Five
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He'd been taught to live without sin.
He'd clutched rosaries nightly and said prayers before drifting into dreams. He'd attended church with his family for as long as he could remember, staring hard at the crucified man depicted in stained glass and at his immaculate mother, untouched by wickedness.
He'd obeyed his father and the church almost flawlessly, until he'd first witnessed life's greatest bliss. At the age of eleven, he'd been with his mother at their neighbours' farmhouse, and when he'd meant to find the kitchen to help serve tea, he'd found instead the family's eldest son, kissing a raven-haired young woman in a shadowy corner. They'd told him they were in love. Christian saw the sparkle in their eyes and the colour in their cheeks, and knew that their feelings extended beyond the rush that clearly accompanied kissing. From that day forward, he wanted above all to feel the same emotions: warmth in his heart and laughter on his lips.
He loved more freely than anyone he'd ever known. He embraced the beauty of life, and his father had always scorned his talk of what was most important to him.
"Always this ridiculous obsession with love!"
It was because he had never been given the freedom to love anyone that he so desperately wanted it. He had always read avidly, and when he was finished with stories about love between people and animals, he wanted to know about love between people, how it was really at the bottom of everything.
His love of the written word translated into his talent for poetry, though he never gave up on devouring what others had crafted with their imaginations and a pen. His books had always been solacing, giving him hope that he'd someday find what he'd read about for so long.
His writing had been an escape from the overbearing presence of his father; it gave him hope for a life beyond a strict family. His younger sisters cried when he tipped his hat to them and blew them each a kiss, promising to write letters to them, for they too dreamed of leaving the harsh household and discovering a zest for life.
Upon arriving in Montmartre, there was the beauty he'd always craved to see, though it juxtaposed incredible poverty. He experienced the freedom he'd wished for, but saw others who lived as slaves to illness or heartbreak. He was free to write whatever he pleased and befriend anyone – at home he hadn't many friends outside of the classroom where his mother taught.
His first kiss had come at the age of twenty-four, from a tango dancing Argentinean; the taste of the other man's mouth had been shortly lost to absinthe, but nothing could blot out the memory. The first kiss he shared with a woman had been atop the elephant, surrounded by an ecstasy that he had only experienced in petty dreams.
His first love had been discovered in a dark place, but filled her with his youthful and compassionate light.
It was only when the dizzying rapture of the love he finally found gave way to pain that he succumbed to taboo emotion. It was inescapable. His love was something perfect; he knew the Duke detested the ideals the Bohemians lived for. It was his money that gave him an advantage. The sitar player's jealousy was mirrored in the poet's green eyes.
Love was accompanied by a price, but the woman he adored grew to accept that he couldn't leave her with a string of pearls or a sheaf of francs. Their passion was righteous because of this; he truly did love her. They both were well aware of consequences they would someday face, but his poetry made the world melt away, and her laughter meant everything to him.
It wasn't until jealousy stabbed his heart that he knew truth. He'd brought a jaded woman into a beautiful expanse of caresses that left not a mark on her skin, of kisses that brought out the little girl in her smile. He had healed the wounds that so many others had left after paying her for one night of feigned fervency, and still the Duke with his wads of francs was the one given first priority.
He hated hiding their love. It was the first love they'd both ever known; they're solitary chance at happiness, and they were forced to share kisses behind curtains and when in public, act aloof. They knew it was forbidden, but desperation to find solace kept their fingers entwined and their songs sung.
Worse than concealing their passion was waiting. Even writing didn't offer him comfort in those times, because he would write of her and envision her dancing and dining with the investor, kissing him, letting his terms of endearment fill her ears.
On the night he tried to write whilst waiting for her, he'd found himself picking up a pen rather than sitting at his typewriter. The words had flowed like water across the creamy page.
If you could only see the way she loves me, then maybe you would understand; why I feel this way about our love and what I must do. If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says, when she says she loves me.
But she'd never said she loved him. Had she said those words to the Duke?
"On opening night I have to sleep with the Duke."
She'd looked like a star that morning, with no makeup and a quiet tone. He did his best to ignore his envy, to give himself enough time to compensate, and write a song that would keep them together and overcome their pain and fear.
When it was writ, resentment still plagued him.
"You promised me you wouldn't be jealous."
He thought for good she'd abandoned the Duke when she'd flung her arms around him, face flooded with tears and voice filled with the truth, that she loved him and that the Duke knew. When she came to him dressed in black and told him of the real story's ending, jealousy struck him through the heart and shook him to the bones.
Well you've got your reasons and you've got your lies; and you've got your manipulations that cut me down to size. Say you love but you don't; you give your love but you won't.
If you could only see the way she loves me…
When her breathing was shallow and he touched blood on her face, he realized that his jealousy was a waste of time, for she'd loved him through every tear and in each beautiful smile. She'd always loved him, and envy of the Duke had caused him to overlook that for every thunderstorm there had been flowers, and that he had truly saved her spirit, even if her body was plagued with sickness. They made love honestly, without an exchange of money, only trust and passion.
If only he'd seen that his love was pure enough to save her, and the jealousy was what turned their scarlet black. When he kissed the lips that death had touched first, he knew that no amount of prayer would forgive what he had felt, what he had let guide his heart rather than his true love for her.
He held her in his arms welcoming the tears that streamed, to cleanse him of his sin and leave him with only love. When the saline warmth ran dry, he had indeed his pure, untarnished love. One emotion was left in pain's remnants and tattooed onto his heart, one that no amount of repenting could clean away: misery.
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Thank you a million times to the goddess. She knows why.
Song Used: "If You Could Only See" by Tonic, which I've wanted to use for quite some time now in some Moulin Rouge fic. And now I've used it. Hotcha.
Credit to Petal (as always) for she's been musing for quite some time about Christian's first kiss. It just seemed right to fit something about that in here, so inspiration is thanks to her. Mwah.
I added a bit more to Nini's chapter, if anyone's interested in catching up on that.