAM when sauced on strawberry wine.”
I lifted a brow, admittedly taken aback by the fluidity of her vocal shift. Gone was the earnest striver so easy to provoke and taunt. In its place prowled a breezy, almost aristocratic smoothness – like a 30s Silver Screen deb paddling through a sea of champagne frivolity.
“Why, I haven’t seen her slosh that much overpriced grape merch since Pemberley Manor’s Summer Cotillion.” Hailey tittered through prim fingers, eyes crinkling in sardonic delight. “And her talents for ‘garden sculpture’ on the 12th hole remain utterly unparalleled!”
The girl spoke with such effervescence, such intoxicating sparkle and relish, I found myself… chuckling before I could quash it. Not at the admittedly staid and predictable comedy itself. No, at HER uncanny prowess for inhabiting it so indefatigably.
Refusing to lose the thread, Hailey rolled right along without missing a beat. “Now Carson darling, we simply MUST arrange another of those delightful little parlor games for the younger set this evening!
Why, Brockford Rutherford languished in the billiards room for nearly an HOUR last time before someone finally found him and helped tally his penultimate score!”
I couldn’t stop the burbling guffaw that erupted from my chest that time. The chit perfectly channeled that airy, simpering ennui so iconic to the genre, yet without ever straying into self-parody or condescension.
It wasn’t merely antic mimicry – it carried the unmistakable sheen of satirical revelry from someone adored such foibles from within.
When Hailey at last broke character with a coy, “Shall I go on?”, I promptly lifted a hand to stem the proceedings. This… charade wasn’t MEANT to captivate me, to awaken anything more than disdain and disgust.
But despite my most fervent efforts, the girl’s rendition proved so utterly SUBLIME in its articulate dissection of RomCom tropes, I couldn’t help but be begrudgingly… enraptured.
“N-no, that’s…” I cleared my throat, trying to still the vestiges of helpless mirth. “That will be quite enough, Miss Hailey. I do believe you’ve illustrated your… unexpected mastery of the form.”
Was that really a note of respect shading my words? I saw Igor observing me askance, clearly as thunderstruck as I felt over this turn of astonishing events. So far, my attempts to undermine and alienate this young vixen had only revealed one supernova talent after another burning within her pliant vessel.
Drawing a breath, I strived to regain my authoritative bearings. My fingers toyed with the next script, inked with serpentine calligraphic and razor-edged verse that would put her upstart spirit through its most grueling trial yet.
“We’re done for today,” I declared, pivoting on my heel to stalk toward the exit. Over my shoulder I added gruffly, “Be back here at 0800 hours tomorrow to pick up where you’ve left off. There won’t be any applause or charity then.”
Even as we departed that fetid, shadowed den of cruelty and torment… I couldn’t escape the strangest, most unwelcome tickles of intrigue.
Of a nascent professional respect for my latest target’s evident gifts – which I knew full well must be exterminated with extreme Judice.
No sane connoisseur of the exquisite arts could ever allow such pure, unbridled potential to flourish unchecked.
To thrive was to become dangerous, a threat to everything I held sacred about my sadistic craft.
Therefore, even as I plotted fresh indignities to inflict upon this maddening waif, I found my thoughts churning with a wholly unprecedented sense of… anticipation.
Of wonderment over what other electrifying, transcendent talents awaited unearthing within her elusive mysteries.
This bizarre infatuation would not be allowed to linger, I vowed with vehemence.
But even so… I could not resist indulging my curiosities a while longer. If only to more impeccably obliterate them in due time.