luxuryflower | FIC : roxanne (you don't have to turn on that red light)

Somehow, perhaps by a cruel twist of fate, she misses his introduction on the network. Her TC remains blank and uninteresting in comparison and she thinks, for many days, many months, that it is how she prefers it. Then, a couple of weeks later, she spots him in the saloon, Armand, her Armand, which makes her turn away quickly, turn towards her(s as well) dear State Minister who has brought her there and before his eyes, she carefully pretends that there’s nothing amiss, tells herself that she’s merely seeing ghosts, the phantom of a lost love. They leave the establishment together, then break up and go their separate ways only minutes later, their meeting quickly over when she feigns illness, something she knows Monsieur Duroc to despise. He hates, refuses to have his hands soiled by her dirt and grime, in whatever form and on that day, it becomes her salvation, that she is still coughing blood, although less than before – that her frailty may speak to him and awake his desires, but they are also his reminder of her weakness. Were she to remind herself, it was another imagery altogether that she would use…

The next time Armand posts to the network, she leaves him with a reply. She learns that his timeline does not divert from hers, that he knows (almost) everything she knows and that he does, indeed, as she promised his father, hate her with the same passion with which he loved her first. He asks too many questions and she can answer too few of them, so in the end, she cuts the conversation short, telling him off with a cruelty that he doesn’t deserve and which she wouldn’t usually show towards him, but he leaves her no choice. She has left herself with no other options. When she ends the feed, her lips are bloodless from forming the thinnest of lines and she realizes only then that she hasn’t made use of the privacy function.

Monsieur Duroc meets her with a cold stare and a raised eyebrow at their next -- what is the word she has adopted from his vocabulary, date? She attempts to keep up her façade, is nothing but laughter and smiles and teasing, but he comments on the encounter even so, mercilessly. He doesn’t strike her as one to be jealous, thank goodness, but a courtesan knows that possessiveness takes many forms and his may be just as ugly, just as ruthless as petty jealousy is. She looks him in the eye with a raised chin, claims that her past is her own, when she knows perfectly well that Monsieur Duroc has bought all of her – her past, her present and her future, too.

Soon Armand knows as well. Gossip spreads like a wildfire in New Dodge and naturally, someone would tell him of her liaison with the man who, on the surface, is nothing but a humble teacher. Armand stands, one fine day, outside her door, knocking with a vehemence and who is she, not to let him in? You wouldn’t have me, he says, but you sell yourself to a teacher who possesses no more earthly values than I? Marguerite can only shake her head, again and again. She is discreet, as discreet as she promised her patron – tells no one from whom she gets her expensive dresses and jewellery, her trips to future Paris and America, but surely, certainly Armand wouldn’t understand, given such a gap between perceived and reality. Her heart bleeds for him and for herself, too. Her fingers itch to reach out and touch him, his hair, his face, the sensitive lines of his shoulders and upper arms, the flatness of his chest – Oh, she cannot bear being this close to him and yet, separated from him by her own silly choices! No further is she allowed to think, because he grabs hold of her, yanks her close to him and she can smell his sweat and the hint of alcohol on his breath. He is smiling at her, but it is not her sweet, her foolish Armand, but a beast unlike any she has ever seen before. Struggling against his hold, she can feel her breath quicken and her heart beating faster in the cavity of her breast. Beneath her hands, pressing against his chest, she can feel his do the same – breathing fast, heart working faster still. It is like lovemaking, but without the love! Is this what they have been reduced to? Is this what she has made of them? She twists and turns in his grip, until, finally, she must give up. Not in defeat, but defeated still as she reaches up with one hand, striking him across the face with a gloveless hand. The sound of impact, skin slapping against skin, is harsh and loud in the silence and it brings the both of them to a standstill. She expects him to strike back, as Monsieur Duroc has done on occasion, but he simply stares at her, only to turn on his heel and leave. It is then that she remembers who it is she has betrayed. That it is not her State Minister with his money and his disregard, but her Armand with the kindest heart and the softest touch that she has ever known. As a courtesan. No, as a woman.

In the wake of their meeting, she is shaken. Quite literally, her hands are shaking so badly that when she attempts to apply powder and rouge to her face, her mask slips and slips again. Three tries it takes before something resembling porcelain untouchability comes over her features once more and even so, the edges of her mask are ruined by the wetness at the corners of her eyes. It will do. She has a date with Monsieur Duroc in an hour and she must ready herself. Stealth herself. Dress herself in one of his modern dresses that show an inappropriate amount of skin, but fit her figure perfectly, slimming her and elongating her into a willow in semblance of elegance. She chooses a brown dress that he has expressed approval of before, one that accentuates her hair which she knows he quite likes and all the while, she manages to keep Armand out of her thoughts. Her mind is her own, Monsieur Duroc’s by way of 30 silver pieces and if she wishes Armand out of it, so be it.

So be it.

While Monsieur Duroc takes her – rough, heated breathing against her throat, she thinks about Armand. In spite of herself. She thinks of their days together in Bougival, their own second chance which she sacrificed for a fatherly kiss and now, diamonds and silk. It is, then, that Marguerite Gautier does the one thing she had otherwise promised herself never to degrade herself to. She regrets. She regrets the choice she made, she regrets letting Monsieur Duval speak on Armand’s behalf, on her own as well and she regrets hurting Armand so deeply with the promise to love him as a woman, when now (instead) she loves him as a whore. When her State Minister finishes, she is turning her head away, aside, eyes wet and hair a mess of chestnut spread out across the pillows. He looks her over for a few moments before rolling off of her. Wordlessly. He has nothing to fear from her and they both know it. Even if she wished to be Armand’s mistress, his lover again, she has burned every of her bridges. Monsieur Duroc is all she has left.

Next morning, early, before the citizens of New Dodge have arisen, Marguerite walks the long way to Armand’s yurt and places a single red camellia in front of the entrance. It may be trampled to pieces before he is given the chance to see it, but the symbolism is hers more so than his. Tonight, she is taken. Every night that is to come, she will be taken also.

And not by him.