I think I slept with Simone that night. My mind is slightly foggy, be it I'd ridden myself of all knowledge, or be it that the pills had screwed me over. My guess is as good as yours.
I thought I could escape her, picking up those slender arms which were draped over my body, sliding out of the cot to view myself in the mirror. Ragged, forlorn, I opened my eyes a little wider and shook my head. I always laugh when other people do that, like they're coming from a dream. I'm very cliché sometimes. The pitter patter of tiny dancer's feet, bound into shoes like her waist to the corset, echoed through the room. I cringed slightly and looked back to the mirror, where her reflection was creeping up towards mine. She purred slightly, and wrapped her arms around me again. If I didn't feel so guilty for using her like I was, I would have pried her arms off and ran away.
You might notice I'm not giving you much information about Simone. I'm not talking about her as a person. She's just another character in my pantomime. I can't talk about her. I didn't think I was ever going to have to. I'll come around, don't worry. But for now, she is the young red head who was infatuated with me. There was conversations I haven't mentioned. She knew me enough to like me. She has a personality. She wasn't just a kitten. But for the sake of not becoming more attached then I am, or was, she is a kitten to you.
Simone walked in front of me with that stride I'd seen so often in Satine. The conventional stride of a cortisan, one that shows everyone loves them, and they know it. I slunk behind, watching her as she grinned at men, cracking her hanky in the air. She wasn't even a Moulin Rouge dancer. She was just a spunky little bitch I'd come to know. Compared to her self-confident capering, my walk was staggered and self-conscious. I skulked through the shadows of the streets, grown too used to the underworld. I was ignored, and I liked it like that. Occasionally I'd see someone I knew before, be it a drunken Boho, or a can can dancer. I'd give a curt nod, shiver running up my spine. Simone dragged me into a bristro. Fuck, Satine never would have taken me into a bristro. I clinched that though, the memory of me throwing money at her feet for the play. I paid my whore, and my whore paid me with her fucking life. That's not funny, that's not even dark humor. Ironic doesn't cut it.
I sat across the table from her. I've heard many a poet write about sitting across a table from someone, wishing you could run. I think this was the first time I truly understood. I didn't want to grow close, I didn't want to feel, the only reason I was doing this is because she was so much like Satine... it wasn't fair, Goddammit, like some cruel trick. They were so much the same, I just couldn't stand it. It was truly driving me mad. The Green Fairy I relied on, Satine I held so dear, and this young Simone with her infatuation of me... I drove them into a blender, and had created this magical being, this, this entity... Unluckily, Simone was the only one living, and so I placed this entity inside her. I could hear her shoe tapping on the ground, and I guessed she asked me something. "Oh, yes, I'm sure you did the right thing." I replied nonchalantly, another thing I got pissed off with other people for doing. She returned a small smile and continued with her story, something about work and apartments and paying rent. I'd had enough of that.
Toulouse later told me he thought he'd gone mad when he looked into the window of the bristro. He thought I was sitting across from Satine. I laughed it off then, telling him I saw no such resemblance. He didn't believe me. He knew I was fishing for a replacement Satine. I remember Toulouse's small nod, wary glance in my direction. He looked down from his hole in the ceiling, and his face looked so sad. He was the only one who wasn't mocking Satine. The rest of them, every time they laughed, every time they smiled... God, they were making her life equal shit. She didn't deserve being associated with them. She deserved to rest, just her and me and Toulouse. The only ones who bothered to remember her.
I rocked again that night. I don't know why I rock, it's just something I do to help me think. I trip and stagger if I pace, and so I sit in a corner, and rock. It reminds me of hide-and-go-seek, with my heart beating like a jack rabbits' feet, rocking back and forth, just waiting to be found. I twisted an empty bottle in my hand, and looked towards the hole which seemed to grow considerably larger at night, just waiting to swallow me up. I wanted it to, just an excuse to go away. A thousand whispers were heard on the wind, and I started sobbing for Satine, for myself, for Toulouse, even for the Green Fairy. But most for Simone, because she loved me. And to me, she was but Satine.
My neck hurt when I woke up in the morning, bathed in sunlight. I blinked like a bat, briefly wondering where I was, my body numb from the cold. Rain poured down around my apartment, thudding, giving my pounding headache a rhythm, a beat. It was more then I could bear. I stood on a chair, raising myself into Toulouse's room. The contents of the room were asleep, so I went and sat on a make-shift swing, kicking back and forth, swinging with a drunken happiness. I sway around the room, my head spinning, the swing twisting. I hummed a silly drinking tune to myself before I stopped, looking into the eyes of the drunken Argentinean, thick eyebrow raised. Some primal instinct took over, and I pulled my lips back in a silent hiss, before escaping to the streets once again. I had no idea why I was so petrified.
Like a wave of warm water, I realized I'd gone crazy. It was almost odd I hadn't thought of it before, but I don't often look to the most obvious answers. I had an alibi to go with my crime, and with a newfound happiness, I strut down the street like a rooster. Finding the apartment I'd labeled Simone's, I gave a slight knock, grinning like a fool. Her sleepy face met mine as she stuck it through the crack in the door, sliding back the lock and rubbing her eyes. "Fuck, Christian, it's five AM..." I just kept grinning like I was the cock-of-the-walk.
"I know, and I'm sorry. I just had to see you." A lie, really, but I wanted to be with someone. I was miserably crazy, and misery loves company. Simone shook her head and opened the door, yawning, stepping aside so I could walk in. I walked inside, looking around the apartment. Furnished sparingly, much like mine, I felt almost at home. I sunk into a faded armchair, drumming my chapped fingers against the arm rest. Looking beside me to a end table, I almost screamed, grasping a picture in my trembling hands. Oh God, no, God... I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Scantily clad in her pajama's, Simone walked back out, looking at me. She yawned again, either not noticing or ignoring my shook.
"She's pretty, ain't she? It's my sister, Satine. Unfortunate, really, she died of consumption not two years ago. I moved here after her death."
I thought I could escape her, picking up those slender arms which were draped over my body, sliding out of the cot to view myself in the mirror. Ragged, forlorn, I opened my eyes a little wider and shook my head. I always laugh when other people do that, like they're coming from a dream. I'm very cliché sometimes. The pitter patter of tiny dancer's feet, bound into shoes like her waist to the corset, echoed through the room. I cringed slightly and looked back to the mirror, where her reflection was creeping up towards mine. She purred slightly, and wrapped her arms around me again. If I didn't feel so guilty for using her like I was, I would have pried her arms off and ran away.
You might notice I'm not giving you much information about Simone. I'm not talking about her as a person. She's just another character in my pantomime. I can't talk about her. I didn't think I was ever going to have to. I'll come around, don't worry. But for now, she is the young red head who was infatuated with me. There was conversations I haven't mentioned. She knew me enough to like me. She has a personality. She wasn't just a kitten. But for the sake of not becoming more attached then I am, or was, she is a kitten to you.
Simone walked in front of me with that stride I'd seen so often in Satine. The conventional stride of a cortisan, one that shows everyone loves them, and they know it. I slunk behind, watching her as she grinned at men, cracking her hanky in the air. She wasn't even a Moulin Rouge dancer. She was just a spunky little bitch I'd come to know. Compared to her self-confident capering, my walk was staggered and self-conscious. I skulked through the shadows of the streets, grown too used to the underworld. I was ignored, and I liked it like that. Occasionally I'd see someone I knew before, be it a drunken Boho, or a can can dancer. I'd give a curt nod, shiver running up my spine. Simone dragged me into a bristro. Fuck, Satine never would have taken me into a bristro. I clinched that though, the memory of me throwing money at her feet for the play. I paid my whore, and my whore paid me with her fucking life. That's not funny, that's not even dark humor. Ironic doesn't cut it.
I sat across the table from her. I've heard many a poet write about sitting across a table from someone, wishing you could run. I think this was the first time I truly understood. I didn't want to grow close, I didn't want to feel, the only reason I was doing this is because she was so much like Satine... it wasn't fair, Goddammit, like some cruel trick. They were so much the same, I just couldn't stand it. It was truly driving me mad. The Green Fairy I relied on, Satine I held so dear, and this young Simone with her infatuation of me... I drove them into a blender, and had created this magical being, this, this entity... Unluckily, Simone was the only one living, and so I placed this entity inside her. I could hear her shoe tapping on the ground, and I guessed she asked me something. "Oh, yes, I'm sure you did the right thing." I replied nonchalantly, another thing I got pissed off with other people for doing. She returned a small smile and continued with her story, something about work and apartments and paying rent. I'd had enough of that.
Toulouse later told me he thought he'd gone mad when he looked into the window of the bristro. He thought I was sitting across from Satine. I laughed it off then, telling him I saw no such resemblance. He didn't believe me. He knew I was fishing for a replacement Satine. I remember Toulouse's small nod, wary glance in my direction. He looked down from his hole in the ceiling, and his face looked so sad. He was the only one who wasn't mocking Satine. The rest of them, every time they laughed, every time they smiled... God, they were making her life equal shit. She didn't deserve being associated with them. She deserved to rest, just her and me and Toulouse. The only ones who bothered to remember her.
I rocked again that night. I don't know why I rock, it's just something I do to help me think. I trip and stagger if I pace, and so I sit in a corner, and rock. It reminds me of hide-and-go-seek, with my heart beating like a jack rabbits' feet, rocking back and forth, just waiting to be found. I twisted an empty bottle in my hand, and looked towards the hole which seemed to grow considerably larger at night, just waiting to swallow me up. I wanted it to, just an excuse to go away. A thousand whispers were heard on the wind, and I started sobbing for Satine, for myself, for Toulouse, even for the Green Fairy. But most for Simone, because she loved me. And to me, she was but Satine.
My neck hurt when I woke up in the morning, bathed in sunlight. I blinked like a bat, briefly wondering where I was, my body numb from the cold. Rain poured down around my apartment, thudding, giving my pounding headache a rhythm, a beat. It was more then I could bear. I stood on a chair, raising myself into Toulouse's room. The contents of the room were asleep, so I went and sat on a make-shift swing, kicking back and forth, swinging with a drunken happiness. I sway around the room, my head spinning, the swing twisting. I hummed a silly drinking tune to myself before I stopped, looking into the eyes of the drunken Argentinean, thick eyebrow raised. Some primal instinct took over, and I pulled my lips back in a silent hiss, before escaping to the streets once again. I had no idea why I was so petrified.
Like a wave of warm water, I realized I'd gone crazy. It was almost odd I hadn't thought of it before, but I don't often look to the most obvious answers. I had an alibi to go with my crime, and with a newfound happiness, I strut down the street like a rooster. Finding the apartment I'd labeled Simone's, I gave a slight knock, grinning like a fool. Her sleepy face met mine as she stuck it through the crack in the door, sliding back the lock and rubbing her eyes. "Fuck, Christian, it's five AM..." I just kept grinning like I was the cock-of-the-walk.
"I know, and I'm sorry. I just had to see you." A lie, really, but I wanted to be with someone. I was miserably crazy, and misery loves company. Simone shook her head and opened the door, yawning, stepping aside so I could walk in. I walked inside, looking around the apartment. Furnished sparingly, much like mine, I felt almost at home. I sunk into a faded armchair, drumming my chapped fingers against the arm rest. Looking beside me to a end table, I almost screamed, grasping a picture in my trembling hands. Oh God, no, God... I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Scantily clad in her pajama's, Simone walked back out, looking at me. She yawned again, either not noticing or ignoring my shook.
"She's pretty, ain't she? It's my sister, Satine. Unfortunate, really, she died of consumption not two years ago. I moved here after her death."