I know, it has taken me forever to write this epilogue, but distractions in my real life have left my muse too exhausted to write. So here it is, for all three of you that read this, enjoy…
He knew after just ten steps that he should have hailed a cab. Walking off the past two hours drinking binge had seemed like an excellent idea when he left the club, but now, he wondered why he'd told Craig to go on without him. The narrow streets and brick or stone buildings of Montemartre combined with the wet pavement from rain earlier in the day created an excellent medium for echoes. The uneven click of his drunken pace came back to him from the alleys and walls along with a second set of footsteps. In an attempt to separate himself from the odd double beat of footfalls, he increased his pace and deliberately turned two corners in a row. This tactic was an excellent ploy when one thought one was being followed in a car, but on foot in a dangerous area it spelled disaster. Instead of shaking his pursuer, he only succeeded in getting himself lost in less and less populated areas.
The streets became less well lit and dirtier and more run down. Now instead of people in expensive clothing walking along laughing and kissing there were a few rare seedy hucksters with dirty playbills trying to get him to come into a club that promised a lot more than just dancing. None of them noticed the clicking of heels behind him that had now become distinctly separate from his own. In desperation he began to run, praying that he could get far enough away to get back out to a more populated street and hail a cab. He was under no illusion that he could actually lose his pursuer.
If he had been sober, he would have undoubtedly come up with a better way to save himself. Of course, if he had been sober, he wouldn't have gotten into this predicament in the first place. Running when one is drunk is seldom a good idea. Rounding another corner he almost ran down a woman in a red dress. As it was, she actually kept him from falling since she was leaning against a wall and was able to brace herself. At least that's what it looked like to him.
"Mousier, you should be more careful. These streets here are poorly lit at night and dangerous besides. This is not the place to go running at night!" she laughed, a sweet musical laugh, that echoed oddly in the narrow alley giving her voice more volume and depth than that of a normal person, at least to his ears, or maybe it was just booze.
"I know all of that! Some one is following me! If I wasn't being pursued do you think I would be stupid enough to even be in this part of the city?" He gripped one of her arms tightly in anger, reacting badly to her seemingly flippant reaction to his distress.
She looked at his hand on her arm and then up at him with a glare that would have frozen a less pickled soul. "If I did not see that you are terribly frightened I would be angry and remove your hand from my arm myself. However, since I am sympathetic to your plight, I will simply tell you take your hand off me and let you go with no harm done." She even smiled lightly to reassure him.
But her smile had the opposite effect. He could not have moved if she had described to him exactly how she planned on disemboweling him right there on the street. For the moment at least, his fear was forgotten in contemplation of her beauty. The color of her hair was a cross between flame and ruby even in the faint light from the doorway. Her eyes were a perfect, brilliant blue - the color of the sky just after sunset. Long lashes framed those large stunning eyes, which in turn were bracketed by marvelously high cheekbones. Her nose was a bit upturned and her upper lip was a bit thin, but on the whole these tiny flaws helped to enhance the other qualities and made her seem more real and thus even more beautiful.
"You are…I've never seen…so, so beautiful." He never stammered, but apparently there was a first time for everything. She smiled with pleasure and let him keep his hand where it was, but a voice behind him was not so forgiving.
"The lady told you to remove your hand from her arm sir, and I suggest that you do so." He knew without turning to look that the voice belonged to his pursuer. The voice was hard, but not really frightening, the tone was that of a parent, patiently telling a child one more time to behave. Clearly this was the last warning he would get before being told to stand in the corner for a couple of hours.
He quickly removed his hand and thrust it and its mate into his pockets, turning to confront his assailant with all the bravado of one deeply intoxicated. "Yes, you are quite right, forgive me…" His voice trailed off to silence as his eyes beheld the man behind him. The woman sparkled with bright beauty, her counter part, (for somehow he knew they were together), was the splendor of the night personified. His hair was the black of the night sky and the streetlights caught highlights of blue-white in it like star. It framed a face pale as the moon that was surmounted by a luminous pair of eyes that seemed to be both blue and green with flecks of gold highlighting their depths. His strong cheekbones and wide, full mouth, along with a nose just thick enough to be masculine and a firm chin, all combined to make him her perfect counterpart.
Looking back and forth between them he saw a matched set – the sun and the moon. Swallowing some of the fear he felt, but none of the awe, he looked at the young man. "Why were you following me?"
The man scratched the back of his neck with one hand while his other played with the buttons of his old-fashioned waistcoat "I recognized you and w-wanted a chance to speak with you. Y-you are Baz Luhrman are you not?" Baz nodded mechanically. The switch from threatening to hesitant was oddly charming and made the man appear young and sweet. All at once he seemed slightly unsure of himself and he hesitated. "That is, we wanted-"
"Christian there is absolutely no reason to be nervous. Len made it quite clear in his letter that this man will do what needs to be done."
"I know darling, but I'm still not sure it will be all that interesting to a modern audience…"
The woman heaved a sigh of impatience, "I'm sorry, you must excuse my husband, he's a little nervous." So saying, she stepped around Baz and took Christian's hand, nuzzling the palm with her nose, and then sucking his middle finger into her mouth. The man gasped and his eyes rolled partway back in his head for a moment.
"Satine…d-d-don't, not Owww-AAAhah-out on the street…"
She pulled away, her silvery laughter rippled through the night; she caressed his cheek, "Oh Christian! You are still such an innocent, even after all this time, that's why I still love you." Turning back to Baz, she smiled gently, but pinned Baz with eyes gone suddenly cold as ice. "We need you sir, to tell our story."
"But you must tell it in such a way as to make people believe that it is only make believe, something you dreamed up on your own." The confidence was back in Christian's voice. When he acted in his role of protector to Satine he was all bold confidence, but otherwise, he was a bundle of nerves.
~ The writer and his muse ~ Baz realized with a mixture of wonder and amusement at finding a true example of the old cliché.
"You were going to make a movie about the Moulin Rouge weren't you?" Christian asked hopefully. Satine was right, the boy's innocence was completely captivating, and despite being both frightened and drunk, Baz smiled up at him.
"Yes I was. It has such a fascinating history and was the first of its kind in so many ways that I-"
"And yet still managed to make its real money the old-fashioned way." Satine said dryly.
"Well, yes there was a lot of that going on, but it was still something of a phenomenon wasn't it?"
Christian let go of Satine to gesture grandly, "Oh yes! It was the first theatre of its kind to use extensive electric lighting and put on real, large scale musical-"
"Christian!"
The young man's shoulders slumped and he dropped his arms to his sides, his animated excitement vanishing in an instant. "Yes, of course darling."
She slipped her arms around him, pressing her forehead to his. "Christian, our time to talk to Baz is short, I wish it wasn't because I know you two would be great friends." She tilted her head to give Baz a smile full of regret and affection.
Christian nodded and reached inside his jacket, pulling out a small box of tapes. He took the other man's hand and placed the box in it and carefully wrapped Baz's hands around it. Their eyes met and Baz felt himself wanting to drown in those impossibly colored eyes. "Tell our story Mr. Luhrman." Christian lifted one hand and pushed Baz's eyes closed with his fingertips.
From his other side he felt Satine's impossibly cold lips on his throat, "Tell our story…"
When Baz opened his eyes again he was staring at the ceiling of his hotel room. He turned his head to find CM lying beside him asleep and breathed a sigh of relief. ~Just a dream~ he thought, ~it was all just a dream~ Rolling over and smiling, he went back to sleep.
For the next two weeks the rest of their research went smoothly. By the time they were ready to leave Baz was brimming with ideas and the whole nightmare meeting in the alley was just a strange blur that he assumed was just a manifestation of the whole creative process and his own fixation on the Moulin Rouge. He even went so far as to tell Craig about the dream. His writing partner thought it was a wonderful inspiration, but denied that it could have been real because Craig had come back for him just minutes after Baz had walked away.
As they were leaving the hotel, CM did her last sweep of the room to make sure they left nothing behind. Meeting Baz in the lobby she smiled, "Here you bloody idiot, I swear, I don't know how you plan to make this film without your brain." She placed the small box in his hand and nodded to the porter, following along behind him as he pushed the cart full of luggage out to the curb.
Baz opened his hand to look down at the small box full of tapes.