Authors Note: Too many spanish seductresses, brazilian beauties, french flowers and cockney english dance experts (All due respect to Nini), bring on the welsh courtesans. Right...I need to go to bed, science exam tomorrow, don't get me started.

So romantic but so bewildering

She leaned across to whisper in the other girls ear and that's when I first noticed it; her jawline was so perfect. I pictured running my finger along it, caressing the smooth skin covering the bone, tracing an idle line with my fingertip down the side of her neck to the hollow of her throat. Kissing her temple and whispering in her ear, making her laugh, turn her head to mine with an amused smile, lean in towards my lips and...

I realized she was staring right back at me and quickly looked away. The other dancers sniggered in their private little groups, they all knew about 'that red haired dancer's crush on the welsh courtesan'. Whether she was actually welsh was debateable; her accent sifted from an intoxicating welsh brogue to a sultry german sounding melody, her hair was sometimes the colour of burnt charcoal and other times dark melted chocolate and her eyes were always, always dark - grey or the colour the sky is a minute before midnight and always framed in thin coats of eyeliner. She was so different to me and yet if you looked closely, so much the same. Her hands and fingers were long and thin like mine, but could conduct themselves with a thousand times more grace and purpose as they danced in gestures while she talked or caressed across the tops of crusty diamonds on her dresser. Her lips were not painted with bloodied red lipstick like mine, but a dusty and rich browns of all different shades. I often think of the unusual colours we'd make if we kissed.

I could feel she was still watching me after I'd looked away - hopefully without blushing, she has such an entrancing gaze I found it difficult not to return it. Instead I busied myself in helping the new girl - Babydoll - in fixing her torn can can skirt.

But she still watched me. When red tendrils fell in my face as I worked, when the needle pricked and drew blood on my thumb, when I moved and my own skirt moved slightly further up my leg. For a brief moment I had the outrageous thought that she was gazing at me as I had her; in awe, in lustful fantasies and when I turned to catch her looking at me, as she had, I found her eyes were now elsewhere, watching the crumpled paper francs burn and whither in the tiny fireplace that was the only device for heating the tiny dressing room we had all gathered in. Burning a single franc was a strange ritual of Nini's, no one questioned her directly about it, I heard Tattoo scoff saying it was for good luck, 'What's the use in wishing for luck in this place? And burning money, christ, doesn't make sense,'

Indeed.

Just a twist in time (and you could be mine)

The night wore on, and I never caught sight of her even glance at me again, her eyes didn't even seem to touch upon me for a second as she turned her head to look to the other side of her. More and more of the girls lost themselves to the green fairy and fell asleep on cashmere cushions in various corners of the room or in each other's laps sprawled across the few oriental lounges that were the room's only furniture, or drugged into hazy sleeps from too many cigarettes, heads together on the bare carpet, cigarette stubs littered in the ashes of the dying fire.

I got up to leave, perhaps I am arrogant, but I never slept in the dressing room collapsed on a silk rug or feathered pillow with the rest of them. I always crept away down the hallways of the dancehall and into what I liked to call my own little room - which was the tinest of all the dressing rooms of the Rouge, located right near the wings and tunnels we would come running out of each night - skirts wipping around our knees, faces sequined and painted.

I was feeling along the wall in the pitch dark, my palms reading the wall telling me how far away from my sanctuary I was when I heard breathing behind me, followed by an unmistakeable voice.

'So this is where you disappear to,' the german melody crooned in a whisper.

I turned quickly, wondering for a moment how I hadn't heard her following me, her heels surely would've tapped on the floor.

'I thought everyone was asleep,' I whispered, noticing how unprotected my voice sounded as I felt her enter the air very close to me.

'You were wrong,' came the simple answer.

I had no reply to give and stood in hesitant silence, my head filled with too many thoughts and reasons as to why she had followed me, too many fantasies skipping and twirling throughout my imagination at once. I felt lightheaded.

As my heart began to beat as fast as my head swirled and my bare shoulders sticking out of my dressed began to get cold from standing too long in the cool hallway I built up the courage - or stamina - to enquire as to why she had stalked me down the hallway.

I was only just deciding that 'stalked' was probably too strong a word when I felt the warm of her lips meet mine before I could say anything at all.

Just a kiss divine (and you could be mine)

'I wanted to say goodnight,' she murmured into my mouth. She wanted to say goodnight. It wasn't any of the reasons I had thought of in my head as to why she had followed me, but at that moment it seemed better than any of the solutions I had thought up.

I had temporarily lost the ability to carry out any human politeness and reply, all I could do was move myself closer towards her and surrender as her lips crushed against mine. So powerful. Her mouth tasted like tobacco and glass after glass of the cheap wine the girls opposed to Absinthe drank.

Her hands danced their way up to the back of my neck, her warmth against my cold skin sent tingles up and down my spine. I hadn't noticed or realized we'd been continuing to walk down the hall until her hand left my neck to twist open the doorknob of my little room, warm inside from the many candles I had left alight on candleabras. I seemed to step with the same amount of grace as her as we stumbled across the threshold.

Her mouth never leaving mine until we woke the next morning