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Post by Mortimer on Jan 1, 2009 22:39:34 GMT -5
"You're in the Bible...is that the next production at the Opera? Erik hasn't told me what will be next."
He wasn't simple at all, of course. He had simply never before encountered a Bible or anyone who spoke of one, and her relating that she was a famous princess only reinforced his idea of a show.
"I don't believe someone so pretty could ever be lonely...well, someone Above." Because he thought Erik very handsome, and Erik was so terribly lonely.
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Salomé
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Post by Salomé on Jan 1, 2009 22:47:04 GMT -5
Salome smiled - not gently, although for the first few moments she thought she might be especially gentle after that, but in a rather lively way, for very quickly it seemed like it was absolutely the most charming thing he could have said. Salome would not have considered herself vain by any stretch, but no one was more willing to admit than she her own pride, and she liked to think she was destined for performance.
"No, the Bible is a very famous historical book," she said in a matter-of-fact way, with a flick of the cigarette that was both an elegant gesture and a dismissal of the ash at its tip. "I think that the beautiful people are usually very lonely - that or they learn not to be lonely. I do that too, sometimes, but I often forget. Whenever I'm not lonely it is for a very short time, often with another beautiful person. They use each other to not be lonely for a short time, beautiful people do. And it must be short, of course, because if you are using someone you are fundamentally incapable of being anything but lonely - so I try to do that less and less, but sometimes it's tempting."
It was a more sophisticated description of promiscuity than anything else she'd ever heard. She congratulated herself inwardly.
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Post by Mortimer on Jan 1, 2009 22:54:00 GMT -5
"Oh. I think I understand." He and Valmont had used eachother in a sort of way like that, though Mortimer didn't think Valmont could feel something like lonely.
"What are you famous for, in the Bible?"
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Salomé
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Post by Salomé on Jan 1, 2009 22:58:28 GMT -5
Probably did. The lady - or monsieur - that Salome was building up in her head as his former keeper had doubtless been that sort of a person, although they probably weren't exactly beautiful. Salome had not meant real beauty, only the superficial kind that could be bought by genuinely-pretty and not-so-pretty alike. (Salome regarded herself in the first category, but she did believe she had bought a certain kind of beauty that made her very wearisome. It was partially why she worked as a common dancer. The upper classes hadn't possessed any mysticism for centuries.)
"Being very beautiful," she said, not immodestly, "and being a very good dancer, and causing somebody's death." She paused and thought in silence for the next few steps, before adding, "Maybe for being a good daughter, also. I didn't write the Bible, but if I had I would have written it differently." From her point of view, it was someone else's beauty that stood out, someone else's purely and shamelessly sensual beauty that everybody had since tried to deny. And she had no longer any love for the long-dead Herodias.
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Post by Mortimer on Jan 1, 2009 23:20:32 GMT -5
"I didn't know someone could be famous just for being beautiful and all that. Who did you...hm...make dead?"
By Salome's rights, Julian ought to be terribly famous. He was very beautiful, and a fantastic singer, and he moved well and Mortimer was sure he'd caused at least indirectly some sort of death. And he could speak with rats. And he was a good son. Probably.
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Salomé
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Post by Salomé on Jan 3, 2009 14:07:41 GMT -5
Salome wondered if it was naivety. She was not sure she thought so, and she thought it might be something she recognized from her past - back when she was still the princess in the Bible. Certainly, despite how depraved she might have been at the time, and no one could have called her an innocent, she had had something of the same naivety. It was a belief that the world was large and full of potential, and the pompous naivety to think anything someone said of it could be easily true.
"His name was Iokanaan," said Salome somewhat weakly. This story was a little hard to repeat for her to someone who was taking it seriously. "Nowadays I suppose you'd call him John the Baptist. He's a saint. I suppose that's the reason I'm so well known. I was well-known then, too, because it was a small world and beautiful people's names were spoken of, but there were other beautiful princesses - and courtesans, and pious wives, and so on - who were also spoken of, and no one knows who they are anymore. I suppose I just got lucky." She went to take a drag of her cigarette, surprised to find it was almost burned away. "Well, and I didn't die - that makes a difference."
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Post by Mortimer on Jan 5, 2009 16:02:15 GMT -5
Something about someone not-dying didn't sit quite right with him, but he couldn't say why. He knew, also, that he had been well known in times long before then, and was still today if only he could remember. Well, it wasn't important just now.
They walked on until Mortimer spotted the facade of the hotel and he led the lady right up to the steps.
"I could walk you to your room, if you like."
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Salomé
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Post by Salomé on Jan 5, 2009 16:12:40 GMT -5
Salome's rather fresh smile - looking much too young for her age, even for an immortal - concealed the much more pleased one that might have come to her face naturally at the nearly-naive consent.
"I would like. Thanks so much."
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Post by Mortimer on Jan 5, 2009 20:03:24 GMT -5
He gave a broad grin, revealing his shark's teeth, and went up with her, even taking her coat for her when they were in the lobby and then letting her lead the way to her room.
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Salomé
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Post by Salomé on Jan 6, 2009 14:41:52 GMT -5
His teeth did unnerve one; Salome, who had seen her share of strange or gruesome teeth - who had bargained for eternal life and eternal youth, who had kissed a dead man's severed head passionately on the mouth - was rather silent for a long moment on. It was the first time that it had occurred to her that there was something truly out of the ordinary about her escort. Of course, picturing him as an exotic page someone had brought in for her own pleasure was not quite ordinary, but it did not belong to the realm of the supernatural.
Then again, it was not entirely improbable that Mortimer did belong to such a realm and had still been brought from someplace else as entertainment for someone's peculiar appetites.
After getting over the alarm, Salome was reminded very keenly that she too had peculiar appetites. She wondered at the teeth she had seen, if she could see them again without absurdly asking to be shown them. Her own catlike smile had returned, and when she sauntered to the room, unlocking the door, she asked, as her most charming, "Shall I invite you in for a glass of champagne, Mortimer?"
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Post by Mortimer on Jan 6, 2009 16:37:31 GMT -5
"Thank you, Mlle Salome--I've not had champagne before."
He smiled sweetly and followed her inside with a look around.
"Oh, your rooms are very nice. Does the staff treat you well here?"
He removed the long green coat after hanging the woman's and joined it on the hook without being invited to do so--he was still not up an all customs of humans, after all, but the room was warm and he didn't want to sweat.
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Salomé
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Post by Salomé on Jan 6, 2009 16:51:21 GMT -5
Salome hardly noticed his taking his coat off aside from the fact that hanging it up was so polite; she imagined most people, in these sorts of situations, simply tossed it. She thought about this mildly in passing as she went into the other room to get a bottle and two flutes.
She set them on the table, uncorked the bottle, and poured, then handed Mortimer one, sitting down on a luxurious couch with her own and sipping.
"When you pay them well, people treat you well. It's lovelier if they do it out of loyalty, but that's a thing that's bought these days," she said distantly, before shifting in her seat slightly and facing him. "But I'm glad you like my rooms, Mortimer."
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Post by Mortimer on Jan 6, 2009 16:59:27 GMT -5
The little man sniffed lightly at the drink, enjoying the tickle the little exploding bubbles gave his nose before sipping and deciding that he liked this better than wine.
He found a seat across from her and curled up in it, his legs pulled under himself and grinned.
"I had a very difficult time learning to use money myself. I know Eri--my friend has quite a lot of it, he gives me what I like to spend how I want. Perhaps I should have a room in a grand hotel and move out of the Opera."
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Salomé
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Post by Salomé on Jan 6, 2009 17:10:52 GMT -5
Salome smiled at him both warmly and as she might at something wonderful she possessed. He seemed incredibly unconscious of himself. How strange! Salome often gave off the air of it - in her case, an I-don't-give-a-damn sort of air - but she was always enormously aware of every mood she made, even when behaving at her most naturally. It was a sort of thing she had learned naturally, both in her position as a princess and her training as a dancer.
"Whichever suits you best," she said with a voluptary's smile, almost on the edge of shyness. "Personally I think it sounds grander to live at the Opera, but there can be no doubt that they do not serve you champagne there." She glanced at the bubbles inside her glass, and her eyes slipped past him and fell on a table covered with flowers and a few boxes of chocolate. "Have you ever had a chocolate-covered cherry?" she asked sort of absent-mindedly, setting her glasses down and sashaying over to the table with a spring in her step.
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Post by Mortimer on Jan 6, 2009 17:18:45 GMT -5
"I don't know what a cherry is--but I love chocolate!" he grinned and had another sip of the champagne, watching her go. She had a funny sort of way of walking that seemed both natural and showy, and he thought he quite liked it.
"Sometimes you get champagne at the Opera. Well, the company does, if they do very well or if someone likes them quite a lot they might leave a bottle in their dressing room."
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