Chapter 2: Fun at the Movies
The gore in Dawn of the Damned II was cheap, the jumpscares telegraphed, and by the seven-minute mark, Jason’s focus had entirely abandoned the screen. He could hardly focus on the plot, which was weak, and somehow involved sorority girls and a stalker but also zombies at the same time?
He didn't care. He wasn't there for the movie.
His hand found Cathy’s thigh, his thumb tracing idle circles. He watched her more than the shambling corpses, savoring the way the projector’s light danced over the exposed slope of her chest. She still had her hoodie on, to stay warm, but she had it open, so he could see the way it hung open and loose. Jason had picked out a shirt this size on purpose. Too big, so it would hang open and loose.
“This is worse than the first one,” he whispered, his breath warm against her neck.
She shifted, and the movement causing the neckline of her shirt to gape. Jason’s focus narrowed to that shadowed crevice of fabric. A slow, deliberate smile touched Cathy’s lips as she settled back, letting the shirt stay as it was. The heavy silhouette of her nipple was plainly visible when the lights of the screen flashed bright. Someone on screen screamed as they were dismembered alive.
"It's so loud," Cathy murmured.
She leaned forward slightly, perhaps even unnecessarily, to pluck a small handful of popcorn from a tub sitting between them, wedged in slightly against his seat and his leg. When she sat back, the shirt had fallen off her shoulder entirely, so that her breast was exposed openly.
If Cathy noticed, she gave no sign.
The light of the screen flickered a cascade of blues and red, a zombie carnage in rainbow hues that illuminated the perfect curve of her small, bare breast, which Jason studied attentively in the dark. Her areola was a broad, wide circle of deep rose surrounding a nipple that was thick, pebbled, and starkly erect. He could see the goosebumps rising on her skin from the theater’s chill, or perhaps from his gaze. He almost made a joke about the cool temperature of the room, but he resisted, for the same reason that he resisted reaching out to touch her, even gently: it wouldn't do to spook her.
She had to know she was out. There was no reason to rock the boat by drawing her attention to it.
On screen, the violence abruptly ceased, cutting instead to a steam-filled bathroom. A young actress lathered herself under a pulsing showerhead, the camera lingering on every slick curve and water-beaded nipple with painstaking detail. The Asian woman in the seat directly in front of Cathy leaned toward her boyfriend, her whisper carrying clearly in the sudden hush. “See?” she said, her tone dry and unimpressed. “They're totally out of plot.”
The woman’s gaze drifted absently back from the screen, then caught on Cathy's pale, bare skin glowing in the dark in the row over her shoulder. Her eyes widened, pupils dilating with a jolt of recognition before she snapped her head forward, shoulders rigid. A thick, awkward silence followed, filled only by the movie’s canned screaming.
A moment passed before she was leaning furtively toward her date, her hand cupping her boyfriend’s ear as a frantic, titillated whisper escaped her lips, followed by a sharp, stifled giggle that somehow cut through the soundtrack.
If Cathy noticed this at all, or gave it any mind at all, Jason couldn't tell. She gave no sign of it. She seemed to be totally absorbed in the movie, which currently featured a naked woman running from a zombie horde in an abandoned hospital. sian
The couple in front of them slunk down in their seats. Their heads tilting with a synchrony that was anything but casual. Jason watched the man’s eyes, wide behind his glasses, dart from the screen to Cathy’s bare breast and back again, a hungry, guilty rhythm. A hot wire of possessiveness and raw pride tightened in Jason’s chest, his hand freezing on her thigh.
He wondered if he should say something, warn her maybe. Maybe she was waiting to see if he would.
Cathy reached into the popcorn tub again. That's all it took for the shirt to totally surrender, sliding silently down her other shoulder.
It pooled in her lap with a soft whisper, a useless heap of black cloth and lace resting below her belly button.
She settled back into her seat, the theater’s chilled air a direct kiss on her skin. She didn't seem to shiver. On screen, a zombie’s jaw was torn off with a wet crunch, but the sound was suddenly very far away. The Asian woman’s boyfriend choked on his drink, a sharp, wet cough he tried to smother into his fist.
“Jesus,” the woman breathed, the word not quite a whisper.
Her hand tightened on her date’s arm, her knuckles white in the strobbing light. Cathy picked a piece of popcorn from her lip, her gaze fixed ahead as if she were merely contemplating the bad CGI. Jason’s breath hitched, the raw reality of her exposure a physical punch to his gut.
“This okay?” Cathy asked softly, her voice a low hum meant only for him.
He could only nod, his throat too tight for words, his whole world narrowed to the twin points of her nipples in the frigid, public air. The couple was frozen, utterly captivated by the live show. A reckless, electric pride surged through Jason. Cathy seemed to be aware of their attention, even if she didn't acknowledge it. She let her head loll against the seatback, a motion that arched her spine a bit and pushed her chest forward into the flickering light. A soft, almost imperceptible sigh escaped her lips as they glanced back at her and then at the screen, and back at her.
Jason had never her seen her act like this before. Her eyes darted across the screen. "The CGI on that zombie is actually kind of pathetic," she murmured to Jason, her voice steady and conversational. He made a garbled sound in response. In front of them, the Asian woman was nudging her partner to turn back and pay attention to the movie, her interest or her patience with Cathy's bare chest exhausted. Finally he turned all the way around.
The screen flared with a sudden explosion, bathing the room in orange light that glittered off Cathy’s skin. Jason’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat syncing with the bad synth score. He let his eyes leave her for just three seconds, scanning the gloom behind them for silhouettes.
Rows of slumped heads, lit by theater glow, faced forward. Someone coughed. A distant, tinny laugh echoed from the hallway. His attention snapped back to her. Her posture was so casual, one arm draped over the empty seat beside her. “Think they’ll find the antidote in the morgue?” she asked, nudging the popcorn tub with her knee. Her tone was so normal, as if discussing the weather. The sheer incongruity of it made his head spin. On screen, a detective examined a slimy, pulsating organ under a lamp.
Jason forced his gaze up to the ceiling, then to the emergency exit sign. His palms were slick. “Probably,” he managed, the word tight in his throat. He exhaled a shaky release of air. “You’re incredible,” he whispered, his voice rough. He wasn’t sure if he meant her daring or her calm. She smiled and tugged the shirt back toward her shoulder in a futile gesture. The shirt fell, limp, not covering anything.The fabric settled. The movie droned on, a character now monologuing about viral transmission rates.
Jason didn’t hear a word.
At about halfway through the movie, trouble arrived. It wasn't security, which Jason had started to fear, because Cathy's tits were like, really Out There, especially when the screen flashed bright white light. You could really see them, even though they weren't huge and she was technically wearing sleeves. There was no denying those were bare breasts and big ol' nipples. Which made him hard. But also nervous, because security might have some kind of minor objection for some reason. But he couldn't make Cathy put them away, could he? Not when she was being so generous.
But it wasn't security that stumbled into the movie when it was halfway over. It was three hoodlums, eighteen or nineteen apiece, reeking of vodka and talking loudly. Their clothes were baggy, and they had deep, heavy voices. Each one was at least a foot taller than Jason, a detail he noticed almost immediately, even before the smell of vodka became pronounced. The three silhouettes sauntered up the side aisle and then stopped, suddenly.
They stopped at their row. At Cathy's row.
Cathy's breasts were still unveiled. Cathy refused to so much as squirm in her seat, as if she had no idea her titties were out at all. Jason tried not to stare, at Cathy or at the three tall, brooding young men. But his stomach dropped as they sat, in a cluster, at the edge of the row, two at the end, and one behind them, hovering. They were certainly looking. They were whispering, too, but the soundtrack had swelled and there was no chance of hearing their conversation. The vodka smell was a sharp, sweet cloud that reached their seats a full second later.
Jason kept his eyes locked on a zombie’s poorly-rendered skull, his jaw tight. Cathy just let her head tilt back against the seat, the line of her throat pale and vulnerable in the shifting light.
Jason looked her over from the corner of his eye. He tried to be discrete, aware now that both of them were under the watchful gaze of the trio at the end of their row. Cathy's cheeks were slightly flushed and her nipples were very, very erect. Not like she was cold. She leaned forward for a drink and snuck the quickest of glances at the three of them, like maybe no one would notice, and then settled back into her spot.
She made no effort to cover up, as if acknowledging her exposure would invite shame. Jason realized Cathy was performing for them, too. Playing out her little rationalizations for them, too.
“This part’s actually kinda good,” Cathy said, louder now, as if including the whole row in her critique. She took another slow sip from her straw, the ice clinking like a dare. Jason’s heart was a trapped bird beating against his ribs. The projector whirred, casting her in a sudden, stark white light that left nothing to imagination. She didn’t blink.
They were chuckling at the far end of the row. Jason strained to hear. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard some arrangement of the the words "itty" and "bitty" and "bitch," but he wasn't sure.
Cathy seemed oblivious to anything at all.