Her fingers had reached his shoulder now, and the gaunt blades gave away how terribly thin they were.
"You must speak of her."
He had no intention to, yet he couldn't help but to do it. "What do you want to know?"
"Start from the beginning," Luci said. "Start from the very first moment you met her."
The man leaned forward into his hand and rubbed his temples with his thumb and middle finger. He made it seem like he did not want to speak of it, but despite his reluctance, something danced in his eyes at the thought of that girl. Luci could not decide whether it was he or the story that were irresistible.
"I was her music teacher, and I fell in love with her."
"Oh, I see!" Luci's suppressed the urge to lean forward. "What is her name?"
He looked down at his hands and unclenched them. He stared into the face of the whore, the black-haired, unapologetic angel-face who prodded him and prodded him like a finger scooping caviar from a near empty jar, and he decided at that moment, there was no harm in saying it once.
"Christine."
It is true when they say, when you stop looking for it, it finds you. It can be disaster or fortune, a soul-mate or a murderer, but when you are least prepared, it appears. Some people live their lives searching for it; others, like Luci, never thought of it until it was sitting on her couch. There was only one "Christine" in Paris who inspired the wrath of her voice teacher, and it ended with a chandelier crash during her last performance. It would explain everything.
Luci wasn't about to chase it away by revealing that she knew who her caller was.
"Why did you love her?" Luci asked.
He shrugged in a wonderful, unabashed way. "I suppose because she was the only woman who I cared to love."
"She could not have been the only one."
"Ah, but she was."
He gaze fell away. His thoughts had sped quickly into the past and nestled themselves in the folds of soothing gray fog, and she could read those stormy eyes even less now that he'd regressed. The shoulders seemed to slump and the head bowed slowly. Yet, in all his melancholy remembrance, he did not seem sad. It was the will in his voice that Luci gladly sank her teeth into.
"Will you win her back?" She said flatly, expecting no answer.
Her question was met with a quick retort. "I would kill myself if I'd ever considered it."
"Oh, I could never love a man scorned," Luci said to herself and quickly regretted for he had heard her. She covered her mouth with an unsure hand and shrugged apologetically.
His yellow eyes stayed unblinking for an uncomfortable moment. "And why couldn't you love such a man?"
"May I speak truthfully?"
"Only if you promise to only speak honestly for the entire length of time that I am here. There's one thing that I loathe more than terrible singers and that's terrible liars."
What sounded threatening actually relieved her. How refreshing it was to speak frankly without having to fondle a man's penis or fill him with whiskey until he forgets his own name? She had never spoken truth soberly or to a sober man, and it felt better than being a virgin again.
"Well," She began, "to be refuted in love is to be wounded. Scorned men are like beaten animals and they run rampant in the streets of Paris. That is why most of them come here, unless they are too 'dignified' to pay to lay with someone. Then it becomes their poor maids' burdens, and that, if you ask me, is worse than paying for a woman. Secondly, scorned men are irrational, and irrationality leads to poor decisions. Do you even wonder why so many Barons or Dukes were engaged to a woman only to be scandalously reengaged to another a month later? It is not because they don't want their first fiancees, Monsieur, for if a man first agrees to marry a woman, he agrees because he wishes to see her naked. However, if he soon finds this dream will not become reality, he will immediately copulate with the next woman who will have him. It is ego, and a scorned man has a more inflated one than any creature on earth."
He looked at her with a mix of admiration and sympathy. "But my dear, suppose we all kill ourselves like poor young Werther, there would be no men left in the world to keep you in business."
There was no malice in his voice, but he was testing her. "Thank you for reminding me, Monsieur G. How could I have forgotten Werther, the most vain, scorned lover of them all?"
"He died of love. That was not his fault."
"Of course it was his fault. Any man who wants to keep a woman to himself regardless of her feelings is at fault."
"And what if the woman is too young and naive to know what she wants?"
"That is impossible. Even a girl of five knows which uncle to bat her lashes at when she wants a knee to sit on. 'Nativity' is a term created by a scorned man to soften the blow."
His laughter erupted so suddenly that she jumped a little. The guttural sound seemed to be coming from the walls, and a coldness tickled her spine.
"Did I amuse you?"
He rose slowly before her and looked down into her face, casting a large shadow against the wall behind her that seemed crooked and deathly and still. If he were to hit her right now, she would accept, for Luci was used to these temperaments of men and a little sting never hurt. She had the sick feeling she had peered through the keyhole of this man's life, and he would either shoot the handle or give her the key. His choice, of course.
He was bending over her now, and his large hands came to grasp her sharp shoulders and lift her out of the chair.
"I knew there was something fearless in you when I saw you laughing at that drunk imbecile that night." His voice was soft and urgent. "Tell me, what does an educated woman with your wit do to keep entertained in this place?"
"It's honest work," She said steadily. "And it pays."
"You should find a better paying job when your talents lay beyond the bedroom!"
He was genuinely angry. His fingertips, which were gripping harder and harder at her collar, had become whiter than stone.
She shrunk away. Unfulfilled potential was her greatest fear. She did not think of it ever because it weighed heavily on her. She woke up to that feeling and ate to it every morning, noon and evening. But she needn't be reminded of it, because she was too old, too ruined, too stubborn to change.
"Leave me be, Monsieur, for I do not even know why you care." She tore herself away and crossed her arms firmly. She tried to convey confidence and strength without defiance. She wondered how everything had been a game minutes ago and how quickly it had ended.
"Most women are either kind and stupid or evil and shrewd. If it were not that way, we would be better off."
"We, or you, Monsieur?"
He slipped on his hat and cloak and made his way to the door.
"Exactly," he said.