In the final third of the movie, the remaining villagers turned on Roarke and Lisbeth, hunting them down and finally cornering them in the trap-laden cellar of the old castle. The deaths were gruesome and frequent, the suspense spring-tight.
Juliet inched closer to her dad during the worst of the gore, until her entire body was pressed up against his. He slipped his arm around her shoulders, his hand warm against her skin.
When Roarke was messily dispatched by one of his own traps, she flinched and pressed her face to his chest. He chuckled a little under his breath.
“Oh my god,” she said. “Is it over?”
“No, he’s still dying. Want me to describe it to you?”
“No!” She giggled.
The ending of the movie was consistent with everything she’d ever heard about the director. After a gruesome bloodbath in which Lisbeth killed a good half-dozen villagers, they finally caught her, bound her, and burned her at the stake. The final scene, in which Lisbeth burned while the crowd jeered and shouted, was protracted and merciless.
As the credits finally rolled, Juliet realized she’d been pressing her body hard against her father’s for several minutes. Her pulse was racing again, her breath quick – not arousal at Lisbeth’s death, but excitement at the raw violence and tension of the movie’s final moments.
She looked up at him, smiling nervously.
“That was intense,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he said. The screen had faded to black, and now the glowing white letters of the credits were the only light in the RV. She could barely make out his features in the gloom, but he was staring straight back at her.
“Did you like it?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. The director is kind of…”
“Messed up?”
He laughed softly. “Maybe a little.”
“I wasn’t really expecting a couple of those scenes,” she said. She felt awkward mentioning it, but at the same time, she felt an intense desire to talk about how it had made her feel. She knew that wasn’t appropriate – but at the same time, she didn’t entirely care.
“Me neither,” he said, running a hand through his hair. He shifted on the bed, uncrossing his legs. Some awkwardness in the way he moved drew her gaze, and she looked down to see the clear outline of an erection in his sweatpants.
She drew in a sharp breath. She looked back to his face again, saw the embarrassment there.
A forbidden thought raced through Juliet’s mind, sudden as a lightning bolt. The movie had aroused her. The scene between Roarke and Lisbeth in particular. She wanted to touch it. To touch him.
“It’s really late,” she found herself saying, almost as if the words came from somewhere else. “That was longer than I thought. I should go.”
She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay. But if she did, she didn’t know what would happen. What she might do, or try to do.
He reached out to touch her arm. She pulled away, slid off the bed, and went to retrieve her things from the RV’s passenger seat.
When she turned back, he was still sitting on the bed. He couldn’t stand. She knew why.
“I love you, Dad,” she said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”