I was correct in my belief that the large building directly in front of my apartment's window was in the shape of an elephant. In fact, the building itself had been where Satine had requested me to meet her for our poetry reading. Toulouse had been more than capable of escorting me to the staircase that would lead up the elephant and into the main room which, as I quickly learned, was centered in the head.

I was relieved, upon knocking on the large metal doorway, to be greeted by Satine herself who shook the occurrence of falling from her trapeze during the show off, gestured me inside then retreated to change clothes.

Removing my hat, I tugged it down in front of me prior to taking the time to inspect the large room in avid concentration. It was lavishly decorated in paintings, statues, and other odds and ends that gave it a distinctly Indian feel. An enormous, heart-shaped window composed the south wall, and upon approach to it, I noticed that there was no glass separating it from the outside and the cool Paris air. Almost parallel to the heart, albeit about a block away, the window of my garret could be seen.

Midst that scattered statues and assorted objects, a table, complete with a champagne bottle, ice bucket, glasses, and a tray of fruits sat, as well as a large, feathery bed against a wall, covered in crimson sheets and multiple pillows. I briefly wondered at the absurdity of having a bed in a meeting room, but I decided to pay it little mind, turning back to stare out the window, fingers twisting my hat about by the rim in a gesture of nervousness.

"This is a wonderful place for a poetry reading, don't you think?" The feline-isque, throaty voice of Satine brought me out of my reverie. Reflexively, I pivoted on a heel to face her and nearly dropped my hat.

She had changed into a dark, lacey piece of lingerie that left little to the imagination. I felt my breath catch somewhere in my throat, fingers tensing about the rim of my hat in flabbergasted silence. "...poetic enough for you?" She purred seductively, apparently referring to her attire.

At a complete loss, I stammered slightly, pulling my gaze away from her immodestly dressed frame to merely fix on her features. "Y-yes."

Turning from me, she fell into a languid stride for the table, reaching for the neck of the champagne bottle. "Would you like a little supper? Maybe some...champagne?"

"...I'd rather, um...just get it over and done with," I stated truthfully, willing myself to keep my attention firmly on the back of her head, though I could feel the increase in temperature in my cheeks.

Somehow, that seemed to offend her and she dropped the champagne bottle rather suddenly back into the ice bucket. "Oh," she breathed in annoyance. When she turned to face me, however, the annoyance had completely been wiped away from her. Instead, she offered a slow quirk to her brow, falling into step past me and toward the bed. "Very well. Why don't you...come over here --" she questioned as she sank down onto the bed, turning over onto her back and leaning against the nest of pillows, patting the space beside her. "-- and let's get it over and done with?"

I don't think that my attempt, as heart-felt as it was, to not gape at her was entirely successful. My clutch to my hat only increased ten-fold, blinking. "...Actually, I'd prefer to do it standing." I always felt much more comfortable remaining standing as I recited poetry.

Her eyes widened just slightly at my statement. "Oh." Pushing herself upward, she began to slide to the edge of the bed.

Realizing she was going to stand up just for me, I rushed to correct it, reaching out a hand slightly. There was no reason I couldn't stand and she could remain seated. "Y-you don't have to stand, I mean!" Reading into the confused expression she wore, I continued. "It's just that sometimes...it's quite long, and I -- I'd like you to be comfortable."

Whereas I had expected that small speech to put her at ease, she only seemed to be gaping at me, uncertain how to respond. Stammering, I tried to find a better way of reassuring her. She apparently hadn't been to many poetry readings. "I-it's quite modern what I do, and it may feel a little strange at first, but...but I think if you're open, you might enjoy it." I concluded with a smile.

Again, her response was nothing as I expected. She seemed taken aback, almost out of breath, and continued to stare at me as if uncertain how to respond. "...I'm sure I will."

The heat in my face only increased with her response and I finally had to look away entirely. "...excuse me." Turning, I took a few short strides across the room until locating a small window. Eyeing the horizon line through it for a moment, gathering inspiration, I turned back toward her, motioning toward the windowpane with my hat. "The sky -- the sky is..."

To my complete surprise, she leaned backward across the bed, shifting her hands across herself at my words, and even strangled out a moan.

My train of thought was completely derailed at the sight, and in my haste to not gape at her, my hold on whatever rhyme I had created disappeared, leaving me to struggle for something to fill it with. "...is, ugh...blue? Birds...ooh."

Turning quickly away, I gave a fierce shake to my head, a vain stab at clearing it, especially since I could hear her still making the strangled moaning sounds behind me. Buzzing my lips slightly, a murmured a few strings of "Come on, Christian" beneath my breath, rerouting my train of thought.

Working up the courage, I pivoted on my heel to face her a second time. And there she was, stretched out atop the bed, running hands along herself -- and still making those sounds.

"-- I think the mountains are...shaking." My voice quivered out of control at the last word in my phrase and I was forced to promptly turn away from her again, scrambling mentally. What was she doing? Mumbling to myself, I gave another rapid shake to my head, only to be interrupted by her voice.

"Um...is everything all right?"

Was I all right? She was the one...doing what she was doing! Angling myself about on an ankle, I glanced at her over my shoulder to see that she'd sat up, and was leaning forward, staring at me in concern.

Swallowing back the discomfort her previous actions had generated, my head lowered in vague shame. Although I was reasonably distracted, it rarely took so much effort on my part to come up with plausible poetry. "I'm just a little nervous," I blurted out reluctantly. "...it's just that sometimes it...takes a while for, uh --"

"Ooh," She breathed, as if finally understanding. Pushing herself up from her seat, she crossed toward me as I attempted to finish my sentence.

"...for, you know," Nodding toward the floor in embarrassed silence, I finished. "...inspiration to come."

"Oh, yes, yes, yes," She purred as she reached me, her mere nearness drawing me about to face her completely. "Let mommy help."

I was contemplating how she could possibly help when, in a sudden motion, she reached downward and clutched a hand forcefully to the front of my pants, lifting up. I struggled out a nearly mute gasp, staring at her.

Even had I the ability to speak at the moment, she would have cut me off with the next question, her voice lowering to a sultry whisper. "Does that inspire you?" She tugged me forcefully forward, pushing me into a stagger for the bed atop which I fell with a startled flop.

No sooner had I rolled over was she on top of me, straddling my waist. "Let's make love!"

"Make love?" I echoed in shocked disbelief. Whatever happened to the poetry reading?

"You want to, don't you?" The question didn't quite suggest that she cared one way or the other, especially considering that despite my squirming, she was making haste to untie my bow tie and pull apart the buttons of my shirt.

"Well, I -- I came to --" I tried to explain, but she lifted a hand to press it to my lips and silence me, her opposite hand untucking my shirt with a solid jerk.

"Tell the truth! Feel the poetry!" She exclaimed, leaving me to stare up at her, dumbfounded. She continued to struggle with my clothes. "Come on, feel it, free the tiger!" Leaning backward to sink down into a perch atop my thighs, she tipped her head back, letting out one of the yowls she'd utilized so avidly on the dance floor earlier.

Then, she located the front of my trousers and unbuttoned them. We both froze for a moment, my wide eyes on her and her wide eyes on... well.

"...big boy!" She gasped out, hands lingering before she threw herself back down on my chest with renewed vehemence. "Yes, I need your poetry now!"

Why that had caused her to suddenly want me to recite poetry for the first time all night had me flabbergasted, but who was I to deny her? Scrambling, I stammered out a breathless "All right!" before rolling out from under her to hit the ground with a thud. I found my footing quickly, maneuvering myself a safe distance from the bed as I hurried to try and cover myself, buttoning my trousers in an attempt to regain some of my lost dignity.

The look she gave me suggested she didn't want me to get up at all, but I didn't plan on giving her the time to act on that look. Instead, I panted out a line. "...It's a little bit funny --"

That earned me a deadpan stare of confusion from her. "What?"

"This f-feeling," I continued, as if attempting to explain while making words fit in my head. "In-inside. I'm not one of those who can --" Finally getting my trousers buttoned completely, I strengthened my voice slightly. "-- who can easily hide." Hesitating, however, I looked at her, furrowing my brows in self-conscious questioning. "I-is this okay? Is this what you want?"

As if only then realizing that I was reciting poetry, she leaned backward, eyes widening with a nod. "Oh, poetry. Yes, yes, this is what I want! Naughty words!" She promptly threw herself back on the bed at that, lashing out slightly with her frame.

I only hesitated a moment before continuing, though I couldn't help but stare at her, confused by her strange response. "I-I don't have much money but, boy, if I did...I'd buy a big house where we...both c-could live."

"Oh, yes, yes!" She breathed, sliding off the bed and to a heap of writhing lace and flesh on the floor, the motion itself causing my jaw to fall slightly, feet unconsciously maneuvering myself a bit away from her.

"...If I were a sculptor, but then again, no..." I trailed off, though, being that at just about that time, she began pleading with me, repeating the word "no." So, I stopped, gawking at her.

Her writhing halted at my hesitation and with a sudden motion, she pushed herself up slightly, waving at me. "No, no, don't stop!"

"...I know it's not much," I continued reluctantly, very certain by that point that I was trapped in a room with a psychopath and that I should be looking around for an escape route rather than stand there.

Satine reached for the bed, clutching a large, furry blanket and pulling it down to her. In a single rolling gesture, she had raveled herself up in the material and began to lash about on the ground. "Give me more! Yes! Yes!"

Brow furrowed, I shied away even further, completely confused. "...but it's the best I could do." How did she expect to hear my poetry over her shouts? Sensing that I might be steadily losing my chance to audition to her, I pursed my lips, trying to conjure a way to get her attention.

"Naughty! Don't stop! Yes, yes, yes!" She continued to carry on in the floor, rolling about in what I could only assume to be ecstasy.

Turning away from her slightly to face the heart-shaped window, I took in a deep breath before belting out an improvised line to a song -- a last-ditch effort in claiming her attention. "My gift is my song!"

Letting the last note trail off into the night's wind, I took note of the dead silence that had filled the elephant shortly after and, with a subtle shift on a heel to glance back at her, finished the line, evaluating her response. "...and this one's for you."

Upon my turn to her, I noted the fact that she'd sat up fully from her sprawl across the floor, and although she was still tangled up within the fur blanket she'd previously been rolling about in, it was gradually sinking down either side of her slim shoulders, those brilliant blue eyes of hers fixed intently on me as she listened.

"...and you can tell everybody this is your song. It may be quite simple but, now that it's done --" I hesitated just slightly, remaining angled toward her on my ankle as she continued to watch me. For a moment, I entertained the thought that she was leaning forward, enraptured with my words, but common sense forced me to push that thought from my mind. She was distracting enough with her beauty; I didn't need to think she was as fascinated with me as I was with her.

"Hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind, that I put down in words..." Minute as it was, I could feel a distant smile quirking upward at my lips, a motion that she was quick to duplicate, if only a small version of her own. The beauty behind the simplicity of it, a genuine smile in place of the seductive ones she'd worn all night, was one that I loved her even more for. As fleeting as it was, she was allowing me to see her -- Satine. Not the Sparkling Diamond.

"...how wonderful life is, now you're in the world." As I concluded the initial phrase, I noted she was shifted midst the blanket to rise. Willing myself to not be distracted after I'd successfully snagged her attention, I dropped my head forward slightly, still smiling as I rotated my frame toward the heart-shaped window.

"Sat on the roof," I continued, casting a glance down to the sidewalks below as I took a few short strides forward. "...and I kicked off the moss. Some of these verses, well they --" I allowed my shoulders roll backward slightly in emphasis to the lyrics, left heel pushing into the carpet and providing a steady pivote-place to cast a glance back on her. "...they got me quite cross."

"But the sun's been kind while I wrote this song," She had risen completely and was moving, albeit slowly, toward me as I went on and I ventured to take a few steps toward her myself, turning slightly to her left before facing her entirely. "It's the people like you that keep it turned on."

Despite her smile, she shied from me at that line, stepping past me and into a short-stepped maneuver toward the window, that beautiful, porcelain face canted downward toward her chest. Following was all I could do to prevent myself from reaching for her entirely.

"So excuse me forgetting, but these things I do," I paused mid-step and song as she rotated to view me better. Reluctant, though only out of fear that she'd pull away, I allowed my hands to trail gently outward, catching one of her slender palms and cradling it between mine. To my utter delight, she allowed me to do so.

Tipping my head back up before I could let my attention veer far enough astray to hurt the song, I leaned forward slightly, ducking my head just enough to be under her line of sight, peering amorously into those deep blue eyes of hers. "You see, I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue."

Affirming myself to the fact that they were the most beautiful shade of azure I'd ever considered possible, I dropped my head again, thumbs grazing along the silken skin of that palm of hers that I still held to, lifting it tenderly toward my face. "Well, the thing is...what I really mean," I continued prior to looking up rapidly, offering a smile into those angelic features. "Yours are the sweetest eyes, I've ever seen!"

Pressing her captured palm more firmly into my right hand, I took a light hold about that thin waist of hers in my left prior to spinning her in a ballroom fashion, waltzing into a back-peddle through the lavishly decorated room -- though it took little imagination to carry us elsewhere, as if we could dance on the clouds of Paris themselves.

"And you can tell everybody this is your song. It may be quite simple but, now that it's done. Hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind, that I put down in words..." Rotating out of our waltz, she pulled away slightly to watch me as I stepped back into the night's lighting the large window provided. "...how wonderful life is now you're in the world."

Pivoting into a faint spin of her own, she rotated across the small amount of distance to me, that lacey gown billowing about her heels and her frame until she pulled herself to a halt just short of me.

"...hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind, that I put down in words... how wonderful life is," With a sudden motion, I intercepted her as she closed the distance to me, sweeping an arm tenderly up and under those lithe legs of hers to pull her into my arms in a cradle, spinning about on my heel. "...now you're in the world!"

I held the last note out until I hadn't the breath to hold it any longer, allowing it to fade off as my spinning slowed to a stop. Dipping downward, I kept my gentle hold on Satine intact, holding her at an angle from the ground, our faces lingering so near I could feel and taste her warm breath on my lips. I let the very tip of my nose brush along hers tenderly, searching those wide blue eyes of hers in wonder. She was simply staring at me.

It was so perfect, her weight nestled in my arms, those slim limbs of hers tangled about my neck as we stared into each other's eyes, I almost lost myself to the moment.

Her voice is what brought me out of my dazed reverie, the sultry tone she'd used earlier gone completely and replaced by a soft, angelic one. Her real voice. She was speaking to me as Satine.

"I can't believe it," she murmured, seeming as though she was marveling at my features almost as much as I was hers. "...I'm in love." I couldn't restrain my smile at that. "I'm in love with a young, handsome, talented...Duke."

I blinked. Had I heard her wrong? Tipping my head slightly to the side, my brows were pressed together in question, echoing her voice in a whisper interrogatively. "...Duke?"

"Ooh," she purred, still using that gentle voice of hers, head tipping back against my cradling arms. "...not that the title's important, of course."

I didn't understand, and, with a minute shake of my head, I expressed that fact. It must have been a small mistake -- it didn't change my feelings for her any in the least. "I'm not a Duke."

She frowned just slightly at that, staring up on me in confusion. "...not a Duke?"

She must have truly believed I was a Duke and as flattering as that was, it was a bit of an absurd notion, one I couldn't help but smile at. "I'm a writer," I corrected.

Tantalizingly slow, she'd leaned in until I was certain we were to kiss. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be the case, being that once she'd allowed my correction to sink in, she pulled back in my arms.

"A writer?" She questioned in a voice that seemed something akin to disgust, gaping at me as if my vocation made her see me in a different light entirely.

Perhaps I should have said I was a Duke...

It was much too late to feign Dukedom, however, and so, I provided an affirmative nod to the question, confused as to why it mattered if she fell in love with a writer, a Duke, or the Queen of England herself. Love was love, and perfect in any form. "...yes, a writer."

Her response was far from what I hoped it would be. "No!" She gasped out, pressing slender palms to my chest to push me away from her.

I let go as she squirmed out of my arms, staring in torn confusion. I was on the verge of protesting in the name of love when a subtle glance sidelong revealed to me an obscure sight.

Dangling, upside down with his head visible through the open heart-shaped window, Toulouse could be seen, watching us.

Had I been anywhere else, I might have questioned the absurdity of such a thing, but I was quickly becoming accustumed to life in Montmartre, as well as the estranged antics of my Bohemians companions, and simply passed it off as normal.

"Oh, hi, Toulouse." I stated rather offhandedly, a greeting that earned me a smile from the dwarf.

Satine did not seem quite as happy to see the little man as I was.

"Toulouse?!" She exclaimed, recoiling from the window slightly as she raised a hand to press it to her chest in what I guessed to be horror.

For a very short moment, I believed she was going to attack Toulouse then and there. Instead, however, she turned her attention on me, circling into a step around me as if she was afraid to get too close.

"Not another of Toulouse's oh-so-talented, charmingly Bohemian, tragically impoverished protégés?" She questioned, her eyes tracing my face with an unreadable expression.

I wavered on my heels, shoulders shrugging in embarrassed modesty. I didn't think myself as talented as the Bohemians thought me to be, but such praise coming from her meant a great deal more in my mind. "Well, you might say that..."

Apparently, I had answered inappropriately again.

"Oh no!" She gasped out, the hand that had previously rested on her chest fleeing to cover her mouth. Those beautiful blues flashed dangerously, her gaze snapping up toward Toulouse in what appeared to be outrage. "I'm going to kill him!"

Toulouse, realizing his life was in danger, scrambled up from his dangle, retreating back to the top of the elephant and out of sight.

"I'm going to kill him," Satine repeated to herself, her eyes wide. For a moment, I thought she was going to chase Toulouse, but she reached out to me instead, a motion that made me subconsciously recoil from her. Was she going to kill me?

She caught hold of my arm and tugged me into a sudden step for the door, the words "The Duke" being the only thing she'd offer to me in explanation.

Managing to loosen my arm from the death grip she had caught onto my elbow, I watched as she pulled ahead of me and, in her haste to open it, nearly ripped the door off its hinges.

I didn't quite get a glimpse of what was on the other side, but there was obviously something there that she didn't like, for no sooner had she opened the door, was she slamming it closed again, bracing her back to it as she gaped at me wide-eyed.

"The Duke!" She cried out.

I was still confused as to what was going on, and finally blurted out a question, hoping to shed some light on the mystery. "The Duke?"

"Hide!" She commanded sharply, moving toward me again. The menace of earlier, however, had been replaced with a sense of terror I didn't quite understand.

Obeying with little second thought, I went to dive behind the refreshment table but was intercepted by the sound of the door opening. There wasn't enough time to get there.

So, I improvished. I ducked down behind Satine's legs and just prayed that I wouldn't be seen.

(( Yes, yes, I know... it's a bad place to stop, but I'm steadily reaching the 300 K limit or whatever and need to break to another chapter. Just think of it as one of those annoying television commercials that happen in the least opportune instances... ))