An online haven where Grissom Sara Romance is free to flutter ...

By KMnO4

The Substitute Teacher

Rating- G

Summary- What happened when the camera panned out at the end of Lady Heather’s Box… and how will GSR survive her return?

Past- Nightfall- Lady Heather's Domain

Stay tonight

We'll watch the full moon rising

Hold on tight

The sky is breaking

I don't ever want to be alone

With all my darkest dreaming

Hold me close

His heart wrestled against its prison of sinew and bone as the hefty front door swung open. It caught the rough end of the blackened breeze, and darkness framed Grissom's figure in the doorway. He stood without utterance allowing the expression on his face to form words he could not find. The proprietor's lips quickly spread into a knowing smile. Lady Heather receded away from the entrance granting him access which she clarified with a light yet commanding request,

"Come in."

Grissom tentatively crossed the threshold like a man about to make the perilous journey to the underworld, full of prescience, but bold nevertheless. For his efforts, he was greeted by the familiar cries of men at play. It was a foreign cacophony of pleasure and of pain which rung in his ears almost jeopardising the delicacy of his hearing. An inner voice spoke up but Grissom quelled it with a glance at Lady Heather's lips, which were as bright and as bloody as he had remembered.

"Back so soon," she stated in a tone void of conviction.

"Evidently."

"Would you like to sit down to more tea?"

"No," he returned suppressing his mounting irritation. At her. At himself.

For a second Grissom's thoughts were drawn to the Tahoe parked in the sloping driveway which offered him escape, but also represented the numerous inanimate objects which had imperceptibly replaced human companionship in his life. For the most part his possessions could distract him from the void, but tonight something seemed amiss. The emptiness was gaping and vast enough to lose himself inside of its inconceivable depth; Lady Heather's voice penetrated the fog,

"Perhaps the time for such niceties is over. How about something stronger... Scotch?"

"Fine."

Grissom followed her upwards along the winding corridors all the while haunting the shadows like a voyeuristic ghost. There would be no silken thread to guide him out of this labyrinth, and if he was the hero of the piece, then what kind of creature did that made his enthralling hostess? One who found joy in the constancy of mortal transgressions and wealth in the inadequacy of others.

It was not until reaching what he presumed to be the top of the mansion that Lady Heather paused and drew out a key rusted with ill use. It clicked softly inside of a weighty lock and Grissom closed his eyes momentarily against the gentle lick of noise. He opened them on her speaking lips which ironically he had to strain to hear, although he was sure that she was talking more prominently than usual. Annunciating her words like a nomadic ventriloquist.

"You don't have to do that," he voiced brusquely, following her into the chamber.

"If that's what you would prefer," she replied, as though both the problem and its solution were outlandishly simple.

The slick run of her words shrouded Lady Heather in innocence befitting an accommodating housewife with only his convenience in mind. Far from being a comfort, this pretence only severed to disconcert. Grissom took the glass she offered, noticing how it had been warmed by her touch. The austerity of his circumstance returned to him afresh and he wondered if her hands could possibly have the same effect on him.

"It's beautiful," he said fingering the lustrous covering of the bedspread.

"Isn't it," Lady Heather replied nonplussed. "Japanese silk. Imported."

"Of course."

An unknown entity hovered behind the pressure of her gaze. It danced behind the feline curve of each eye and willed him into discomfiture. But instead of receding beneath the force of her concentration, Grissom responded to the jesting taunt by removing his glasses and placing them on the nearby dresser. Lady heather observed this development with an intensity of amusement that perturbed him.

"See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil," she softly relayed.

"Well, I didn't think we were going to talk all night," he confessed with the conviction of a wayward altar boy.

"Why bother," Lady Heather returned. "When actions serve far greater purpose than words. In my field of expertise you soon learn what to look for, and you Mr.Grissom, don't whisper to me. You shout."

Her breath was hot now against the back of his ear and without desiring to, Grissom arched into the brush of her lips. He felt that she had something to tell him and maybe even to teach. There were so many missing pieces to his life that it seemed to be comprised of nothing more than a child's discarded jigsaw puzzle. Cast off without a second glance and labelled to all as a bore.

"You are a scientist. You like experiments, but not in the bedroom. There you leave no room for doubt. You want certainty. Trust," Lady Heather's voice caressed his deafness with the strength of its conviction.

"So you come to me because we have an understanding. We can make an agreement and there are unspoken rules. You can say stop."

"Actually," he replied, turning into her kiss. "You can say stop, and I'll know exactly what you're thinking."

Realisation unfolded itself within her and she breathed out distractedly. Grissom could almost see the working of her mind beneath its illustrious exterior. He placed a hand which had previously rested on top of the gluttonous folds of Asian covering onto Lady Heather's clothed thigh. A now familiar grin illuminated her face as she divulged her final lesson.

"You pick strong women. Not to become the submissive, but to ensure that there is infallible accomplishment to your dominance."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Present- Daylight- Grissom's townhouse

Childhood living

Is easy to do

The things you wanted

I bought them for you

Graceless lady

You know who I am

You know I can't let you slide through my hands

Wild horses couldn't drag me away

Her heart fluttered cautiously beneath its defence of soft breastbone, and through the glassy panel of the door she surveyed his approach. The focus of her concern weighed heavily upon her conscience and she resolved to address the situation abruptly, like ripping off a band aid, though infinitely more painful. She clumsily grasped at her opening lines as Grissom turned the latch, his face relaying a beaming invitation.

"I'm here to talk," she said, sliding her way into the living room.

"Sure," Grissom replied, capturing her mouth with his.

"Stop," she voiced, quietly at first as her anger built to a crescendo. "I mean it!"

He held her face in the cradle of his hands for a moment and took in the flash behind her unwavering stare. Grissom had never seen her this way before; she looked like a beautiful goddess of war- all fire and burning rage. But the heat of its glare seemed directed solely at him, and under such threatening intensity it ceased to be as arousing as his desire for her had presumed it to be.

"We paid a visit to a friend of yours today," she began in a pitch that seemed dangerously low. "Do you remember, Lady Heather?"

"Yes," Grissom said, suddenly aware he was standing on very thin ice. Damned in every direction.

"Good," Sara continued. "Because she certainly remembered you. Brass made the mistake of implying that I was your 'little lady'."

She sat down heavily on his couch and for a moment Grissom wished he could freeze time, or at least turn it back a couple of years. This thing. This relationship that he had finally begun to have with Sara was so fragile and new. He wanted to protect it from the enormity of this conversation which could potentially break them with its magnitude.

"What did she say?" He asked warily.

"Things I never wanted to hear in a million years," Sara bitterly returned. "In fact Lady Heather seemed to find that pretty funny, that I was uncomfortable. That I was hurt."

Her sentence closed on a whisper and she felt anew the callous ache of humiliation which had taken refuge in her heart since that morning's enlightening encounter. Sara had always taken pride in the fact that even if she was not the most beautiful woman in the world, she at least had a shot at being the smartest. But today she had been made to feel dumb, and worse still, laughably naive, like a public buffoon.

"How could you?" She agonisingly voiced in lament. "After all the things you used to say to me about rules and regulations. Isn't sleeping with a suspect, just a little bit hypocritical Grissom!"

"It wasn't like that," he sighed. "Don't make it sound so depraved. I was lonely and I was confused, and she was there."

"I was there, too," Sara said, fighting the broken catch in her throat. "But you picked her, and turned me down. So... why are we even doing this now?"

In the realm of that instant, Grissom hated himself for putting that contemptuous look on Sara's face and inspiring the cynical edge in her tone. The delicately sumptuous fawn of her eyes were glazed over and almost opaque, so far removed from the transparency he had found reflected there the few times they had made love. He would say anything to revert their violent transformation, but as always in his time of need, the words ceased to arrive. Instead, Grissom's enraged lover continued her splintering requiem.

"Unless I'm the consolation prize. Did Lady Heather turn down your offer of a lifetime commitment? Too busy with her virtuous career!"

"Sara---," he said, stretching out the syllables of her name to hang them like stars around the frosted room. "You don't understand, do you?"

Grissom lifted a hand to his temple and began to rub until he resembled the hyperbolic thinking man. As many before him had often done in times of trial and tribulation, he opted for his last resort in an attempt to secure Sara's wavering affection. They stood on the brink of the life which had slowly started to intertwine between them, too delicate to yet test its roots. He felt trapped, like free flying fowl in a tight fit of a cage, but the truth was whispering to him that it held a skeleton key.

"Heather was attractive. I won't deny that. I went to her because it was easy. There were no complications. No strings attached," he exhaled sharply, tortured by his own breath.

"But with you----," Grissom looked at her now, full in the face. "You are beautiful."

"You asked me out for dinner and I knew what would happen; I didn't have to wait and see. I would sit across from you, away from work, no distractions, and I would be forced to pay attention."

Sara laughed now, with an almost manic ferocity. Tears tumbled out with every exclamation until all noise quelled to a faint whimpering lodged at the back of her throat. He looked in wonder, bemused that his confession would have this effect. It was like witnessing the final result of a holocaust. Nothing but wreckage of spirit and ruin of soul, she seemed broken now.

"Am I such a chore to you, Grissom?" She asked, her voice dripping with disdain.

"No," he said, continuing to fight for her understanding. It appeared that while the battles seemed quick, the war raged on. "But you are a challenge. Things between us have never been easy. I was sure that if I stopped, and took the time to really see you, I would never be able to look away again."

Something inside of Sara softened and spread like a flower unfurling in spring. She wanted to believe the things he was saying, but the freshness of pain became a physical barrier blocking out any hope of faith. Grissom reached for her hand. He held it loosely and began to stroke small circles into the patterns of fine skin.

"And, I was right."

The kiss presented itself so abruptly that even if she had wanted to pull away it would have been impossible. Then there came the expected rush of longing which never failed to assail her under his duress. Grissom seemed everywhere at once, inescapably so, but the harsh retorts of Lady Heather still crazed through the synapses of Sara's mind. Sensing her retreat he spoke intuitively,

"So, she said I liked things you couldn't give me. That I needed someone with more experience, and you were practically just a girl----"

Sara shrunk away from the embarrassment of the repeated revelation and rose from her seat.

"But I never loved her."

In the arch of the hallway, she froze.

He was close now...

"When I was with her I didn't lose myself in her eyes."

Close enough to touch.

"And I have never wanted anyone----" Grissom continued, his nose lightly brushing hers in a chaste Eskimo kiss.

Close enough to embrace.

"-----The way I want you, Sara."

Close enough to claim for her own personal pupil.

The End

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