Chapter Two: Christian

Satine stood before him, her slim figure swathed with the petal pink silk robe she favoured. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders in soft ringlets that rested on her back. Her full lips hinted shyly at a smile as she caressed his chest. He flushed with desire, but stayed silent even as Satine tugged at his hand, bringing him along with her into the shadowed background behind her. The forest was a darkened grey-green with mossy floors, black tangles of branches reaching out for his heart. He tried to protest and draw his hand back, but Satine paid no heed to his muted cries.

She began to run, ignoring the way the forest caught her fragile gown and tore it away from her. Her hair flowed out in a stream of fire, her delicate feet dancing some exotic pattern over the rocks that caused Christian to bleed. Thorns did not touch her. She stayed perfect, whole, like some artist's vision of Venus rising from the wake of crested waves.

He finally brought her to a stop in a tiny hollow, green with the perfumed ferns and scattered white flowers. She turned to him, her cheeks flushed as if the pall of death had been grotesquely inverted. Her voice echoed strangely in the quiet of the night's music.

What do you want, Christian? She smiled as she said it, but kept her eyelashes lowered onto her cheeks. Her skin felt thin and stretched beneath his hands, her body too fragile to be kissed and caressed into the flame of passion. She raised a finger to his jaw, tracing the curve of it, and smiled again. Teasingly, this time, and with the faintest resignation dulling the joy.

Your happiness, he answered.

The hesitation vanished, and Satine pulled away. She wrapped her body around the slim trunk of a birch tree, her eyes opening to meet his in a flash of deep sky over twilight. She pressed her fingers to her lip, as if intending to blow a kiss.

She drew the hand away with horror, looking down at the stain of blood that slowly flowed from her crimson lips. Her eyes flickered up to meet Christian's once again, and in them he thought he could see the answer to his unspoken question.

Yes, I'll come.

Christian woke abruptly, feeling beads of sweat condense over his shivering body. He wiped his forehead before the moisture could begin to trickle down like salt tears from an unhealed wound. On impulse, his hand slipped out to try and hold onto his wife, but he met only empty air.

Katherine was gone, her covers folded back neatly from where she had left the bed. His head turned to study the imprint of her body, where the hollow her rounded stomach had left still sank into the mattress. Slowly, almost unwillingly, he put out his hand to test the warmth.

None.

Wherever she was-- probably in the kitchen with some warm milk to calm the nausea she continually suffered from-- she had left long ago, and had not cared to return since then. Christian settled back down to his side of the bed. He drew the blankets closer, hoping to infuse his body heat into them.

Nights seemed so cold lately.

Part of it, no doubt, was Katherine's new state. He was afraid to touch her. . . she had become so fragile since the discovery that was with child. Her newfound delicacy frightened him. The violet shadows written on her face by sleepless nights reminded him too much of the bruises on Satine's skin when her illness had progressed too far to not leave a mark on her body. Her eyes looked deadened constantly, as if she repressing some pain that cut her to the heart.

How many times had he awaken in the middle of the night to find Katherine huddled on the side of the bed, her elbows sharp and unyielding towards him? He had tried, once, to gather her in his arms when he found her so, but the involuntary cry that Katherine had given was enough to dissuade him from trying that again.

Christian sighed softly and relaxed into the mattress. And then there were the dreams. . . Satine, coming to him again and again, dreams he hadn't had for years. These dreams, though, were more violent, with an undercurrent of passion that made him uneasy. Blue eyes, staring coldly at him from behind a veil of fire. Diamonds falling as encrusted drops of rain, making her bleed from her mouth. And then, this dream.

No. Don't think about it.

But was she trying to tell him something? He'd never been much of a believer in Spiritualism, but the dreams were so vivid that he dared to think that it might actually be the lingering ghost of the woman he loved.

Had loved.

No. Ridiculous to tell himself lies. He had to tell more and more to Katherine each day. About how he had slept, what he was writing about. He didn't want to worry her with his horrible fancies. Especially since she would merely respond with her impassive grey-eyed stare as he tried to explain himself.

A stab of hurtful pain went through him, one that he carefully ignored. Katherine was who she was. Cool, calm, and reserved. There were no depths of feeling to touch in her, no way that she could accept anything more than the gentle affection that she permitted in their marriage.

He could never once recall Katherine wearing the rich colours and beautiful fabrics that Satine had favoured. Her dresses were white organdy and silver poplin in the summer, black cashmere and muted green in the winter. Katherine rarely wore her hair loose, even to bed. Satine--

Stop it, Christian murmured angrily to himself. When they had first become engaged, Katherine had brought up the subject of Satine. She had plainly inquired if he meant to compare the courtesan of Paris with the young English girl, and he had reassured her. Katherine had nodded, in a completely businesslike fashion, and gone on to just as calmly discuss the guest list. His vague sense of amazement at her rational approach to his past love had stayed with him into their marriage. Most of the time her analytical nature was tempered by the sweetness and kindness of her disposition, but occasionally her amiable side vanished and she seemed heartless.

Don't you ever feel? Christian had once inquired sarcastically in one of their rare arguments. He remembered the way Katherine's face had gone white except for two flushed spots burning on her cheeks. Always icy in her rage, she had turned and left the room, letting the door swing shut in silence. Katherine never slammed objects or screamed, but instead left him and went to the sewing room or kitchen, where he found her absorbed in some tedious task when his own anger had cooled.

Sighing, Christian left the warmth of the bed for his desk. It did not do to mull over resentment about faults, he told himself firmly. Katie was a dear, sweet woman. His wife, and the mother of his child. He was far happier with her in their clean, middle-class home than he had been in that broken garret in Montmartre, seeking solace in the blur of absinthe. Katherine was intelligent and literate, moderately religious, and supportive of his writing in ways that no one else (except Satine) had ever been.

It was hardly just to compare a pearl to a diamond.

He would write a poem for (not about) Katie, see if he could bring a smile to her gentle face. Bring her a bouquet of carnations (never roses), or arrange a day (no picnic) in the countryside.

He pulled out the chair and drew out a sheet of paper, his mind already forming the words. His troubles seemed to bleed away as he put ink to paper, letting his poetry flow out of his heart. This was the writing that had saved him from himself during the dark times following (Satine's death) his stay in Montmartre. If he hadn't (told our story) kept up with his writing, he most likely would have followed Toulouse into alcoholism and insanity.

He hummed quietly as he wrote, a sweet melody that stole into the waiting room like an unwanted love. The words, taken by themselves meant nothing, but as he strung them together in a delicate creation of a poem, he began to shiver. As he continued to write, it had acquired a touch of melancholy, tugging at his soul like a song long unheard but always desired.

A painting hangs on an ivy wall, nestled in the emerald moss. The eyes declare a truce of trust and then it draws me far away. Tears stung in his eyes, and he wiped them angrily away-- this certainly hadn't been what he'd had in mind when he'd began to write, but somehow the song had to continue. The show had to go on.

When deep in the desert twilight sand melts in pools of sky. When darkness lays her crimson cloak, your lamps will draw me home.

Christian rose impatiently, and with a single, vicious twist of his hands, tore the paper in two. He'd take one of his old love poems for Satine that he'd never shown his wife, change a few words, and give it to her with some flowers. It didn't matter. Satine haunted every word he wrote. It was all for the love of her.