Private Screening

By S. Faith, © 2008

Words: 2,650

Rating: MA / NC-17

Summary: Bridget pulls some strings for a surprise for Mark.

Disclaimer: If wishes were horses… I'd own a righteous set of characters.

Notes: Helps if you've seen "The Renoir Theatre" deleted scene from EOR.

The last of the finished stories that got piled up… as I wait for my new computer to arrive. After it does, I'll be a little busy with that for a while :)

The street in front of the office building was empty but for the mute visual chaos of a wall of television screens all tuned to the same thing: today's broadcast of "Sit Up Britain". Mark Darcy, though annoyed, was not surprised that Bridget Jones was not there waiting for him as he'd asked. He'd found in the month they'd been dating that she was frequently if not constantly late to every arrangement they'd made. He blew frustrated air out through his teeth and told himself she'd probably be down any moment.

When she didn't appear after five minutes, he decided it was time to phone her mobile. She picked up after a few rings.

"Oh, Mark, I'm sorry," she said immediately. "The time got away from me."

"Don't apologise," he said, "just get your things and come down."

There was a pause, then some rustling. "Um, Mark, I've got something I need to bring home with me, but it's a bit heavy. Will you come up to carry it down for me? I've already told the guard you're coming. Tenth floor."

He stared at the television screens. A dark-haired man was reporting from a dog show featuring fancy dress costumes for the canines. "Fine. Give me a moment."

He stepped through into the lobby; the guard waved at him and buzzed him through. Mark smiled politely at him, though it made him a little concerned about the security in the building.

He took the lift up and when the doors parted, she was waiting there for him, a strange grin on her face. "Come on," she said before she turned and walked away.

He was immediately suspicious. "What are you up to?"

She turned back to him, looking a bit disgruntled. "Mark Darcy," she said in a scolding tone. "What makes you think I'm up to something?"

"Your vehement defensiveness kind of gives it away."

She pursed her lips. "It'll be worth it, I promise."

He felt like digging his heels in and refusing, but refrained from doing so. Probably she wanted to show him her latest report before it aired; while he didn't like to discourage her professional efforts, there were only so many reports about celebrity babies he could take. "I hope this won't take too long. I'm feeling really peckish."

She grinned and bounced a little on the balls of her feet before beginning to walk again. "Just follow me." He quickly went beyond paranoid straight to scared.

She led him past her desk and deep into the bowels of the production office, into areas he had never even seen let alone heard of. "Where on earth are you taking me?"

"We're almost there," she said cryptically. He decided to follow in silence, wondered if there was a kitchen nearby, as he could smell the unmistakable odour of microwave popcorn. She then stopped so suddenly he nearly walked into her. "Close your eyes."

"What?"

"I said 'close your eyes'."

"Bridget, what—"

"Mark," she interrupted dangerously. "Close your eyes so I can give you your surprise properly."

Surprise? He blinked rapidly, then thought he had better do as he was told or else, and as he did, she took his hand. He obediently walked along. He heard her push open a door, then presumably she lead him through it; he could tell through his lids that the room was dimmer than the hallway.

"Okay, stop." He did as told. She then took him by the upper arms and appeared to manoeuvre him into some sort of position. "Okay, now sit down," she said, her voice laden with anticipation.

He reached behind himself for the arm of the chair to somehow get his bearings, found it, then lowered himself into place.

"May I please open my eyes now?"

"Not yet. I'll be right back."

He sat there, in the dark, all alone with his eyes closed. He quite frankly felt a little foolish as he wondered what this payoff was going to be.

He heard the door open and close again, heard her footsteps come closer, then heard her take a seat next to him. "Okay," she said excitedly. "Open your eyes."

He did, and he had to say that opening his eyes did not solve the mystery as well as he'd hoped. They were in a room with about a dozen chairs of the sort one might see in a cinema, facing a broad expanse of screen, also as in a cinema. They were smack in the centre of that first row, and there was a large bowl of popcorn on the seat beside him. "Where in the world are we?"

"We are in screening room number three," said Bridget; even in the poor light of the room he could see her eyes shining, the broad grin on her face, like she couldn't contain her excitement.

"Might I ask why?"

She held up what appeared to be a little remote control, pointed it towards the back of the room, and pushed a button. "Sit back, relax, have some popcorn, and enjoy."

He had no earthly idea, none at all, of what was going on until the lights dimmed even further and an image appeared on the screen. It was only then, only when the words "FOR CINEMATIC REVIEW ONLY" appeared along the bottom edge as the opening titles began to fill the screen with foreign characters, that he had the slightest inkling of what her surprise was.

"This isn't—"

"Shh," she said.

The captioning at the bottom confirmed his suspicion. It was The Silent Warrior.

"Bridget, how on earth—"

She shushed him again, reaching to take his hand, grasping it tight.

………

The film was everything he'd hoped it'd be and more, as beautifully shot and plotted as a Kurosawa film; he understood at once why it had been banned for so long, as it did not paint the British government in a particularly friendly light. He was still contemplating the intricate storyline and implications of the conclusion of the film when he glanced over to Bridget, preparing to thank her profusely, when he realised she was very subtly drying under her eyes.

He only smiled, touched that she was so similarly affected by the film. He then turned in his seat and reached to cup her cheek, pulling her closer to him to give her a tender kiss. "I don't know what you had to do to arrange this, but this was… the best surprise I could have ever asked for."

She looked beyond pleased, verging into smug, and placed her hand atop his. "I'm glad."

He kissed her again. "Thank you."

"You're very—"

He interrupted her with another kiss, pulling her into his embrace with the shared arm between them. Into her ear he whispered, "I'll have to think of something extra nice to repay you for this."

He pulled back to look into her eyes. "I trust you will," she said with a smile.

There was a devilish sparkle in her eyes as she said it that made him feel a little playful in return. They were, after all, alone. He leaned forward once more to kiss her, the fingers of his left hand drifting down to brush against her right leg, his other hand gently grasping her left hip, tugging her closer. He could only get so far with the damn armrest though.

And then suddenly, it was gone, flipped up and out of the way, he guessed, by the pressure of his forearm on the underside of the armrest; she took full advantage and twisted herself so that she could put her arms around his neck, and they kissed one another again and again until one kiss not only blended with the next but subsumed it. He slipped his hands up and around her waist, his fingers brushing against her bare skin where her top had ridden up, raising bumps on her skin. Her nails combed through his hair as she turned so that her knee rested upon his thigh; with the extra bit of reach she bent to tease his earlobe with her teeth.

They each broke away from a hotter and heavier kiss than either bargained for. "Hmm," she said in a near-whisper, her nose touching his. "Never pictured you as the 'snogging in the theatre' sort."

"I'm not," he replied huskily, "or at least I didn't used to be, but you seem to have had a very bad effect on my self-restraint."

"Is that so?" she asked, mocking him with exaggerated disbelief.

That was a challenge he could not back down from.

"Hmm, yes," he said, low in his throat. "For example," he continued, pausing for effect, "I would have never considered doing this in a theatre before I met you."

"Do wha—ohhh," she said, interrupting herself as his right hand dove beneath her skirt and he pressed the pads of his fingers against the heat between her legs, quite evident even through her tights and pants. "You are very naughty," she gasped.

"I learned from the best," he said, pressing harder.

"Downright evil," she said, capturing his mouth with hers again as she deftly moved to straddle his lap. As his hands circled around to hold her hips, she leaned into his undeniable firmness. He broke away and moaned.

She asked, grinding into him, "How far are you willing to go in a theatre now?"

"In this theatre," he said, feeling sweat beading along his hairline, "it would depend on two things."

He felt her fingers reaching for his trouser button. "And those are…?"

"Whether or not there's anyone in the booth up there," he murmured, "and how fast you can get those bloody tights off."

She reared her head back with a laugh. "Faster than you'd think." She scooted up and off his lap; he could just make out her form shimmying out of the tights, tossing them to the side, before she resumed her position.

"I'm impressed," he said, then teased, "Makes me think you might have done that a time or two before—"

"Shut up," she said, pushing down the fly of his trousers, then leaned to press her breasts against his chest fully, and kissed him thoroughly. One hand's fingers wove into his hair; the other slid between them to reach into his boxers to encourage him out. He slipped his hands around her bare arse as she got up on her knees just enough to guide him to her. She then went down on him.

The simultaneous groan this elicited broke the kiss apart. She made a soft sound of amusement before sighing again, nuzzling into his neck as she moved rhythmically on his lap. As she moved faster, as her breath got more ragged, she tossed her head back; he was then able to lavish her neck with soft yet hungry open-mouthed kisses, grazing the skin of her neck with his teeth as he pressed his fingers hard into her backside, wanting her closer than was probably possible.

It must have been something about the spontaneity of the tryst, the unlikeliness of the location, and the overwhelming love he felt for her that brought him to climax as quickly as he did, and she followed soon after, collapsing against him. He brushed sweaty fronds of hair from her cheek to place delicate kisses there.

"Very naughty indeed," she whispered. She then pushed herself away enough to better look at him, brought a hand up to caress his face before she briefly kissed him once more. As they sat there in the darkened theatre, gazing at one another, even in the low light he could tell she was veritably glowing, her eyes shining as she smiled at him. How had he ever considered her anything but the most beautiful woman he'd ever known was beyond his comprehension.

"My darling Bridget," he said quietly, running his hands over her back before pulling her close to him once more, his hand cradling the back of her head. "I—"

His declaration of love was interrupted by an unignorable rumbling in his stomach, and they both started to giggle as she pulled back to look at him again. She had a huge grin on her face. "You're hungry. I get it." Kissing him one more time, she rose up off of his lap; she quickly located her discarded pants and tights on the chair beside them. She slipped into the pants straightaway, but the way she was dancing about trying to restore the tights was almost comical.

"Bridget, don't worry about the tights," he said, righting and zipping up his trousers.

"Hope we don't look too disreputable to have supper out."

Declarations of love would have to wait for some other time.

………

After a brief visit to the loos to ensure they were in fact presentable to society at large, they departed her office building, he with her hand quite possessively in his. As they drove to the restaurant in peaceful silence, he could only reflect on just how surprised he'd been, how moved he was that she had gone through the trouble to pull this together just for his pleasure and happiness.

While it was true that they missed seeing the film when it was engaged at the Renoir Theatre because of her tardiness, and though he had been disappointed, in the grand scheme it hadn't been that big of a deal… yet here she had gone out of her way to make this happen.

He grinned as he considered he'd had not one but two delightful surprises in one night. He would definitely need to find a way to repay her.

"So," he asked over soup, "how did you manage to do this tonight?"

"What, the movie?" she asked, looking up at him, soup spoon poised before her lips.

"No, the other thing," he said, in a low teasing voice as she ate her soup. She drew the spoon from her mouth and smiled. "Of course the movie, darling."

"Well, it was all very mundane, actually."

"Mundane? How is arranging a screening of one of the hardest films to find, banned for over a decade—"

"I just had to concede a few unorthodox sexual favours; considering the movie in question, I didn't think you'd mind—" At the likely paling of his countenance, she laughed. "Kidding. I have a friend on the BAFTA committee and she loaned me their disk on the promise that this wouldn't end up on eMule. However," she said, pausing to reach for her handbag as he wondered what the hell 'eMule' was, "she didn't say anything about making a, er, private backup."

She pulled out a disk in a case. On the front of the disk, written in marker, was 'Silent Warrior' written in her charmingly sloppy script, followed by an assortment of hand-drawn hearts, Xs and Os, which seemed a little absurd given the subject matter, but he loved it nonetheless.

"Is this a copy for me?" He realised the obviousness of his question even as he asked it. "Sorry, sorry." He looked to her again. "Bridget. Thank you."

She beamed, then carried on with her soup.

"This really means a lot to me," he continued.

"Well, it was my fault we missed it in the first place, Mark," she said, flushing bright pink in a very adorable way.

"That is an excellent point," he said soberly, then cracked a smile. "Joking apart… I was never truly angry about that, but this still completely made my night. Thank you, thank you, thank you."

She giggled almost shyly. "I'm happy to have made your night, but honestly, it's just a movie."

He reached across the table and took her hand. "It is just a movie." He smiled, and the unspoken that isn't what I was referring to was communicated quite clearly as she smiled tenderly in return.

By his reckoning, he now had three surprises to make up for.

The end.