Author's Note: I'm sorry for the long wait, but here's another chapter (if there are still people out there interested in reading it)... I hope you guys enjoy it!

Feedback: Greatly appreciated.


PART X: To Speak Like a Green Girl

Affection? Puh! You speak like a green girl

Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.

-- Hamlet (I.iii.110-111)

Look towards the sky. It is an early shade of night. The radiant, vibrant colors of orange and gold bleed into each other until the sky becomes bruised with deep purples and reds, hemorrhaging to an anemic black – the livery of Night; mourning's faithful partner.

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The warm, delicate cry of a lone violin echoed throughout the many rooms of the Singers' estate. Its sweet resonance grew louder with every step toward Katie's boudoir, until suddenly it became muffled. Shortly after, one of the maids appeared before me, carrying a hamper of Katie's dirty laundry. Despite her haggard appearance, she was quite beautiful. She had an exotic look to her – dark brown eyes, olive skin, long black hair, which was now messily tied up in a bun – and couldn't have been older than nineteen.

"I think Miss does not wish to be disturbed," she reluctantly told me in a lowly voice. The waiflike girl trembled in my presence and avoided eye contact. In fact, she couldn't look at me at all. 'Aw, isn't that sweet. She remembers me.'

"Who pays you to think?" I scoffed. The girl trembled harder, almost dropping the wicker basket. I couldn't help smiling as I felt empowered by the fear which she emitted. Slowly, I walked toward her and leaned in to softly whisper into her ear. She flinched noticeably. "Now… What would your master think if he found out that his help is a whore, hmm? One who corrupts his daughter and her friends… I don't think he would like that very much; would he?" I pulled away then, with a gentle finger, lifted her chin in order to make eye contact.

"No," she barely muttered, shaking her head slowly.

"No…" I tenderly wiped away the sweat-matted hair from her brow as well as the slow trickle of tears which now fell from her eyes. "So unless you want to go back to selling your ass on the streets for pesos and cocaine, I suggest you refrain from telling me what you think and get out of my way."

Obediently, the girl moved aside and scurried down the hall.

"It was nice seeing you again!" I called after her.

Closing the door behind me, I was enveloped in the euphoric sound of Katie's violin once more. Its sensuality was increased due to the lack of all other senses. It was hard to see anything. The room was dark. None of the lights were turned on, and all of the curtains were drawn closed. The only source of light emanated through the opened ingress to Katie's balcony. There was no doubt I would find her outside sitting in the nook between the wall and the ledge, morosely playing her Stradivarius.

Katie was in another one of her melodramatic, "O, I am so privileged yet so tortured" brooding fits. The last time this happened, her father had given her a Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet instead of a Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet. The significance of that extra letter, I'm not quite sure of, for the two look completely identical as far as I can tell. I think the S denotes that the car is faster than the other, which I know is a trait that Katie heartily appreciates, and not in cars alone. I questioned why the difference would matter when she would be spending most of her time limited to no more than 15 mph in traffic. She responded that it was not the slightly inferior performance which upset her, but the lack of her father's attention to what she had asked. She interpreted the act as her father's lack of care for her. She reasoned that if he had truly loved her, he would have listened to every detail she had told him and subsequently would not have made such an insensitive error. I could have cared less for Katie's supposed unfulfilled want for parental love. She was being a spoiled brat who felt that all attention had been diverted from her. I steeled myself so that I would not surrender the attention she longed for. Katie more than anyone deserved to know the feeling of deprivation. But the act was done in vain, for Katie was the master of persuasion. She could coax the devil himself into succumbing to her whims. I ended up spending the whole night consoling her. She even manipulated the maid into consoling her with me. "The more the merrier" Katie would say, perversely interpreting the adage as a promotion for orgiastic behavior.

The final note resounded from Katie's violin like the sun at the very last moment before it sets – slow and calming, disappearing into oblivion with resigned acceptance, followed by nothing but darkness.

"That was beautiful," I said as I walked onto Katie's balcony, finding her where I had predicted. She could have easily fallen to her death had she lost her balance or if a strong wind raged past; but the weather was calm and so was Katie. She seemed not to fear death and would accept it without struggle – like poor Ophelia who is "Drowned, drowned" – even as it drenches her clothes till they pull her down into the ultimate mire of mortality. "What was that piece?"

"Debussy's La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin," said Katie absently, staring toward the sunset.

And in that instant, my heart jumped into my throat, making it hard to breathe. It was a reaction to the sudden realization that someone else had affected Katie in a way that I hoped I only would. I felt betrayed. Katie had played each note beautifully so that I could not help but fall in love with every one of them; but as I held each dearly to my breast, they hacked into my heart, deepening cuts that had appeared when a certain blonde did; and now, dark jealousy fiercely bled from the sore wounds, congealing onto the skin, making it difficult to hide.

"The Girl with the Flaxen Hair?" I teased, self-conscious of my tone of voice. I desperately tried to not let any semblance of resentment slip through my lips. "Don't tell me that you play for her now, so overcome by love."

I readied myself for Katie's expected vehemence of denial, but it never came.

"Are you not going to argue?" I asked, sounding more concerned than disappointed.

"Why would I when I at last agree?" lamented Katie as she continued to stare out into the distance.

"What do you mean?" I cautiously asked. "Agree on what?" I walked to the ledge where Katie sat. When I tried to look at her, she stepped off the ledge and turned away.

"You and I both already know, so do not make me say it."

"If I knew, I wouldn't have asked you to," I tried to say consolingly, but somehow it just sounded like I was annoyed, which I was, but I didn't want it to sound that way.

Katie still refused to look at me and instead stared into the darkness of her room. The glow of the setting sun gave her hair a golden sheen, and even from behind, she was beautiful.

"I am…" Katie began hesitantly, fumbling for words, "stricken––with a lover's blindness… All the things in the world about me, I see––only in relation to her… She possesses my every thought, my every action… Nothing is mine anymore."

Katie finally turned to me; and in her eyes, I saw something, which I had never expected to see in her, ever. For the first time, Katie looked… helpless, and even a bit frightened.

"This heart…" continued Katie, clenching at her breast, "it beats for her… These hands," said Katie, outstretching her arms, with her palms upturned, "wish to do nothing but what pleases her… This violin," Katie picked up the $4 million Stradivarius which she had laid on a nearby chair, "which was my refuge; which was given to me to play as mine and only mine––can now only play music dedicated to her! It sickens me!"

Suddenly, Katie hurled the irreplaceable instrument at the opposite wall, and it broke into several worthless pieces.

"Now that wasn't very smart…" I said, rolling my eyes at Katie's hysterics.

"My entire body has betrayed me," continued Katie, ignoring my remark. She collapsed onto the chair where her violin had lay and held her head in her hand. "What am I going to do?"

I stared at this new Katie – a worried girl with tears in her eyes, terrified by the prospect of falling in love… and I could not help laughing.

"Enjoying this, are you?" said Katie, clearly annoyed.

"Oh, c'mon, it's funny," I offered as I took the seat opposite Katie's. "Katie Singer – the girl with a hardened heart, thought incapable of love, finally brought down by Mrs. Jesus? It's like eighteen years of karma coming back to bite you in the ass." I reclined in my chair, crossed my legs and folded my hands in my lap – all with a smug grin on my face. "And the best part of all is that you're the one who brought it upon yourself. I mean, you are the one who essentially brought her here… It's almost like a Greek tragedy."

"Does that mean that you'll die at the end? Because I'll be looking forward to it," seethed Katie, with her endearing narrow-eyed look which resembled that of a six year old who had just swallowed a teaspoon of cough syrup.

"God, you must really be in love," I teased. "Your head is so clouded, even your comebacks have gotten worse."

"Fuck off."

"Point proven."

Katie slumped in her chair, angry and defeated. She then turned her head toward the horizon once more.

The whole world felt static as the sun drew in its last breath and dispersed into a fit of golden hues. Katie looked ethereal in the glow of its dying light like Lucifer in his guise of high divinity as if he had not lost heaven but was still an angel of God. But when the sun retired into the ground – a momentary semblance of earthliness which it could never truly possess – all was revealed to be false and hollow… yet I worshipped her still.

"Look… You're not in love okay. You just think you are because Jessie is the first girl who has rejected you––several times."

"What do you mean?" asked Katie, looking at me as if I held the cure for cancer and she had only 24 hours left to live.

"You are a very persistent person, Katie, who feels that she must always get what she wants, so every time Jessie rejects you, you subsequently want her more…" Katie's eyes slowly shifted from left to right as she processed my theory. "Therefore, constant rejection causes your desire to increase to the point where you think that you're in love with her. But it's not love. It's just a result of your inability to cope with rejection because you are a spoiled, stubborn bitch," I finished matter-of-factly.

"Thank you, Lucy van Pelt."

"I hate it when you compare me to cartoon characters."

I got up and walked to the drink cart located behind me and poured myself a shot of Tanqueray. Conversation always made me thirsty, and liquor always made me talk, so the more I drank, the more I talked, and the more I talked, the more I drank. It's just one huge, self-destructive cycle, isn't it?

"But then what would explain the sudden lack of senses; the loss of breath; the whole, 'when I see her suddenly…trembling shakes my body / and I turn paler than dry grass…'? Aren't those the typical symptoms of love?" asked Katie, searching for reassurance, or perhaps looking for me to admit that maybe she was really in love with Jessie.

"You were probably just having a panic attack or something," I said, hoping she meant the former.

"But I never panic."

I leaned with my shoulder against the wall and said, "You also have never been rejected by a girl before in front of a live studio audience; but, hey, there's a first time for everything, right?" I slowly drank the shot. It smoothly passed over my tongue, clean and dry, lightly breathing juniper. I promptly poured myself another.

"How do you know about that?" asked Katie, sitting up in alarm.

"Baby, the whole school knows about it. And, right now, your reputation is falling to shit."

"Fuck…" Katie slumped in her chair, tilting her head over its back and covered her face with her hands.

"Exactly…" I said as I returned to my seat, with glass and bottle in hand. "You better fuck that girl fast. Or pull something off, because your chance to graduate a legend is slowly slipping away." I rested the bottle on the round, glass table beside me, after pouring myself a third shot.

"God!" interjected Katie, as she threw her hands at her sides. "You know, this never would have happened if Lily learned how to keep her goddamn mouth shut."

"Lily? What are you talking about?"

"Oh my god, are you ready for this?" Katie sat up in order to better gauge my reaction. "I've recently discovered that your good friend, Lily, is the one who sent the letter to Jessie urging her to stay away from me."

"You've got to be kidding me," I said, not because I was shocked, but because I felt like it was the obligatory thing to say.

"No," said Katie, not really caring whether I was interested or not. She forcefully pushed her back into the chair and whined, "How does she even know Jessie?"

"I have no idea," I answered, although I knew the question was more of Katie thinking out loud than it was a question directed at me. Again, it was just because I felt obligated to.

"Well, now I plan to devote all my energies to destroying the douche bag," said Katie, with fiery malice in her eyes. "That daughter of hers––consider her fucked."

I almost choked on my drink. 'Did Katie just volunteer to help me out, or was it just the booze making me hear what I wanted?' I was already up to my sixth glass, so I decided to ask her just to make sure.

"Does that mean you're going to help me out?" I asked, trying not to sound too elated by this possible new turn of events.

"No… I'm just attaining my revenge which by chance involves the same measures as your own," said Katie, trying to convince herself that she was in no way helping somebody else, which is the last thing she would want to do, especially when that somebody was me. "Besides, Grace will be way easier than Jessie, and I figure I need something to massage my bruised ego."

"Whatever," I said, brushing her off. "As long as I get my way, I'm not one to burst bubbles of self-delusion."

I got up to walk to the drink cart once more and retrieved a second glass. I then took up the bottle of Tanqueray from the table and poured its remainder into the two glasses.

"I think a toast is in order," I said, handing Katie a glass.

Katie looked at me then to the drink in my hand, before she hesitantly took it from me; and I imagined that Adam shared her same expression when Eve offered him the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

"To the imminent fall of Lily Manning," I began, as I raised my glass, "the corruption of her daughter, the humiliation of Gavin Gercourt and the subsequent attainment of our revenge. Cheers."

"Cheers," muttered Katie, as she raised her own glass.

Our glasses met and they made that slight clink, which was very pleasing to the ear, at least to my own, for it was the sound of Katie's unconditional surrender. Whether she believed it or not, Katie had given me exactly what I wanted, willingly, and I had done nothing to provoke it. I slowly consumed the ardent spirit and savored my latest triumph.

"Mmm…Tastes good."

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The liquor burned as it seared down my throat, and without hesitation I welcomed the pain, for I knew I somehow deserved it.

I don't know why, but I felt guilty as I took up the glass from Sarah's hand… And as I brought the drink to my lips, for some reason, I saw Jessie's hurt face, and I could not help feeling like I had betrayed her.