Wow! Well here I am, back again, with the longest chapter yet! Aren't you proud? Lol, so enjoy some Satine fluff, and guess what? CHRISTIAN IS FINALLY IN PARIS! Stay tuned

The velvet curtains open onto the computer screen, leaving the audience in hushed silence and anticipation.

Act 10: three women and the hole in the floor

The velvet curtains open on to the computer screen, leaving the audience in hushed silence and anticipation. Let the show begin.

"If I could find you now, things would get better,

we could leave this town and run forever"

Satine walked aimlessly. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately, she had been told- but she found doing things aimlessly to be very agreeable. She had to admit...watching the restoration had been quite enticing, although quite a bit boring- she had absolutely nothing to do! It was as though the duke had brought her along only so he could flaunt her around and give her orders. Stand up straight darling, keep your chin up darling, walk like a lady darling, smile for me darling.

"Be a lady" he had said. But Satine was tired of acting like a lady. Were ladies not supposed to have emotions? Or brains? Now Satine did not think that she was especially smart, but she had seen the women from England in the streets of Paris, in their new gowns, and bustiers, chattering and gossiping amongst themselves, and she did not think them to be the sharpest tools in the shed either.

"Oh MARY, did you SEE that? Oh MY. Wait until the ladies society hears about THIS." They would say, and then they would do that little chattering laugh- they sounded like magpies. She snickered at the thought of those women with wings and large beaks, and received a rather aggrieved look from the duke. She cleared her throat and sent him a charming smile, and mouthed to him "I was thinking about you!" he attempted a smile at her, although it.....well it didn't give him the impression he was hoping for.

So Satine set out in search for something to do, walking aimlessly again, trying to find something to amuse her self- she felt like a child who's mother had to go to an important lunch, or shopping in the market, and had to come along and sit. But Satine couldn't have

possibly known what that felt like- she never had a mother. Well of course she'd had one at one point or another, but not a mother in story books, the mothers that bake cookies, that take their daughters to the park, that help them with schoolwork, that took them to

buy a new dress just because. Because a mother should not need a reason to dote upon her only daughter. No, Satine had never had a mother like that. At nighttime in the orphanage in MontMartre when the other little girls would stay up French braiding each others hair, she would sometimes make up a day with her mother. She would think about what they would do, and eat and say, and as a result, she was often outcastes, they thought she was a bit odd- always talking to herself, off in her own world. She had never even left the village. Born and raised- if you could call an orphanage a proper place to be raised- in Montmarte, Satine was about to continue thinking about he days in Monmarte, when she took a step, and the floor made an odd creaking sound beneath her. She looked down, and then took another step, when suddenly the floorboards beneath her gave way completely!

"AAHH!" She managed to get out a surprised shriek before falling beneath the floor, landing some 5 seconds later on a squishy (and very dusty) pile of mattress cushions.

"Oomph!" She grunted, as she came up to a sitting position on the pile. She waved her hands in front of her face, coughing, moving the tiny dust particles out of the way. Looking around, Satine saw...a living room? Couches and chairs, an ornate glass table with tea cups set out on its top, a clock on the wall with the correct time....since when did the Moulin rouge have people living beneath its floors?

"Oh no! Now you've gone and done it! I just finished patching up that hole and now it's broken again. Rats!"

Satine turned around and came face to face with an old woman. Startled, she squealed and toppled backwards on top of the pile, sending another cloud of dust up in to the already musty air.

"Oh, come now, get up!" the woman said. Satine was surprised to hear that the woman had an English accent.

"Come on now! Haven't got all day do we! Up you go". She said again, outstretching her arm to Satine, who took it gratefully, because to tell the truth, she was having quite a bit of difficulty getting up herself.

"Er.....hello there." Satine said to the woman. "I'm Sa-"

"I know who you are missy, no need for that." She answered again. "I'm Justine, this is my home, it says hello." She said sarcastically.

Satine thought that this was extremely rude of someone to say, but decided not to act upon the instinct of quickly running away from this strange and all knowing woman. Satine followed Janet into what must have been the kitchen, and sat down at the table, looking around. She had been at the Moulin rouge for years- how could she have never known that this was here? Then she remembered that a large Chester drawer used to inhabit this space on the ground floor. She remembered because she would always bang into it and stub her toe on the legs of it. It made that part of the hallway very tiny, and everyone had to squeeze past each other to get through. But there were so many questions: how long had this woman lived here? How could Satine not known of her existence? Did Zidler know?

"I was here when you were the star of the Moulin rouge," she said. "And yes...Zidler knew I was here. He should- I'm his god damned mother!"

"You're...Zidlers mother?" Satine asked her. Yes she replied, didn't you hear me the first time? She also added. Satine nodded, and explained her confusion. Zidler had never said anything of his mother...Satine naturally assumed that she was deceased! Janet continued, "Harold...became the owner of this place, and I originally lived in one of the rooms in the tower, the corner one? With the leaky ceiling right by the window?" Satine nodded, she knew of that room: it was a huge props room when she had been the star of the Moulin rouge...it had also been a hiding place for herself and Christian when they wanted a moment alone. Satines' eyes began to glaze over, an unspeakable sadness forming in them, her attention to the outlandish woman in front of her broken for just a moment; then it was back. It was not healthy, she found, to live in the past. Some memories...were best to be kept locked away until one is ready to deal with them. Justine continued,

"Yes, well I used to live there, in that room. I was quite comfortable there actually, just put a bowl under the spot and empty it when it gets full, but of course there was that one time, Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! Hmm, yes there was this one time you see...." Justine rambled on to herself for a moment, and then snapped back to reality.

"Oh, sorry, did I get distracted there? Well? Say something! Oh well, anyways, so I lived in that room, and then gradually, over time, the Moulin rouge became home to all sorts of people: actors, courtesans, dancers, helpers, people off the street, that apparently, Harold thought needed that space more than I did. So I moved from place to place on the grounds, and this place just kept filling up, and eventually, about 6 'n a half years ago, just about the time you came to the place, right?" Satine interjected with a quick nod, eager to hear the rest of the story, "I found this space, by falling through that exact hole. These mattresses were there, so there had to be another entrance, where somebody would have come in and put them there right? So I ended up finding it and it comes out to Marquis Street, just across from the hotel. There's a handle on the outside. But there's a big dumpster that I put in front of it, that's empty of course, so that I can move it when I have to get in, but only when no body's lookin'."

Satine sat nodding, hunched over in her chair, her elbows on her knees, fascinated. And kind of disturbed...but fascinated! Satine was going to ask Justine a question about something, but she had become distracted by a creaking noise coming from behind her. She was trying to remember what her question was, but the creaking noise just would NOT stop, and she finally turned around, and said out loud

"Goodness, what is that creaking noi-"

And just then, a young girl fell into the hole just as Satine had done not 30 minutes prior. The girl looked at Satine and then at Justine, and looked at the hole in the floor. Then she looked at the both of them again, and said:

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" To which Justine and Satine both said:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" It was quite loud, and Satine, who wasn't really sure why she was screaming, it just seemed appropriate, was surprised that no one heard or looked through the hole in the floor. Then Justine stopped screaming, mumbling something that sounded like, stop it every body or something like that and the two other women just sort of followed suit, and Justine took a long drag on her cigarette and nodded at the girl while she took another drag of her cigarette and said

"Welcome to the club".

Two hours and 36 cigarettes later...

The girls name was Michette. She had come to audition for the main role in the play; auditions were to be held tomorrow, but she had gotten here a day earlier than expected and on her way to the powder room, had stopped to tie the laces on her boot, and noticed a rather large hole in the floor. So she had gone to see what was in the hole, even though she had been terribly afraid that it was going to be a monster of some sort that was going to jump out and at her or something, and when she got closer to it, the floorboards that she was standing on gave way themselves, and that's how she ended up at Justines' kitchen table, smoking cigarettes. She realized who Satine was when she had gotten up off of the mattresses and the dust had cleared.

"You're .:hicc:. Satine! .:hicc:.!" She managed to get out between hiccups from the dust. When Michette heard of the auditions for the new show, she had come right away.

"My papa used to come here all the time," she said. "I was still young, no more than 8, and all I knew about this place was that my mama would get very angry whenever my papa would leave to come here. I remember asking him what he came here for if it made mama so angry. He said that he came for love, and I asked him didn't he get enough love from me and mama? And he said yes, but every once in a while he needed just a little bit more. I didn't understand at all," Michette said, her voice lilted with a small laugh. "I remember one time I snuck out of the house and followed him here. There were so many people, everywhere; they didn't even see me come in. I saw you up there, on the trapeze. You were so graceful, it was like magic. I stood and watched your whole show, it was amazing. And ever since I've wanted to be like that- like you!" She laughed again, happier this time, exuberant just to be in the presence of "the sparkling diamond." "They called you the sparkling diamond. I remember thinking, 'wow! What a great name!' The next week I made mama and papa call me the exuberant emerald; I had this green feather shawl, and a large emerald necklace that mama didn't wear anymore, and these green stockings and I wore that everyday for about a month! It just seemed more exciting than staying at home doing nothing. So, I moved to Paris when I got older, and I went to school, and they had an acting company there, and I auditioned, and did some plays there and such. But I heard the auditions for the new play at the Moulin Rouge, and I came over here straight away, took the 10:15 train all the way from Paris. And...here I am."

So the three women spoke of nostalgia, and of the unknown things that bound them together. The stage, the manager, and the hole in the floor.

Part deux

Christian walked aimlessly around his compartment of the train. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. They were still on the train, heading to France, heading to...to what else? To a dream that had always been so vivid in his mind- what he would do, what he would say, she occupied every space in his mind, forever haunting his thoughts. And now, the time had finally come, the time when dreams became reality, when hidden courage had to be swept up from the shelf, dusted off, and used anew. Christian was afraid. He was very, very afraid. It had been so much easier to watch her, and then he had her and lost her. Watching and dreaming are so much safer than actuality. Was he willing to be able to hold her once more just so that she could be taken away again? Of course he was. Netti had told had told him that even though it is safer to watch and wait, who truly wants to be safe from the bad things if it keeps away the good things as well? He had always believed that. He had to believe it now more than ever. Nettie came out from the washroom, looking very uneasy; train rides made her quite nauseas. "Well hello dear," she said as she walked slowly towards him, holding on to the tops of seats for much needed balance. She looked awful.

"You look awful." He said. She laughed and told him that she didn't agree with trains. Butler came in through the doors; he had a big smile on his face, and was holding a bottle of Champagne. "Good news everyone!" He shouted loudly, holding out his other hand, which was holding 3 champagne glasses. He filled them to the rims with champagne, and gave Netti and Christian each a glass, and hoisted his high above his head in a toast. Christian thought he was just a bit drunk.

"WE!" he started, "Have ARRIVED!" He finished, and then proceeded to take a huge swig of his champagne, and then feel over backwards, asleep. They had finally arrived. Christians' head turned to the noise of the train whistle signaling their arrival in the train station in Paris. He could hear the conductor of the train coming and knocking on the doors of all the train compartments.

"Madam? We've arrived; please exit the train, yer bags are being unloaded at the end of the pavilion. Thank you fer yer business, come again." He said at each compartment, in a thick Irish accent, changing "madam" to "sir" when necessary. He reached Christians compartment, and was about to start his little speech when he stopped and looked over Christians' shoulder. Christian turned around to see Netti dump a large bucket of water over Butlers' head, who in turn, woke up rather quickly after that. Christian turned back around to face the conductor, who had a confused look on his face.

"Oh don't worry. That happens all the time," Christian said to the man, in reference to Netti's new wake up method. A weak smile and a very grumpy butler later, the three travelers stepped out into the Fresh French air. Christian could smell the baguettes baking in the nearby bakery in the train station. There were three men singing on the platform who had caught Butler's attention, and Netti was walking around on the platform, breathing in deeply, trying to shake off her train sickness. Christian dropped his bags and walked over to the wall which was made of windows, looking out at the great city of Paris. An unparalled surge of confidence and energy brought a smile to his face. And not a small, or a fake smile, but a full blown out smile, which was rare from him these days. I'm going to find her, he said to himself. I'm going to find her! He leaned his back against a large rod iron pillar and continued looking out over the city. He saw the Eiffel tower, cobblestone streets and small shops. He could hear the music, smell the scents, and a new musical was forming in his mind. Yes! It would be wonderful, and Satine would be his again. Yes, they had finally arrived.

fin chapter

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