harlots kiss better
| Ideals are pretty stars; small and sparkling and faraway. Temptation is the moon, big and bright and always close by. |
Note(s): This is inspired by the music of Lana Del Rey and the performance of Anne Hathaway as 'Catwoman' in Batman: The Dark Knight Rises. Comparisons between both ladies and the personification of Belgium are easily drawn, so let me spell it out for you dears.
Warning(s): femme fatales, cat burglars and billionaires; the Color Police universe; thievery, mild violence, flirtation and double entendres, winks at the Batman-universe, etc, etc.
Pairing(s); Spain x Belgium x Germany and Austria x Hungary x Prussia; mentions of other pairings, just keep your eyes open.
Summary: there's nothing worth stealing here – what about a kiss? /SpaBel, GerBel; cat burglar & billionaire!au; WIP/
I hereby disclaim any rights.
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money is the anthem of success – so put on mascara and your party dress
National Anthem; Lana Del Rey
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Before reality and tragedy decided to blend together into an unfortunate car accident, dragging both of her parents down to the bottom of the river, she used to have a million-dollar genuine smile and dimples in her bulb, rosy cheeks. Her mother, God bless her soul, would sit her down before the bathroom mirror and apply luscious streaks of red upon her plump childish lips; velveteen scarlet, attractive vermillion, Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent, the finer cosmetics in life. She always told her to avoid the 'wrong' type of crowds and cross your legs like a lady, darlin'. Mommy dearest bought her designer doll-dresses and petticoats and she'd gush about how irresistible her little girl looks in that particular shade of pink. –she mostly wears black now, though- Her older brother, she hasn't seen him in ages; probably sellin' low-class cocaine in alleyways behind the casino to the upper echelon frat boys again, would scoff and complain about the long hours in the shopping center, trudging from Madden to Versace with fashionable boutique-bags and shoeboxes.
Fairytales end with a happily ever after, but when even that's over, the memories are often sour and sting like salt in open wounds.
Things turned vile from the point two uncharismatic, disgruntled police officers knocked on their mansion's front door and informed them of their parents' passing. Her older brother didn't comment when the reporters came hollerin' and inquirin', merely slammed them out of their lives with a forceful, adamant expression. Chopin's Marche Funebre was the anticipated funeral song and she pawned her first cigarette from her sibling after the ceremony was over. They weren't allowed to go to the mortuary; they had to pay their final respects from the first row of pews and her tears rolled over her face, drawing stripes of watery black. Daddy's heritage was devoured by money-starved lawyers, board members, the IRS and family members with good intentions. Guess what the road to hell is made of? Exactly.
Social services, good people with lousy paychecks, tore the remains of her family to shreds when the youngest, a child who could already distinguish proper vintage from supermarket brands, got sent to the cousins Bonnefoy in Paris; he was still moldable, possessed a memory slate with a few dents that could be straightened by new fresh faces. Older brother got a part of the heavily damaged trust fund and packed his bags to a prestigious university's dorm room. He graduated in illegal trade with a keen sensible nose for dirty money; he promised her he'd open an off-shore bank account in the Bahamas for her. Another way to launder the cash clean, she supposes.
Her household name was slandered when certain members of the board of her father's company were sentenced for large-scaled corruption and nepotism; several branch-corporations had to lay off several hundred employees in result to still book profits and the tabloids were all over the scandal, ruining daddy and mommy's goody two-shoes images one offending statistics report at a time. Her former friends, those girls with Louis Vuitton purses and faux-innocent Bambi eyes, avoided her like the plague. 'Wrong' people picked her egg-shamble self-esteem off from the floor, piece by piece, and pushed her onwards, propelled her towards forging ID's, shop-lifting, pick-pocketing and faking million-dollar smiles.
Diamonds always have been a girl's best friend; they're forever and they don't judge what the presses twitter and publish on the net. They never stray and they look prettier around one's neck than a fellow female.
Under the tutelage of Wang Yao, a Chinese master-thief and con-artist, she skips through art galleries and gala's in fancy cocktail dresses; charmin' and chucklin' her way right into the core of the Prado's security system in Madrid and leaving Spain with a priceless Rubens rolled inside her travelling bag. There's always a market for everything, he once entrusted her over a steaming bowl of spicy noodles, the market just isn't always available for the general public. Knowing where to look for an actual buyer isn't all that hard, she discovered, being a stunning blonde with Marilyn Monroe-flair just helps the cause. Her mentor retired from the actual action a few years back, mostly busying himself with selling, but he still runs an official pawnshop in case the U.S. government comes knocking down the doors. She sometimes contributes to the business with a ruby-encrusted bracelet here and an antique, state of the art sculpture there.
Her mother used to warn her about dating, telling her that an artist would break her fragile heart; she dates Hollywood's most-wanted actors, CEO's and oil-magnates and allows them to spoil her, Prada sunglasses, dear? Latest collection! Break 'em before they break you. Scarlet lips and a full pout, gentlemen prefer whoever, whenever, wherever as long as whoever is discrete and doesn't come knocking for a paternity test. Sitting ducks, the lot of them, and she always carefully doses how much she takes before she ditches them with crocodile tears, gentle caresses fleeting over the knuckles of their fingers and oh, it's not me, it's the fame.
(Fame ruined her before, now she's ruining them. Lex talionis; a fortune for a fortune.)
On a party mid-August, always a party with exquisite bubbles and hors d'oeuvres and flashy click-click red carpets, she intended to stay low-profile; perhaps grabble a few Rolexes for the sheer thrill of stealin', but that's all. Honest. Until she found herself waltzing away on the tunes of Strauss in attractive arms, decked in Armani or whatever up-to-par with the latest socialite trends. He was devastatingly handsome, slicked-back blonde, baby blues, and obscenely wealthy. Priorities, she thought to herself, because that was Ludwig Beilschmidt, the heir to the most prestigious car-manufacturing company in the world, and if she could lighten his pockets… Another notch on her bedpost, except not really. He didn't do girls, he was geeky and blushed at the sheer mention of a night between the sheets and he was a skilled tactician but a dork in relationships. She shouldn't like him.
He was head-over-heels for her teasing and tempting, for how her searing kisses bruised his lips and made them bee-stung red, for how she could make a sexual innuendo and his peers were shaking with loud guffaws and he just modestly turned his head to avoid everyone seeing the pink dusting over his cheeks. She would smirk knowingly and give his hand a tender squeeze and maybe, if she wasn't who she essentially was, he could've been her type.
Tabloids were literally all over the mismatched couple that she and Ludwig constituted; she, the poor girl from the ruined family, the shootin' star of Wall Street, the wishes don't come true and he; the German prodigy, favored over his older irresponsible almost-alcoholic brother, excelling in finance and management and sports. Her older brother called her from Bolivia after one paparazzo managed to snatch an intimate moment between them, capture them kissing on camera and published the photo in some ambiguous magazine; he claimed he was happy for her, that she managed to rise from the ashes and reel in one of the hotshots. She didn't have the heart to confess Ludwig would be another heist. Another check please.
Way before shacking up with mister CEO of Beilschmidt Enterprises, her eldest sibling once asked her why she was so hell-bent on livin' la vida loca, on double-crossing the rich and famous and emptying their bank accounts with her belladonna looks. She had bit her bottom lip, staining the surface of her teeth rouge and had swayed over to the balcony to regard the marvelous panorama over Madrid which the five-star hotel provided her with. She had answered she liked the thrill of clutching something just out of reach even if she isn't supposed to, she said she wanted to get back at the world, to take back what fate pulled away. He huffed, don't go in self-righteous, it isn't our thing and bid her goodnight. She threw the cell phone onto the boulevard below.
Companionship works wonders for her adrenalin, she noticed, she often goes wandering about in closed museums late at night while telling sweetheart Luddy that she's going to stay over at a girlfriend or visit a family member off-state or whatever excuse she can think of in five seconds flat. She makes a beeline for a shady pawnshop and asks politely for Kiku Honda. He's affiliated with her former mentor, he provides her with the latest technological equipment to get around the high-tech security systems and he occasionally hacks into the camera's software to create a loop in case she gets too much in view. They split the profit and she basks in the triumph of another success. Boyfriend's kissing her cheek when she comes home and inquires politely, sweetly, affectionately if she had a wonderful time. Her smile stretches when she informs him she had a blast.
Tonight will be the usual, she thinks instantly when her beau informs her that they're invited to the most-discussed ball of the year. People with a dirty conscience and a nice amount of dough seeking to purge themselves of ill thoughts about inflicted poverty and resignations, they swarm towards the Edelstein charity case; they want their pictures in the newspapers and the stocks of their companies up-up-up the following morning. If they're so keen on donating, she doesn't mind to collect once in a while.
She's careful in applying her Lancôme mascara, slicking her lashes with vibrant black and experimentally blinks to avoid smudging. Now really, it'd be such a pity if she'd manage to appear sloppy in contrast with her impeccable beau; Ludwig always manages to look so terribly, tragically handsome in a suit, the material hugging his defined muscles and frame just painfully right and, gosh, the spotlight will form a halo around his honest no-nonsense face. She smirks as she thinks about all the silly socialites staring, awing and gasping at his entrance on the red carpet, why, those poor gemstones around their necks might be left unattended. Casting a glance at her Blackberry to confirm the time, she gracefully slides away from her boudoir and saunters over to the leather Louboutin slingbacks in the walk-in closet.
There's a faint screech as the door to the majestic bedroom in the penthouse opens, the hollow light clings to an impressive gray silhouette from behind. The corners of her burgundy-painted lips creep up into a smirk as she regards the golden hereditary cufflinks, chinking against one another like champagne glasses when he statuesquely walks over to her. His warm hand is on her bare shoulder, his hot breath fanning against the sensitive skin of her neck as the palm glides over her shoulder blade and there's that familiar silver thread of guilt unraveling inside her stomach.
"Liebling," Ludwig simply says in his authoritarian tenor, "We must hurry, we'll take the Mercedes to maximize our travelling options. Traffic will be wahnsinnig." A sigh tumbles from in between her parted lips, because her beau is always so punctual and so uptight.
She responds with a taunt, "Chauvinist." His eyes sparkle at the jest and the guilt expands, because he deserves better than her. From all the billionaires on the continent, she got the one with no foul intentions, the guy who actually reads the New York Times with a cup of all-American coffee in the morning, the guy whose heart she's going to break when she leaves him after someone mysteriously steals ten thousand dollars from his hidden safe.
But the vault behind the authentic Rembrandt is beckoning her and she kind of, sort of, likes the way his scowl fades when she laces her slender fingers around his wrist or the way lust swirls and blends unabashedly in those heaven-blue irises of his when she covets his jugular vein with her bare teeth, but she doesn't like him enough to stick around.
Besides, she reasons quickly as she puts a stray lock of gold behind her ear, the Edelstein charity ball is basically an all-you-can-steal buffet and the Mercedes is extremely convenient for a quick, unnoticed getaway. It puts her mind off wondering whether she'll ever find the guy who'll make her stay.
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This is a Work-In-Progress, so please be patient with me as I try to assemble a decent plotline and write everything down neatly. Also, give me your thoughts, opinions and, dare I say, criticism. Give them, I'm greedy :D