Two

Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Bayonetta and Jeanne were created by and are the intellectual property of Platinum Games. No copyright infringement intended.

Kaufmann knew that, out of all of Cereza's various self-destructive tendencies, her binge drinking was the one that would be most to blame for destroying her relationship with Jeanne. It was a complicated situation, one that would not be easily resolved, and so for the time being, he felt it would be easier to tackle a less challenging problem. Jeanne and Cereza arrived for their session at the usual time, and Kaufmann decided to ask Jeanne about one of her other great peeves.

"Jeanne, why do you object so strongly to Cereza's modeling?"

Jeanne replied: "She is capable of such greater things! Cereza is an Umbra Witch, just as I am! She has so much power within her, doctor. She could be a renowned hero! She could inspire all of humanity!"

"I inspire plenty of people!" Cereza protested from her side of the couch. "Hormonal males, mostly. They find me very inspiring…"

"Think of how much a better place the world would be if Cereza put her energy towards her true potential. It's been two years since you defeated Jubileus, Cereza. What have you done since then?"

"What have I done since saving the world? Oh, I am sorry. I assumed that saving the human species entitled me to relax for a little while. My mistake."

"She could be fighting crime, injustice, tyranny. Instead, she takes her clothes off and promotes fragrances and lingerie. How could anyone be content with that sort of life, when you know you could be doing more?"

"Cereza, are you content with your life?" prompted Kaufmann.

A wistful expression passed over Cereza's face. "Sometimes, when I'm walking about the house, I do wonder if there's more to life than fashion and materialism. I begin to ask myself whether I'm depriving myself of something more meaningful." She pondered this for a moment. "And then I trip over one of those big piles of money I have lying around, and I lose my train of thought."

"Well, Cereza, you like the money, and you seem to like the job," said Kaufmann. "Jeanne, should you not just be glad that Cereza has a line of work she enjoys?"

Jeanne shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I can't understand how someone would enjoy being treated like a piece of flesh! If you're so determined to be a model, Cereza, why can't you just do classy photo shoots? Your fashion shoots, those are nice. Very elegant. You look very sophisticated and intelligent with your spectacles and your suits. You don't need to do lingerie modeling or nude modeling. You don't need to objectify yourself. Does it not bother you that, every time you have a conversation with someone, that person has probably seen images of you in the nude? Do you not care what people think about you?"

"Of course I care about what people think about me, that's why I do it! My fans love my raunchier stuff! Imagine how they would feel if I stopped. They'd think I've forgotten about them!"

"Is it that important to you, what your fans think, Cereza?" asked Kaufmann.

"I'm very protective of my fans, doctor, I'll have you know. Jeanne, don't roll your eyes like that!"

"Your 'fans' don't care about you, Cereza!"

"That is not true at all. I get bundles of letters every week from all over the globe – "

"Yes, and most of those letters are from men telling you how much they want to bend you at a right angle!"

"That is not true! I get all sorts of letters! Little girls write to me, telling me how much they admire me! Women write to me to say how much I inspire them! And all of this despite certain people gabbling on all the time about how I somehow demean women."

"You do demean women!" barked Jeanne. "After you defeated Jubileus, you could have been a hero to billions of people. Instead, you made the, frankly, baffling decision to become a porn model!"

"It's not fucking porn! I'm a supermodel! I'm the biggest supermodel in history!"

"You're a joke!"

Cereza gaped in astonishment. "A what?"

"Now, hold on a minute, Jeanne," said Kaufmann. "You just called your partner a joke. I think maybe we should take a time out, let passions cool down a little…"

Jeanne ignored him, and went on: "You could have been an inspiration to the entire world! Instead, the entire world knows what you look like when you're naked. The entire world has seen you falling into street gutters, drunk. When you saved the earth, the human race was ready to accept you as an example, a paradigm. Now, the only people who look up to you are men who drool over your images, and women who know no better. Well done, you're clearly very proud of yourself."

Jeanne shook her head disbelievingly, as if astounded by her partner's stupidity. "What do you expect would happen if you suddenly put on a lot of weight, Cereza, hmmm? Your cherished fans would lose interest in you, and move onto some other, thinner, starlet. What would happen if – Nyx forbid – you were in an accident, and you lost your looks? They wouldn't care about you, then, would they? They'd find some other pretty little thing to fixate on."

Kaufmann noticed Cereza's chest rising and falling more and more rapidly. The Point Of No Return, he thought to himself. Well, it was nice while it lasted.

"Your legions of admirers don't give a damn about the real you, Cereza. They're only interested in your chest, your legs, and your posterior." Jeanne laughed derisively. "And you actually believe that, when people see you with your arse hanging out in magazines, they actually respect and idolize you? You already had respect, Cereza, and then you threw it away. You used to be a saviour, and now you're an amusement, a celebrity distraction. Why you chose to be this way, I'll never understand…"

Jeanne waved her hand dismissively, and folded her arms. She sank back into the couch, and fixed her eyes on some irrelevant object in Kaufmann's office.

Kaufmann turned his gaze to Cereza. She was glaring at nothing. Her lips were pressed together. Her chest was rising and falling. Her fingernails were digging into her knees. Kaufmann squinted, and noticed that her jaw was quivering slightly.

Eventually, Cereza emerged from whatever deep trance she had become engulfed within. She glanced around, and seemed to realize that it was up to her to allow the session to further proceed. When she finally spoke, her voice was just a whisper.

"I'm finished."

Jeanne turned to her from the far side of the couch. "I beg your pardon?" she asked.

Cereza looked at her. She was breathing unsteadily through her nose, and her head seemed to be bobbing about strangely. "I'm finished," she repeated, her voice slightly louder.

Jeanne's brow creased in confusion. "You're finished? What do you mean? I don't understand."

Cereza tilted her head towards Kaufmann. "The doctor figured it out weeks ago. I want out of this relationship, but I wanted you to be the one that dumped me. You haven't, so I'm taking matters into my own hands. We're through."

Jeanne gawped cluelessly at Kaufmann, and was met with stony impassiveness. She looked back at Cereza, her eyes wide and questioning. "What?" she asked.

()()()()()()()

Cereza stormed out the door of Kaufmann's office. Her gait lacked any hint of her customary elegance and poise. Jeanne came scurrying behind.

"W-was I too frank? If I was, I apologize. I apologize. I mean it, Cereza, I'm sorry. Are you angry, my love? I…I'm not sure why you're angry. What exactly did I say that was so hurtful? I'm not being sarcastic, I really want to know. Truly. Cereza? Cereza? Cereza?"

Cereza strode down the corridor, marching towards the elevator door. Jeanne hovered behind her.

"For Nyx's sake, Cereza, will you just give me some time! I'm trying, I'm trying to make sense of all this! I know I've offended you, I'm just trying to figure out exactly what it was I said that hurt you. I just need a minute to think of the proper, uh, apology, and I'm sorry if I said something that hurt you, it's just, I can't think if you won't stop walking, can we please just sit down and talk about this?"

Cereza prodded the button, and because the world was arranged in such a way as to make her seem effortlessly stylish and cool, the elevator was waiting for her at that very moment, on that very floor. The doors opened, and Cereza sauntered in. Jeanne pushed in after her, the doors ramming her sides as they slid shut again. Cereza pushed the button for the ground floor, and the elevator began to descend.

"Cereza, I'm sorry if my temper got the better of me. I was just upset, and I probably said something that I shouldn't have. I'm not, I just had a slip, I wouldn't normally…"

The elevator passed the third floor.

"You know I would never intentionally hurt you. I'm sorry. If you could just explain what it was that I said that upset you so much, you might feel better…"

The elevator passed the second floor.

"I didn't mean anything malicious. I think perhaps you may have misunderstood something that I said? You know that you mean the world to me…"

The elevator reached the ground floor, and the doors opened. Cereza stalked out into the lobby, and headed towards the exit. Jeanne hurried after her.

"I don't, you think, you seem to have the idea that I look down on you. I don't. I don't. I'm sorry if I ever give that impression, that's just the way I am. I know I come across as arrogant sometimes, but you must know that I idolize you, Cereza. Cereza? I'm not sure I really believed those things I said in that office, I, they were more ideas that I was just trying to make sense of…"

Cereza barged through the main doors of the building, and started walking across the car park. The doors caught Jeanne as she tried to slip through, and she pushed them aside.

"Did Doctor Kaufmann say something about you not wanting to…I didn't understand what he said. What did you mean when you said that? Cereza? Cereza? We both wanted…"

Jeanne's voice cracked. As she spoke, she became more and more shrill, attracting the attention of others in the car park.

"You bitch. You fucking bitch. I put everything into this relationship. I put everything into this relationship. I stayed up until three in the morning, wondering when you were going to come home, and all the time trying not to think about all these horrible possibilities whirling about in my mind. I have these videos playing in my head about all the people you've fucked, and I can't stop them from playing all the time, even though they make me feel like vomiting until I'm empty. My, my, my friends laugh at me behind my back, because Bayonetta throws her clothes off and drinks herself into oblivion every night and her stupid girlfriend is such a fool that she just suffers it. Is this a joke to you? Did you ever wonder how much you were hurting me? Does it ever bother you how sick you always make me feel?"

They reached the car. Cereza spun around on her heel, and faced Jeanne. Jeanne stared at her, bleary-eyed.

"Jeanne, dearest, allow me to tell you a quick story. Picture this: a little girl is born into the world, and from the very moment that she is born, she is treated like vermin. Her so-called sisters call her all sorts of awful names, such as 'impure', 'tainted', 'rotten', and 'unnatural'."

"Yes, yes, Cereza, we all know you've had a hard life. What about my life this past year? I…"

"Now, this child has no mother or father, and she craves approval. Approval is the one thing that this child wants more than anything else in the world, she hungers for it, she yearns for it. She tries to impress her sisters, and she attempts to do this by studying and training very hard. Unfortunately, the girl's sisters had already decided that they would hate and despise the girl from the moment of her birth, and so her attempts to gain their admiration are ruthlessly shot down…"

"The young girl becomes a young woman. Suddenly, the young woman is surrounded by other young people. They all want to get into bed with this young woman, and so they flatter her, and pay her compliments, and tell her what a wonderful, pretty, clever, talented, irresistible woman she is. Now, remember, this woman craves approval, so you can imagine how all this praise and admiration makes her feel…"

"Several years later, the young woman destroys a naughty god, and saves the world. Now, everyone wants to be this woman's friend! They talk about her on the news, and write articles about her in magazines, and marvel at what a strong and brave person she is. The young woman is very flattered indeed. However, at the same time, she is…a little uneasy. The people want her to be their hero, but she knows that she's not a hero, and so instead of wasting time kissing babies and shaking hands, she decides to continue living her life the way she sees fit. The young woman becomes a model and a celebrity. She earns mountains of money. Paparazzi follow her all over the place. It's a lot of fun, and she wouldn't have it any other way."

"I know that men only like me for my looks, Jeanne. I know that they're only interested in me because of my big boobs and long legs and pretty face. And I know that a lot less women would admire me if I was pug-ugly, no matter how strong and independent I am. But at least they're honest about why they like me. That little girl wanted nothing more than to be encouraged. She just wanted people to tell her that she was a good girl and that she was pretty and blah blah blah. I've achieved my dream, Jeanne. Did that never occur to you? If you belittle my hopes and aspirations, how on earth can you expect me to accept you as my other half?"

"Your dream?" asked Jeanne. She made an effort to sound mocking, but her voice was broken and ravaged, which somewhat ruined the effect. "You're a Sister of the Umbra Order, and your dream is to sell clothes and perfume, and to have teenage boys drooling over you?"

"Ugh," said Cereza, rolling her eyes. "You'll never understand, Jeanne."

"What does alcoholism have to do with your dream, Cereza?"

Cereza peered contemplatively upwards. "I do drink a bit much, now that you mention it. I really should do something about it, soon…"

As Jeanne stood and watched, Cereza began fishing about in her pockets, finally pulling out the keys to the car. "Hmmm," she said. "A car journey together would be rather awkward now, wouldn't you agree? I think I'd prefer to take the bus."

Cereza tossed the bundle of keys to Jeanne. Walking towards the car park exit, she called over her shoulder:

"Feel free to pack all my shit into some boxes. I'll have Cheshire come round and pick it up."