Thread: Hyde and Seek [ Chai & Mr Quixotic ]

RE Hyde and Seek Ariamella Mr Quixotic Dim lamps and lights barely seemed to illuminate anything in the large lounge bar, but still they seemed to throw the perfect amount of light and shadow throughout the room. It created a sensual ambiance, one that was paired well with the calm and quiet of the dark no sound could be heard save for the soft resonance of discordant notes emitting from a grand piano near the far end of the bar. A man sat casually at the piano bench with his arms out behind him to support his weight as he leaned back, his blue-grey eyes alight with confidence and some other, less recognizable emotion. He was young, somewhere in his mid-20s, and was obviously comfortable as he stared at a young woman in front of him. Letting his gaze settle upon her, he took no time searching the body that was clad in a simple, plum-colored but rather revealing dress, and he half-smirked as he finished the visual travel upwards and rested his eyes on her face. The woman was leaning back against the sleek, black instrument as she sat on the keys, returning the man's dark gaze with one of her own, though the attempt at seduction looked near awkward on her innocent features. The general consensus on her looks was one of attractiveness, yet the sultry haze seemed to disagree with the soft structure, wide chocolate eyes, and almost elfin charm to her face. She brought her hands up to play with the man's shirt collar, running feather-light fingertips across his neck, under his jaw, and down to his collarbone. A tense moment passed between them, and she briefly looked away when she noticed a hint of something other than desire in his eyes... Was he laughing at her? Amusement flickered in and out of his steely orbs, while her own brown eyes portrayed focus and concentration in what she was doing. Although the couple stayed silent, the tension between them was almost tangible in the atmosphere whether it was positive or negative remained to be seen. Finally, she leaned forward and gently grasped his tie, moving to pull him toward her as she brought her head down to connect her lips with his. But he resisted at the last moment, pausing her advance by catching her slim wrist in one his large hands. Lily... He whispered her name as something of a warning to get her to stop, though his husky tone and quickened breaths indicated that he was indifferent to her actions, or maybe even encouraging of them. Changing her course of action, she abandoned the idea of kissing him and instead tilted her head to the side with the intent of nuzzling his neck. As she predicted, it prompted him to let go of her wrist. Hmm... My name sounds even sexier like that, she replied, in what was supposed to be a playful manner, though the words sounded flat as they were slightly muffled from being said against his neck. Trailing her lips to his jaw, and then to his ear, she nipped the lobe delicately before retreating and standing upright again. Well? she asked him, idly ruffling her wavy, honey-brown locks to one side and looking away when his gaze became almost too much to bear again. Without warning, the man rose to his feet and grasped her hips, the shifting of her weight causing more notes to ring out, and he lifted her onto the lid of the grand piano. Even sitting atop the instrument, her 5'3 frame only allowed her to be eye-level with her male counterpart, whose own tall stature and commanding presence now overshadowed her. He pushed her legs apart just enough as an indication for her to wrap them around him, but instead of taking the cue, the young woman gasped and lifted head in wide-eyed nervousness. She looked momentarily lost for a split-second before attempting to cover up the action by relaxing her body and sighing as she lay back down against the cold black surface. Feeling the man open her legs once more to stand between them, he reached to run his hands up her stomach, across her breasts, and down her sides. In turn, she stiffened again through involuntary reaction, though she arched her back up and tried to focus on how the touching felt how the warmness of his hands felt as they slid up and down her body. She lay still, breathing heavily as he began to slip one dress strap down her left arm, revealing the partial view of a black, lacy bra underneath. He paused then, as if waiting for something, and she opened her eyes to give him a quizzical glance. After a second of embarrassing silence, it registered that he had been waiting on her . Fuck , she cursed herself. How could she be so stupid ? Immediately following the silence was a loud male voice coming from the opposite end of the room. CUT! The voice boomed, disappointment and exasperation clear in the one word. A sigh sounded, and then, Everybody take ten. Bright lights flashed on while others turned off, and cameras that had been stationed by the piano were rolled away. Taking a moment to adjust her eyes to the new light, actress Katrina Ellis Binetti detangled herself from her partner's arms and walked over to a small table where a container of food labeled 'for Kat Ellis' had gone cold over the course of the evening. Beside it was a bottle of Veen - Finnish water that cost an astonishing twenty-three dollars per bottle - which indicated that no expense had been spared to make her feel comfortable while filming. Guiltily, she stared at her professional name scrawled out in Sharpie marker on the top of the plastic box, knowing that it was a name people sought to keep happy, as well as a name that came with high expectations. Expectations she hadn't met. The 21 year-old frowned, not for the first time that night, as she thought upon the piano scene that happened just minutes earlier. Scenes like that were usually shot one or twice so the chemistry between the couple displayed the most passion, but unfortunately Katrina hadn't gotten it then, and here she was on the seventh take, still missing the mark. For the last couple hours of the night, the whole team had been filming and re-filming that one particular scene because she couldn't seem to get into the intimacy of it all. Did she even want to get into a sex scene? It wasn't even like it was real - it never was - and being her first experience sexual themes in film, it was expected to be a little rough. But what she hadn't expected was the inability to deliver even barely mediocre acting, not just for the piano scene but for all the other attempted sexual sequences. It had thrown the filming schedule off by a couple days, but in the world of the entertainment industry, that meant eons of wasted time and money. The worst part was that even she knew when she had done something wrong, but it had become increasingly difficult to correct the mistakes when all the advice given by her acting coach didn't help her in any way. If anything, it may have even proven to be detrimental to her cause, seeing as she even forgot her line at the end of that last take. The error was a large one forgetting lines was such an amateur mistake, especially for actresses of her caliber. As young as she was, Katrina had earned the title of being A-list in her own right through work in several projects as a child actress, all rising to the largest peak in her career thus far when, in just the past year, she was nominated for various accolades for her work in the musical film adaptation of Wicked . Among them was a prestigious nomination for Best Actress at the Academy Awards, and though she hadn't won, it only strengthened her love for the craft. She prided herself in her reputation of striving for perfection, but with what had been recently going on, it might have been easy for anyone to believe that this was her first acting job. She was still mulling over depressing thoughts of failure when Renier Bryant, the co-lead in the film, approached the table. He eyed her for a moment, making an open judgement before tossing down her copy of the film script. The thick document fell with a thud, and he simply said, Here you are, Kitty Kat . Read over the lines one more time, will you? Not sure if you were aware or not, but this bar inside the Beverly Wilshire Hotel - yes, this very one we're standing in - is an expensive location. Any wasted time here equates to wasted money. He promptly walked away, unashamed and unapologetic for his harsh words. Katrina only nodded, still hung up on his use of 'Kitty Kat.' Co-workers usually made use of it as a silly name of endearment, but coming from Renier, it was a way for him to express how immature and inexperienced he thought she was. A part of her wanted to combat his assumptions with fighting words of her own, but she couldn't blame him. First off, almost everyone she had worked with had at one point made use of the nickname, and no one in the entertainment industry called her Katrina. How could she complain over something that everyone else did as well? Second, there was nothing she could say in retaliation to his comments about her mistakes. She couldn't deny or defend them, and the more she thought about them, the more irate she became. Opening the script and paging through it, she scanned over numerous notes written in the margins and read through both roles she was responsible for, ultimately ending up staring at the name 'Lily Hyde.' It stuck out like a sore thumb on the page, though that was mostly because the name was like an omen for her a constant reminder of a glaring error in her acting ability. Pulling a pen from her bag, she began writing a list of everything that had gone wrong. After all, an actress was only as good as her poorest role, and she would accept nothing from herself that was short of perfection.