MOULIN ROUGE AU

[tensions]

COME WHAT MAY ( ensemble ) It's 1899. And the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.

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[infringe]

The French are glad to die for love.
They delight in fighting duels.
But I prefer a man who lives
and gives expensive jewels.

The song starts and he descends from above the audience on a silver swing alongside an overabundance of glittering confetti. He's dressed extravagantly in a tight, bejeweled corset around his already tiny waist (but it cups right underneath his chest, leaving it bare except for the two small rings piercing through his dusky nipples), thigh high tights and garters, and little heels. Large ostrich feathers extend out from his hips, giving the impression of a dress. They flutter and swing and bounce as he spins slowly down while singing the opening number with ease, having done it already so many nights in a row.

"Our sparkling diamond," he hears the announcer say, introducing him properly. The entire room goes utterly silent, entranced as he steps onto the stage. Alecto nearly purrs: this part is always his favorite, the unwavering attention, thousands of eyes and hearts hungering just for him, for this fantasy he delivers.

So he saunters and dances and teases, leads the whole company to move together as one, singing the familiar lines to chorus: Diamonds are a girl's best, best friend. They laugh together, tease the gloved hands of their richest patrons reaching to tuck gifts - paper bills, jewelry, flowers - into their hands or the straps of their underwear. Alecto allows them to drool, to lust, to dare to dream they could have him. But he knows the truth: his love is for sale. It goes only to the highest bidder.

And indeed there is one here tonight.

Alecto's steps are purposefully dainty as he glides over to a young man with hair as blonde as the morning sun. "I believe I'm yours tonight, Mr. Archer," he says, his voice light and gravely, offering his manicured hand forward in greeting, fluttering his fingers. "Charmed, I'm sure."

[singinthestorm]

He blinks in something akin to awe, standing politely from his chair before closing both his hands around the proffered one as if taking hold of something precious and fragile, and bends in a bow to kiss the back, warm without being obsequious or unbecoming. He was expert enough in formal manners and graces, enough to blend in far above his station; when he happened to be dressed the part, it was nearly impossible to discern his true circumstances, dwelling in a drafty garret on the meager allowance brought in by selling sensationalist bits of writing on commission. There were good and bad weeks - writing as an income was never stable - but he was careful, and frugal, and self-possessed, seldom giving in to whim or indulgence, even when he could manage it, unused to softness or kindness from himself, when what he was used to was ruthless and unyielding discipline.

But discipline was something that seemed utterly antithetical to this current moment.

"I'm afraid the rest of your adoring public is far less so," he replies, keeping his fingers curled around the hand resting in his palm. "But I hope not to disappoint." He tilts his head with a confidence he has never felt, but has learned to pretend to, "Is there somewhere private where I can become better acquainted with you?"

[infringe]

His smile is perfect and unmoving on his face as he laces their fingers together. The crowd around them coos with jealousy and Alecto laughs. "Oh, I'm sure you'll surprise me, Mr. Archer. Your friends have told me quite a lot about you."

He leads the way, sauntering towards a suite at the very top, where they can barely hear the music below. "They say you made your fortune with your craft. You're a talented writer, no?"

The door opens to an elaborate room filled with candles and sumptuous rugs and draped silk. It was a cacophony of color and pattern and scent, one that Alecto - the true chameleon that he was here at the Moulin Rouge - could easily manipulate and transform against. Here, in this room, he could take the shape of any number of dreams and desires, for any range of tastes and expectations.

"Wait here just a moment, handsome," he says, tongue curling around the syllables, his hand pressing delicately but insistently against Josh's chest. "Let me slip into something a little more chic." He presses down, eyeing the armchair behind the man. "Sit."

Alecto disappears behind a trifold screen near the large bed with its elaborate heart-shaped headboard, his shadow a deliberate tease as it's cast long and slender across the ground. When he reappears, he's wearing a black, lacey number and a short translucent robe. "Much better, wouldn't you say?"

[singinthestorm]

A brief shadow flickers across his face at his words - was that what they had said? - but it clears up back into a more acceptable genteel calm. As he follows the beautiful courtesan up the stairs, he can feel anticipation and desire crowding out the darker, more pedestrian emotions he'd come in with, of inadequacy and failure and workaday anxiety.

Why shouldn't he indulge, just briefly? He wasn't truly Joshua Archer here within these walls, for the next two hours, wasn't a not-quite-starving, recognized but far from successful writer, who had a knack for making friends, but not customers or patrons.

He sits down obediently, takes a deep breath, inhaling the seemingly otherworldly scents of his surroundings, that feeling of truly being transported somewhere different. It was their stock in trade here at the Moulin Rouge, as so many things in this world were, everything carefully gilded and sparkling, a feast for the eyes and all other senses, so long as you didn't get too close, for too long.

He watches the shadows move on the ground, and feels a word drop into place in his mind like a wound, something to build around, layers of nacre spilled over and over.

"It seems a bit like gilding the lily," he replies, his gaze trailing up from stockinged legs and a trim waist, a plunging neckline and those dark, knowing eyes. He pushes himself up to his feet, takes a slow, deliberate step forward.