Title: Our Secret
Author: mao
Disclaimer: The idea of Moulin Rouge! belongs to the incredible Baz Luhrmann and his staff. I am eternally indebted to him. The title of this and the clip at the beginning come from lisahall's song of the same name.
Author's Notes: This is just a little piece of meaningless fluff. Deal, because I am.
Warnings: Fun fun femmeslash, angst, sexual activity/thoughts.
Dedication: I've been charged with a less than holy mission: to write something happy. *snerk* This is the result. My dear sodding Faith, it's for you, love.
***
Every night, I die in her arms. As we reach the climax, my heart pounds faster and faster until it stops completely in that one achingly perfect moment. I look over her milky-white shoulder to the moon beyond, glowing like an opal in a diamond-lit sky, and I pass on, my heart stopped in my chest and my eyes still, staring past her as her body shudders and freezes above mine, her fingers deep inside me.
And in the morning, with the sun shining onto the copper of her hair, I am reborn. Like a baby, I wrap myself around her, my head on her chest, feeling the beat of her heart loud against my ear. She holds me in the glimmering sunshine, her breath hot and slow on my shoulder. I open my eyes, the eyes of a child, and see the thick fringe of her lashes against her cheek, casting a shadow down her pale skin.
She always wakes up when I move, so I hold still as long as possible, breathing shallowly, trying to freeze that one perfect moment where neither of us moves or breathes or is even really alive - that one moment before her eyes open and she too, is born again.
Then her eyes open and she looks at me - her eyes the colors of grass and a sky full of clouds and ripe olives - and her eyes hold such innocence for a prostitute, such - purity. I have a moment's fantasy of diving into her eyes, of swimming in among the flecks of color and dregs of honeyed thoughts left from her previous life.
And then she's up, and about business, getting bathed and dressed and helping my with my hair and makeup for another busy day. There's always another rehearsal, another show, another stupid punter.
But today, I'm sitting at the dressing table, applying kohl to my eyes when she comes behind me - I see her reflected in the clear, clean glass of the mirror - and places her red lips on my bare shoulder. It's just a brush - they're really barely there - but it sends a hot shock wave through my entire body as she pulls away, the tiny, rouged spot where her lips rested (only a moment ago!) growing cold in the chilly air.
She doesn't go far, though. Instead, she's fixing my hair, her delicate fingers wrapped in my chignon, white inside the black strands, smoothing it down where I had a few thin, struggling locks poking up from the otherwise immaculate style.
I think of the other girls, as her fingers send more of those shockwaves through my body (down the scalp, past the ears, reddening with it, through my neck at lightning speed, pausing at my breasts, right into the pit of me). Do they hear us, at night, in fits of passion long after the customers are gone? Do they imagine her, as I do, while bathing? They'd never guess that she has a mole on her stomach, or that the hair on top is actually two shades lighter than the hair below.
They may imagine her, but at night I get to die in her arms.
They must never know. Harold, Marie, the Stagemanager, the other girls; none of them must ever know. It was part of The Agreement, back at the beginning, when we were first in the same bed together, and her hands found their way to the lacings of my night-shift.
"They must never know," I told her. "None of them. It's Our Secret."
"Agreed," she said, then: "No love, either."
I shook my head, though I know she didn't see it in the darkness, so I spoke as well. "No love. Can't afford love."
They were words drilled into us since we were little, meant for the punters.
Don't love the punters, I want to tell her.
But I've fallen for her, I really have. I love the way her fingers look, wrapped in my hair, fixing my clumsy styling. I love it when she looks up at me across the stage, giving me a broad grin of her perfect teeth - and the way they glint that makes me tingle where whatever mark she left me the night before is located.
I simply adore her at mealtimes, when her famous voice enters discussions at a volume so low that at first no one hears her, then suddenly, when they realize what she said and the logic of her argument, agree with her completely.
I love you, I want to tell her as she plucks a comb from the table and tilts her head to look at my hair, wondering where to put it.
I adore you. I want to sing it from the rooftops, to dance with you onstage, to forget all about this stupid little Agreement. It doesn't have to be Our Secret anymore; I don't want it to be. I love you, I want to tell her.
But she's placing the comb in my hair, checking her lithe profile, moving towards the door. Her hair gleams over her shoulder, only a couple shades darker than her dress, glinting in the sunlight. I have to tell her now. It'll be easier if I do it sooner.
"Satine?" She pauses, turns to me.
Smacks me in the face with the perfection of her beauty.
Just say it.
Let's drop The Agreement.
I love you.
"Thanks," I touch my hair and smile slightly. She inclines her head, gives me the vaguest hint of a grin.
"Anytime."
And then she's gone.