[	Current Location	|	My own mind	]
[	mood	|	listless	]
[	music	|	Dance With the Devil- Breaking Benjamin	]

The theater was huge, but not in the way she’d been expecting. It was cavernous, but labyrinthine. Many passages seemed to lead down to the principal’s dressing rooms but in the end they met up in the same narrow course, after which the performers could part company and find their signature ways to the stage. Nadine was crushed tight to her brother’s side with her nimble steps just barely in his way. She hurried to keep up and rode his stride like a small wave. She barely reached his chest. The posse was on tour for three weeks in Detroit; flamboyant and immoveable transitory tent cities had sprung up around the theaters and Eddie was steering his wife’s kid sister through the leering, cavernous mouth of the theater, dodging infiltrating vendors and late performers. The passages smoothed by the trails of people, Eddie pulled Nadine through the crowds. His wife was busy onstage, by profession a drunken Jewish wife and a drunken center-stage chorus girl of the dressed-up brothels. And he had a curtain to make.

He’d intended to leave the child with his wife’s friend Kate, but she hadn’t made the tour; though the crowds back in New York were screaming her name, the lowly circle of friends that had flocked to her had yet to find out about the newest Vaudeville triple-threat.

Instead, now he hurried to steep stop outside the dressing room and pounded the door. Inside the door a boisterous voice broke into a colorful string of swearing, and there was the sound of something sizable being thrown against it. The door wrenched open and Eddie, nudging his sister forward alongside him, turned up his dashing smile a few degrees between charming and mocking and held out his arms.

“C’mon, Venus, don’t be talkin’ to your old friend like that. Put the shoe down before you put out someone’s eye, it ain’t becoming of a lady.”

The creature before him shook back a sheet of deep scarlet hair and greeted Eddie with a laugh that had the deep vibrating ring of brass before grabbing him up in a hug that looked, and sounded, quite painful. The two slapped each other on the back and the stream of conversation that followed was garbled, but seemed to consist chiefly of cheery insults. The woman, though she wore only one of her dominatrix black heels, stood very nearly at eye level with the former champ. Her upper arms were just beginning to freckle with age, and Nadine saw solid muscle clenched over Eddie’s back. She instinctively tried to make herself seem as small as possible. This wasn’t difficult, but she wanted nothing in her stance to imply a challenge. The woman broke away from Eddie with a hearty slap on the back of the ribs, and she pushed up the man’s face with scarlet-taloned fingers. Nadine had the distinct feeling that this woman, or force, or whatever she was, was the only one Eddie would have let get away with such flamboyant lack of reverence.

“Status report, Champ, how’s monogamy treatin’ ya? There’s a line I haven’t seen before,” she commented, letting go of his chin and casting a double-take over his shoulder, “Who’s the morsel?”

“Mad, Nadine, Mae’s kid sister. Dine, the incomprehensible Madeleine True, nearly famous pseudo-intellectual stripper in Vaudeville-” Madeleine True had punched him sharply in the chiseled shoulder.

“And the there’s you, Champ, world-famous meathead and loved by women, men, dykes, and himself-” Eddie, his arm around her shoulder, smacked the side of the woman’s head without appearing to move. She shoved him with one generous hip and then she bent down to the girl, who took a few hasty steps back and drew one of those great, roaring laughs from the woman.

“Oh, step on up, honey, lemme get a good look.” Abruptly, she seized the girl’s hand and twirled her until she spun to a stop, “Mae got shortchanged on looks in this family. Kid, step on into the lights, you get the right angle and you look like an attractive midget. Champ, ain’t ‘cha got a curtain to make? I’ll take care of the kid.”

Nadine was already throwing frantic glances at her brother, who kept one broad hand in her hair as he caught Madeleine’s waist and murmured thanks in her ear. Without her great, shadowed protected she felt lost as she stared up at the woman, still dressed in her threadbare but well-loved robe of royal navy blue and gold. In its former life it might have belonged to a queen. Nadine craned her neck up to the woman’s face and the first cohesive thought she verbalized beyond a squeal was, “You’re… very tall…”

Madeleine shrugged and bent the leg that ended in the gothic heel to stand flat-footed. Both set of wicked nails were painted that same, disquieting blood-red, “Ah, it’s the shoes.”

Of course, it had nothing to do with the shoes, but as the crowed thickened around the corridor, Madeleine swore and dashed back into the screens around the dressing room, grabbing a handful of makeshift curtain. Nadine, through the streaming hustle outside, followed in and crouched on the opposite side of the curtain, at eye level with a long scar that began on Madeleine’s ankle. A minute passed in relative silence and the Madeleine tumbled out of the curtain, half-immersed in a swelling black bodice, and taking a green jacket from where it lay crumpled on an upturned chair.

“So, tell me, kid,” said Madeleine from the hand mirror, a bobby pin between her teeth, “Can you sing?”

Nadine looked up, and shrugged, “I guess so.”

“Dance?”

Again she shrugged. She’d taken ballet at her mother’s side for as long as she could remember. Madeleine chuckled rather bitterly as she pinned up her scarlet hair. “Yeah, well, in Vaudeville you gotta do it all. But here’s the trick; no one specializes. Long as you do it all, doesn’t really matter if you’re any good. Not to go on against your sister, honey, but the act she’s doing now with the Jersey accent is her only real claim to fame. Ask any of the other chorus girls.”

Privately, Nadine agreed, but said nothing. Madeleine took her brush and hurriedly powdered her face. “Come onstage with me after my set. I wanna show you something.”

***

“What about Eddie?”

“He’s got three shows tonight and until then he’s left you in my capable claws. So kid, here it is, humble as it stands.” She made a grandly ironic sweep of her arm across the bare wood and remaining drunk settling in for the night. “Come on out with me. Tread the tread of the Prima Donna you may yet become. How’s it feel? Your first catwalk in Vaudeville?”

The girl smiled and stretched her hands up toward ragged curtain ropes. “Perfect. More than perfect.”

“So, show me something.”

Nadine stumbled and looked back. The woman seemed to have lessened in ferocity in a few hours. She did four shows a day on tour, and then there were always a few slobbering drunks whose hard-ons were obstructing the blood flew to their brains who failed to see the feminist gold chain on her neck or the women on her arm she had to deal with. So in truth, the lack of viciousness was mere exhaustion, but she was also starting to take a liking to the shy little ingénue that was Mae’s charge.

“Show me something, honey.”

“Show you-?”

Madeleine waved, before realizing the girl needed more explicit direction. “A dance step. The first steps of your solo act.”

The girl stepped forward and raised her arms to shoulder height, as though embracing some invisible friend loosely, and she looked at the veteran performer for confirmation. Madeleine snapped her crimson nails, and then her long neck. Nadine heard a crack. “Not here, love. Out on center. Get out there.”

She obeyed, though at every shaking step she looked back over her shoulder at the woman leaning against the drapery. She raised her arms to half with shaking unconsciousness and pointed her toes, sweeping her leg behind her in a turn. She quivered to a balanced stop and Madeleine bid her on. Legs aching, she sat on the floorboards and then sprawled back to watch the girl’s eager-to-please steps and shy rhythms.

After a few minutes she rolled over onto her knees and stood. “We’ll be back, I’m sure. But I don’t spend more time under those lights than necessary. Come on, kid, I gotta freshen up.”

Back in the familiar curtains, she swept up her handful of cosmetics. “Against my hardened will, honey, I’m impressed. Your sister know you can dance?”

“Not really.”

“You ever show her?”

She hesitated. Mae had made her put-upon state blindingly clear from her first glance at the child through dark glasses and smoke. Nadine had thought she’d looked like a cigarette model. When she’d confided her stage dreams to Mae, a conversation where neither involved had any experience in being a sister, Mae took the dish she was drying with shaking hands and tight ashen lips. She set it on the stack with unnecessary force and went to sleep early, leaving her to her husband’s care. If she knew her sister could dance, all the more reason to keep away.

“No,” Nadine admitted, “No, never.”

Again Madeleine swept her arm impressively, inviting the girl to seize all the poorly lit stages in the world. She finished powdering and shifted back, swinging her leg over the chair back so she sat backwards, facing the girl on an angle.

“Doesn’t sound like you show her much of anything to me, hon.”

“I guess not,” the girl murmured. Madeleine crossed her ankle over her thigh, rested one forearm on the splintered wood and turned back to that forgotten powder puff and the mirror.

“Meaning this with all love and appreciation for both a fellow member of the trade and the wife of a dear friend, but Mae’s an ignorant slut.”

She said this with succinct and definite wit. That was the deeply masculine force in her that spoke with contempt against the underhanded, the passive-aggressive, that felt an angry regret for the victims and spurred them to action at a head. It was a blunt force that the little girl was not supposed to agree with but sought protection behind nonetheless. Madeleine sat very still and she seemed to sense the girl’s awkward catch between truth and imagined loyalty, because she stood up and patted Nadine’s shoulder as she slid into black flats, street shoes. She made one casual attempt to heal the deep sting left by her words.

“I’m getting a filter installed. Don’t listen to me. And this is the shit that comes out when I’m sober. We got time before Eddie comes back for you,” Her eyes rested on a motley collection of playing cards on her dressing table. Amidst the bottles and jars of the others there might have been one full deck. “Know any 7-card?”

***

The set-up was a strange one indeed; Madeleine still poised on the brink of performance in swelling black and flowing green, full stage makeup touched and passable under the mess of scarlet hair that had been taken up and down to the point of surrender. Her top-hat she had disposed of, now it lay upon the frizzed curls of the girls beside her, resting on the blue robe and dealing out onto the upended chair. One card was bent roughly and many scratched patterns; obscene and benign, graced the lacks.

“Gin,” Madeleine announced, “heya, Champ.”

She threw her arm around his shoulder and cards scattered from her lap onto the rumpled street clothes underneath.

“What are you doing?”

“Teaching little sis here a poker face and a lion’s roar. Let’s get outta here. C’mon, Dine.”

She snapped her fingers as if calling some faithful stray. Obligation or command, she jumped to her feet and went to her brother’s side. Madeleine, thus entwined, lingered in her brief farewell.

“The kid’s got talent, Champ,” her voice was deceptively breezy in undertone, “Keep Mae’s hands off, I’ll take her on, there’s a height call downtown with this real sweet director I know…”

“Mad, do us a favor, keep your crotch outta the Onyx staff’s faces for a few months, yeah? The kid’s barely fourteen.”

“Yeah, and then she’ll be fifteen, and then sixteen and what’s your excuse then, Champ? Just your own damn pride. I’d say it came with the y-chromosome but Mae’s got it too. Fuck monogamy, Ed. No sense in throwing in your will with your wife along with your lot and life. Mae’s not gonna do shit to help that kid break in because she can’t stand to get upstaged when she’s front and center. So let me start the kid out in the wings. That’s where the talent scouting starts, anyway.

“And I hate to break it to you, but it’d be nice to have a third performer’s salary in that flat.”

Her rare moment of tact and feminine wisdom earned a reprieve and indeed a contemplation from this, her close friend and fellow graceful has-been who shared her healthy contempt for everything Vaudeville.

“Y’know, when we were onstage before she started talking about Mae. Said Mae’s theater was her home away from home.”

“What d’you think?”

“I think, Champ, that New York, New York and its spawn are all goin’ to Hell. And we’re driving the bus.”

“Amen to that.”

Ahead of them by a few paces, oblivious to these, her good-natured messengers of doom, Nadine danced on.

[	mood	|	crazy	]
[	music	|	See What I Wanna See	]

Hey my lovelies.

Merchant/Ivory Wild Party movie. Let me state at the outset that I'm a huge fan of the poem and of both musicals released in 2000 with this story. My advice would be to check out those versions because they're quite a bit better. This film has a few really great moments, namely "Singapore Sally", any scene with Jim, and any scene with Annette Ferra as Nadine. But for the most part, this is one of those "so bad it's good" movies that's worth seeing anyway. If you can find it for less than $5, give it a shot.

So, the story:

Queenie, presumably an actress, is the live-in mistress of Jolly Grimm, a silent-film comedian who’s clearly lost his touch and decides to pull out all the stops with his first film in five years. He writes, directs, produces, and stars in it; only, as luck would have it, to stage the screening party on a night of a much more popular and upscale party at Pickfair Mansion. The producers that deign to show up to Grimm's party are less than eager to pick up the mediocre movie, and Grimm is at the end of his rope when things get even worse.

Queenie's best friend, Kate, a singer, shows up with her latest arm-candy, up-and-coming Hollywood heartthrob Dale Sword, who throughout the evening has an affair with Queenie which is found out by their respective lovers. Grimm, in a comedic scene stopped in its tracks, steals the handgun of his driver and shoots both Queenie and Dale, only to throw it down moments later and run up the stairs to Queenie, holding her as she dies in his arms and the party guests, shocked, gather to watch the death of their era.

Unfortunately, it's the supporting cast who are worth remembering more than anyone else. The truly predatory lesbian Madeleine True is fun for the five minutes of screen time she is given. Her dress in itself is worth the $7 and change I paid for the movie. Although in defense of the integrity of J.M. March's lost classic, there were a few random subplots with Madeleine that took away from whatever forward motion of the plot was taking place. Chief among these was her romance with Jackie's whore, Bertha. (What...?)

Then there's Jim Morrison before there was Jim Morrison. Thank God for the poet, who for the whole evening is a walking omen of the tragedy soon to unfold. As a stand-in for the author of the massacred poem at hand, he is proof that the whole movie is parodying itself. But anyway, he's nice as the poet who’s in love with Queenie and with whom Kate may or may not be in love. (Their scene of reconciliation upstairs is very sweet "Aww Jiminy... OK loser, you win").

And then there is Annette Ferra as Nadine, the baby-doll sister of Grace, stuntman Eddie's girlfriend. The role itself is not complicated, but in any adaptation of the Wild Party it's very important that we as the audience like Nadine. She's the only one there who can, and does, lose everything from her walk on the wild side. In this adaptation, Grace is essentially whoring her out in hopes of getting her into the movies, while the innocent Nadine is pulled along for the ride without a clear idea of what's going on. The scene that replaces her attempted rape in the poem takes place in the kitchen after she walks in on her sister having sex with one of the guests. Grimm brings her cake, because cake fixes everything, and, very drunk and very tired, tells her she reminds him of Queenie, which the audience should have figured out the minute she came on screen. He tells her how he and Queenie met, and how scared he is of losing her. At what Nadine says is her sister's request, Grimm kisses her and Eddie storms in at precisely the wrong moment, resulting in an unintentionally hilarious fight that somehow involves not just Grimm and Eddie, but also Dale, Jim, Tex (Grimm's driver), the maid, a few random party guests and eventually Queenie.

Nadine shows up in an almost completely soundless but very moving scene at the very end. Still in her sugar-plum-fairy dance costume from earlier in the evening, she walks very calmly past all the party guests and climbs the stairs of the murder scene. She looks at Dale for a brief moment, then goes to Grimm, cradling the dying Queenie and crying, and just stands and looks at him, as though she can't believe what's just happened to her world. During the shooting, Jim takes a bullet to the neck but eventually he recovers. He's seen in the hospital with a finished manuscript, and the last shot is him writing the title. Obviously "The Wild Party".

James Coco creates his adaptation of the character who is supposed to be Burrs as best he can. He is very clearly in love with Queenie and he's at the end of his rope career-wise. While he has a few nasty moments before the tragic end, and he's not much to look at besides, it's difficult to understand why Queenie is so unhappy with him and why she is so desperate for the "safe love" that Dale Sword's character (“Mr. Black” in the other adaptations) is supposed to provide.

Tiffany Bolling as Kate does an adequate job for what she is given, which is not a lot, to be honest. Her scenes with "her Jiminy" are sweet and provide gentle comic relief in a movie trying desperately hard to be serious. She has a song at the piano at sunrise, "The Sunday Morning Blues", serious foreshadowing both for the tragedy that occurs moments later and the Great Depression that we know was soon to follow. Perry King as Dale Sword is given less than nothing to do for the hour and a half of this movie. He's an appendage of Kate and later of Queenie, and his love for the latter is nonexistent. Even at that critical moment of weakness when Queenie breaks down crying in his arms, you can see his eyes glazing over her shoulder, with his face frozen in an expression of "I'm gonna get in her pants". 
Again, though, there were parts of the movie I liked because I think both composers of the show either saw this movie or had contacts in Merchant/Ivory because each one took things for their own character sketches. Lippa definitely took the cue of this movie, being that the story does not need to be tied to 20's Manhattan. That remains the setting for Lippa's show, but the ties are loose. Queenie and Burrs and the rest of them are performers, but you never get to see their acts throughout the course of the show. LaChiusa did a semi-lift of the random Jackie, Madeleine, anonymous third party thing. Except it's Madeleine's girlfriend who leaves her for Jackie. (At least, I think so. But everyone onstage except for the four leads all depart the stage at once, so it's really hard to tell who's with who at that point). And it's in this movie that Jackie is introduced as a drug addict.

Which leaves Raquel Welch as Queenie. Not much can be said about her that hasn't already been said, except the very, very obvious observation that she is not, in fact, a blonde. It's a little peeve and it's not all that important, but considering the first line of the poem is "Queenie was a blonde / And her age stood still / And she danced twice a day in Vaudeville", and the story has already been transported to Hollywood, it's worth mentioning. (The fact that it takes place in the 20's is not enough. Vaudeville and the nature of performing are an intergral part of the poem's setting.) She does fine in her performance on top of the bar, ("Singapore Sally"), and in her scenes with Dale she displays enough emotion for the two of them. Her untimely end is tragic, but two much more capable actresses (Julia Murney and Toni Collette), worked wonders with this part 25 years later in the stage adaptations. So the ultimate point of this rant is, go ahead and see it, it's worth it if the price is in the single digits somewhere. But don't read the poem until after you see this movie, so that you might be pleasantly surprised.

[	Current Location	|	My room	]
[	mood	|	busy	]
[	music	|	All You Wanted- Michelle Branch	]

It’s very late.

The rooms are completely dark and deserted when I wander back to the common room looking for someone to talk to. I don’t want to go to sleep yet. The sound of voices draws me into the room, lit by a small, porcelain lamp. Well, one voice. I stop in the doorway, but the owner of the voice does not pause.

Jackie is decked out in full Chicago regalia. Think “Razzle-Dazzle ‘em”, but worse. More flamboyant. Jackie’s black suit is interspersed with sparkling silver pinstripes running the length of his body, where he lies, stretched out on the couch, lounging.

Ayesha’s kittens, small white and black creampuffs against the silver, are all curled up along his legs or his glittering stomach. One of the smaller ones, a black one with cream-colored patches around her orange eyes like glasses, making her look a little like a lemur, is curled up under the dancer’s arm, her chin on his chest.

As though to complete the insane picture before me, the hand not curled around the black kitten is propping up a well-worn copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy against his knee. The kittens are only half-awake, but they are listening to him like children with a bedtime story.

Nadine sits up with her back against the couch. Her faded nightdress, many sizes too big for her and stitched poorly in some places, is drawn up around her white colt knees and hangs down over her scrawny arms like a sack. It’s probably a hand-me-down from Mae. She rests contentedly with her damp and frizzy head against Jackie’s waist, and when I crouch down next to her, she wraps her arms around her stick legs and sighs. “Nadine…” I whisper, as quietly as I can. She jerks and looks at me, startled. But then Jackie keeps reading, and she falls back into the trancelike state of the spellbound listener. Her lips are parted slightly, and a strand of hair flutters with the butterfly breeze of her breath. Peaceful.

Jackie is reading the first segment of Dante’s Divine Comedy- Inferno, where the poet is guided through Hell by a member of the damned himself, and who escapes the icy prison of Satan’s castle on Satan’s back.

We listen as Jackie’s crooning voice reads out the description of the first circle of Hell- Limbo. His voice is a metronome for her sleep, timing each moment. From his lips fall an enveloping darkness, a voice that forever verges on song, swaying over the valley of grief, a false Heaven within a false Hell. The nuances in his voice shift from its darkened, melancholy walls of the seven-story castle, the sad secrets of the gentle wind where no one speaks. No one will interrupt the perfect and perpetually imperfect stillness. We follow his voice down and down and down… through the fire… through the ice... through rooms of shadows and not enough light, from rooms of fading… to burning… to an unrepentant heart of cold stone.

Down through Limbo, we descend with him…

‘There, as it seemed to me from listening,
  Were lamentations none, but only sighs,
  That tremble made the everlasting air.

And this arose from sorrow without torment,
  Which the crowds had, that many were and great,
  Of infants and of women and of men.

To me the Master good: Thou dost not ask

What spirits these, which thee beholdest now?

Now will I have thee know, ere then go farther.

That they sinned not; and if they merit had,
  'Tis not enough, because they had not baptism
  Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest;

And if they were before Christianity,
  In the right manner they adored not God;
  And among such as these am I myself.

For such defects, and not for other guilt,
  Lost are we and are only so far punished,
  That without hope we live on in desire."

Jackie sighs himself now, places the book pages down against the only part of his chest not covered by a kitten. He is thinking about what he has just read, though he has read it many times before. Something about reading it aloud makes it final. “‘We live on in desire’… the Poet says. Do you think there is desire in his Inferno? Do you think that’s what burns in our souls now and what will consume them then? Desire so strong it burns?”

I’m not sure who he is talking to, but Jackie doesn’t seem to need an answer. He doesn’t seem to want one. As he talks, he begins to roughly and absentmindedly stroke Nadine’s hair, and her hand comes up in her half-sleep and clutches his like a baby. He lets her, staring down at her with what looks like regret. But a sigh, not a lamentation. Melancholy, not fear. He picks up his book, restlessly.

‘The sixfold company in two divides;
  Another way my sapient Guide conducts me
  Forth from the quiet to the air that trembles;

And to a place I come where nothing shines.

…

And now begin the dolesome notes to grow
  Audible unto me; now am I come
  There where much lamentation strikes upon me.

I came into a place mute of all light,
  Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,
  If by opposing winds 't is combated.

The infernal hurricane that never rests
  Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;
  Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.

When they arrive before the precipice,
  There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,
  There they blaspheme the puissance divine.

I understood that unto such a torment
  The carnal malefactors were condemned,
  Who reason subjugate to appetite.

And as the wings of starlings bear them on
  In the cold season in large band and full,
  So doth that blast the spirits maledict;

It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them;
  No hope doth comfort them for evermore,
  Not of repose, but even of lesser pain.

And as the cranes go chanting forth their lays,
  Making in air a long line of themselves,
  So saw I coming, uttering lamentations,”

He breaks off again. I feel as though I am intruding. He flips through the pages with practiced fingers, turning the sheets carefully, caressingly. He points to a scanned section. “The violent are down three levels.” He says, matter-of-factly and mostly to himself. “And the seducers are on the chain gangs just below them. Maybe it’s only the seduced who find themselves on the horizon of light… horizons recede as you reach for them…”

He stares intently at his chosen page, as though annoyed it isn’t being more helpful. “There’s desire here too. They’re punished for their desire with the desire for desire. Desire that can’t be filled. Maybe there is hope. The violent fight forever, but the shameful lovers… do you think the sinners can find love in Hell? Cleopatra is waiting for me there, the flames make her even more beautiful… beautiful with lights in her eyes… beautiful…” begins again to roughly caress Nadine’s hair against his stomach. Feverishly he laughs, as though he is trying to say that none of this is important to him. His hold on her hair is desperate, scared of losing grip.

But by the end of Cantos V, Nadine is truly and deeply asleep. Her curly head lolling against Jackie’s waist, her loose arms limp against the carpeted floor. Her parted lips flutter with her breath. Jackie closes his book around his finger, and looks down at Nadine slumbering on the floor at his side. He pokes her gently in the shoulder, and she makes a breathy –oh!– sound, but she doesn’t wake up. Jackie turns his lash-framed eyes to me.

“Can you get her?”

I nod, pulling Nadine’s arm around my shoulder, rousing her to the point where she can almost walk. Jackie gives me his “odd double-nod”, then opens his book back up. Most of the kittens are fast asleep, breaking up the silver with little warm balls of fur. But the one curled under his arm, who seemed to be his favorite, is still awake, with her plumed tail over her nose. He flips through and through and through…

“You’ll like this part,” he assures his feline companion. “The Poet comes to Paradiso, because Beatrice’s love saves him. There’s always light there.

‘Without more knowledge having by mine eyes

Through occult virture that from her proceeded

Of ancient love the mighty influence left…

Within that Heaven which most his light receives,

Was I, and things behold which to repeat,

Nor knows, nor can, who from alone descends,

That after it memory cannot go…”

“Then again,” he whispers, “Maybe I don’t want light. If there was a Heaven for me, it would be dark. Perpetual twilight, the night perpetually young. The stars would be red, the music would dance forever… I’d bring Cleopatra with me. She deserves the music…”

As I help Nadine to her room, I can feel Jackie’s eyes on her shoulder, where one sleeve of her huge nightdress has dropped down. She whimpers a little, tripping against me. She is shivering. Jackie’s voice follows me down the hall.

“Memory wouldn’t follow her.”

His voice trails away to an incoherent murmur. He settles himself back against the pillow. The kitten yawns, and looks up, expecting more. Jackie folds the book down on the floor. “That’s enough for one night.”

He lifts the kittens, one by one, transporting them so gently to their mother’s basket that most of them don’t even stir. I see him absentmindedly touch the damp spot on his jacket where Nadine’s hair had been a minute before. Nadine finds her way to her own bed all right, and Jackie stands waiting for me when I leave her. It’s as though he is waiting to leave, and he needs someone to protect what he has here.

Before I can move, he walks off down the hall, along the corridor of his own memory palace, alone with all of his thoughts, and alone with the powder that makes them beautiful for a little while.

...but Silver Bay was too much fun. It was just great.

Good pictures from 2005:

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20256.jpg[/IMG]
JR, our mission project mascot, and some other YAS.

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20264.jpg[/IMG]
Yeah this is me singing "Without You"

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20259.jpg[/IMG]
Adam and Sarah.

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20271.jpg[/IMG]
SYDNEY YEYAH! This is her on her violin.

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20047.jpg[/IMG] YAS Richard. Tres awesome.

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20042.jpg[/IMG]
The Lappedo, or... something like that. Not sure how to spell it. For some reason everybody loves this thing...

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20127.jpg[/IMG]
Our theme for the week. I love this picture.

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20156.jpg[/IMG]
OMG SARAH! She's a great dancer. This summer she was the Holy Spirit for all the skits.

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20184.jpg[/IMG]
Nicole and Keith. Keith can do a wicked Jack Sparrow impression.

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20223.jpg[/IMG]
Secondary theme for the week. I love this picture too.

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20229.jpg[/IMG]
The famous and infamous Star Trek energizer. We all love this. *Star Treks around the room*

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20270.jpg[/IMG]
Adam (king of energizers and also the Wrath of God, but we'll get to that later...) and his sister Amy (awesome group leader and just an all-around awesome person) singing "For Good"

And of course, the infamous "Champions" skit...
[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20277.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20278.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20279.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20280.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20282.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2005/images/sbpyc05%20283.jpg[/IMG]

SB 2006 pictures are up WOOT WOOT! (sorry my dormmate Rachel is rubbing off on me lol):

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day0/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%200%2009.jpg[/img]
Peace, love, and power to the people.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day1/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%201%20122.jpg[/img]
KEITH, yes. With chalk. Only he can make that funny.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day2/slides/SBPYC%202006%20Day%202%20016.jpg[/img]
Pretty landscape.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day1/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%201%20164.jpg[/img]
Adam and Nicole [i]and[/i] Keith.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day1/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%201%20158.jpg[/img]
YAS Michael.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day1/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%201%20126.jpg[/img]
CJ YEY! Co-director and queen of energizers.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day1/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%201%20199.jpg[/img]
Here it is, the picture of Adam as the Wrath of God. Which is made even funnier by the fact that Adam could be Mark, he's just a better dancer.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day1/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%201%20210.jpg[/img]
STAR TRECKING, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE! *whiplash*

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day1/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%201%20018.jpg[/img]
My chaperone Joanne. You [i]cannot[/i] tell me she's not scheming.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day1/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%201%20057.jpg[/img]
The labyrinth. Which is fun to walk in the rain.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day1/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%201%20117.jpg[/img]
The light-up walls onstage. They were quite cool to see during evening worship.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day1/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%201%20146.jpg[/img]
Amy my amazing closing group leader. With a bubble. YEY!

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day1/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%201%20174.jpg[/img]
This is Silvio, originator of the Legend of the Snapple.
...I don't know...

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day1/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%201%20008.jpg[/img]
AHHH, I'VE BEEN KILLED! I'VE BEEN BLINDED! AAAAHHHH, I... there's nobody near me, huh? Oh... okay, I just kidding!

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day2/slides/SBPYC%202006%20Day%202%20007.jpg[/img]
Pretty landscape.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day2/slides/SBPYC%202006%20Day%202%20034.jpg[/img]
And this is Michael as the Wrath of God.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day2/slides/SBPYC%202006%20Day%202%20058.jpg[/img]
Keith again.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day2/slides/SBPYC%202006%20Day%202%20071.jpg[/img]
Aerin and Kyle-the-Duck-Lover.

These next ones are from the bonfire on Monday night, where they gave us glow necklaces and bracelets and stuff. This was too much fun:
[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day2/slides/SBPYC%202006%20Day%202%20041.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day2/slides/SBPYC%202006%20Day%202%20090.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day2/slides/SBPYC%202006%20Day%202%20092.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day2/slides/SBPYC%202006%20Day%202%20036.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day2/slides/SBPYC%202006%20Day%202%20042.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day2/slides/SBPYC%202006%20Day%202%20040.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day3/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%203%20035.jpg[/img]
Richard again, being spaztic. YEY!

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day3/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%203%20096.jpg[/img]
I don't kow who he is but how freckin awesome is that shirt?

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day3/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%203%20048.jpg[/img]
This was a string games interest group, so I actually know some now, it's cool.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day3/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%203%20077.jpg[/img]
Sarah at the 60's fashion show, where you make your clothes out of newspaper and duct tape. YEYAH.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day3/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%203%20076.jpg[/img]
More 60's fashion show.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day3/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%203%20078.jpg[/img]
And yet more.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day3/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%203%20003.JPG[/img]
And more. :)

"Unmasking Idolatries", a dance Adam and Sarah did for worship one night, to a cover of "What if God Was One of Us".
[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day3/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%203%20061.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day3/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%203%20072.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day3/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%203%20073.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day3/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%203%20075.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20026.jpg[/img]
A rather demented energizer we did to "Pinball Wizard"...

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20031.jpg[/img]
A rather demented energizer we did to "Pinball Wizard"...

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20120.jpg[/img]
DDR showdown between my small group leader and Michael. Who shall return victorious?

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20061.jpg[/img]
This little girl Caroline and her brother who sang "We are Marching" for the talent show. So cute!

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20070.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20067.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20074.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20137.jpg[/img]
Cullen and his friends doing "Circle of Life", Caroline got to be Simba.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20092.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20187.jpg[/img]
Kyle, Sydney, Mackenzie, and other people doing a Monty Python skit.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20118.jpg[/img]
Again the Champion skit.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20161.jpg[/img]
Sarah and her ballet.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20188.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day4/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%204%20191.jpg[/img]
Nicole bellydancing, and she made her own costume.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day5/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%205%20031.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day5/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%205%20029.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day5/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%205%20037.jpg[/img]
My small group.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day5/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%205%20074.JPG[/img]
Kibbe and the baby Avery. Even the non-PYC people at Silver Bay want to bring Avery home with them.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day5/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%205%20077.JPG[/img]
Plenary with the beachballs.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day5/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%205%20128.JPG[/img]
All of us before the dance. I borrowed the top hat but I do think it looks great.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day5/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%205%20171.JPG[/img]
Adam is pimpin' :P

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day5/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%205%20111.JPG[/img]
Adam and Amy.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day5/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%205%20121.JPG[/img]
YEY FOR ENERGIZERS!

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day5/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%205%20192.JPG[/img]
Amy and CJ's little brother.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day6/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%206%2006.JPG[/img]
All the YAS.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day6/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%206%2007.JPG[/img]
All the design team and group leaders.

[img]http://www.silverbaypyc.org/slideshow/2006/Day6/slides/SBPYC%202006%20%20Day%206%2005.JPG[/img]
All of us.

Silver Bay is the best. The YAS rule the world. The end.

I'm at the Hartwick Summer Music Festival at Hartwick College right now, writing from their computer lab. Good times, so far. I'm taking Choir, Festival Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Quartet, Musical Theater and Conducting. We have concerts every night, last night was a student recital, and a group got together to do "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard". Johanna and Brian my buddies from chamber group, started a "jam session" with an acoustic and two harmonicas in the Commons last night, singing the Beatles and Billy Joel. Yeah, my concerts are Friday and I'll be home soon woot woot! 
I've seen the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie twice, if I go to FYE this weekend I'm getting the cardboard cutout of Jack. That cliffhanger ending was insane, but my mom was happy. She thinks Barbossa is really cool for some reason...
Oh, and a few teenagers in the back of the theater screamed "JACK'S NOT DEAD!" as soon as the credits started rolling. Yes, thanks so much, we didn't know that. ;) Like there would even be a movie without Jack. Write again soon.
Ta,
~_`Scarlet

[	mood	|	busy	]
[	music	|	Let's Go Out Tonight- Daphne Rubin-Vega	]

Okay peeps, so my Mark-fic is well underway... I have the beginning and the end. Yes. I'm typing it up this weekend, after Global and Spanish finals. *Throws up*

There is a ray of accomplishment. I got a 93 on my NYSSMA, and I got into the summer music program at Hartwick College. Happy joy happy joy!
Gay prom is next Friday, which shall be awesome. That Thursday night I'm sleeping over my homegirl Lena's house, along with Firiel and La Jenz for a "Sisterhood Sleepover", where we're going to watch the bootleg copy of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" Lena unknowingly got in NYC for $5 and will feel guilty about buying if we don't watch it. (We all match up to one of the Sisterhood girls; Firiel=Tibby, La Jenz=Carmen, and Me=Bridget. It's been a lot of fun.) And that Saturday I might possibly be going into the city with Liv and Justin to see RENT, and stagedoor-hop until we meet Robin DeJesus! Wish us luck!

Ta,
~_` Scarlet

Angel: I am the drag queen and you call me INSANE?! To me, you are a slug in the sun. You are privy to a great becoming but you recognize nothing. You are an ant in the afterbirth. Before me you rightly tremble. But you owe me more than fear. YOU OWE ME AWE!
James: O_O *reaching for notebook*
Collins: That... that was real cool Angel. It was a little scary. Don't do it while we're in bed, but... shit... *mouthing to James* I'm so sorry.
James: You're the one who fucks her, not me. *Reaching for notebook*
Mandy *Snatching it away*: Babababa!
Liv: *Glomps Angel* THAT WAS SO COOL ANGEL!
Angel: Thank you baby.
Us: LOVE IT WHEN THE FANDOMS MERGE!
*************************************************************************
Is otherwise inspired, attracts strange looks primarily from the characters.* I would say I was sorry, but I'd be lying...
Yeah... I really don't know why I bother, considering I know what Liv thinks and she's the only one who comments, lol. But it makes me feel all happy inside... *Considers just how strange that sounds in context...*
Mark, James: YES!
Collins, Roger, Erik, Mandy: O_O Oookay then.
Angel: *Facedesk* YOU PROMISED!
Me: "I am the drag queen and you call me INSANE?!"
Angel: *Throws a convenient book at his authoress*
************************************************************************
Disclaimer: I would like to think I’m not quite this twisted. Again, Hannibal and Clarice belong to Thomas Harris and the lyrics are by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

“Past the point of no return
No going back now
Our passion-play has now at last begun.

Past all thought of right or wrong
One final question
How long should we two wait before we're one?
When will the blood begin to race
The sleeping bud burst into bloom
When will the flames at last consume us?”

”Past the point of no return
The final threshold
The bridge is crossed
So stand and watch it burn
We've passed the point of no return.”

He watched her intently as she ate. Unperturbed, stormy grey eyes caught him at it once over the rim of her glass, but she offered nothing in response. Starling’s gaze was level and firm, clear of the last traces of drugs. Now at last, we shall see.

Starling’s resolutely plain dress was light cream in color. No jewelry graced her throat or wrists this evening. She crossed and uncrossed her legs once, and as the skirt rustled gently, he could see no outline. Starling had not brought her gun with her. Any looks she shared with her dinner partner were fleeting, she glanced away almost immediately, as though a painting had caught her interest.

She was very calm this evening, she felt strangely detached, watched the moment from outside her body through the window of calm lucidity that precedes death. She could see the end for her, it had begun when her conscience would not let her abandon Dr. Lecter to torture and death.

The end was in sight. Close now, she could feel it; a final confrontation, a choice, a final word that would seal her fate, yes or no? That choice was coming soon. And by his hand or hers, she couldn’t say, the choice would kill her.

Starling sensed another presence in the room. Eyes on her back, pale blue and childlike. They belonged to a phantom, there was no one else in the house with them. She knew she would feel foolish, looking around at nothing. She kept her eyes on her plate, occasionally asked coolly, politely, for wine. Pity has no place at this table. His voice drifted across her memory. She realized she had spoken aloud as he glanced at her. No matter. She went back to her meal.

Clarice Starling’s knowledge of the power she held in her body struck her completely at the most unexpected times. It struck her now as it had seven years ago in a murdered girl’s bedroom, letting her realize fully how capable she was of commanding attention, and refuting it. Starling remained sitting, stiffly upright, in her chair after she had finished, waited until he got up at his leisure and led her into the sitting room. The flickering firelight embraced Starling by the shoulders, should have comforted her, but it did nothing for her numb, paralyzed calm. She waited, glass in hand, for Dr. Lecter to speak.

His back was to her as he poured liquor for himself. She reflected how strange it was how exposed she felt under the relentless maroon gaze and stranger still how numb she felt outside it. True to his analysis, as always, Starling’s sleep had not been broken by a scream, but by a whisper. By a voice. A touch. A dance that dragged her closer and closer to the flames with every turn as she slowly, slowly, gave herself up.

Gave herself up. Any outside observer might say that Starling had already given herself up. Her first weeks in the doctor’s house, penetrating conversations with a single light source in the room that lasted long into the night, were blurred at the edges to her. She did not know the extent of the information she had given Dr. Lecter during this brief therapy, as it were. She did know that it had been enough. She had ensured a bond deeper than she wanted to contemplate, deeper than words, deeper than she could fully understand. And now, she would never be able to get away from him. Not even if she could leave this house and get home, wherever that was now. She would never get him out of her head.

Starling knew ultimately, in those few seconds before he turned to her. She belonged to him now.

Starling’s name rested on Dr. Lecter’s lips for long time as he turned to her, sat easily in a chair across from her, and he studied her face over the rim of his glass. The shared knowledge of possession filled the room in one blazing moment of clarity. Starling was the first to look away, feeling again the vague and incessant presence of a child’s blue eyes. A thin wisp of a memory from long ago. Mischa. The doctor’s sister.

They did not speak about her, though he must have felt her too. Her relentless presence. Starling slowly became aware that there was music playing. Classical music, a lovely piano solo, a recording from long ago. She was barely listening, and her thoughts jumped back to Mischa until she realized that he had addressed her.

He repeated her name, savored it, “Clarice.”

Clarice… Clarice… Starling looked up. He expected an answer. She saw the moment from outside herself. “Dr. Lecter.” An automatic response. Not satisfactory. He had watched her sleep last night, she knew. She said as much.

“Yes,” he told her pensively. “A glimpse of the Clarice I used to know, years ago. Resilient even in sleep, so still, watching for a move to be made. This Clarice was constantly, constantly at war in her heart. Vulnerable to the mercy of innocent victims she was unable to save. Desperate to escape, desperate to wake up.” He paused, “And what happened to her, I wonder?”

“She woke up, Dr. Lecter.” His opaque eyes were satisfied. Good. She sipped from her glass, cutting short any further discussion. She saw him rise from his chair and come to stand behind hers. He lifted her glass from her unresisting grip.

“Did you dream last night, Clarice?” He knew the answer already. There was no sense in lying.

“Yes.”

“What did you dream of?” The question was a mockery, and Starling didn’t answer, looked away from him. Dr. Lecter’s hand was on her face, against the cheek marked with gunpowder. “Look at me, Clarice,” his command was almost a hiss. His next words shot a twinge of icy panic down her spine.

“No need, I know the answer already. Didn’t I tell you, Clarice, that I had taken nothing from you that you had not given me?” He took a drop if liquor from his glass on the table, trailed it along Starling’s neck. She gave an almost imperceptible flinch, inhaling sharply. A cold laugh, soft in her ear, his hand came to her shoulder. Starling found her voice.

A whisper. A refusal. Again, stronger this time. He heard her.

He locked eyes with her, mocked her with the barest hint of an accent.

“No… My dear little Starling, how you disappoint me…”

He took her right wrist, drawing the livid bruise to his lips.

Starling’s voice died in her throat. Her eyes stung, though she did not cry. She felt herself falling, falling, falling…

“Stand up,”

She stood. Her pain was hidden behind her grey eyes, but he drew it out as he faced her. He drank deeply. Dr. Lecter had her close to the wall, his maroon eyes drifted down to her leg, and he smiled at her. She repressed a shudder. She had not brought her gun. His hands came to her waist, rested there as Starling slowly, hesitantly, exhaled.

She took a last breath in, a last one out, looked again at him. She plunged.

He felt her acceptance. He took her hand, and pressed the other hand to the small of her back. Starling led him as he led her.

Utterly alone, though he closed her door, he took what he wanted from her. He bit a kiss into her shoulder, savored her breathing, her acceptance.

Her pain.

But not once did he touch her lips.

Starling slept before he did. Dr. Lecter could feel her arm shaking a little in her sleep, though she was otherwise very still. Her hand twisted the cover against her neck. There was no escape for her, even in sleep.

Perhaps an hour later, though it was dark and she could not see the clock, Starling stirred. She woke slowly, very slowly. By degrees she felt a faint pressure against her ribs; trying to feign sleep, she did not move. Think.

No use. Perhaps the humming in her blood gave her away. There was a flare of light just outside her line of vision. A small light was lit, colored red in her sight, and he spoke,

“Ah, she wakes.” He turned her towards him from the shoulder. Starling’s mind raced as he held her there, and he followed the upward motion of her eyes. The gun. The gun was in the drawer. It was loaded, locked, ready. The drawer was only a foot or two from her outstretched hand. Dr. Lecter’s voice was stern when he spoke again.

“Don’t try what you are thinking, Clarice. You know it wouldn’t help you now,” She did know, she turned her gaze back to him. He held her life in his hands. By quiet words and quiet movements, she could hope to regain it. “What your badge and your gun could mean to you now, I couldn’t say- ex-Special Agent Starling. You know you can’t possibly go back now, even if they would have you. There would be no true escape for you outside this house, Clarice. I’ll not leave you again.”

Don’t say it… an order or a plea, Don’t say it…

“They will scream louder than ever now, Clarice. But it will be different than before. Your lambs won’t scream for their own lives, they won’t scream for John or Catherine this time. They will scream for you. For the little girl on the ranch who tried so hard to save them, who tried to save so many others, to avenge the death of one, when to silence them for good, she would need to save herself. She would need to look into the depths of a mirror, examine the woman who was so ill-suited to fall in love with the Bureau. Have you looked at your own reflection lately, Clarice? No, I doubt you have. You can’t shut out your lambs by running any longer, Clarice.”

Starling’s limbs were numb; as she steeled herself to say the one thing she could to counter him. “And what of your own dreams, Hannibal? You’ve heard a voice too long in your sleep as well. I could feel her with us in the sitting room, I’m sure you could as well. Mischa’s voice is frozen in memory now, perhaps her cries for help haunt your sleep. And you can’t silence her, not without my help.” Starling hissed in pain. She knew there was blood. She couldn’t stop now. “You can see that only one of us can sleep silently. If you kill me now, you know Mischa will never stop.”

Starling did not look away as he considered her, did not blink. A full minute passed in the tense disquiet.

“Tell me, my dear,” his voice was very strange. Neither conversational nor malicious. A serious question. “Would you ever say to me, ‘Stop. If you loved me you’d stop’?”

“You wouldn’t stop.”

“Would you ask?”

“Not in a thousand years.”

He looked down at her with muted pride, “‘Not in a thousand years,’ she says. Clarice, my Clarice…” he pressed his lips to hers. She did not stop him. The pressure against her ribs eased. He covered the cut the knife had made with a hand. How much time had she bought herself? She found she was drifting off to sleep, she heard him whisper something to her, shift her as he got up, left the room to let her rest. Ardelia’s voice drifted through her sleep.

She couldn’t stay. She would leave in the morning. No.

Her decision had no merit. She had made it because she knew she should. There was too much to be forgotten in order to re-enter her past life. Her false life. Her cuts ran too deep for time to soothe away. A chorus of voices in her head vied for her attention, in whispering urgent voices. John Brigham, Catherine Martin, Frederica, Kimberly, Evelda and her baby… Clarice.

Her lambs, no. She pushed them from her mind, cut from her heart the last strings of love for a corrupt Bureau who did not… would not ever love her back. It was no longer her duty to save those who would not be saved. The knowledge shook her, that there would be no going back.

Ex-Special Agent Clarice Starling reached across an unknown distance to Ardelia, whispered to her as her best friend slept, prayed she would understand. She became aware that she was crying, bitter cries she had not uttered in years. Oh God, is this what it feels like when your heart breaks? No going back, now. She stifled her tears. No going back… no going back… no going back…

Consumed. Condemned. Complete. Clarice Starling drifted back into the arms of a silent sleep to wait for dawn.

Nothing in this life comes free of cost, was her last thought as she closed her eyes.
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Ta,
~_`Scarlet

Yes, this is my second journal entry today. YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD GET RID OF ME, BUT NO! HAHAHAHAHA! I DENTED YOUR CAR! The phaaaaaaaaaantom of the opera is here, inside your mind!
Ahem, I've had my fangirl moment. You may all come out from under the- YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT!
No seriously, I'm done now. You can come out of hiding. Here is your first real taste of my insanity, my Silence of the Lambs fanfiction, which is a oneshot until I am otherwise inspired. Have fun, my lovelies!

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“Past the point of no return, the final threshold

What warm unspoken secrets will we learn?

Beyond the point of no return.”

“You have brought me to that moment where words run dry,
To that moment where speech disappears into silence, silence...

I have come here, hardly knowing the reason why
In my mind, I've already imagined our bodies entwining,
Defenseless and silent, and now I am here with you
No second thoughts, I've decided, decided...”

-Phantom of the Opera

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The eyes that pierced her, searing her through to her soul as they sat, divided only by glass, whispering through the darkness as each word brought her closer to the success she chased, craved, prized…

Stalked was the word he had used that first night, stalking little answers with cheap birthstone eyes. Light flew to the center of those eyes when they’d last met in Tennessee, when he had so stressed the word covet. The killer she sought coveted the women he took.

Starling senses the maroon eyes that covet her now. Lecter’s eyes moving over her body, seeing through the black dress. She feels heat moving down her back as his eyes track her and her shoulders tighten. She does not touch the music beside the cassette player, and she rises. There was breath now on her dark hair, loose to her shoulders and she turned to find him close, too close. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to step backward. Starling wondered how her image had been preserved in that chill mind these last ten years, if the sight of her face as she relived her nightmare stayed with him as he slept.

She didn’t wonder as he faced her what he wanted from her. She wondered only how he planned on getting it.

The weight of her revolver strapped against her thigh gave Starling relief, and made her feel less vulnerable. He stood very close to her, and the numbness that comes with routine slipped over her to give her insulation. She saw Lecter’s eyes come to rest on her thigh beneath the dark fabric of her dress, and he knew her thoughts. He lifted maroon eyes to her grey ones with a warning. As she disregarded it, pain twisted her right wrist and weight pressed her against the wall, trapping her left arm behind her back.

“No, Clarice.” He hissed. Starling grimaced at the pain, but held onto the gun. She struggled for a moment, but as her wrist twisted close to the breaking point, she relinquished her hold. Dr. Lecter kicked the gun ten feet to his left and where he released her wrist, he left a dark bruise. She winced, pulling her trapped arm from behind her and clutching at the wound. His hand came up to her face, hovering close to her hair.

His eyes remained locked on Clarice Starling’s face, and he watched her head drop toward her left shoulder, though her eyes darted once to the spot where her gun lay across the room. His palm came to rest against the side of her face.

He touched her hair then, ran his fingers through it and let it settle back into place. He felt her back arch against the wall, and something flickered behind her eyes. Another wave of cold swept over her, followed by a sick dread in her stomach as she heard Lecter’s quiet murmur of laughter.

“Very interesting.” He mused, more to himself than to her.

Starling didn’t respond. She knew if she said anything, he would hear everything he hoped to in her voice. He would register the dread twisting her heart, defensiveness in her tone, he would read her, and so she closed off her eyes, closed off her face to his probing senses. But he went on.

“Even as you stand there, you fight to keep your body rigid and your face impassive. You don’t seem to be able to hide anything from me, Clarice Starling. I must admit, I find that rather… beautiful.

“Your eyes are remarkable, Clarice, for anyone who takes the time to look. You’ve tried so hard your whole life to close them off, building walls behind them to shield yourself from them. Anyone whose gazes of pity or lust would have reopened old wounds. We’re so alike that way, do you see? You’ve never wanted anyone to solve you. You’re terrified of vulnerability, and you have been ever since you were a little girl on that ranch. Frightened that someone would open you, see through you. Because everyone who has has left you, Clarice, old wounds stinging with salt. Is that so?”

He didn’t wait for a response and continued, faster now, “So you keep yourself locked up and hidden away. And you’ve done well, hiding yourself from most of the world. But not from me, you fear now.

“Do I presume too much? No, I think not, or it wouldn’t burn you as it does now. That night in Tennessee, you remember.” He paused, and drew his index finger down the length of hers, in a familiar gesture. Starling placed her palms flat against the wall to keep herself from shaking. “Listen now, and remember. Your eyes flickered just as they do now, and in that instant I saw everything you had hoped to hide. Everything you had pushed to the back of your mind, to hide it from the world, and from me.

“And I’ve wondered. I wonder what haunts your dreams now. I hardly think it’s the lambs that have driven you from your sleep these last years.”

A paralyzing dart pierced Starling’s numb consciousness as she recalled the words Lecter had spoken to her so many years ago. Lecter saw her swallow, and repeated the words now, “‘People will say we’re in love,’ Ah well, you see now how far that is from the truth.” Lecter’s voice took on a recognizable note of sarcasm, “But these past years have given you cause to wonder, as well. There have been nights, too often for your liking, where you’ve woken up in the dark, ashamed of the weakness your dreams bring you.”

His hand found her right wrist, and she inhaled sharply, clenching her fist in preparation of a struggle. Strong fingers registered her racing pulse. He ran his fingers up her arm, and closed them lightly on Starling’s throat. Lecter stepped, closing the remaining space between them, and leaned in to hiss his next words into her ear.

“Hush now, Clarice, and feel. There’s nowhere left for you to run from me. In the dark, as you coaxed your body back to sleep, you’ve feared your dreams for a new reason. You’ve wondered as darkness closed around you, why you beg so desperately for your dreams to bring you the touch of a killer.”

At long last, Starling wrenched his hand from her neck and lunged out. Caught off guard for a fraction of a second, he only just caught her arm as she passed. The anger burned white-hot in her voice as she addressed him, “I do not beg for anything, Dr. Lecter, and I never will. I won’t contradict anything you’ve said, but I won’t be degraded to the status of begging. Not by you. You won’t break me as easily as you’ve imagined.” She pulled.

“Don’t turn your back on me.” He ordered. “I’ve no intentions to ‘break you’ as you say, does that relieve you? Look at me, Clarice.” There was a new note in Lecter’s voice now. As Starling turned back to face him, he watched the walls behind her grey eyes collapse, and they blazed with her shattered pride. She yanked her arm from his grip, but the damage was done. “Not with words, Clarice, you don’t beg, no. But you are still here. You’ve allowed me to touch you after the years that my voice has disturbed your sleep. You’ve said nothing, because your mind remembers your years at the FBI. But the body can override the mind when the desire is strong. And it is your body that remembers your dreams of years past.”

His eyes never left her face as he reached behind him for the cassette recorder and pressed play. “Come here,” his voice was softer, his tone unrecognizably gentle. The music that washed over Starling was unfamiliar to her, but the sound of it soothed her. He beckoned to her again with a slow, elegant movement of his wrist. She came to him, and with calloused fingers put her hand on his shoulder. Lecter took the curve of her waist, and led her to the music. She looked down several times, learning the steps slowly, he shook his head, “Don’t look at your shoes now, you’ve a terrible habit of doing that. Just move.”

The body Starling had shaped through hard years of training moved well to the music as her muscles committed the steps to memory, adjusting last to the feeling of being led. The moment is frozen in time, and as the song ended she turned gracefully. He was pleased with her.

“Thank you, Clarice. Think tonight, before you sleep, what it is you want from me. I’ve taken nothing from you that was not freely given.”

“But you intend to.”

He was in front of her again, too close, drawing each fingertip delicately across her throat. “No.” He said finally. A long silence greeted this response, and he studied her face carefully. Starling lifted her chin and matched his gaze. It was a moment before she found her voice.

“Dr. Lecter-”

“Clarice.

“It doesn’t matter, I don’t need to hear the answer. You’re tired now. Rest will do you good.” He whispered. He drew his hand away from Starling’s neck, stepped away from her and waited. Starling’s eyes flicked to her right, then back to Lecter’s face.

“Bring the gun if you must.”

She nodded, snatched the revolver up off the floor, and moved to the stairs. Halfway up, she paused, and looked over her shoulder.

“Dr. Lecter.”

[	mood	|	busy	]
[	music	|	Romanticide- Nightwish	]

I AM BACK! I WANT YOUR SOUL! *Coughs* I wanted creative writing or photography this quarter, and it pisses me off that I didn't get either. Creative writing is not for freshman, and to take photography you have to take studio art, and studio art is only offered 2 periods in the day, both of which conflict with the immobile honors classes. Oh well, I did get 100 on my critical lens essay which was very nice. :D I might get a chance to take psychology next year as a half-year course, or issues in women's health, that would be most awesome. < 1 week to Valentine's Day (Look in Raspail's car for your valentines...) and < 2 weeks until the release of the RENT dvd! I'm having a release party when I get back from Florida, because by then the 2-disc special edition dvd will have arrived! *Rentgasm*
You guys up for it? I must now go finish my essay which I "did yesterday" ;D

<3 you all.