FADE IN ON --
1. NEW YORK, EXT. SKYLINE NIGHT
New York hovers on the edge of twilight. It is cold but seasonless, not raining but perhaps the streets are slick. There is the hint of a sunset but no horizon visible from between the tall buildings on narrow streets. The pace is rhythmic but not hurried.
JC is walking down an old crooked street, cobblestone mixed with new concrete sidewalks. He is wearing a long black wool coat, collar pulled up around his neck. The shot widens and street scenes blend together: First, the hustle and bustle of the financial district, bumping against execs with briefcases and secretaries in nylon blouses.
Then crowded, pre-Disney Times Square, skirting desperate hustlers and hookers and XXX-rated marquees. There are obvious come-ons from all kinds, but he is not interested, barely notices.
Then the TriBeCa of the '80s, when it was still considered unsafe, not edgy. There are only industrial, yellow taxis and sleek black town cars gliding by, no doormen, no one to dodge.
CUT TO --
2. APARTMENT BUILDING, INT. HALLWAY, BADLY LIT
He opens a big metal door and walks through a narrow, scarred hallway, quick cuts up several flights of stairs and the landings between.
CUT TO --
3. LOFT, INT. KITCHEN, NIGHT
He unlocks the door and steps into the apartment. It's a vast expanse of glass and chrome and black leather, Kandinsky and ebony-trimmed Japanese screens, and in the center of the loft is a large, low-slung bed with a simple iron frame.
CONTINUOUS --
4. LOFT, INT. WINDOWS, NIGHT
There's a wall of windows overlooking the very lower edge of Manhattan and the Hudson River beyond it. White blinds hang over half of the window, pulled down but levered open, and JC's profile and the room are flooded with moonlight.
CONTINUOUS --
5. LOFT, INT. KITCHEN, NIGHT
He shuts the door behind him and the first thing he looks to is the answering machine, a black and metal box the size of a phone book. The red LED display is flashing zero, zero, zero to the beat of the song. There are two clean, empty wineglasses in a chrome dish rack set on a black marble countertop.
CONTINUOUS --
6. LOFT, INT. BED, NIGHT
He crosses the apartment, stripping off his clothes. Under the coat is a gray charcoal heather double-breasted narrow-cut suit, a white button down shirt and a thin black tie with diagonal white cross-hatches.
He loosens the tie and pulls it off, and then yanks the shirt over his head, still half-buttoned, and leaves them on the floor behind him. He stands still, bare back to the room, looking out the window.
We see his pants fall slowly down his thighs and cut to them pooling around his ankles. Cut back to see the waistband of Calvin Klein white briefs. His fingers slide beneath the elastic on the underwear and push them down and out of the shot.
He turns and walks back towards the kitchen, naked and facing the camera, but only seen from the waist up.
CUT TO --
7. LOFT, INT. KITCHEN, NIGHT
He flips off the lights and grabs the big black plastic cordless phone from the counter.
CUT TO --
8. LOFT, INT. BED, NIGHT
He is lying on his back on the bed, lit only by the moon through the levered blinds, and as he moves he shifts in and out of the horizontal stripes this creates.
He pushes the comforter down and off the foot of the bed, and he slips under soft white sheets that hang around his waist. There are smooth, fleshy edits of his fingers on his chest, on the line of his neck, tracing his open mouth. Sweat gathers on his forehead and on his collarbone. His hand slides down under the sheets, which move in moonlit shadows. On "So come to me, yeah," he opens his eyes and almost glares, as if he's been interrupted. His knees come up, stretching the fabric tight across them. His shoulder moves slowly up and down, and his hand bumps the underside of the sheet. It's smooth, not jagged, though. Then the edits blur together and the movement is artificially, exponentially quicker, double the bpm, then four times faster. His skin quivers, the bed shakes.
Still moving his hand, he turns his head, and his eyes flutter open as if by accident and then float over into a direct look. Then his eyes unfocus -- "Baby here I come" -- drifting away as he arches his body all the way off the bed. He is breathing hard with his mouth open as he falls back down.
CUT TO --
9. NEW YORK, EXT. NIGHT
Cut back to JC walking through the city, searching, looking everywhere, almost guilty but mostly desperate, Tom Cruise's walk of shame in Eyes Wide Shut. The pace is faster than the earlier street scenes but close to what it was in the bed. He seems harried, almost chasing himself in circles. It becomes obvious that he does this every night -- there are slight variations in lighting and time of day and location and his clothes, but what changes is that he never finds what he's looking for. The camera is a step ahead of JC, and in a close headshot he is singing, speaking, quite clearly and almost fiercely. He is determined to make things happen the way he wants. He strides down the street, never breaking his stare or looking down. People cross in front of him, behind him, and he doesn't notice. He's daring you to tell him it won't happen. He blinks as if surprised to still be the center of attention, and sings intently at the camera, and keeps walking.
SLOW FADE TO --
10. LOFT, INT. BED, NIGHT
Dissolve back to JC lying in bed. He doesn't sing in this section except where there are words, and even then he barely moves his lips, and his eyes don't really open. He is slowly curling up onto his side, pulling the sheet up around his ribs. He reaches his hand out to the cordless phone, which is lying on the other pillow. He touches the plastic tenderly and stares at it as if he can make it ring.