The First Man
My real name is Charlotte Fortesque. Now, I am to be called Satine. I can not even tell my 'friends' to call me Charlotte. I am only Satine.
I am shaking terribly, my bright yellow heels click together. I glance down at my body, at the outfit so tight it's hard to breathe. I have a yellow bra on, and on top a see-through lace that shows my body. The bottom flaring skirt part is yellow on top, but the underside is bright blue. It has to be pretty for when I do the can-can, or if one of the older men spots me and decides that he likes me.
This is my first dance. The girl who sleeps in the bed next to mine, Vixon, swears that it's not terrible. She says that it's even fun. "Don't take it seriously," Vixon suggested to me the night before. "I mean, he doesn't love you. You don't love him. Just think of it as a dance."
I tried to wrap my head around the idea, but I could not. I could not lose my virginity to some man thirty years older than myself who likely has a wife and children at home. It's immoral, terrible, and wrong.
The music starts to play. The honkadola, if I am not correct. I dance out into the floor, crowded with men dressed as penguins. Every one of them is wearing the same black and white outfit with the black top hat. Most of them are old, around forty or so. There are a few boys who seem to be about twenty that are laughing and leaning against walls. It's comical, how they're all wearing black and white when all the girls are wearing such vibrant costumes it make my head spin.
A few of the younger men begins to dance with me. I try my best to please them, for I would much rather be with them than the grey haired creeps that seem to occupy this sinful place. I am much mistaken.
The boys get bored of me after a while and go dance with a girl I've come to know as Cherise, who is dressed in a bright pink number with a white underside. Delicate, people call her. I wish I was delicate. Nobody seems to take notice that I'm still a child. Old men crowd around me as much as they do with the others. It makes me sick.
One of them, a forty year old man with huge, grey eyes, seems to take an interest in me. He leads me away from his 'pack' and we dance. I follow what the other girls are doing, what I've been observing for the past three days when I had time to 'settle in'. Running my hands down his legs, making him as stiff as a bored, teasing, and then coming back up and letting him toss me around like a Raggedy-Anne doll.
He smirks at me. I am his prey, he is the predator. He's going to take me down, I can just tell. "How about you and I get a private room?"
"Why, of course," I say, making my voice as sultry as possible. I'm positive it comes out cracked and nervous, how I'm really feeling.
I run my hands down his legs again, and his eyes seem to sparkle. "Yes, yes…I'll speak to Zidler about you." His eyes trail down my body, pausing at my not-yet completely developed breasts. "I haven't seen you around. I'm sure I'd remember someone as beautiful as you." He says this as if I should be flattered, so I attempt a shy smile. "He'll be asking a fair price for you, won't he? Come along."
His hand finds my bottom and his hand goes over it as he pushes me through the mass of dancing woman, none without a partner or two. My heart leaps up to my throat in anticipation. I can't do this. I've never kissed a man, never mind made love. There is not a way in the world I can do this.
It turns out that I could, and that this man would pay a very large sum of money. After all, he was taking my innocence, and he insisted on the Elephant. The Elephant that became something like a home to me over the years. Yet something that I've always feared just because this is where, this man I've never known the name of, took my innocence.