Reprise: A Story of Reincarnated Love

*** 4 October 2006 , 12:37am - Paris , France ***

The heavy black faux leather backpack slapped repeatedly against Dominique’s thigh as she trotted as fast as her burdens would allow down the damp, narrow Parisian street . The noise and motion drew attention that the petite young woman normally would have wished to avoid, especially in this part of the city; but it seemed prudent to be a swiftly moving target rather than one that any lazy mugger could overtake. Besides, while it had not yet started to really rain, the humidity was so thick that she knew she would be able to wring water out of her oversized blue sweater, stretched halfway down her upper arm on the right side by the weight of her bag.

Clop-clop-clop-clop-clop-clop-clop-clop

If she had known she was going to have to walk home she would not have worn the black pumps, but it was not unusual for her to lose track of time while at the university library, waking from her daze in astonishment when the librarians began urging patrons to wrap up their work. How had the hours flown by so fast?

The campus was only eight kilometers from home, four train stops. But she simply couldn’t make herself go down into the terminal again while it was this late – not, at least if the train was not already there, or likely to arrive any second.

Her apartment building was a narrow five-story concrete affair hastily thrown up in the 1950’s and long abandoned by anyone who could afford to live anywhere else. It was a mark on the inefficiency of the socialist government that it had not been condemned and demolished, for several windows were broken, some entirely missing and the pipes running up the side had rusted, creating an arrow shaped orange stain on the once-white, now graffitied walls. One of the double doors to the street was bolted closed and visibly warped; and the other did not lock, making the dilapidated building ripe for squatters.

Clip-clop-clip-clop-clip-clop-clip-clop

Her steps echoed on the narrow stairway, though unevenly now as she had to step over treacherous stairs in the darkness. Anytime it rained the electricity became spotty – another reason to linger in the library long after it was prudent. Still, at least it was warm this time of year. The winters could be brutal.

“There you are, Domi,” her roommate trilled even before she got to door of the fifth floor apartment that they had claimed for their own. The climb and the leaky roof made this floor the most undesirable, and so discouraged unwanted visitors. Labette and Dominique had lived there for six months now, after being chased out of their previous flat by a hike in rent.

“Missed the train,” the brunette explained, breathing heavily through flared nostrils as she dropped her book bag on the floor. The sound of dripping water inside and out seemed to echo louder here than in the hallway. A single flickering candle created dancing shadows along the gaily colored walls. Labette considered herself an artist and so spent her money on paints and canvases. And the fact that she had not sold a single work to anyone she had not slept with did not keep her from her passion. To Dominique they did not seem bad at all, but artists bred in Paris like rabbits in spring.

“How long since the power went out?” Dominique asked, pulling her elbows inside her wet sweater and then wrestling it over her head. Her dripping hair hung limply from a pony tail set over the crown of her head. It was a practical hairstyle: easy to do, easy to maintain, and unlikely to draw attention. It made her head look small and took several years off of her, making her look like an aspiring teenage ballerina instead of a twenty-four year old barmaid and student. No one knew she was twenty-four though. All her documents said she was twenty-seven.

“Few hours,” the peroxide blonde replied lethargically, stretching like a cat on the ratty sofa, dressed in nothing but a tank top and thong. “Wish it was daylight, I’m hungry.”

Dominique knew then that Labette had not spent the evening alone. And while she would never permit anyone to call her a whore unchallenged, she never refused money if the men she slept with offered it. More significantly, once they offered it, they were much more likely to be invited back to her bed. Once a guy had given her €30 just to blow him, which was more than either of them made in tips most nights! Labette had lamented that if she had known he was going to be so generous beforehand, she would have tried a bit harder in the hopes of earning repeat ‘donations’.

Dominique had never taken a lover, not for money or desire, though she never said anything about Labette’s odd ‘charity’ either. Her roommate’s exploits were always amusing, if only because of Labette’s excellent storytelling ability – and entertainment was sometimes hard to come by.

There was no hot water for tea, so Dominique poured a glass of the cheap wine on the counter, kicking off her pumps as she wiggled beneath her roommate’s feet on the sofa. It felt so good to sit down that she moaned faintly as the weight came off her aching calves.

Labette launched into her story without any encouragement. “You remember the chatterbox from last Friday?” There was a pause, though the girls couldn’t see each other and Domi did not reply before Labette continued. “Well, you will never believe what kind of cock HE has.”

Dominique somehow thought she could take a guess. “Thin and veiny,” she smirked, remembering the lanky fellow that had drank enough to lose his adolescent fear of girls.

“Noooo,” the blond cooed excitedly. “Well, the shaft was thin, but my god, the head got to be as big as my fist! It was like watching a mushroom open, but faster…. Or a parachute!” She demonstrated it in the dark, but Labette’s audience had closed her eyes, half-empty wine glass now barely balanced over her navel.


*** 8 January 2007 3:15pm ***

The whistle of the icy wind coming through the broken window pane almost drowned out the rousing beat of Labette’s workout video in the other room. She had covered a panel of a cracker box with cellophane and wedged it in frame, but there was no way to secure it so that it did not leak. Sitting on the mattress on the floor with her legs curled against her chest, Dominique was shivering in spite of the blanket she had wrapped tightly around herself. Her text was open on top of her double socked feet, her lips moving silently as she read a passage, and then repeated it with her eyes closed to try and consign it to memory.

When the video shut off Labette flounced in, rosy-cheeked and panting, “Better hurry girlfriend; it’s 2:30 . I’m gonna shower first, okay?”

Dominique looked up, chin on her knees and nodded. She was in no rush to get undressed, though at least they would have hot water today. The old boiler had not broken down in over a month.

At four o’clock , the two women set out for the British-styled pub called “Gappy’s” where they both had met almost seven years ago. Gappy said he was trying for ‘chic’, but either he was making a joke or did not understand the meaning of the word. Four-hundred pounds and not quite six feet, Gappy had always been fascinated with the British. So he had collected all sorts of tourism posters, Scottish tartans, a broken bagpipe, several cheap blades, and even a motley assortment of tea tins – though his prized collection was an entire wall devoted to “The Black Adder”. Most of the junk he had bought on ebay, for though it was less than day’s trip by train, Gappy had never stepped foot on British soil.

The pub had a large common area dominated by a bar with a brass rail that had been rubbed dull in more than a few places and dented in others. There were always a few British ales on tap, though most people drank wine or hard liquor. There were five billiards tables beyond the bar on the left and a medium-size private room on the right. The last few years it had seen more poker nights than real parties, what with “Texas Hold ‘Em” tournaments on the telly all the time. None of the waitresses liked to work the poker nights, for the men that played took the game so seriously that they barely drank for fear of needing to relieve themselves.

There was a small dance floor to the far right of the common room with an oversized British flag hanging from the wall at the back by half dozen thumbtacks. The walls were painted a dark brown, as was the ceiling, making it seem more cave-like than need be. A satellite pop station played over the speakers, and Dominique often found herself singing along under her breath, even when the lyrics were in German or some other language she couldn’t understand. Fulfilling his longtime fantasy (ostentatiously because he thought other men would like it too) Gappy had the waitresses dressed in short black and white maid outfits. Labette wore thigh-high fishnet stockings under her skirt, but Dominique had on white ribbed tights that came all the way to her bra. She told Gappy it was because she got cold easily, and though he clearly liked the fishnet look better, he had merely shrugged, “It’s your tips.”

And Labette did make more tips – both for her waitressing and for her ‘freelance’ work. Dominique, however, supplemented her income by being more useful to Gappy – doing his ordinary bookkeeping, giving him computer lessons, and doing odd clerical work. He appreciated both her skill and discretion, though in reality her skill was hardly noteworthy. The business was not complicated, and Gappy was such a technophobe that he had been completely amazed when she created little pictures on his desktop that he could click to open the files he actually needed to access. His public praise built her an unwarranted reputation as a computer genius that got her routine requests for assistance with patrons’ home computers; and she had even picked up a few tutoring gigs along the way.

It helped pay the bills - and she actually met some interesting people. The owner of the local bakery had actually paid her €700 to assemble a computer for him! She had protested that her time was not worth nearly that much and gave him half of it back (even that seemed like an exorbitant amount for the little bit of work involved) which had proven to be the right thing to do as well – for long after the used laptop she had bought with the money had been ripped out of her hands on the train platform, the bakery owner gave her free bread any time she came in. She would be embarrassed to admit how many times that free bread had meant the difference between going to bed hungry and not.

*** 4 May 2007 11:30pm - Paris , France ***

Friday brought one of those warm humid nights where Dominique found herself fanning her face every time her lacquered tray was empty. It was payday for the utility plant down the street, and it seemed as if all of its workers were at Gappy’s celebrating. Labette was home, curled on the sofa and binge eating with her monthly – which left entirely too many tables for the rest of Gappy’s wait staff to cover.

Most of the waitresses did not bother with stockings once it got warm, and so Dominique was one of the few who were not barelegged – though in the dim light her sheer nude hose were almost invisible. The full, very short skirt bounced around the curve of her buttocks as she pranced in the insanely high heels – though having the five extra inches came in handy when it was necessary to weave among the crowd. They ordinarily did not hurt her anymore, but she hadn’t been off of them in the last seven and a half hours. She was hungry, thirsty, and desperately needed a restroom break, though not in that order.

As she leaned in to place drinks on the overcrowded table in front of her, a pair of large hands planted themselves against the sides of her waist and pulled her back against a decidedly male pelvis. The petticoat that gave the skirt some body kept her from feeling every outline of his body, but it was enough to have her arching away from him, the empty tray twirling up in the air as if in threat, though in truth it was nothing more than a signal to Luc, the bouncer on duty that evening. Her would-be molester let her turn against him, his hands moving lower, kneading and separating her derrière as if contemplating lifting her against him by her upper thighs. He had to be nearly thirty, rather scruffy, and smelled heavily of industrial grease, body odor, and alcohol. This close, his stench was enough to steal her breath.

She knew a second’s panic when her tray was knocked out of her hand (or had she dropped it?) Instinctually, she turned her face away and pushed the heels of both hands against his chest as one of his legs pressed between hers; his rough, smelly face abrading her neck as she struggled to get away. And then suddenly there was a crescendo of noise, a crack, and she went flying back, the straps around her ankles securing her shoes as she stumbled onto one of the other patrons, bouncing off a rounded gut before sliding hard to the floor. Mr. Hands had beaten her down though, Luc standing beside him holding a stick.

Someone pulled her to her feet by her arms, but she ungratefully jerked away, angry with herself for not handling that better. It was hardly the first time some male patron had gotten physical – not even this week! She should have seen him before she turned her back on him. Where had her brain been? What if Luc had not been looking?

When she emerged from the ladies’, the pub had returned to its normal boisterous self. She had washed her face in cold water until it stopped burning, then switched to hot. As such, her makeup was gone – though it had been pretty much ruined before, between the heat, humidity, and the fact that she hadn’t retouched it in twelve hours. Gabby himself had taken the bar so that the bartender to go wait her tables. She had hours of this to go.

“You all right?” Gabby asked distractedly when she turned sideways to slip past his ponderous girth toward the small kitchen.

“Brilliant,” she murmured so low that it was likely he hadn’t heard her. In the kitchen, Gabby’s cook, Seetha, looked like a man on the edge of a break down, talking to himself (or maybe the food?) as he prepared the dozen or so items on the menu like a human assembly line. Dominique did not even speak to him as she went out the back door, intent on having five minutes of fresh air before diving back into the throng of bodies.

The stench of the rubbish bins assailed visitors to the alley like a pack of hungry wolves on a bleeding sheep, the single bulb no defense against the darkness. The alley itself was short: dead ending on the left into the adjoining building and open on the right to the side parking lot. Sliding against the cold concrete beside the door, she crouched on her heels, the position stretching the backs of her weary ankles. What an idiot she had been…

The scratch of a match on the wall snapped her head up, though it would have done absolutely no good if the dark shape had been hostile. The flare lit up Gus’ slightly puffy face as he drew on the two cigarettes between his lips and then offered her one. “Busy night.” It was not a question. He could hear the noise, had seen the parking lot.

“Just kill me now,” Domi replied on a sigh, the cigarette burning between her fingers as she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyeballs. “It really would be a kindness.”

Gus’ rich baritone laugh echoed off the walls. Short, deep-chested, and of some blend of Italian, Portuguese, and Greek, he was Luc’s lover, flat mate, and best friend - though both of them claimed to be bisexual when the subject came up. Depending on his mood and the lighting, it was easy to imagine him as a Roman soldier in a leather-armored toga or a wild Moor, galloping bareback down a hill with a bloodthirsty cry.

Ironically, he was actually a sanitation worker and aspiring guitarist for a local cover band. Both occupations suited him perfectly.

“Why is it that you never smell like garbage?” She asked, propping her head on one hand and taking a drag off of the cigarette just because it would make the top of her head numb.

Still clearly amused, Gus came over to lean against the wall beside her, their knees almost touching. He had on worn jeans with black leather patches sewn on them in seemingly random spots. They were tucked into his boots, which were covered in a variety of silver spikes. A black spiked dog collar completed the look. “I do not eat garlic… I bath… ” he started, as if about to list off half a dozen things he did to make himself smell good.

Dominique elbowed him, flicking the half-smoked cigarette toward the corner. “Luc just saved me from a stinky old drunk.” The defeat was evident in her voice.

With a grunt, Gus replied, “Sounds like a good job for a bouncer.”

Sharp blue eyes glared at his hands as she huffed, her tone climbing into a whine. “I never even saw him there. I have so much revision to do and less than four days, and it is like I am asleep on my feet.” How she wished she could borrow some of his energy! He had that sort of intensity to him that compelled him into anything he set his mind to like a flaming arrow.

Three years ago, when they had first met, she had fancied him, as did most of the people that crossed his path. He exuded self-confidence - even when squatting against a dirty concrete wall in the back alley of a run down bar ran by a pudgy self-described anglophile (it seemed to cheapen the word to Dominique, since his interest really was in British comedy rather than society). She had seen him angry, drunk, weepy, and so happy that he had grabbed everyone around him and given them loud, smacking kisses on their astonished mouths (Gabby had been particularly humorous!). Even his ennui had a passion in it, as if he were determined to turn boredom into an art form.

Dominique had long gotten over him, but Labette wanted him bad, which meant that Luc was not very fond of Dominique’s blond roommate. That Gus spurned her only served to sharpen Labette’s enmity, and earned them both dark looks from the object of their mutual affection. Gus believed that he was the only one who should have any say in his bedmates; and as such when they periodically acted like a pair of dogs fighting over a toy, he would threaten Luc that he might as well sleep with her for all the hell he was catching - which shut Luc up and sent Labette spinning into a flurry of female ire.

Shifting so that he could grind the cigarette out on the asphalt between them, Gus told her flatly, “Your quest for perfection has jammed that stick so far up your ass, I don’t know how you walk. When are you going to declare it good and actually live?” Whining was a great way to earn Gus’ censor. God, why had he had to be the one out here?!

He had no faith in her to finish her degree; they had had similar conversations before. But then, she did not discuss school with them. Because of this - and the fact that she lived here, off campus and still worked in the bar, helped to encourage this perception. But in truth it was the end of her second year at the École Polytechnique, where she had been studying economics. Attending EP had been an absurd decision to make, requiring not only an intense financial commitment, but also a massive amount of time. Living here had helped financially - Gabby had been generous to her, and she had almost no expenses - but she was far away from the camaraderie of the other students and the relative safety of the campus.

The door squealed open and Seetha stuck his head out, looking flushed and irritable. “Gabby wants to know if you are coming back, chica,” he spat at her.

Dominique arched her body outward, fingers bracing against the wall above her shoulders as she leveraged herself to her feet. “Thanks for the cigarette,” Dominique tossed over her shoulder. “I’ll tell Luc you’re out here.”

“He knows.” Gus replied, sounding bored. Once again, she had retreated instead of engaging him.

Straightening her petticoats and brushing unseen dirt from her uniform, Dominique went inside and - after putting her face back on at Gabby’s insistence (“You look like a child!”) - went back to work.