Thanks for all the lovely words, my dears, I am absolutely elated to hear you like my story. I quite revere Dickens and I am very, very proud that two different people think my writing echoes/reminds them of his. I actually didn't realize the name similarity between Oliver and The Reptile until Elyse3 pointed it out to me. I find is strange though, that there's a corellation between the two characters; one being innocence incarnate, and one being, well, a Reptile. I was originally going to wrap this up in the next chapter or so, but since you all seem to like it so much (and thanks for that, because I'm insecure), I think I'll keep going and just see how it goes. Any "cafes" without accent marks aren't mistakes. I'm typing this on WordPad and it can't do them.
One last thing: Thanks for the kind words regarding my essay. It went smashingly, although I did mispell my own last name (I'm the worst typer ever) and got marked down for it!
We must return now, lovely readers, to talking about the past as the past, and not as the present. The Monumental Day that we saw through the eyes of four mortal and sinful chracters is truly in the past, and besides; the day we are now to discuss is not nearly as monumental.
Azelma, dear little mouse, was sitting as she so often did on a little trunk at the foot of her bed. She detested the trunk; it was big and black and scratched. Inside, there were things for her new life as Madame Reptile tucked against a lining made of grayed, coarse fabric. She could not move the trunk toa place she could not see it, and so take her mind off the wedding; she could only sit on it and try her hardest to crush its heavy exterior with her emaciated, barely-nothing frame.
It did not work. It would never work.
And yet Azelma passed the night in just this fashion.
The Reptile was slithering about, his usual lizard-esque grin defining his face. The Cafe was too...pedestrian for his haughty tastes, but it served his purpose and so he went there daily.
Josephine was not often down to see him, especially not lately. She used to emerge from the room where she cloistered herself and stare blankly at the floor as he tried to charm her, by only at the prodding of her overbearing Ogress of a mother. His grin faded.
He took a sip of some horrible beverage, whose name he did not know, and sighed. Ah, it was a pity she wasn't more...alluring. She was no Venus, no great beauty; her body was a dried up twig and none too inviting. She was, though, the shyest, mildest thing in Paris and the world. She would do anything she was told.
A pity they weren't really being married.
His grin reappered, and grew.
They needn't be married for him to...enjoy her. He was destined for Hell already; why not have fun in his last remaining days before eternal damnation?
If only she would come down! And if only she hadn't barricaded her door! What a cloistress that Mouse was, andhow tightly she shut herself in!
The Reptile began to walk towards the hallway that lead to a back room, and to an exit. He wished to exit by this back way; to be seen exiting such a terrible place would be his honor's death, to be sure.
When he reached the hallway, by the door to the always-locked back room, he stopped and sniffed the air. What was that disgusting smell?
Sniff..sniff...
"Hey, m'sieur!" It was a beggar girl! And a horrible one.
The Reptile gave her a scanning look. Could he sell this one too?
Nearly as soon as he scanned, however, he pulled away with horror; No man would want this wretch!
She was dark from the sun, and with even less teeth that your average street beggar. She was a bag of bones and scabby skin, with unwashed hair that she (was it a she?) had cut short...lice! She was infested with lice! Mostly, though, it was her voice; it was like...like...nothing no man should ever have to hear. It was a travesty.
She was not a possibility.
The croak emgered from the Frog's throat and the disgustingcreature continued. "If you're headed inta that back room there, then you're the man me papa asked me to seek out," She stopped here, and looked about. "Gawd, but this is a nice place, ain't it?"
"Quite," he murmered.
"Anyway, you lonely, m'siuer?"
"What?"
She rolled her eyes in annoyance. The Frog seemed intent on following a set script.
"Anyway, you lonely m'sieur?" She said, a little more scathingly.
The hideous, rusted out, money-loving cogs in The Reptile's mind began to turn. Perhaps this whore knew other whores...better whores...
"Dreadfully," he replied, deadpan. He wasn't much of an actor.
"Oh! Oh! Oh," The Frog cried out, clapping her claw-like hands together. "Papa's gonna be so happy with me, so happy!"It almost seemed insane, this clapping and cheering; she shut herself out from the world for this moment and showed her happiness physically. The Frog didn't have many words.
"Er...well...I'm quite lonely. What do you propose we do about it?" Upon saying this, he leaned against the rough wooden door to the back room. He could hear no sound. It must have been empty.
"I erm, know a girl what's looking for some extra income, sir, and if yer willing, could you take her?"'
"Is she beautiful?"
This was not in The Frog's script. "Yessir," she said, after a period of screwing up her dirty, ugly face. "And she's right close, sir, just upstairs even."
Upstairs? Josephine!
"How do you know the upstairs girl?" He was not angry (he didn't care about the honor of a mouse), merely curious, and a bit excited.
"She's...she's..." The Frog had forgotten her script. She paused to dig in her street-addled mind. "She's er, my cousin. Oh, sir, don't tell the lady of the house, don't tell me dear auntie what business her...er...daughter's in!"
"I won't," grinned The Reptile. This was his chance he was looking for to have his fun with that little cloistress mouse befor he sold her off!
The world works in such mysterious ways!
Such mysterious ways...
He could hear the smelly Frog muttering as she hopped out of the Cafe, but he could not hear her words.
"I sold off Zelly to one of them back-room men," shewas saying, "And I even went to the right Cafe, and I remembered everythin' I was supposed to say, and papa ain't gonna beat me, he ain't gonna beat me, oh! he ain't gonna, he ain't gonna..."