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Post by Phoenix on Feb 23, 2009 17:50:39 GMT -5
"Thanks," Phoenix said wanly, taking another sip. But it was too late, wasn't it? To stick together.
She had to figure out what to do. Had he meant it, about not leaving? About no one leaving? And what would she do, if he had? Phoenix curled her legs up under her in the chair, as if to leave as small an imprint as possible. And she wasn't a very big girl to begin with.
"You ever think about doing something else?" she asked suddenly. "I mean, other than cabaret. You know... theater."
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Post by Sally Bowles on Feb 24, 2009 13:16:21 GMT -5
Sally froze, more deeply affected by this than she really wanted to feel, than she really thought very frequently about feeling. She settled back down again quickly, shimmying back against the seat of the sofa as though trying to make herself smaller unconsciously, as well as trying to give off a look of glamorous comfort and familiarity in the space.
"Oh, Phee, honestly," she said with laughter and good-naturedness and more eyebrow-wiggling. "Really...! What girl doesn't think of..." But she became more silent and pensive for a moment, trailing off, glass heavy and seemingly forgotten in her hand. "You know," she said, scooting forward, as though changing the subject as though she wasn't at all, "I really wanted to try film."
She looked up at Phoenix, but even as she smiled, chewed her lip.
Well, that had been what she'd tried after leaving this place. And here she was and she'd really rather pretend she had another shot at it any day now.
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Post by Phoenix on Feb 24, 2009 16:11:39 GMT -5
Phoenix smiled wanly, finishing her drink. She was only partly aware of Sally's discomfort, of what she'd dredged up. Like many performers, she was fairly focused on herself at the best of times. "Film," she said. "Yes, that would be nice, as well. Not a lot of it around here. I suppose... if you had the chance, you wouldn't let anything stop you."
She rolled the empty glass between her hands. Now she was just delaying going home. She knew that, as well as she knew she couldn't talk to Sally about this. But neither could she speak to Ben. There was no one... Only the Emcee really knew her secrets.
And here was another for him.
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Post by Sally Bowles on Feb 25, 2009 12:40:24 GMT -5
Sally just held the glass, looking sort of frozen for a moment before smiling dimly and belatedly, a nervous-sounding laugh bringing her back to the present. She took the glass with both hands and drained it quickly, jumping up from the seat and sort of half-dancing back to the bureau, looking jittery this time around as she sat it down.
"Well, the thing in that's just... getting the chance, isn't it?" she said quite gaily, picking up a brush and running it over her hair, more to have something to do than anything else. Her eyes fixed on herself in the mirror and she corrected various flaws in her appearance, to make herself look all the more energetic.
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Post by Phoenix on Feb 25, 2009 12:59:54 GMT -5
"Sure," Phoenix said. "Getting the chance." She watched Sally primp, knowing she must look a fright. She wondered if she should fix herself up before going home, but that would mean going back into that room... What if she just never came back?
"I'm bothering you," she said without any tact, because she was too tired. "I'm sorry. I think I should go home. But before I go... can I ask you to do something?"
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Post by Sally Bowles on Feb 25, 2009 14:33:35 GMT -5
Sally sort of deflated at that, but she couldn't find the energy to deny it. Maybe because there was no denying it.
After a delayed pause, she turned around in one fluid movement, still holding the brush in more or less the same position she'd held it when she'd been turned towards the mirror. She smiled brightly as though resigned to something, not insincerely, but a little fatigued. It was late, anyway. "Sure, Phee, you name it."
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Post by Phoenix on Feb 25, 2009 14:44:01 GMT -5
"If something happens to me," Phoenix said with uncharacteristic intensity--especially for her current shell-shocked attitude--"tell a boy named Benno. He'd be at my apartment, or at the Opera." She gave the address, and rose, setting the glass down on a side table. "I'm not saying it will. I don't want anything to. But if it does... I want him to know."
She cast her eyes down then, looking very much the victim but not caring for the moment. No, she would have to pretend much harder for Ben. Better to save her strength.
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Post by Sally Bowles on Feb 25, 2009 15:02:12 GMT -5
Sally was alarmed, suddenly getting ideas, not good ideas at all, about what might possibly have happened to Phoenix, although not sure at all that she understood how, and not at all sure she wanted to, either. Still, considering Sally's background, and the girls she'd known, she'd have to be really too dense not to imagine that.
She grabbed Phoenix's arm as though panicking, to keep her closer, not truly painfully, but a little suddenly.
"Phoenix, hey, what's the matter? What happened? C'mon, you know, we're - " A little laughter, uselessly trying to lighten the atmosphere, bled into her voice. "We're, we're... like sisters. Even the kind that don't know each other." Sally did not really know much social protocol concerning friendships, but uncomfortable though the situation was, she wanted to lighten it, and also... if possible... be confided in. If that would do it. Her voice softened. "You can tell me anything. This place, it's like... Should be like a family."
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Post by Phoenix on Feb 25, 2009 15:16:17 GMT -5
Phoenix started a little at Sally's touch, but didn't pull away quite so violently. She laughed, more like a wheeze actually. "That's one f---ed up family," she said. She wasn't sure at all that Sally was anything like a sister. She hadn't had one, though, and in another other situation she might have said something very similar. She, too, was of the theater, and the loose intensity of these oft-transient relationships was part of her blood, too. Just now, that didn't seem like enough, somehow.
Then again, it was all she had.
"Oh Sally," she said, a latent sob stuck in her throat and making her voice thick. "I don't think I should tell you."
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Post by Sally Bowles on Mar 3, 2009 14:31:57 GMT -5
Sally released Phoenix slowly and unconsciously, as though she had sensed more venom in the words than was actually there. Under different circumstances, it might not have affected her this way, as, after all, it was a fitting phrase regarding the cabaret, and the cabaret lifestyle. But there was something jarring and incongruous in it, and that profoundly disturbed her in its own way.
But Phoenix's next words furthered her sense that there was something very wrong. Alarm bells were still ringing in her head. She reached out tentatively to put her hand on Phoenix's shoulder, looking at her intently. "But, Phee, you've got to..." She swallowed, eyes big. "You've got to tell someone."
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Post by Phoenix on Mar 3, 2009 14:43:25 GMT -5
There it was, Sally backing away from her because she knew, she sensed, there was something broken about her. She couldn't be infected. That was what Phoenix was thinking, as much as she was thinking anything.
But Phoenix was fairly open to suggestion at the strongest of moments, and now, with Sally's huge eyes boring into her her words sounded a note of command.
"He hurt me," she said suddenly, the words falling like lead weights into the pit of her stomach. "I told him I'd been working at the Guignol... and he beat me... and then he..."
The mask was falling, and she'd cry again at any minute, for all she'd thought she must have lost half her weight in tears already that night.
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Post by Sally Bowles on Mar 5, 2009 16:06:55 GMT -5
Sally didn't know what to say. Although she didn't pull back, she felt as though she were shrinking away into herself, trying to pull herself into the smallest space possible, because when Phoenix began to speak, there was no willing away the words that she'd said.
Of course, Sally had told her to tell; she had wanted to know, to try and help. But the ambiguous pronoun loomed like a terrible shadow, as though it were going to come in any moment and destroy everything, and something in Sally's head had shattered at some point in the recent past... because he could only be one person, and it happened to be a person that Sally trusted implicitly, not because she couldn't see him hurting anyone in this manner, but because she didn't have a choice. There was nothing else.
Sally was very ashen and her voice sounded shaky even to her when she dully repeated Phoenix' name, eyes frightened as she looked at her. She pulled Phoenix into her arms almost mechanically, rubbing her back swiftly with one hand, but her eyes remained locked open, she unable to close them as though she saw things she didn't want to see if she shut her eyes.
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Post by Phoenix on Mar 9, 2009 12:49:31 GMT -5
"I'm sorry," Phoenix said nonsensically, her blanket feelings of guilt and shame manifesting as remorse over disturbing this woman she hardly knew, who didn't have to know, because he hadn't done this to Sally, Sally'd been smarter. "He told me no one could leave... I trusted him, Sally. I..."
She'd given him everything. He'd seen, had, every part of her. And now, when she was finding herself, when she was seeing herself through someone else's eyes, this happened. Her thin chest heaved in dry sobs, no tears left but the panic rising and falling in waves.
"I'll go," she said suddenly. "I should have. I should go home."
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Post by Sally Bowles on Mar 24, 2009 15:06:31 GMT -5
Sally's hands stilled on Phoenix at her sudden words, not quite resting on her, as though she were worried that she shouldn't touch her - that Phoenix was saying that she had to go because there was something wrong with herself, with Sally. Her understanding of the human mind was not too keen, but Phoenix's pink eyes did speak of hysteria.
Impulsively Sally let her arms tighten on her again, not necessarily comforting, but almost as though trying to help her be numbed. "Like this? Phee, you're a wreck."
It was not out of noble reasons - intelligent reasons, or humane ones - that she said what she did, eyes wide and Sally equally out of her depth. But she felt her own heart hammering with fear as though she were the one having to go home and face a lover or flatmates or a landlady with that face. Wasn't it better to go where no one would know her, at least to keep herself out of a watchful eye until she could fix herself up so that no one would have to know? "Look at me." Hands on her shoulders, she pulled back just slightly. "See? I don't have a roommate. No one would ever know. Nobody has to. I'll keep it a secret and he won't tell..."
Sally's own desire to get out of the cabaret was building.
((I just realized I would miss this thread and that this is a good opportunity to do character development n' stuff. I'd forgotten it was getting good. But if this is a bad idea, I'll delete the post and redo it.))
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Post by Phoenix on Mar 24, 2009 16:01:16 GMT -5
Despite the fact that a moment ago, Phoenix wanted nothing more but to run away and hide, Sally's words reminded her that she had no where to hide but with Ben. And Ben... To see her this way... Sally had gotten the truth from her without much prompting. What would Ben be able to get?
And on top of the pain it would cause him... Would he ever be able to look at her again?
No, Sally was right. She needed to get herself together, put a brave face on, and see him... when she was ready.
She lifted bloodshot eyes to Sally's, childlike and pleading. "Do you mean it?" she asked breathlessly. "It's so much trouble..." But she wanted Sally to say yes. To make some sort of decision for her.
((No, I think it's fine. I mean, it's rational.))
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