The Song Becomes the Swan

Note: Draft script from novel and graphic novel in progress:

"Theory of Constraints: The Uncertainty Principle" © Sarah Ottobre.

This is a sneak peak draft before the final prose.

Excuse any strange formatting or type-o's.

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  Aria is seen practicing her ballet form in a large dance studio. She is noticeably stressed about this huge performance coming up. The art director is seen shouting insults at her and the other dancers as they are practicing. He is a wicked man, tearing them down and throwing papers in the air. Luciano outside the door listening in. He pokes his head in the side of the doorway, he straightens up angrily ready to tear this man a new one. Aria sees him and shakes her head “no” towards him. He stops mid stride, nods and pulls back.

·         The practice ends. He walks in amongst the other dancers, and walks towards her.

·         Aria: “I’m sorry sweetie. He… gets into a tangent when we need to focus. It looks cruel, but it pushes us to give him our best. Please trust me.”

·         He frowns, and looks up at the dance instructor who is wildly shouting into his phone at a stagehand about the show coming up in a few days.

·         The other dancers look over at Luciano, a few giggling and blushing, they are waving to him “Hi Luciano!!” they say in unison.

·         He smiles and waves with his fingertips over at them. “..Hello little doves, I admit, I am so excited to see the behind the scenes, to see what happens behind the curtain. The show will be magnificent!” he says with a dazzling smile rising his arms up. They giggle and continue talking to themselves in a circle glancing back over at him several times.

·         Luciano looks back at Aria and says quietly, “But you? Bellissima….you are going to steal the show …like a phantom…. in the cool glow of the moon. You will sweep the audience off their feet.. and they will never return to earth, unable to breathe and haunted by your grace. And once you do? I am going to slap some sense into that idiot for talking to you and the ladies all in such a disrespectful way. He does not deserve to direct, he deserves to be put in his place.” He scowls at him, “Insecure twit. I don’t care for this Aria, I don’t care for this at all.”  He looks back at her.

·         She gazes at him with her big soft brown eyes, running her hand towards his. “I know it looks bad. As a performer…sometimes I have to be broken in order to be reshaped. To fit the mold, I have to be melted down. I get my revenge when I get my applause.” She smiles and kisses him on the nose as he stares at the art director, studying his face. “Aria, he doesn’t even need those glasses, there’s no lenses. He’s all show. Just a pretentious facade. And that is a knock off Rolex. What a joke. I don’t have respect for the likes of him, and that’s a dangerous place for him to sleep at night...Probably wrapped in cheap sheets from his mother…his only friend I’m sure…”

·         “Quit being so dramatic, hmm?” She grabs his shoulders and points him towards the door and leads him out of the studio by the hand, he is guided out by her long confident strides.

·         He is distracted. He looks over his shoulder back at him again.

·         Aria yanks his hand and yells under her breath towards him: “LUCA. STOP. NOW. …Behave.”

·         He jumps a bit, “Yes, my princess, I do apologize.”

·         She smiles and flicks his ear, he makes a small breathy noise of intrigue. He narrows his eyes at her, grins and kisses her neck glaring at the director as they disappear out of the room.

·         The next day, Aria pushes herself even harder, but she is exhausted. She leaps into a challenging jump, but lands wrong, and has a bad fracture in her ankle.

·         [expand this] She is at the hospital, the doctors tell her it could quite possibly end her career if not properly handled with intensive physical therapy.

·         While recovering, she watches her husband make serious progress at work and climbing the ladder, he is making leaps and bounds, as she is on the sidelines, unable to do her craft. She begins showing signs of being jealous of his effortless success as she struggles to do basic things around the house, hobbling around, with his help.

·         He assists her with some painful physical therapy exercises, and waits on her hand and foot. He really steps up. She is showered with gifts and he ensures she has an uninterrupted bath with candles and essential oils, with her favorite book, and a flowing robe he runs in the dryer to have warm and ready for her when she finishes the bath.

·         It is the night of the show and she is very depressed, she worked so hard for this performance and she is stuck home still recovering.  Luciano asks if she is up to going to the opera, she says “Absolutely. Anything to get me out of my head, please.”

·         She insists on wearing her stilettos. He finds an ornate cane for her to help her walk but she mostly uses his arm for support.

·         They go, and show panels of them sitting together, holding hands through the show, with tears in their eyes moved by the performance together.

·         They return from the opera, her in a beautiful red gown, adorned with black jewelry, with her hair pinned up in an elegance that fills the room. Luciano at her side, dressed in a dashing black suit with his own touch of faux fur around the neck. He is walking alongside her, with his arm around her as she leans into him, she’s slightly limping with the cane.

·         He helps her remove her long black coat, having a similar fur trim as his suit.

·         Holding her hand, he softly guides her to the couch and even fluffs a pillow near her as she’s seated. She watches him under her long seductive eyelashes, as he goes to the kitchen to pour them both a glass of wine.

·         He slightly bows down near her and hands her a glass. She takes the glass and he rises back up to sit next to her. He lights a stick of incense near them, quietly, with a very serious and tense look on his face suddenly.

·         The incense flutters ribbons of gentle smoke in the background. He is unusually quiet.

·         Aria looks at him. “Something, on your mind?” she swirls her wine, looking intently at his hands as they are hung in his lap, with a weight in his shoulders.

·         “Aria, my love. I must confess something to you.”

·         She looks at him.

·         He closes his eyes. “My heart is racing, I’m …ashamed, but I must…I must tell you.”

·         “What’s wrong my love?”

·         He waits, and looks away from her.

·         Luciano watches the smoke from the incense, and speaks quietly as Aria has a soft gaze back at him.

·         Luciano: “I want nothing more… but to give myself to you in my full …essence, though I’m hesitant, no, afraid, to reveal this…other side of me, to you.” He looks at his wine, and gulps most of it down in one large sip. “Oh what you may think of me, I am pathetic.”

·         Aria, follows along, a takes a large sip of wine herself. She turns to him closer and puts her hand on his. He squeezes her hand almost for reassurance.

·         She looks into his eyes, he glances up at hers, and quickly glances away shyly and returns his gaze to his glass. Luciano: “I can’t…I can’t stay quiet about this anymore. I don’t want to risk anything between our perfect chemistry…”

·         Aria: “Sweetheart, you must be making jokes? You? Quiet? I don’t know that you are capable of remaining silent, my little diva. And you are the embodiment of risk, and that is why I love you. You are a loud hot mess. Please, what’s troubling you? I’m not going anywhere, not unless you help me up first” she laughs, trying to lighten the mood.

·         He smiles weakly.  “You are right, of course. Though there are some monsters in me that I don’t release into the wild, [he flutters his hands outward] …for as much as I say, there is more that is locked away, for my own protection. I understand you feel very discouraged by your dependency on my help right now. If it gives you some sense of empowerment, I’d like you to know that, helping you these past few weeks…”

·         He takes a deep breath and exhales. “…My work can be so draining of my focus and willpower. It is exhausting to relentlessly lead my team, to direct, to push.  I feel no challenge with these people, they follow me around like lost children. I am not trying to sound so vain, but Christ they kiss my ass so much I don’t know how they have not given my ego an STD yet.

·         Aria laughs.

·         Luciano continues: “But that all changes when I leave. When I am home, with you, I ….can … let go. I can finally stop orchestrating, I can just …be. I relinquish my power, absolutely. And waiting on you like this, I can… become yours, I can be commanded, I can be…ehh… It is hard to say. With you, I have to actually make an effort, to put energy in, really engage with you. It is so freeing for me, to help you and serve you, it ignites almost primal urges to please you, to worship you, to impress you, to work for it.   I would love if we could possibly” he clears his throat and deepens his voice “maybe we could explore this… further…” He kneels at her side holding her hand, and kisses it like a nobleman.

·         She squeezes his hand in return, “It has been an adjustment for me to need so much, assistance, but you have never once made me feel like a burden. You are such a sweet and considerate man, Luca… Though have you forgotten, I know you very well. I have been reading your body language for some time now. You clearly love to spoil me, you seem to enjoy letting me have the authority which I am certainly not used to. When I dance, I’m critiqued over every minor detail of my movements, my form, my body, but with you? My sweet, you build me back up, you make me feel…like I have the effortless grace of a swan.  I never felt so feminine and strong at the same time.”

·         He holds her hands to his chest, “You are forever my Swan. I am so fortune to have met a goddess who dances with floating angel feathers gently across the earth, masquerading as a mortal woman.”

·         Aria: “How do you come up with this stuff, you make me blush!” She playfully pushes him a little and continues, straightening her posture, and narrowing her eyes with a grin: “Honey, I also read the messages you send me through your eyes, and they tell me what you dare not speak. I know there’s more to you, something you’ve been holding back, I can tell you’re trying to keep something reserved and hidden. So please, tell me, I had been waiting for this little revelation of yours. I just wanted to give you the power to bring it into the light…”

·         Luciano smiles sheepishly, and places his wine glass down on the table as he speaks. “Ah…Sharp as ever my love.”

·         He continues. “Ok. Let me think, how to convey what I mean. Hmm.. Yes. Imagine if you will… how much I hate that art director, Sven, right? How he talks down to you and the other dancers. He tears you down, berates you, mercilessly.  How I wish I could do something to make him speak more respectfully to you and the others, but maybe this can help me explain, how being insulted, belittled, sometimes even… humiliated…can in its own form… encourage, to break away, and surrender everything to something bigger than yourself, or even surrender to someone else’s firm guidance, even if it seems cruel in the moment, knowing in the end, it will simmer… and ignite…into something fantastic, something so unfiltered and raw in essence. It can be explosive, it tears you from the world and forces you to be submit to the moment.”

·         Aria: “And in that moment, nothing else matters, the only thing that’s real is…that moment. You become a breathing form of art, pain, passion, intimacy. The chaos, the power, the control, the trust, letting the another lead the way through fingertips and breaths.”

·         “Yes! Exactly. My love, our entwining bodies, can grip and strangle into each other as darkly and grotesquely as Baroque, we can liquefy and drip effortlessly into surreal expressionism, and finally drift into the abstract. We leave the world behind and become a shared canvas through shared trust.”

·         He smiles at her and moves his hand from hers, and runs it to her leg, and slowly down to her foot.  With great care, he slides off her stiletto. He takes her bandages off slowly, and kisses her throbbing ankle gently, and rubs the bottom of her foot in small circles while staring almost nervously into her eyes.

·         Aria closes her eyes as he continues silently rubbing her foot, never looking away from her. He begins sensually kissing the side of her leg, his dangling hair tickling her slightly. He continues: “I do not know your…familiarity with the subject I speak…being such a gentle woman, but…I desire you so terribly, I am urged to serve you, to take care of you. I feel such invigoration in my weakness over you.”

·         He starts to run his fingers up towards her inner thigh, but she lifts her other foot, still in her stiletto, and presses it into his forehead pushing him back. Aria: “You may be the master at work, you may speak as a poet…but you’re just a depraved little freak…repressed and craving something more…daring, something maybe… in the moral gray area, huh?” She bites her lip towards him.

·         He squeezes his eyes shut: “I beg you, be my dark princess. Let me be your pet. Use me, as you need. I am yours to be commanded, if you wish for it. I will only ask once, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable if you aren’t…”

·         Aria: “I’d like more wine, my pet.”

·         He is frozen in place with her stiletto pressing harder into his forehead.

·         She lifts her other leg from his hands, and intentionally runs her bare thigh against his neck as he lets out a sigh.

·         He swallows and reaches for her glass.

·         She pulls it away from him at the last moment, and gives him a dominating smile. She hands the glass back to him, and leans over and kisses his forehead where there is a small red mark from her stiletto.

·         He looks at her, “As…you wish…my angel, my…Swan…”

·         “Good boy” she says, as he takes the wine glass

·         Final panel, they are seen with their fingers touching, holding the wine glass. He is kneeling kissing her leg, as she sits tall in her seat, the incense twirling around them mythically. 

·         End scene.