Chapter 2: Downfall

"All sense of where I am, of who I am and where I'm going, has been swallowed by the dark. And I walk through the stars and sky, a trinity of dreams beneath the moon."

-Neil Gaiman

She's married now, or have I told you that? I'm still here, still begging for a chance to let her know that I've returned to her.

'Don't do it, Sebastian.' She once told me, her expression placid and tone foreboding, the way a mother would tell a warning to her son to never play with matches. Well, being the hardheaded moron that I was then, I failed to heed her warning, and we both fell... And how Kathryn and I did fall from the towering pedestal we'd resided in. I plunged to my death while she died silently, the vestiges of emotion drained out of her as soon as the seed of malice I had inadvertently planted into Annette during our brief intercourse grew, and before I knew it, I was screaming at everybody to leave Kathryn alone as two diamond drops of liquid fell from her disbelieving eyes. It wasn't the fact that she was ruined, or even the fact that everybody else knew her dirty little secrets while the very people she'd spent her entire life pleasing and smiling at stared at her with a mixture of disgust and anger while they held a cheap copy of my once prized possession and I knew it. She cried because it was MY words that crucified her, it had been MY thoughts that stained her, it was MY illustrations, MY labels, MY knives that plunged deeper into her until she was almost as dead as I was. She cried because she failed to see herself the way I really did after reality had been stripped from my grasp by that evil incident called my unfortunate demise. She slowly melted away because it was at that point that she realized I was gone, that this wasn't another joke or some twisted revenge in which I would pop out from behind the pillars of my would have been alma mater and laugh at her, Kathryn fell because she knew that the casket wouldn't be empty. It wouldn't be full of rocks to make the illusion that I was inside, it would be me in there. Dressed in my favorite black suit with the silk blue tie that she'd once commented brought out the deceptive blues of my eyes. She never looked inside because she was afraid to see me looking so still, my eyes forever shut in a peaceful slumber and a smirk no longer on my deathly pale face. Sebastian Valmont, the legendary hero who made the ultimate sacrifice... Lying so still when in fact I would have never slept that long. Kathryn always said I had too much of the urge to tempt the boundaries of life, thus the lack of fondness for sleep. She was right. Now I never sleep. Now I watch her, observe her, and love her. Just as I had done in the past.

I suppose you could ask me why I'm being so benevolent when in fact I should hate the fiery green eyed woman who took my life. You see, by the publishing of that wretched journal, I've gotten her back for her manipulation. She could see it, my hand reaching from the expensive casket to give her the last 'Fuck you' I would ever give her. It hurt her more than dying ever could, and I knew it. Did I want it to happen? Of course. Don't underestimate the anger of a betrayed man, even when I realized she cared for me, I still hated her because of her involvement in all of this. But when that moment came, when Cecile Caldwell came up to her and handed her the small book with a smug smile on her face, I wanted to snatch it from her and tear it into a million, unrecognizable pieces. These were lies, misconceptions of a complex individual society would never understand. Why had death provided me with so many answers that I would never be able to put into use? I stood beside her that fateful day of my wake, by her side as I had always been, only this time, she never saw me. I'd come back and I'd come back for her, but did it even matter? She cried against me as I held her without ever feeling her tremble with guilt and loss and without her knowing that the very person who'd said all those awful things about her was right there, repentant and as guilt ridden as she was. I yelled at those judgmental fools who based their perception of her from the words of a frustrated, angry man when in fact everybody knew angry words are lies that should never be uttered. I screamed until my throat got hoarse because she had been silenced by my messy handwriting, I fought for her, tried to slap Dean Hargrove's hand from taking her cherished crucifix from her hand when it was now the only familiar companion she had in the world. I wanted to punch my father and murder Tiffany Merteuil, who looked appalled instead of saddened at her darling daughter's social downfall. Kathryn killed me and I killed her back, this sick and twisted game disguising the forbidden love we'd secretly felt had spiraled out of control and for once, we were both utterly powerless to stop it. I could yell and cry out until I died another death and she could stand still frozen for eternity, but it wouldn't change anything. I was dead and she killed me. I was gone and I've taken her happiness to my grave. That scene alone will haunt me for as long as I remain with Kathryn, and even now, as the scandal of the unmasking of Kathryn Merteuil had faded over the years, I still see her sad, young face, green eyes filled with tears at the devastation we'd caused each other.

During the last time I spoke to you, I told you of her marriage. That beautiful, ethereal vision of purity and chastity that secretly housed an empty shell of a woman who breathed but never lived. She still has nightmares, she has a husband who loves her but doesn't understand her, so instead, he masks the pain of being unable to reach out to his enigmatic beautiful wife by immersing himself in business matters. He makes more money than he could ever spend, and he spoils her the way even I would have done. He has my respect, and mind you, my respect is difficult to earn. He's never hurt her, laid a hand on her, or even screamed at her. I knew Kathryn would marry well, I knew she would never become like her mother, who turned the other way while her husband fucked around. She was tainted, but she had never been stupid. He spends his time away from her, loving her from afar as I do because he doesn't witness the awful dreams now. He's tired of it, of Kathryn letting him hold her for a few minutes only to be pushed away once again as soon as she gets herself together. The ache for her affections reached that point wherein he couldn't be around her anymore, and he just got up one morning and left to acquire more wealth, the only thing he could ever really give to my stepsister that she would take. Bastard. I understand him, but I hate him at the same time. Still, when he comes back to her during moments of desperation and blind love, she allows him to touch her, as if she too understood how painful it was to love someone you could never touch. She allows him inside of her body, and he nearly goes weak when her pink lips part open as he kisses her. She was his weakness, his undoing. He wishes he could get through to her somehow, her husband would do anything to understand the blank stares outside the window of their exclusive Manhattan penthouse. Her small hand reaches up to his dark hair afterwards and she absentmindedly wraps bits and pieces of it around her fingers, curling it and somehow wishing it would turn that dark blond color and the curls would stay intact. I've watched her whisper my name when she knows he's in too deep of his maddening love for her to realize that his wife was really wrapped around the memory of me, kept alive and preserved more than any kind of journal could ever have done.

When she feels sorry for him, she answers when he professes his love for her, only she stares into my blue eyes while her green irises are gazing into his very different colored hopeful stare. Then she tells me she loves me, the name different but the sentiment very much directed to her dearly departed stepbrother, whom everybody else thinks she had killed. Sometimes, I inhabit him and I am disgusted with myself for doing so, for sinking to a level wherein I would wear another man's body just to feel her closing in on me, but these moments are rare and sudden. I live for these moments, when I could tell her that she is loved and that I died loving her. I never tell her exactly, because she's fragile enough as it is. Instead, I tell her I love her, I touch her as she wanted to be touched, her smooth body not at all complementing this strange man's the way it would have done with mine. Strangely enough, as it is with her dreams, she seems to understand sometimes, and she lets my name slip out of her mouth in silence. But I hear her. I hear her every time and I am reborn once again, accepting this fate as my personal juxtaposition of paradise and hell. It doesn't matter. As long as I feel her for the merest of milliseconds, I am alive. Nothing so strong could ever keep pulling us apart for so long, and until that day arrives, and I know that it will, I'll be right here waiting. Kathryn and I may have been knocked off our pedestal, but we'd go back there someday. Why? It's not because we're twisted or even the fact that we're nothing without the other, the two halves she once spoke of, it's because we belong there, and not even death or my brief love for Annette Hargrove could ever stand in the way.