(Lest They Leave - Chapter 9)

[madscenes]

CHAPTER INDEX

CHAPTER 9




A second viewing didn’t soothe her nerves, but the play proved itself to have other merits. Most of them were Eloisa’s, directly or indirectly.

Once the performance, which was decent, not incredible but not tiresome either, and definitely not the piece of rubbish its lead actress had deemed it to be, had ended to enthused rounds of applause, Sylvie had to ask for the way to mademoiselle Paolo’s dressing room, not just once but twice, as she and Claire, the latter in a somewhat gaping state, made their way through the backstage area, those intricate systems and societies, unseen by most. Both times, she felt herself getting sized up by the men she had approached, as if her looks were her access card, her invitation, and maybe they were, since both times, she got the answer: “Last door, end of the hallway, left; enjoy yourself, mademoiselle.”

“Do the actresses get many visitors this way?” Claire asked a bit apprehensively, and Sylvie hated how she had just been thinking the very same thing. Me and my brother at the least, a whisper sounded and stubbornly echoed at the back of her mind, but she ignored it and didn’t voice the sentiment; it was a poor sentiment, after all. Instead, she just shook her head at Claire in a way that didn’t mean no.

It meant, I don’t want to know.

As soon as she could make out the door, the last one at the end of the hallway, left, Sylvie turned towards Claire and grabbed her hands, both of them, in both of her own. The maid looked at her in surprise.

“Claire,” Sylvie said, “I must ask you a favour. I want to do this visit alone.”

Something dawned on Claire’s face and her eyes widened for a moment, but then she shook her head furiously. “No, mademoiselle, monsieur Gallard specifically asked me to accompany you.” Everywhere, it meant. Never letting Sylvie out of her sight, he’d specifically asked Claire that, had he? Sylvie’s mouth felt dry and her throat even worse so; she swallowed hard.

“It’ll be all right; I just want you to wait out here while I go in. To keep an eye out for me.”

“I can keep a better eye on you, if I go with you,” Claire insisted, but she looked more uncertain than persistent in the matter. Squeezing her hands, Sylvie lowered her voice more and leaned in a little bit.

“Please, Claire. You would make me very happy.”

Claire glanced over her shoulder, as if she were afraid that they were being tailed or in some way overheard, but found only actors there, some stagehands, a tall man in a top hat. No one gave them even a passing look, milling by. Then, turning her attention back on Sylvie, she slowly nodded her head and squeezed her hands in return. “Fine, mademoiselle. Have it your way.”

Sylvie made a pleased sound and leaned in the rest of the way, kissing the older woman’s cheek, big smack against her powdered cheekbone, genuinely grateful. Claire’s sigh was loud enough to be heard. She looked despondent. Probably in complete contrast to Sylvie who felt elated as she stepped back, trying to breathe right as she approached Eloisa’s dressing room door, only a few bouquets left outside tonight. All roses. Glancing back at Claire, she found the maid had already turned her back on her, keeping watch in the opposite direction. So, she knocked, two quick jabs, remembering how Eloisa had thrown herself at Charles last time.

“Come in,” Eloisa’s voice sounded through the thick barrier of wood and metal hinges, the last distance between them. No enthusiastic greetings this time, it seemed. Sylvie bit her lip nervously, stepping inside and shutting the door after herself, locking it. She had no idea what to expect, this was a first, another one.

In front of the mirror, three out of four walls in the small room covered in costumes, she did a lot of costume changes in this play, didn’t she, sat Eloisa, removing her makeup, dressed in just a thin dressing gown, a silky kind of material. It looked soft and flowy and easily removed. Sylvie looked away and thought, deep breaths. “Little Sylvie,” Eloisa greeted her finally, “I was afraid something would keep you.”

“I don’t think anything could,” Sylvie replied, feeling suddenly overwhelmingly nervous, as if the life she knew, the reality familiar to her, were on the chopping block, as if she was sacrificing something of herself, though she didn’t know what. Did you have to give something up to be given something in turn, was it always like that? It sure sounded like something Charles would say.

No, she didn’t want to think about Charles.

“So sweet,” Eloisa cooed, drying her fingers in a wet powder puff and turning in her chair before looking over at her, at long last. But Sylvie felt herself cowering under her gaze even so. “And so anxious. Topolina.”

Getting to her feet, oh, they were naked, Eloisa patted across the boarded floor and stopped right in front of Sylvie, eyes studying her face intently for a moment, either as if trying to recollect it from storages at the far back of her mind or trying never to forget, to store it away first, it could be both with her, Sylvie’s redheaded Italian actress. Either one would be fine with Sylvie, really, because she could smell Eloisa’s perfume from here, the same as last Friday, different from the lily of the valley scent Sylvie was wearing, which she’d shared with Claire. Claire who was less a chaperone now than a guard post. Their last bastion. There was little distance left.

“Don’t worry, Sylvie, I’m not going to deflower you tonight, I’m too tired,” Eloisa smiled, even saying those words that made Sylvie break out in an angry blush. Maybe she smiled even more because of that. Sylvie’s eyes were on the floor, tracking the veins in the wood, the gnarls, anything that would ensure she didn’t have to meet the actress’ eyes. Eloisa didn’t seem to mind, leaning in close to her ear and murmuring, “But soon. I promise.”

Although she could, ask what she meant, make her put words to it, so Sylvie herself knew what words to use, she knew nothing, she had no idea, she didn’t. Her body knew what it meant, after all. The heat low in her abdomen, twirling and twisting and coiling like a snake, it knew already, it needed no explanations. It was only Sylvie’s head, living on another plane, that still had to catch up. It would have to hobble along until then. Sylvie couldn’t help it. And she didn’t want Eloisa to.

“That word you keep calling me,” she asked instead, turning her head in a little against the side of the other woman’s face, their cheeks rubbing over each other, Eloisa’s lips, lipstick-less, slipping over her cheekbone. Deep breaths. “What does it mean?”

“It means little female mouse,” Eloisa replied, drawing back, but not stepping away. They continued to stand very close, a sliver of skin showing from the actress’ neck and down where her dressing gown wasn’t properly tied at the front. Carefully, not wanting to be reproached, Sylvie reached out and corrected it, redid the knot. They never once looked away from each other. Eloisa smiled, the fondness that Sylvie didn’t understand back in her eyes. “Only the cutest girls get that name.”

And because Sylvie couldn’t help herself, she asked: “And the name you call Charles, what does it mean?”

The fondness faded again, quickly. She shook her head. “What do you want me to say, that when I kiss you, it means nothing? Well, when I kiss you, Sylvie, it means nothing what I call Charles.”

Sylvie felt at the same time ashamed at having asked and angry, and she didn’t know how else to express those feelings but to grab Eloisa by the knot of her dressing gown, making it fall open around her completely, showing her in nothing but underwear underneath and Sylvie wanted, wanted, wanted, letting her hands slide over the other woman’s hips, feeling her soft, warm skin, thinking how she could draw it, paint her, cover her in purples and blues and greens. She kissed her with enough despair to bruise if no one else, then herself.

Eloisa laughed against her mouth, kissing her back with just as much aggression. They kissed and they parted for breath, and they kissed, and they kissed. Outside, Sylvie thought, Claire is keeping watch over us. Like a guardian angel. She should listen to her more. With both hands, Eloisa brushed her hair away from her face and held her, softly.

Next time she drew back, she whispered, “You’re not only sweet, chérie. That’s what’s so enticing about you. You’re like acid drops, and who can get enough of those, right?”

Kissing her, Sylvie didn’t respond. Acid drops were her least favourite type of candy. She always only had one, then forgot the box somewhere and didn’t care to properly look, before they’d gone stale, months and years later.

By the time Sylvie left Eloisa’s dressing room once more, Eloisa was back in her dressing gown and leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe as she waved goodbye. “See you next week, and give Charles my love,” she called, loudly, so everyone could hear, including Claire who looked at the actress, scandalised. Sylvie hadn’t been what Eloisa called ‘deflowered’ tonight, but under the neckline of her dress, right above her collarbone, she sported a hickey the size of France on the world map, more or less, so everyone could see, but no one will, because you’re a good girl, Eloisa had teased her.

As they drove home, Armand’s chauffeur very impatient with them, he did have a long drive ahead of him, Sylvie looked out her side window and thought about acid drops. The type you either devoured or forgot and really, which of those two options could be considered better, in the end?

When everything was between the tree and the bark. Between knowing and not knowing.


~*~


The portrait of Armand was beginning to take shape. Not just his shape, but hers as well, her style and her manner. It looked like a bit of them both, with the roots of trees unfurling all around him on the canvas, creating a dome above his head and a floor below his feet, a backdrop of greens and browns, darker nuances than his hair, and she found that fitting. Her symbolism within his features.

At this point in the process, more than three afternoons in, she didn’t actually need him to sit for her quite so rigidly anymore, but he had suggested staying with her in the studio anyway, in case, he’d said.

In case of what, she’d teased, having been in a good mood since her outing with Claire at the theatre, her visit to Eloisa’s dressing room. The hickey had yet to fade completely which only pleased her more. He’d proceeded to walk her to the studio in the corner room, the decision already made, apparently.

He’d be there.

In case you need me, he’d replied, sounding genuinely concerned and it made her pause as she was arranging the canvas on the easel, looking over at him, where he was sitting on the stool, having naturally slipped into the pose she was painting him in, it didn’t even seem a conscious choice, it was him at his freest. She loved that.

Sylvie smiled. “I’ll need you the same regardless, Armand.” What it was that she was reassuring him about, she wasn’t sure of, nevertheless she’d still like to offer him the guarantee. True, she had a brother who was willing to carry the world for her, but Armand was the brother she’d never had who was willing to hold her, kiss her, be near her, there was no one else like him. No one who did what he did. Unless all other options were exhausted first, she wasn’t going to give that up.

Besides, she had a painting to finish. He was in it.

His expression changed subtly, then, from the more relaxed, neutrally forthcoming openness he was carrying about him in the picture as well, to something more apprehensive, almost dejected. Suddenly, the network of tree roots around him was a weight of regret, not the aura of complexity and the base of grounded calm she’d imagined when sketching the motif originally. Her teeny-tiny brush strokes ceased, and she straightened up, leaving the broad curve of his right shoulder alone on the canvas. The smell of oil paints in the air was heavy and they’d need to ventilate the room properly soon. If nothing else, then before they left it, done for the day. Armand got to his feet, when he saw she’d stopped.

“What is it?” he wanted to know.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she replied. “What’s with the frown?”

His shoulders fell, also the right one that she had just been painting, slumping slightly and he was the first to look down, away from her. The great Dubois heir, Sylvie never thought she’d seen him so truly crestfallen before. She wanted to hug him, but her smock was full of paint splotches and residue, and the brush in her hand needed cleaning soon, or it would dry. There were no opportunities for hugs. No time.

When he didn’t immediately reply, she moved over to the smaller stool next to the easel where her jar of water stood for the cleaning of the brushes, and she dumped the one she was holding into it with a plop. On Wednesday, she was going back to Théâtre Femina and she was seeing Eloisa again, her Cleopatra first, but then her, proper.

“It’s been arranged,” Armand said after another moment, “That I’m going travelling for some time.”

“Oh,” Sylvie responded, knowing nothing and having no idea, but businessmen were like that, Charles still returned to the townhouse long after midnight and she knew where he’d been, didn’t she? She swallowed, swishing her brush around in the water, beating the paint out. “Where?”

“Africa, for a month,” Armand told her.

Her hand slowly halted its movement. Morocco, she thought, without really knowing why; the Dubois family’s plantations were located in Abyssinia, what would Armand be doing in Morocco, except maybe to backtrack his own steps, but it was still her first instinctual assumption.

He said the same country name.

The silence fell between them. Her first, second and third thought was, for a whole month, really? “That long?” she managed.

“Yes,” he confirmed.

A knot in her stomach clenched and unclenched, clenching right back into a hard, twisting sense of worry. It meant no more painting sessions in these beautiful quarters, with his quiet and calm sitting for her, like models of behaviour, but it also meant more time, possibly, to spend with Eloisa. Afternoons that weren’t claimed by Charles, for the actress, and by Armand, for Sylvie. If she couldn’t have the other woman’s nights, let her at least have that. It meant, however, that Armand would be gone and travelling through such dangerous territory, too. Hadn’t Sylvie said goodbye to enough people already? She’d said the same thing to her parents as she’d have to say to him, au revoir. Not knowing how final it was. Never knowing.

“When are you leaving?” she almost didn’t dare to ask.

“Saturday,” he said. That was two days away! Sylvie scrambled around the easel, around her huge canvas with Armand all over it, staring at him.

“Is this because of Charles?” she demanded.

Armand shook his head softly, “It’s because of business, Sylvie.”

“That means it’s because of Charles, and you’re just not saying so!” Her tone took on a certain shrillness. Armand didn’t argue the point with her.

She felt panicked. She felt lightheaded and dizzy, so she turned away from him and pressed her dark, soft, slightly wet palm over her eyes, trying not to drown in the feeling, the feeling of parting ways, of never being able to tell, would they merge again eventually, was it forever. She couldn’t say goodbye to Armand forever, she liked him too much, he was something she had never had before, want and respect and care, oh, what would she do without anyone to care? She wasn’t deluding herself, neither Charles nor Eloisa did. He was all she had. Something more than family. Something accidentally found. A windfall.

“I’m not her,” he muttered in a low voice, coming up behind her, just to hold Sylvie by the arms, not to press close, although she wouldn’t have minded if he had. Somehow, she had no doubt that he was referring to Eloisa. To what Sylvie felt for her. And somehow, it didn’t scare her. It was her shoulders’ turn to slump. “My heart doesn’t change with the wind. I’ll be back, Sylvie.”

I’ll be back for you, it meant. Sniffling, she slowly lowered her hand. He took it and made her turn around towards him. Sylvie looked up at him, tears in her eyes. Furrowing his brow, Armand dried her left eye with his thumb, then the right. It was careful and soft, no coarseness, nice, bright and ducky like she knew him to be. Such a gentleman.

“And my chauffeur will continue to take you to see mademoiselle Paolo.”

Of course, it meant. It sounded like Sylvie’s you look wonderful, said to Eloisa the other night, like another phrase of code they just hadn’t mutually agreed on yet, but which she understood instinctually. Naturally. Like a part of herself. A part of Armand, their shared experience.

“Thank you,” she whispered and did, after all, hug him, arms around his waist, pressing in against him. He could afford new clothes, after all, if she stained these. Armand didn’t seem to mind either, holding her, one arm around her shoulders, hand cradling the back of her head. Her hair probably glinted golden between his fingers.

Sylvie, too, was in the painting, as the surrealist idiom would have it; she was the sun, touching his face, bathing his features.

Luckily, there was also plenty of sun where he was going, she’d heard.


~*~


At ten in the morning, Gare du Nord wasn’t yet terribly overrun, though the train for Italy was half-full already and passengers kept arriving. As Sylvie stood by, waiting for Armand to shake hands with his father and Charles first, she looked at the train, a different train than the one she’d arrived on, sure, but weren’t all trains really the same, and she thought it was fitting, Armand was going south now, he’d pass the same longitudes where she had lived the greater, but not terribly great, part of her life.

Under the scrutiny, not only of Armand’s parents, his self-important father and anxious mother, but also of Charles, his hands in his pockets, but his eyes following Armand closely, the other man sauntered over to Sylvie and offered his arm to her. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said, and when she glanced uncertainly towards the platform’s only clock, he added, “We have time now.”

So, Sylvie took the arm offered her and followed him down the long, unending platform, walking by the long, unending row of train compartments where people were looking at them curiously out the windows or minding their own business with some semblance of politeness.

The silence stretched between them. It was a comfortable silence, rather than an awkward one and she valued it for what it was, companionship, familiarity, a total lack of distrust.

“Say hello to Marseille from me when you pass it by,” she said to him, gently, already knowing his answer.

“We’re not passing by Marseille.”

“Say hello anyway, Armand,” she smiled.

A long moment, he just looked at her sideways, observing her, almost as if committing her to memory and she liked how she could see that on his face, how he didn’t leave her guessing. Then, he stopped walking and turned towards her slowly. “Sylvie,” he said her name like it was a way to reach out, without him touching her, and yet he said it softer than anyone else, no belittling, no pet names, just Sylvie, the way you’d say it to a person you knew. Intimately. They’d never gone beyond necking, but right here and now, she’d like to. She’d like for him to touch her naked body, bridge the distance about to come between them. Make it never arrive at its destination. “I don’t own you, but I would like to return to you. Will you wait?”

Again, she knew he was referring to Eloisa. To Eloisa and her. What they shared, which was equal but different to what she shared with Armand. God knew, Eloisa made Sylvie wait enough as it was, maybe she was getting sick of that, but she met Armand’s brown eyes, lighter than the tree roots in her painting, he was more nougat than earth, and she thought, some things were worth waiting a little longer for. Some people were. Some experiences.

“Paris is my home now,” she reassured him, loving that this was the role he gave her, someone who could do so, reaching out and taking his hand. His skin was warm, and she could feel his pulse beating steadily in his wrist. “You and Café de Flore are a part of Paris. For me.”

I will wait, it meant. I have nowhere else to be and if I did, I would still wait. For you.

He licked his lips, glancing hurriedly towards both his parents further down the platform but still within view, and towards the clock telling them he had exactly seven minutes to do whatever he was hesitating to do, and finally Sylvie made the decision for him, stepping forward and hooking her arms behind his neck, lifting herself up so she could kiss him properly on the lips, feeling a new confidence in being close to him, because she’d wanted to be close to Eloisa, she’d set an example. It was not a dangerous or difficult feat, it was just about wanting it enough. And there were apparently many things in this world that Sylvie wanted. Enough.

He held her while they kissed goodbye, a deep, soft slide of lips and tongue, and when he pulled away, he was flushing a bit. Sylvie let go of him and stepped back.

“Do you think your brother will punch me when we return to the others?” Armand wanted to know, trying to make it sound like a joke, but she could tell he was genuinely worried. Her own expression darkened for a moment.

“Don’t worry,” she said, not trying to make it sound like a joke at all. “He’s already promised my hand to you in marriage, I’m sure.”

Neither of them laughed.

They returned to the party, another round of handshakes between the men, many safe travel’s exchanged, Armand’s mother tearfully kissing him goodbye and then, Armand was back to facing Sylvie. She reached up and cupped his face with one hand, smiling but it didn’t reach her eyes and she felt that Armand understood why.

“Come back,” she said to him.

“I will,” he promised, then took his small suitcase, the bigger one already on the train, as well as his suit jacket and headed for the entrance to his compartment. He didn’t look back.

She thought, he would have to forgive her, for not believing him so easily. She also thought that he probably did, her nice and bright and ducky guy.


~*~


At the townhouse in Montreuil, Sylvie heard them whisper during the days that followed, mademoiselle is mourning, and they all showed her greater lenience and understanding than usual because of it, where she had otherwise become a well-liked comrade to most of the staff. After all, she allowed them liberties that her brother would never, and as long as no one told him what was going on at his grand manor, they were free to do anything she approved of, which was most things, really. Like that, for Edgar, she had become something as close to a daughter as Sylvie had regretfully accepted she would ever be again, and for Claire, a sister, almost.

All these almosts, right?

Like loving Armand, which she sure and almost did, and then he went and left for Morocco, the same Morocco whose name his father could hardly even get over his lips at the best of times, so what of now? What of next month, when Armand had promised to return.

He had promised.

They were wrong, however, the staff at the Gallard (so-called) Manor House, Sylvie wasn’t mourning, she was preparing. She was making ready. Eloisa’s play was showing again this Wednesday, she was counting down the days. Her sketchbook was full of whimsical outlines of men’s backs retreating and women’s fronts drawing closer, and she was painfully aware what she was more inclined to look at currently.

The things that didn’t leave.

By the time Wednesday came around, Claire was dressing up again in the same green dress, looking lovely in it, and Sylvie told her so, making her turn a bright, complimenting nuance of red. Same procedure as last time, she whispered to her later, when they were on their way out, meaning performance, dressing room, guard duty, in Claire’s case. Claire gave her a long look out the corner of her eye, but simply nodded. Saying, understood, in her own demure way. It felt like another kind of secret code than the one she shared with Armand.

That was the long and short of it, how Sylvie ended up in Eloisa’s dressing room once more, after the performance was over, better than the first two times, the Italian actress haunting her even as she was sitting there on the first row of the balcony, looking down at a very living, breathing, beautiful woman on that stage, yes, even as they were sitting together now in her private quarters, on the small camp bed that had been put at her disposal since last time. Sylvie didn’t wonder why; she remembered. Soon, Eloisa had said. On the drive into town, Sylvie had found it difficult to remember anything else.

How soon was tonight?

Eloisa was lying on her back, stretched out, her dressing gown falling open around her shoulders, revealing her bandeau bra and her midriff. Even squashed by the fabric, her breasts were beautiful, bigger and fuller than Sylvie’s own, heavier, more mature, in a way she didn’t have any experience with. She hadn’t lived life that way. Eloisa was glancing over at Sylvie every so often, rocking her foot gently back and forth, like an invitation. Come hither, sure that was something an actress that had just portrayed Cleopatra would say, wasn’t it?

Nevertheless, Sylvie didn’t dare.

“I heard about the Dubois boy. Sorry for your loss, chérie,” Eloisa finally said – when the silence had gone on long enough, she’d apparently decided. Sylvie blinked, her lips thinning into a hard line. She could’ve sketched herself, it would be easy. An angered caricature.

“He’s coming home in a month,” she replied defensively. “Armand promised.” None of this Dubois boy, she respected him enough to call him by his name. She wondered if Eloisa even knew what it was. Charles hadn’t introduced him at the opening night reception, but then again – Armand was probably one of the friends he’d brought along before Sylvie’s arrival to Paris, which made it even worse. Eloisa knew him and just didn’t care; it was the same old story, huh.

“That’s what they all say,” Eloisa tutted, contemptuously.

Thinking of her parents without truly wanting to, Sylvie looked down. She also thought of Charles who, despite everything, despite his own wishes, maybe, always came back, even at times when she’d rather he just picked one, to be there fully or not to be there at all. Eloisa shifted, then, the dressing gown falling increasingly more open, revealing stomach and hipbones and… Sylvie stared, swallowed, hard, tight. Dark reddish pubic hair, mound, the soft curve of sex. She wasn’t wearing any knickers. Eloisa saw her look and smiled.

“Oh, now you notice.” She laughed, rolled her shoulders, arched her back and spread her legs a little. “I thought you were too busy feeling self-righteous. I prepared a gift for you, to cheer you up, now that your other lover is out of the picture.”

Not gone, Sylvie wanted to say, but if nothing else, Eloisa had been diplomatic. Out of the picture, indeed. On another continent, his painting dutifully covered in a big cloth of linen until he was home again. Eventually we’ll be back in the studio, she wanted to say. However, she couldn’t focus on anything besides the soft slide of Eloisa’s skin against the bedsheets, the shining smoothness of her inner thighs and the shadows living between them.

Never had she seen another woman’s sex up close like this, not with Agnès, not with anyone. She knew herself, her own, of course, this was both the same and utterly foreign. This was someone else. Most of all, this was her, this was Eloisa. The woman Sylvie was stuck on, so badly.

Sylvie stood up, hurriedly, almost tripping over herself, blushing and feeling overheated and with that desperation knotting in her abdomen, that coiling snake of want and urge and rawness. “I –” she began, but couldn’t finish her sentence, any sentence, she felt completely mute and completely dumbfounded. Nervous wasn’t the word at this point, not when it was the world crashing down around her in a whole different sense than ever before. Where had Charles gone, her Atlas, her supporter of the heavens? Why wasn’t he taking it upon himself, like he did absolutely everything else? Really, the question was, did she want him to. At the end of the day, where it turned into night, and into nights like this one.

Strange, new, post-performance nights.

Unable to look away now, Sylvie had to wonder if this was the limit to Charles’ claim that she was seeing here. His claim on the woman they both wanted and who wanted something different from the both of them, too. Was this as far as her brother had gone and would go, with Eloisa? That place between her thighs.

Here, it meant, and no further, if you were him. Was Sylvie the only one allowed to proceed onwards? And would Eloisa let her, wouldn’t that be some favour? Wouldn’t that be preference? Oh. She reminded herself to take deep breaths or she’d forget entirely, her lungs expanding in a painful, gulping fashion. Eloisa saw, so she sat up and reached for her hand, taking it with the same tenderness she sometimes showed in glimpses, the kind of tenderness that Sylvie might understand better than the other woman did herself. Eloisa only felt it. She didn’t know the how’s and why’s of it, at least she didn’t showcase any real understanding. Understanding or care.

But Sylvie knew, this she knew. The affection that lay in softness, and the softness protected by armour.

If she were acid drops, Eloisa was the thorns on roses, the velvety quality of the petals, the reason people bought those darn flowers, although they’d prick their fingers and bleed.

“Undress for me,” Eloisa urged her. Giving orders, like Charles did. Her love took the form of demands, but it was love, nevertheless, no matter what the actress might say, Sylvie had learned in other places, places outside of here, Théâtre Femina and Eloisa’s dressing room. Any other descriptors would be pretence, some kind of lie. And because she knew this, because Sylvie knew that the inside of the rose was silky and dewy from morning perspiration, she reluctantly let go of Eloisa’s hand and shrugged out of her dress, removed the dingle-dangle in her hair, the long necklace, it all ended up in a pile on the floor that was easily sidestepped.

There wasn’t much room on the bed, of course, but when Eloisa opened her arms to her, the tight fit of the bandeau bra only underlining the full contour of her breasts underneath, Sylvie didn’t hesitate to slip in against her. Ghostlike, her body a little bit transparent before the other woman.

Still, they were physical enough entities that the camp bed creaked horribly beneath them.