Adventures In The Red Room
Chapter Two: The Angel
People often claimed that eighteen-year-old Bella looked like an angel.
She supposed she saw where they were coming from...she did have the classic features that the heavenly messengers were often described to.
Long, shimmering blonde curls.
Check.
Bright, innocent blue eyes framed by long, dark lashes.
Check.
A slender, petite build.
Check.
However, Bella seriously doubted that angels had the gift to curse with as much flourish as she did.
"Goddamn bloody hell!" she muttered angrily as her red lipstick slipped from her rather frail-looking hands and onto the floor.
"No offense, Bella, but I don't think the nonstop swearing goes well with the 'wilting flower' look," a smiling Karita informed her in her prim British accent as she stepped into the dressing room.
"Funny," Bella responded dryly as she picked up her now-squashed lipstick from the floor and studied it in dismay.
"Aren't I always?" Karita asked breezily. "What are you doing in here? We're supposed to be out entertaining." She wriggled her eyebrows mischievously at the last word.
"Make-up touch up," Bella invented. In actuality, she'd been escaping from a creepy-looking man whose particularly lustful eyes had been fixed on her. She knew that it was against the rules to refuse a customer, but she couldn't help it...something about that man had just sent shudders down her spine.
And not the good kind, either.
"What are you doing out here?" she asked, directing the question back at Karita.
"A man out there was asking for you," Karita responded with a grin. "Really freaky looking one with huge eyes. He wanted to know where the 'angel one' had run off to."
"Great," Bella moaned sarcastically. "Goddamn bloody fabulous."
"You do always get stuck with the creepy ones, don't you?" Karita asked, looking thoroughly amused and not the slightest bit sympathetic.
"You girls'd better get back out there and dance your asses off," red-haired Sugar instructed them as she flounced into the room. "The place is packed."
It sounded wrong somehow to hear curse words uttered in Sugar's melodious, innocent tone. Quite the contrary, they matched perfectly with Bella's heavy British accent.
The ever-singing Sugar began to hum the tune to Meet Me In The Red Room under her breath as she danced around the dressing room.
Bella highly doubted that she would make it to the infamous Red Room inside the elephant with any of her customers. It was reserved for the finest of courtesans; a category under which she and the others definitely didn't fall. That was the Four Whores, and of course, the legendary Sparkling Diamond herself, Satine.
Bella had been at the Rouge for practically six months, and still, she had no idea what to think of Satine. Many of the girls, including Nini, Arabia, and China Doll, loathed the Diamond with a passion, claiming that she stole the spotlight that was rightfully theirs. Petty jealousy wasn't something that Bella was going to bother feeling...she was just glad to be in here with a roof over her head rather than turning tricks out on the street like she had been before. So really, she had nothing to hold against Satine. She couldn't help but see the star as tragic...trapped.
"Bella," Sugar said, clapping her hands loudly and forcing Bella out of her reverie, "Make-up time is over. Let's get out there!"
More than anything, Bella wanted to remain in the dressing room and study her reflection rather than go out and face the big eyed creep, but that was never an option.
I have no right to be resentful about my work, she thought as she followed Karita and Sugar out into the dance hall. Not after what I've been through before....compared to that, this is heaven.
~*~
"Thank God for Arabia," Bella proclaimed to the empty dressing room as she stepped inside, collapsing onto her bed.
She'd danced for three songs with Big Eyes, but luckily after he finished ogling her he realized that Arabia was a much worthier candidate of his affections. Bella had never gotten along with the brunette dancer, who didn't like her much because of her outspoken nature. When Arabia saw the man breaking away from Bella and coming towards her, the smile she'd flashed her had been so infuriating that Bella had wanted to knock a few teeth out of it. But oh well.
Good riddance.
It was difficult for Bella to get along with any of the Four Whores, and with good reason-they all treated Bella and the other courtesans as they claimed Satine treated them. As if they were inferior, unworthy.
"Yes," Bella mumbled to herself. "Because it's SUCH an honor to be a high class whore rather than a lowly one."
Her conversation with herself was cut short when the faint sound of a hacking cough filled her ears, and she heard the crashing sound of something being knocked over. Bella immediately sprang out of bed and hurried over to investigate.
Hunched over, one pale arm resting against the wall for support, was Satine. A horribly violent cough escaped her crimson lips, and she shook slightly.
Without thinking, Bella rushed over to her.
"Satine! Are you all right?"
After she uttered the words, she realized that they were the first she'd ever spoken to the Sparkling Diamond. When she thought about it, the only way they'd ever communicated was a few polite smiles now and then. Bella wasn't even sure Satine knew what her name was...
But that didn't matter. The girl was obviously sick.
"I..." Satine said weakly, then dissolved into another fit of coughing. Though she was still clad in a diamond-studded corset and black evening gloves, she no longer seemed at all elegant; rather, she gave off the small, meek, and helpless air of a little girl.
"Do you need a glass of water?" Bella questioned nervously.
Satine shook her head, still coughing. Finally, the fit subsided.
"I...I'm fine," she said weakly, a small smile on her lips. "I just...I've had this wretched cough for the last week or so. I don't know what it is. Probably just something going around."
"Probably," Bella agreed, now feeling awkward in the presence of the legendary courtesan. Still, she didn't seem at all as the Four Whores made her out to be-not the least bit regal or narcissistic.
Satine looked completely exhausted as she said, "Well, I just came in here to get ready...I'm supposed to meet a customer in the elephant in a few minutes, but I just don't feel up to it at all..."
This statement was followed by another bout of coughing, this one even more violent than the first. When Satine removed her hand from her mouth, her black glove was stained with a dark substance.
"Oh, God," she murmured to herself, staring, transfixed at the stained satin.
With a sinking realization, Bella realized what it was.
Blood.
"It must be the costumes," Satine immediately said, slipping the glove off of her left hand. "These silly costumes..."
Yet another cough escaped from her lips, even worse than before.
"There's no way you're going to the elephant tonight," Bella announced. It felt strange to order the star of the Moulin Rouge around, but she was sick.
"But..." Satine protested weakly.
"Just stay here," Bella said, trying to make her loud voice sound comforting. "What's the guy's name? I'll go tell 'im you won't be able to make it."
"Oh, would you?" Satine asked with a grateful smile.
"Sure," Bella said, grinning back.
And it was on that evening that a lowly courtesan befriended the legendary Sparkling Diamond.
~*~
Where was she?
Andrew Johnson bit his lip nervously as he studied the red satin walls of the elephant.
I shouldn't be here, he thought. I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be here, I really, really shouldn't be here. I have a fiancee at home, for God's sake! Sure, I don't know her very well (damned arranged marriages!), but she's a fiancee nonetheless.
When his friends had announced that they were taking him to the legendary Moulin Rouge, Andrew hadn't objected. After all, he had been curious about it for a while...this nightclub of dreams, this fantasy world. And he'd enjoyed himself, that was true. Until one of his friends had announced that they'd arranged him an evening with the Sparkling Diamond.
'The Sparkling Diamond?' Andrew had croaked, gesturing to the stunning redhead that was dancing around the club, proclaiming that diamonds were a girl's best friend.
'The one and only,' his friend had replied with a devious grin. 'You're supposed to meet her in the elephant at twelve o'clock. Meet her in the red room.'
'The Red Room?'
'It's the very best,' his friend had assured him. 'You'll never forget it.'
It was now twelve twenty-five, and Andrew was trying desperately to think up a polite way to tell the Diamond that he didn't want her services.
"It's not that I don't want to," he muttered under his breath, talking to the air in front of him. "It's just...I have a fiancee at home, and..."
His voice trailed off as a woman walked into the elephant. No, not a woman...no woman could be that beautiful. A goddess, an angel.
Yes, an angel, that's what she had to be. With her shimmering blonde curls and innocent blue eyes, skin a flawless ivory with ruby red lips, there was nothing else she could be.
His heartbeat increased as he realized that she was walking towards him.
Her lips slowly opened, and she asked, in a loud, brassy voice that didn't match her angelic face at all, "Were you s'posed to meet Miss Satine?"
"What?" Andrew asked stupidly, still transfixed with her. Her voice didn't take anything away from her beauty...rather, it added to it. It was refreshing.
Looking impatient, the angel put a hand on her hip and repeated, "Were you s'posed to meet Miss Satine?"
"Satine?" he asked blankly. "Oh, yeah, Satine. Yes, I was, but I...I don't think I'm going to be able to go through with it. Tell her I'm sorry, I-"
"Whoa," the angel said with a laugh. "Calm down, buddy. She ain't coming. Sick."
A huge wave of relief flooded through him, but he managed to put on a concerned expression. "Sick? How?"
"Cough," the angel said. "She was practically passing out...hacked up a little blood, even."
"Blood?" Andrew asked, alarmed. "Does she have consumption?"
"Consumption?" the angel asked, looking as though she'd never considered that possibility. "No...no, it's just a cough."
She sighed. "Well, buddy, I'm sorry ya had to wait. I'd better get going-"
"Wait!"
The word was out of his mouth before Andrew knew what he was going to say to back it up.
"What?" the angel asked, fingering her powder blue can-can skirt absently.
"Can....can you...s..stay?" he stuttered, more to the floor than her.
"Come again?"
Andrew looked up, then said more loudly, "Would you stay?"
The angel seemed to consider it for a moment before saying in a low, breathy tone that matched her face much better, "Just show me the diamonds."
"Oh!" Andrew felt his cheeks light up. "No, no, no...no...not like that."
"Oh," the angel said, looking a bit embarrassed herself. "Well, then, whaddya want?"
"To...talk," Andrew said delicately.
"Talk?" she raised a perfectly-shaped eyebrow at him.
Andrew nodded numbly.
An amused smile danced around the corners of her crimson lips as she replied.
"Sure."
"Great," Andrew grinned.
"So..." the angel tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Where do we start?"
Realizing that he couldn't simply refer to her as 'the angel' forever, Andrew asked, "What's your name?"
"Bella," she responded, smiling.
Bella.
"Doesn't Belle mean beautiful in French?" he asked.
Bella nodded.
"Well, then," he picked up one frail-looking hand and kissed it lightly. "Your name suits you very well, Mademoiselle."