[Author's Note: Stepping out of the stories, Cassie has some feedback for me as to how she's being written. She has been hard at work, featuring in
What We Say In The Dark
,
Alena's Game
and
When One Day We Are Gone
. Still, no rest for the fictional....
Thank you to
AlinaX
for use of the cafe!]
---
I'm at a table in the corner of the café. The barista has suddenly switched her footwear from sneakers and is now tottering around on improbably high heels, trying to balance the plates she's just cleared up from the two women sitting at a nearby table. I listen to them talk for a while, but then I check the time again. She's late. My laptop's open, but I find myself staring into space.
A bell tinkles as the door opens and I look up to see Cassie standing in the doorway. I wave her over.
"Busy?" she asks, indicating the laptop.
I shrug, closing it and beckoning her to sit down.
"I've got time," I reply.
She's so different to Lily. Lily would have just barged in and sat down; Cassie's a lot more circumspect.
"How're you going?" I ask, getting up to meet her.
"How do you think?" she replies, rolling her eyes, "I'm shattered."
"Want to sit?"
"Please."
"Something to drink?"
Cassie hesitates. "Uh, such as?"
"Coffee, tea, or I think there's something stronger maybe, if I asked. This place is quite unusual."
"Yeah, when you suggested the Meta, I had to wonder if you were for real. But, yes, tea," she nods, "Do they have herbal?"
"Sure. I'll join you."
Cassie laughs, and I stop.
"What's so funny?" I ask her.
"You don't seem like the herbal tea type."
"What makes you think that?"
"Oh, based on past evidence."
I make a face at her. "You shouldn't believe everything you read," I tell her, "We're not just the sum of our parts."
"I hadn't expected to go into Carl Jung with you. More likely Freud?"
"Not interested in discussing ego?"
"I think there's quite enough of that already. You should check out the author forums."
Cassie flops onto the seat opposite me, crossing her legs and leaning back. She's wearing a work skirt and a blouse, nothing ostentatious. I wave the girl over, watching her struggle on her stilettos, and she takes our order. All the while, I feel Cassie's eyes on me. She's watching me, or more accurately, observing me. It's a little unnerving.
"You're really exhausted, aren't you?" I ask.
Cassie just nods, waiting as the barista returns with our order. She sips her tea, watching me over the rim.
"So, you wanted to catch up. How can I help you?" I say, breaking the silence, "Do you want to do a debrief?"
"After Quinn?" Cassie replies, "Or after Lily?"
"I don't mind, you can...."
"Or after whatever's coming next?" Cassie continues, cutting me off.
"Is that why you're here?"
She wrinkles her nose. "Maybe. Look, you've had me back-to-back in two stories, and then straight into a third. I'm beginning to think I should be joining some kind of union."
Cassie laughs to herself. "If there is a union for fictional characters, working together for designated time off, minimum working standards," she continues, "Imagine that, one bondage scene too many and that's it, tools down, we all walk off the story. Where would that leave you?"
I don't answer. Cassie's smart, old enough to have figured out how it all works. She's coming around to her point.
"So, what can I help you with?" I ask again.
Cassie doesn't reply immediately, running her fingers around the rim of her cup. She's trying to work me out, to gauge my reaction.
"You're putting people through all kinds of situations," she says at last, "Ever thought about how that looks from the other side?"
"What do you mean?"
"Getting towed along in the flow of the story, not able to escape, pushed into situations."
"It's a story, that's going to happen. People don't read stories about drinking tea."
"Ah, they are at the moment. But that aside, do you think it's fair though?"
"What do you mean, really?"
I wait, and Cassie shifts in her seat. Eventually, she confesses, "I guess what happened with Quinn, with Alena, that was pretty difficult. The story didn't need to go that way. You could have just had them living in their little bubble, riding off together into the sunset."
"It really did need to."
"Why?"
I nod towards the closed laptop. Following an intuition, I open the screen up and bring up a file.
"It's an important piece, to set up something later. Do you want to see?"
"Sure, I'd like that."
I turn the screen to face her.
"So, this is the future," Cassie murmurs.
"Yes."
"And where are we?"
I point to an entry halfway down the list.
"That means there's a lot more to come. How's it going so far?"
"It's all starting to head in the same direction," I tell her.
Cassie gives me a strange look. "I guess that's my point," she says, "What if it isn't the right direction?"
She holds my gaze and I have a little flutter of doubt. Lily just wanted to know where she was in the storylines, how big a part she had, how much of it was all about her. Cassie has a different set of concerns.
"I don't know," I confess, at last, "I suppose if people read it, then it's on the right track."
"Ah, but you know that's nonsense," Cassie chides, "Alena's story should have told you that. You had two completely different audiences, diametrically opposed. One audience wanted to watch how Alena groomed and conditioned Quinn into servitude, the other just wanted to watch her burn."
She shrugs, turning her attention back to the screen.
"To be honest," she continues, "I'm surprised the ratings kept up as high as they did. You can't please all the people all of the time, but I suspect you ended up pleasing none of the people for a fair chunk of it, from the comments."
"It was a mixed bag," I concede.
"It was a very broad church."
Cassie reaches out and touches an arrow, the one leading down from the present into the story coming next.
"Do you need help?" she asks.
I hesitate. It's just about the last thing I had expected her to say.
"Uh, as in, what?" I stammer, "Professional help?"
"No, I didn't mean that. Although, I can't preclude the idea that you do."
"You think I'm not right in the head?"
"I think the world takes all kinds of people. If we all thought the same things at the same time, there would be no progress. No, I mean help with the stories."
"What kind of help? Proofreading?"
I see a flicker in her eye, and I know she's got me. I'm curious to see what she'd do.
"That, but also the stories themselves."
"That's a little...."
"It's a little recursive," Cassie interjects, "A character helping to write the story that she's appearing in."
"You want to read my drafts? It's all pretty loose at this point."
Cassie grins at me, her hand on my arm.
"Oh, that's not the truth, is it?" she murmurs, "You don't think I believe that, surely? How much have you written?"
"In total?"
"Sure, from the start to the end, how much?"
"About half a million words," I confess, "So far."
