“In this scene, you’re going to step on him. Alright?” Cumbrick said. “Your motivation is…he just finished robbing your purse.”

The camera zoomed onto her feet, she picked them up from the sidewalk they stood on.

“You don’t want me to swing my ax, or like, tackle them or anything?”

“No. No. You’re an innocent house wife.” He said. “Just step on him.”

“Sir.”

“It’s director.” Cumbrick said.

“Mr. Director Sir.” She scratched the back of her head. “I’ve been stepping on people all shoot. It’s all I’ve done, is there any way…you know, I could do something else?”

“Oh. You want to do something else?” He asked.

“Yes! Anything. You know, anything.”

“Okay. Just walk.”

Her eyes narrowed, she took steps down the side walk looking left and right at the stage-help, the people who manned the crystal balls and who cajoled the fairies above to set the different sets of lights and sparkles down the set. And she just walked - down the sidewalk, with about three camera men (orb handlers, as they were) track the shot of her legs going down the street.

The director, licking his lips. And her, reading the silent words he mouthed but dared not speak.

“Beautiful. Slender. Pale.” He nearly came off the little foldable chair, the hat was on the arm rest next to him and it fell off. Cumbrick didn’t care, he kept himself poised forward.

“Alright. We need to have a word here.” She said and walked straight towards him, out of shot. Everyone, from sound to orb backed off with sucked in lips and faces of both fierce disappointed, and fierce trepidation. The director, after all, had his mouth open. His back was against the chair, eyes wide.

“What? Why’d you ruin the shot?” He asked.

“Can I talk to you, just for a second?”

She grabbed him by the arms and took him out of the room, out the set and towards a small room that was formerly a dressing place that was now an interrogation quarter. She sat him, he fell with a loud thump.

“What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that I’m not acting.” She said. “How am I supposed to get famous off my feet?”

“I didn’t hire you to act, Susan.”

“Cecile.”

“Sibia.”

“Cecile!”

“Seasaw. I didn’t hire you to act, alright?” He asked. “I hired you as a kind of…stunt woman. You’re here for a couple shots and here to get paid, wasn’t that the point?”

“So you lied?”

“I didn’t lie. I’m paying you, if you’d just let me film.”

“Film my feet, you mean.” She had her arms to her hips. “You some kind of pervert?”

“Me? A pervert? You’re calling an artiste such as myself, a pervert?”

“I ain’t calling you an artist.” She said. “I’m calling it how I see it, and you’ve got a perverts glare about you. I mean look - you’re drooling.”

He looked down to the spots on his pants and wiped his chin of the growing spittle.

“If you’re not going to act, then there’s no point in casting you.”

“You just finished taking three hours worth of film of my feet.” She stepped forward. “You wasted my time, I expect my pay.”

“I’m not giving you your damn pay. Alright? Go take your ass out of here, go to the butcher shop you she-goat bitch.”

And it was like her face just went red. She kicked him down from his chair, he fell and the wood shattered to splinters. Down on his face she went, her heavy hoof stomping him into the ground and forcing an indent into the floorboards below. She stepped on him, over and over, until the sweat grew on her.

She huffed, retracted her sole from his mouth.

He looked up, bloody nosed and red.

“Don’t stop.” He said.

“You fucking pervert.” She grabbed him by the coat.

“Wait. Wait. I didn’t mean like that!”

And she bent his bones in ways they shouldn’t have.

“No, no, not like that!”

He screamed. He snapped. He fell wheezing. When she was done, she stepped out and looked to her side and the growing crowd that surrounded the propped open door that squeaked at the hinges and went in and that…slow-like.

“Is everyone a fucking pervert in this town?” She shot her arms down. Stomped through. No one stopped her, no one even tried.