Method Madness

The second glass of wine was halfway gone before either of them spoke again. Marcus watched the city as if it were a hostile audience, the kind that could turn on you at any moment, and Anne watched Marcus, caught between fascination and the old, sweet panic of falling for your own act.

She picked at the olives, rolling the pits in her palm like bones. She wanted him to start, to give her an opening, but the man was a professional at waiting out silences. On set, he'd let a room die for minutes just to see who'd fill it first. It had been maddening. It had also, in its way, made her better.

She tried.

"You know, the first time I saw the dailies, I thought you were going to kill me."

He didn't look at her, but she saw the smile in the reflection.

"You mean the scene, or—?"

"The scene," she said, with a laugh that was too loud, then quieter:

"But also maybe you, too."

He considered that, then said, "You weren't afraid." It was almost a question.

Anne pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth, feeling the skin prickle up her arms.

"No. I think I was more afraid of the director. Or of screwing it up."

Marcus drained his glass, set it down, spun it slowly on the table between them.

"I think you liked the danger," he said.

"Or at least the part where you couldn't tell what was real."

She liked that he didn't make it a question. It left her the space to admit or deny, and for a second she thought she might just deny it. Instead, she said,

"That was the only real thing about it."

He looked at her then. The stare was softer than she remembered, but it still had the old weight, the green of his irises eating up the light.

"Did you ever feel like it got inside you? The role?"

She braced herself.

"All the time." She wasn't lying.

"I used to have dreams—I mean, right after wrap, I'd wake up thinking I was still her. The way I'd move, the way I'd talk to people, even the way I'd look in the mirror. It wasn't... me. But it didn't feel wrong."

He nodded, once, like he'd expected that answer.

She waited for him to say it: what about you? But he didn't. Instead, he let the silence reload, heavier than before.

It had to be her.

"Do you miss him?" she asked, the words sliding out slick with risk.

Marcus stilled, his hands flattening on the glass table. She watched the breath leave his body, slow, deliberate, like a man about to walk into cold water.

He didn't answer. The city reflected in the windows behind him, each point of light a pixel in a giant, silent scoreboard.

Anne leaned closer, the wine warm in her blood. She set her glass down, wiped her palms on her skirt, and braced her elbows on her knees, letting her shoulders roll forward in a way that was both calculated and completely out of her control.

"You don't have to say it," she said, voice low.

"I just wanted to know."

He looked up at her, and something in the line of his jaw shifted—an old tension, a trace of what she'd seen on set, that flex of muscle that signaled a punchline or a threat.

He said nothing. But the silence this time felt like a yes.

She didn't think, not really. She just moved—knee to knee, then a hand on his shoulder, her thumb tracing the line where his collarbone pressed through the fabric. She waited, just a heartbeat, for him to flinch or freeze or do anything at all.

He didn't.

So she kissed him. Not hard, not hungry. Just—honest. She felt the sting of his mouth, the way he kept it closed, the way his breath hitched and then deepened as he let her linger. She pressed her hand flat against his chest, feeling the heat beneath the cotton.

It lasted only a moment. Maybe two. Then she broke away, breath sharp in her lungs, hand still pressed against his skin. She looked at him, ready to apologize, ready to bolt.

He looked stunned. Not the Joker's shock, not even Marcus's usual catlike patience—just a raw, living surprise, the kind that comes from being seen after months of being invisible.

Anne let her hand drop. She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist, mortified. "Sorry," she said, hating the sound of her own voice.

He didn't move. He just stared at her, lips parted, eyes wide, as if he were running a line in his head that wouldn't come.

"I shouldn't have—" she started.

He shook his head.

Once.

Fast.

But she was already pulling away, folding in on herself, suddenly aware of everything: her sweat, the tightness of her dress, the pulse drumming in her neck.

She'd broken the perimeter, and for a second she didn't know what was supposed to happen next.

The only thing she could hear was her own heart, and the faint, echoing laughter of the city below.

.....

Marcus didn't let her run. Before Anne could bolt or laugh it off or slide back into the armor she wore at every public appearance, he reached across the space between them and caught her wrist, fingers circling it with a grip that was precise and absolute—neither forceful nor loose, but a geometry she'd felt before, usually in front of a camera and under lights.

She froze. He watched her, the pupils dilated so wide that the green of his eyes had nearly vanished. It was the look he wore for close-up takes, the look that forced every other actor in a scene to recalibrate or risk being eaten alive.

She felt the breath stutter in her chest. The old Anne would have made a joke, but this Anne, the one with a mouth still tasting of Marcus, didn't know what to do except look back.

He didn't speak. The room was so quiet she could hear the hum of the HVAC, the throb of the city at forty-one stories up. Her own breathing sounded crass, rude, a thing that needed to be hidden.

He pulled her closer, slow enough for her to pull away but she didn't. Not even when her knee touched his, not even when her face was close enough to see the faintest smear of plum at the corner of his lip, residue from the Hermitage.

For a second, nothing happened. The moment hovered, unsustainable, and then he bent to her ear and said, in a voice that was half Marcus, half something else:

"I think he misses you."

Anne shivered.

She hated herself for it.

Or maybe she didn't.

He moved his hand from her wrist to the back of her neck, thumb grazing the ridge of bone, the rest of his fingers splaying into the hair at her nape. The touch wasn't soft, wasn't rough, just deliberate. He drew her in, and this time the kiss was not a question.

It was a resumption of argument. His mouth was hot, the taste of wine and olive and something bitter still clinging to his teeth. She opened for him and he took it, kissing her like she was the only sure thing left in a collapsing world.

She let herself be kissed, allowed the sensation to widen in her body. When she broke away for air, their foreheads touched, and she felt his exhale on her cheek.

She said, "You scare me."

He smiled.

The Joker's smile, but not. "Good."

Her hands were already moving—fingertips at his jaw, then down to his collar, working the first button loose. She expected him to stop her, but he didn't. He leaned back, let her strip the shirt down his arms.

The skin beneath was pale, canvas-pure except for the ink that coiled up from his wrist and bit into the crook of his elbow. Anne ran her hand over the tattoo, feeling the goosebumps follow in its wake.

He pulled her into his lap, and she let him, knees bracketing his hips. It felt obscene, adolescent, perfect. She rolled her hips forward, and he made a sound, low and fractured, the kind of sound he'd made when he was dying on set and the director wouldn't yell cut.

His hands were on her thighs now, sliding up the line of her dress, pushing the hem higher. He found the edge of her tights and hooked a thumb under, snapping the elastic with a practiced flick. The sensation was sharp, a clean little violence, and she gasped.

She expected him to laugh, but instead he held her, face buried in her neck, breath hot and humid. She felt teeth—not biting, just pressing against the line where her pulse galloped.

Anne's hands trembled as she hurriedly unfastened Marcus's belt, her fingers brushing against the soft skin of his lower abdomen. She didn't care if she left his clothes in tatters.

She was driven by a primal need to see him, to feel him, to confirm if the whispers about his body were true. Her breath hitched as she popped the button on his jeans, her knuckles grazing the hard length of him concealed beneath cotton.

Marcus assisted her, his large hands pushing down his jeans, boxers, exposing his thick, erect cock. He kicked off his shoes, not bothering with the laces. Anne's heart pounded as she took in the sight of him, his length twitching under her gaze, the head already glistening with precum.

There was a brief moment of absurdity—the two of them half-naked, entwined on an opulent velvet couch, a tray of scattered olives and an overturned bottle of wine between them. But then Marcus stood, lifting Anne effortlessly, his strong arms supporting her thighs.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, her heels digging into his firm ass, her nails sinking into the muscled flesh of his shoulders. She could feel his hot shaft pressing against her damp panties, only the thin fabric separating them.

He carried her across the room, his mouth crashing onto hers in a hungry kiss. She moaned into his mouth, her tongue tangling with his as her body burned with anticipation.

He set her down on the edge of a sturdy marble-topped table, pushing aside the fancy centerpiece. The cold marble against her bare ass sent a shiver up her spine.

Marcus hooked his fingers into the waistband of her panties, tugging them down her thighs. He let out a low groan as he revealed her glistening pussy, her lips swollen and ready. Leaning down, he hiked one of her legs over his shoulder, opening her wide.

He trailed kisses up her inner thigh, making her shiver with each soft touch. Then he buried his face in her pussy, his tongue licking a long, slow line from her entrance to her clit.