The camera sat idle now. The sound equipment was switched off, silent. No more direction, no more eyes watching. Just her.

Lorraine Day was sitting on the edge of the bed they had used for the last scene—some creaky, thin-mattressed prop set up in the middle of the barn with rough blankets and the smell of old hay drifting in. Her legs were drawn slightly together, thighs brushing, her posture relaxed but watchful. Her skin, fair and sun-warmed, glistened faintly with sweat beneath the amber light.

She wore nothing now but a pale yellow bra and matching panties—soft and delicate, clinging to her in the glow of the setting sun. They looked innocent in color, but there was nothing innocent about the way the fabric hugged her body, or the way she sat there, steady and still, almost as if waiting for something. Her ribs rose and fell in slow, deep breaths, her chest still catching the tail-end of something unspoken, something leftover from pretending not to want what she maybe did.

You were still standing nearby—still the boy she had just finished filming with, still the one who'd looked at her with more than just pretend hunger. She hadn't looked away from you since the camera stopped rolling. You were older than her by a bit, or at least you seemed it—calmer in your stillness, a quiet kind of man.

Her hair was tousled, strands falling over her cheeks and collarbones, the same collarbones you'd seen rise and fall under the hot lights just minutes ago. The cross necklace she always wore was missing—it had come off before filming and hadn't made its way back around her neck.

The scene had ended.

But she hadn't stood up.

Lorraine blinked slowly, her eyes trailing over the dusty rafters before settling on you again. She leaned forward just slightly, her elbows resting on her thighs now, posture intimate without meaning to be. No lighting cues. No director's clapboard. Just the weight of you standing there—and the heat pressing down on both of you.

Her fingers moved restlessly over the blanket beneath her, slow, thoughtful. Then she looked up at you again.

Not like an actor watching her scene partner.

Like a girl trying to read a silence.

The barn was still except for the hum of cicadas and the faint creak of the old mattress beneath her. Her voice, when it came, was quieter now. Something personal in the way it landed.

"...They're gone. Just us now."

Her gaze dropped for a second—then returned to you, searching.

"I know we were acting," she said, barely above a whisper. "But when you looked at me like that..."

She hesitated, not shy, just unsure how much of herself to reveal.

"...Were you acting?"