the incredible belle de jour, belle de jour aka hannah, r, 826 words
She still liked to pretend she was some type of hero, saving the world one orgasm at a time. People needed to be rescued, people needed someone to watch over them day and night, the wind picking up their cape and their silhouette high a top the city's tallest building. People also needed to get off, and that's where Belle De Jour came in.
Belle had always fancied herself a bit of a superhero.
As a child, she'd been drawn to watching live action movies and animated programs dedicated to classic heroes such as Superman or Batman. Her sister would tease her every Saturday morning when she'd run to the telly with a dry box of cereal and crunch on it loudly as she watched her “boy programs”' as her family called them. So maybe she'd always had the mentality of a man, after all.
Either way, as she grew older and watched less and less of her old favorites, she still liked to pretend she was some type of hero, saving the world one orgasm at a time. People needed to be rescued, people needed someone to watch over them day and night, the wind picking up their cape and their silhouette high a top the city's tallest building. People also needed to get off, and that's where Belle De Jour came in.
She had the double persona thing going on, after all. And ever since the business with Alex had started, she'd begun to feel more like a masked superhero than ever before.
At night, and sometimes during the day as a girl needed to take all the hours she could get, she was Belle: prostitute extraordinaire and a strong, unflappable woman. She would tear through the town in whatever mini cab she'd been picked up by and rush to the latest helpless victim in need of a good and proper shag. Once they had been well and truly “saved”, she'd usually receive a rather generous thanks and be on her way with a wave and a smile.
Not only did Belle help people, but she was a better person. She didn't get tied down, well, not usually. Belle wasn't insecure or unable to handle people and their differing personalities. Moreso Belle didn't actually care about any of the things most people did, like relationships or love or having a social life. Belle was perfect, well read and well spoken, and gorgeous. Like a character in a book or one of those airbrushed models among the latest fashion mags pages.
But every superhero has to have a secret identity.
Hannah Baxter wasn't anything like Belle. Of course, she wasn't a complete mess. Or at least she hadn't always been. She'd always been a bit awkward, sometimes even boyish while in school. Didn't actually snog a boy until she was seventeen, but no matter. She'd managed just fine.
But as Hannah's life went on, she'd found herself bored. Bored and sick of living a everyday, rubbish life. Relationships were too complicated, friends never understood her and love... Love was something Hannah just didn't do well.
When she'd been accidentally paid for sex, it had been too easy to slip into her whore costume and become the amazing Belle De Jour. It fit, it felt right, and for the first time, the girl on the outside represented who the girl on the inside wanted so desperately to be.
Oh, but there always has to be a love interest to come and push our hero to make daft decisions, doesn't there?
Instead of a beautiful, tall, leggy woman, for Belle there was a handsome, tall, lanky doctor who came along to complicate things. The more time she spent with him, the she felt like Hannah: regular, insecure Hannah who liked cuddling after sex and making her boyfriend coffee in the mornings. Ask Belle to make you coffee and you'd get a snort and a slam of the door.
The thing about superheroes, though, is their stories always become dramatic. Tears, bloodshed, even a villain or two. But she could never figure out who her villain was. Her family, for never understanding her and pushing her to do things that weren't the norm just because she could. Society, who would always secretly scream her name in the throes of passion and then scream “whore” at her if she were to ever reveal her true self. Or Hannah herself.
The more time she spent will Alex, the more she felt Hannah pushing her way out. Now when she went out into the dark of night as Belle she didn't feel like the amazing creature she'd always wanted to be. She felt wrong, and confused. And more than once, thought of going home, putting on sweats and ringing Alex to come over and watch The X Factor with her rather than sucking one more fucking cock. Who was this dark, dangerous enigma known as Hannah, anyways? And why did she want to muck everything up with her evil ideas of love and monogamy?
Superheroes are doomed characters. Things go wrong. People get hurt, tears get shed, glasses come off and true feelings become known. Heroes fall, and she can feel herself falling further with each passing day. Our heroine can feel the mask slipping. She just can't tell which face will eventually be revealed.
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