I'm Late, I'm LATE....
Alice at the Palace: Part 2
No, REALLY- I actually finished another chapter....
Written for mxrolkr's Meryl Movie Title Challenge
...Which was issued AGES AGO...
Original Art: Miriam and Vivianne
Title: Alice at the Palace
Rating: PG 14, for now
Pairing: Miranda/OC, later Miranda/Andy
Length/Word Count: 4000
Summary: When Miranda discovers and interesting secret that Andrea has kept from her, the editor is plunged into her past...
Disclaimer: I don’t own the movie or the book or any of the characters, most depressingly, Miranda is not mine. I play in the Runway universe, and sometimes it is kind to my fantasies
A/N: So in the AN for the first chapter, I made noise about posting the ’second part of the story soon’…turns out, five months was ’soon’…sorry guys. I’ll do better with the next chapter, I PROMISE.
Part 1
Part Two
Miranda opened her eyes, lashes fluttering slowly against the heavy haze of memory. It didn’t happen often, but when she chose to remember Vivianne, Miranda always felt her carefully woven mantle of independence slip neglectfully from her shoulders, leaving her cold, bereft; a mewling kitten, matted ginger fur still damply clinging to her trembling body.
But the baroness had pulled her from that state of innocence, had warmed her; not with kindness or any kind of particularly maternal ministrations- but with a kind of tempestuous fire, as if having stricken the young Miriam with lightning. And now, three decades later, Miranda still hummed with that strange current; it seemed to the editor that she would never be rid of it.
Miranda glanced down at Andrea’s personnel file, and with a curious sense of possibility, leaned forwards in her expensive office chair to retrieve the paper which had summoned her past and whispered of her future.
………………………………......................................................................
Miriam rolled down the window of Anton’s ‘51 Citroen and lit a cigarette, glaring sideways at the portfolio full of revamped designs, which was riding shotgun. When she’d entered the shop the previous day, after Vivianne’s unsettling departure, Monsieur Basset had informed his unusually disquieted assistant that she would be taking his car to Neuilly, rather than a cab.
Miriam was grateful, of course, for his generosity, though the only indication she gave her employer was a cold nod and a tight smile. She should have been more amiable, really, for the thought of taking a cab- or worse- being chauffeured to the Baroness’ estate by one of her estranged man-servants and falling subject to Vivianne’s limited mercy had caused Miriam’s tongue to go numb and the metallic taste of fear to fill her mouth.
But no, thank god, the young assistant was now cruising towards the Parisian outskirts in her employer’s vintage automobile, puffing somewhat desperately away at her cigarette while devising complicated escape manoeuvres for any Reshetnikovian contingency.
Miriam flicked the butt out the window, and as it bounced helplessly down the roadway, she ran her fingers distractedly through her mussed ginger bob.
The thing to do, really, was to arrive quietly, hand the portfolio off to whichever Vivianne’s lackeys presented himself first, and floor it all the way back to her dingy, store-top flat before the Baroness had a chance to sink her talons in any deeper.
But Miriam found herself wondering if perhaps- instead of bounding in and out of the Baroness’ estate like a hare in a fox hole- she shouldn’t see if dealing with Vivianne was at all possible. The way the older woman had nearly dismissed her the day before- as if Miriam were unworthy- made the young fashionista sick with rejection. But unworthy of what, really? On what prerequisites had Vivianne so harshly judged her? It hardly mattered; Miriam had no room in her mind for failure, on any scale.
And it was, as Miriam checked the directions curled in Anton’s impeccable handwriting, that the young woman decided to maintain an open mind concerning whatever advances the Baroness Reshetnikova might offer towards her.
With her convictions tightly wound, Miriam pulled up the long gravel drive which curved serpent-like towards Vivianne’s country estate, and gasped when the full decadence of ecru masonry and scrolling stonework dropped on her like a sack of sand; Miriam felt burdened with the knowledge, as if being aware of this opulence, this lifestyle the Baroness possessed somehow made clearer the full reach of the older woman’s power.
Miriam’s decision to bend with Vivianne’s overwhelming will solidified like concrete, quite suddenly, when she realized how influential the eccentric could be; there was no way to be certain what would befall the young couturier’s assistant should she continue to refuse the Baroness’ advances- the nature of which had become startlingly apparent. Miriam Princhek would place herself in a dangerous position indeed.
For Vivianne Reshetnikova wanted her, and even in the short time Miriam had spent in the woman’s presence, it was obvious that the Baroness was rarely, if ever, denied that which she coveted.
Miriam thrummed with a kind of growing power, which having begun timidly enough now seemed to wrap the young woman in a veil of potentiality. It was almost thrilling.
Buoyed slightly by her own growing sense of self importance, Miriam retrieved the portfolio from the seat beside her, and keys jingling somewhat jauntily in her purse, flounced towards the grand entrance of Vivianne’s French country estate.
Noticing the antiquated bell pull which seemed to be the only means of garnering an audience with the Baroness, Miriam snickered. It seemed there were no lengths to which the older woman would not venture to preserve her presumably hard worked for aura of mystique.
Yanking the cord, and hearing a deep chime echo from within the bowels of the mansion, Miriam had to admit, the ruse was disturbingly effective.
Footsteps sounded from behind the ornately carved oak doors, and with a silence born of obsessively oiled hinges, the door swung slowly inwards to reveal, not some lowly peon, but the Baroness Reshetnikova herself.
Miriam tried to stay her resolve, but wilted somewhat under the familiar glare of disdain, laced incongruously with desire.
The sickly, floral scent of what seemed to be Vivianne’s signature fragrance did nothing to ease the young assistant’s discomfort.
“Good evening Madame Reshetnikova,” Miriam opened, her voice uneven, and treacherously timorous.
“Alice, dear,” Vivianne began serenely, “I’ve told you. Call me ‘Vianne’. There need not be any pretence between us.”
“Vianne, yes.” Miriam mumbled the correction, clutching the portfolio tightly against her body, no doubt irreparably crumpling the sketches within.
The blossoming fashionista doubted that Vivianne would be much bothered by the loss; as everything else, the small stack of drawings were only a sacrificial piece of the much larger game the Baroness played. The only outcome for Miriam, it seemed, was capture- or destruction.
Defences crumbling, the normally staid young woman was quite unsure of which ending she preferred.
“Will you stand on my front step all evening, Alice, or are you going to come in and be sociable?”
There. Some of the familiar sting had come back into the older woman’s manner. It was almost a comfort Miriam thought as she swallowed tightly. “I only meant to leave the designs with you,” she explained timidly. “I’ve taken Monsieur Bassett’s car, you see, and I really only meant-”
“Nonsense,” the eccentric scoffed cheerfully, cutting her guest off, for the young woman seemed deplorably close to repeating herself, a flaw the baroness simply could not abide. “You’ve driven all this way- you must stay for supper. I told chef we were expecting company, and he’s been slaving all afternoon in preparation for your arrival. Anton, I’m sure, expected you to stay the evening.”
Miriam chewed her lower lip and glanced over her shoulder at her boss’s car, as if she’d expected it to have disappeared by way of some unholy magic. But no, there it sat, the colour of forget-me-nots in a field of well-raked gravel; her only avenue of escape.
She turned back to Vivianne, who having sensed the younger woman’s nearing acquiescence, smiled triumphantly.
“Won’t you come in?”
Miriam nodded dumbly, remembering the promise she had mad to herself not twenty minutes earlier. Viviane did frighten her, but beyond that, the older woman intrigued her. Miriam stepped through the doorway, and followed her hostess into a lavishly decorated living room with soaring ceilings and lush, turquoise and gold damasked walls.
The Baroness glided towards an antique brass bar cart, and turned to gaze expectantly at her guest. “What are you drinking?” Vivianne inquired lightly. “Mine’s a gin twist, on the rocks.”
Miriam, who had never been exposed much to alcohol- save the mouthful of cheap Shabbat wine she drank after her father had recited the Kiddush- could only reply, “I’ll have what you’re having,” and hope she didn’t sound as pathetically out her element as she felt.
Vivianne didn’t seem to think so as she plucked cubes of ice from a bucket with a pair of silver tongs, dropping them into a pair of crystal tumblers with a dull clink. She chattered inanely as she poured the aperitifs, rambling on about the rare breed of flag iris her groundskeeper had planted in the lakeside garden as her nimble fingers curled long strips of zest from a juicy lemon, a delicate citron mist bursting into the air as each twist of sweet, sunny ribbon curled from the fruit and fell into the waiting spa of pine fresh spirits.
Vivianne snared the beverages in her arachnid grasp and rounded on the shallowly breathing Miriam, whose hand staid in mid air when she realised there was no way to accept the offering without brushing the Baroness’ fingers with her own trembling ones.
The aristocrat smirked, too quickly catching on to her young guest’s dilemma. Miriam glowered. Vivianne’s obvious delight at having disarmed her so quickly stoked an ire in the burgeoning fashionista; the Baroness‘ subtle mockery a prodding poker to Miss Princhek‘s growing flame of impatience. Cattily, the couturier’s assistant lunged forwards and snatched the crystal tumbler away from her unlikely hostess. She brought the drink to her lips, but her celebratory toast was waylaid by the off-putting odour of the liquor.
“It smells like Dettol.” Miriam took a wary sip. “And it tastes like Dettol.”
Vivianne laughed outright at the unschooled grousing. “Well if it smells like it, and tastes like it, I suppose you’ve caught me out, lovely Alice. Because, as I’m sure you’ll readily believe, my reason for inviting you here could only be that I planned to murder you, and before we could have any fun at all.”
“Fun?” Miriam asked quietly, taking a much larger quaff from her glass; other than that, she displayed no quandary with the older woman’s elusive statement. Miriam had quite forgotten her trepidation; it seemed to be reclining, abandoned, with Anton’s sketches on the floor.
Vivianne nodded, and Miriam imagined that the Baroness seemed just a little flushed in the low light of the sitting room. The young woman watched a curl of lemon zest as it wound itself lovingly around a quickly melting ice cube.
“And are we going to have,” Miriam paused for effect, her voice falling lower “--fun?”
Vivianne nodded, seeming not to breathe at all. “I should hope so.”
Miriam mimicked her unlikely companion’s movements, her head dipping in a manner which was ironically similar to the mating machinations of a Grebe- or, Miriam thought a little hysterically, a penguin. Perhaps the young woman’s deranged musings on the ritual dances of randy birds were what caused her to say what she said next. Or maybe it was that Miriam had zeroed in on Vivianne’s one weakness so spectacularly; it hardly mattered. Not when Miriam considered exactly how deep a grave she was digging for herself with one loaded little word.
“Together?”
It seemed that Vivianne had been breathing after all, for the audible catch which signified the cessation of that oh so necessary function was a thunderous sound in the desperate quiet of the sitting room.
“Is that what you’d like, my darling?”
Miriam jolted at the strange, sweet endearment as it tumbled so incongruously from the lips she knew could spout such cruelties. “Yes,” she hissed, trying to hold on to valuable oxygen as stars prickled her vision. “That’s what I’d like.”
There was no sense in lying about it now.
Vivianne nodded, and picked the young woman’s clammy hand from the settee, raising it to her lips as if to kiss it. Gently, she turned Miriam’s hand in her own, and pressed a ghosting caress along the young woman’s wrist, Miriam’s pulse flickering, then surging beneath the painted lips.
Vivianne surveyed the girl, grey eyes flinty and scrutinizing under kohl-lined lids and velvety lashes; sparking to life as Miriam swayed into the wing of the sofa, her smooth, ivory neck exposed as her head fell back, floating on the surface of a wellspring of yet undiscovered pleasure which the older woman’s simple eroticism evoked.
Vivianne smiled, and bit harshly down into the cream skin with straight white teeth. Miriam moaned at the unexpected, burning pain, so stark against the arousal which seemed to glow from the marrow of her bones. And yet---
The Baroness flushed as the girl arched her back, hips squirming against the plush cushion of the settee.
“I didn’t expect you’d like that,” Vivianne commented blithely, though Miriam delighted at the undercurrent of electric excitement in the timbre of the older woman’s voice. “You’ve surprised me, my Alice.”
“I’ve surprised myself,” Miriam murmured the confession, and moved to capture Vivianne’s hand, which was currently smearing a small amount of blood over the developing welt on the ginger assistant’s arm.
The Baroness withdrew sharply, but before Miriam could question Vivianne, who seemed to have forgotten their incredibly intimate interaction just as suddenly as Miriam had initiated it, was interrupted by a source-less bell tolling within the house, which told the young guest that the dinner hour had arrived.
Vivianne stood abruptly, abandoning her untouched drink on the low occasional table of dark walnut; Miriam stood to follow, and pounded back the rest of her gin before stoically marching after her retreating hostess. She trailed the agitated woman into a relatively small room, made smaller by the gargantuan, ornately carved table which seemed to hail directly from eighteenth century Andalucía.
“Sit,” Vivianne ordered quietly, and Miriam hastened towards the nearest chair, settling herself down eagerly lest she anger the Baroness in some fashion and risk never feeling the older woman’s soft lips pressed against her skin again. With that terrible possibility coasting at the forefront of her neuroses, the young woman warily eyed Vivianne, wondering if the aristocrat would seat herself at the other end of the impossibly long table, or if she would breach etiquette, her draw to the fresh, supple naivety before her too strong to quell.
It seemed, indeed, that Vivianne was warring with the same choice, as the older woman prowled along the narrow walkways left by the high backs of the lushly upholstered dinning chairs and the gleaming walls, which Miriam decided were covered entirely in gold leaf. Ostentatious, she thought, but not entirely without an ethereal kind of beauty.
The young woman seemed willing to try any menial tactic to distract herself the present company, who was still stalking the room like a caged victim of safari.
Happily- or at least fortuitously- a tall, stooped man in a pristine apron shuffled into the room, bearing a silver tray laden with small jewels of canapés, and the Baroness had no choice but to sit, or appear to her guest as though she’d entirely cracked her nut.
Vivianne abruptly stopped pacing the room and sat around the table corner from her guest, smiling almost serenely at the young woman she seemed, in some strange way, to be trying to impress.
And then she did the most improbable thing. She asked Miriam about herself.
“Where in England are you from?”
The aspiring fashionista eyed the tray of h’ordeuvres longingly, wondering if she shoved one in her mouth quickly enough, she could avoid this disturbing occurrence of small talk.
But Vivianne eyed her expectantly, and Miriam was once again reminded with a surge of fear that she would be ejected, no doubt painfully, from the Baroness Reshetnikova’s presence if she did not behave exactly as the older woman wanted her to.
“Bethnal Green,” Miriam managed to choke out over a wave of nauseating embarrassment. “Although, I think they call the area the East London Boroughs, now.”
Viviane nodded, as if she were completely un-phased by her guest’s meagre origins. “So, you’re quite out of your element in chic, central Paris, then.”
Miriam frowned. “I prefer to believe that I was born out of my element, Vianne.” She drawled the older woman’s name out with forced confidence, trying to hold her ground. Vivianne regarded her seriously for a moment, and just when the young woman was beginning to feel she’d regained some control of the unwieldy conversation, the Baroness dissolved into peals of ironic laughter. Miriam scowled.
“You’re adorable when you’re indignant,” Vivianne offered suddenly before popping a canapé into her mouth.
“Am I?” Miriam countered disinterestedly. So much for her tactical sycophantism.
“Mmm,” the older woman confirmed. “Quite.”
For lack of an appropriately scathing response, the couturier’s assistant daintily selected a cherry tomato, stuffed with what appeared to be sautéed mushrooms, and placed it just as delicately into her mouth, chewing slowly; avoiding having to answer another question about a past she’d rather forget for as long as possible.
As it turned out, Vivianne was willing to offer a brief respite. Of a kind.
“What are your plans for yourself, then?”
Miriam didn’t blink; didn’t falter. “I’m going to run a fashion publication.”
“Are you?” the Baroness queried indulgently.
“Oh yes.”
The older woman pursed her lips thoughtfully. “So you think quite highly of yourself, it would seem.”
“I know what I’m capable of,” Miriam corrected icily. “And I refuse to accept anything less of myself.”
Vivianne smirked. “Which is why you’ve apprenticed yourself out to our dear Monsieur Basset.”
The young woman sighed her growing frustration, and jabbed viciously at another of the tomato h’ordeuvres; she watched with mild satisfaction as it toppled over and rolled about the plate, scattering little crumbs of buttery mushroom in spirals until it slowed to a stop. “I have no choice in the matter. I have no name for myself. Some people have to start at the bottom and work their way up.”
“Now, now Alice,” Vivianne chastised gently, though there was a dangerous lilt of patronization to the words. “You have a temper, my dear. A nasty, vicious temper. You’ll have to learn to control it, or suffer the consequences.”
“Consequences?” Miriam riled.
“You know what I mean, Alice. We could have such a lovely time together, you and I- but there are rules. Many rules.” Vivianne paused to accept a glass of wine from a smartly dressed young man, whose silk gloved hand seemed to have no trouble handling the smoothly curved crystal decanter. “You’re a smart girl, Alice. But I fear you may disappoint me, after all.”
“No, Vianne.” Miriam hated the wanton desperation in her voice. “I won’t. I promise.”
No, REALLY- I actually finished another chapter....
Written for mxrolkr's Meryl Movie Title Challenge
...Which was issued AGES AGO...
Original Art: Miriam and Vivianne
Title: Alice at the Palace
Rating: PG 14, for now
Pairing: Miranda/OC, later Miranda/Andy
Length/Word Count: 4000
Summary: When Miranda discovers and interesting secret that Andrea has kept from her, the editor is plunged into her past...
Disclaimer: I don’t own the movie or the book or any of the characters, most depressingly, Miranda is not mine. I play in the Runway universe, and sometimes it is kind to my fantasies
A/N: So in the AN for the first chapter, I made noise about posting the ’second part of the story soon’…turns out, five months was ’soon’…sorry guys. I’ll do better with the next chapter, I PROMISE.
Part 1
Part Two
Miranda opened her eyes, lashes fluttering slowly against the heavy haze of memory. It didn’t happen often, but when she chose to remember Vivianne, Miranda always felt her carefully woven mantle of independence slip neglectfully from her shoulders, leaving her cold, bereft; a mewling kitten, matted ginger fur still damply clinging to her trembling body.
But the baroness had pulled her from that state of innocence, had warmed her; not with kindness or any kind of particularly maternal ministrations- but with a kind of tempestuous fire, as if having stricken the young Miriam with lightning. And now, three decades later, Miranda still hummed with that strange current; it seemed to the editor that she would never be rid of it.
Miranda glanced down at Andrea’s personnel file, and with a curious sense of possibility, leaned forwards in her expensive office chair to retrieve the paper which had summoned her past and whispered of her future.
………………………………......................................................................
Miriam rolled down the window of Anton’s ‘51 Citroen and lit a cigarette, glaring sideways at the portfolio full of revamped designs, which was riding shotgun. When she’d entered the shop the previous day, after Vivianne’s unsettling departure, Monsieur Basset had informed his unusually disquieted assistant that she would be taking his car to Neuilly, rather than a cab.
Miriam was grateful, of course, for his generosity, though the only indication she gave her employer was a cold nod and a tight smile. She should have been more amiable, really, for the thought of taking a cab- or worse- being chauffeured to the Baroness’ estate by one of her estranged man-servants and falling subject to Vivianne’s limited mercy had caused Miriam’s tongue to go numb and the metallic taste of fear to fill her mouth.
But no, thank god, the young assistant was now cruising towards the Parisian outskirts in her employer’s vintage automobile, puffing somewhat desperately away at her cigarette while devising complicated escape manoeuvres for any Reshetnikovian contingency.
Miriam flicked the butt out the window, and as it bounced helplessly down the roadway, she ran her fingers distractedly through her mussed ginger bob.
The thing to do, really, was to arrive quietly, hand the portfolio off to whichever Vivianne’s lackeys presented himself first, and floor it all the way back to her dingy, store-top flat before the Baroness had a chance to sink her talons in any deeper.
But Miriam found herself wondering if perhaps- instead of bounding in and out of the Baroness’ estate like a hare in a fox hole- she shouldn’t see if dealing with Vivianne was at all possible. The way the older woman had nearly dismissed her the day before- as if Miriam were unworthy- made the young fashionista sick with rejection. But unworthy of what, really? On what prerequisites had Vivianne so harshly judged her? It hardly mattered; Miriam had no room in her mind for failure, on any scale.
And it was, as Miriam checked the directions curled in Anton’s impeccable handwriting, that the young woman decided to maintain an open mind concerning whatever advances the Baroness Reshetnikova might offer towards her.
With her convictions tightly wound, Miriam pulled up the long gravel drive which curved serpent-like towards Vivianne’s country estate, and gasped when the full decadence of ecru masonry and scrolling stonework dropped on her like a sack of sand; Miriam felt burdened with the knowledge, as if being aware of this opulence, this lifestyle the Baroness possessed somehow made clearer the full reach of the older woman’s power.
Miriam’s decision to bend with Vivianne’s overwhelming will solidified like concrete, quite suddenly, when she realized how influential the eccentric could be; there was no way to be certain what would befall the young couturier’s assistant should she continue to refuse the Baroness’ advances- the nature of which had become startlingly apparent. Miriam Princhek would place herself in a dangerous position indeed.
For Vivianne Reshetnikova wanted her, and even in the short time Miriam had spent in the woman’s presence, it was obvious that the Baroness was rarely, if ever, denied that which she coveted.
Miriam thrummed with a kind of growing power, which having begun timidly enough now seemed to wrap the young woman in a veil of potentiality. It was almost thrilling.
Buoyed slightly by her own growing sense of self importance, Miriam retrieved the portfolio from the seat beside her, and keys jingling somewhat jauntily in her purse, flounced towards the grand entrance of Vivianne’s French country estate.
Noticing the antiquated bell pull which seemed to be the only means of garnering an audience with the Baroness, Miriam snickered. It seemed there were no lengths to which the older woman would not venture to preserve her presumably hard worked for aura of mystique.
Yanking the cord, and hearing a deep chime echo from within the bowels of the mansion, Miriam had to admit, the ruse was disturbingly effective.
Footsteps sounded from behind the ornately carved oak doors, and with a silence born of obsessively oiled hinges, the door swung slowly inwards to reveal, not some lowly peon, but the Baroness Reshetnikova herself.
Miriam tried to stay her resolve, but wilted somewhat under the familiar glare of disdain, laced incongruously with desire.
The sickly, floral scent of what seemed to be Vivianne’s signature fragrance did nothing to ease the young assistant’s discomfort.
“Good evening Madame Reshetnikova,” Miriam opened, her voice uneven, and treacherously timorous.
“Alice, dear,” Vivianne began serenely, “I’ve told you. Call me ‘Vianne’. There need not be any pretence between us.”
“Vianne, yes.” Miriam mumbled the correction, clutching the portfolio tightly against her body, no doubt irreparably crumpling the sketches within.
The blossoming fashionista doubted that Vivianne would be much bothered by the loss; as everything else, the small stack of drawings were only a sacrificial piece of the much larger game the Baroness played. The only outcome for Miriam, it seemed, was capture- or destruction.
Defences crumbling, the normally staid young woman was quite unsure of which ending she preferred.
“Will you stand on my front step all evening, Alice, or are you going to come in and be sociable?”
There. Some of the familiar sting had come back into the older woman’s manner. It was almost a comfort Miriam thought as she swallowed tightly. “I only meant to leave the designs with you,” she explained timidly. “I’ve taken Monsieur Bassett’s car, you see, and I really only meant-”
“Nonsense,” the eccentric scoffed cheerfully, cutting her guest off, for the young woman seemed deplorably close to repeating herself, a flaw the baroness simply could not abide. “You’ve driven all this way- you must stay for supper. I told chef we were expecting company, and he’s been slaving all afternoon in preparation for your arrival. Anton, I’m sure, expected you to stay the evening.”
Miriam chewed her lower lip and glanced over her shoulder at her boss’s car, as if she’d expected it to have disappeared by way of some unholy magic. But no, there it sat, the colour of forget-me-nots in a field of well-raked gravel; her only avenue of escape.
She turned back to Vivianne, who having sensed the younger woman’s nearing acquiescence, smiled triumphantly.
“Won’t you come in?”
Miriam nodded dumbly, remembering the promise she had mad to herself not twenty minutes earlier. Viviane did frighten her, but beyond that, the older woman intrigued her. Miriam stepped through the doorway, and followed her hostess into a lavishly decorated living room with soaring ceilings and lush, turquoise and gold damasked walls.
The Baroness glided towards an antique brass bar cart, and turned to gaze expectantly at her guest. “What are you drinking?” Vivianne inquired lightly. “Mine’s a gin twist, on the rocks.”
Miriam, who had never been exposed much to alcohol- save the mouthful of cheap Shabbat wine she drank after her father had recited the Kiddush- could only reply, “I’ll have what you’re having,” and hope she didn’t sound as pathetically out her element as she felt.
Vivianne didn’t seem to think so as she plucked cubes of ice from a bucket with a pair of silver tongs, dropping them into a pair of crystal tumblers with a dull clink. She chattered inanely as she poured the aperitifs, rambling on about the rare breed of flag iris her groundskeeper had planted in the lakeside garden as her nimble fingers curled long strips of zest from a juicy lemon, a delicate citron mist bursting into the air as each twist of sweet, sunny ribbon curled from the fruit and fell into the waiting spa of pine fresh spirits.
Vivianne snared the beverages in her arachnid grasp and rounded on the shallowly breathing Miriam, whose hand staid in mid air when she realised there was no way to accept the offering without brushing the Baroness’ fingers with her own trembling ones.
The aristocrat smirked, too quickly catching on to her young guest’s dilemma. Miriam glowered. Vivianne’s obvious delight at having disarmed her so quickly stoked an ire in the burgeoning fashionista; the Baroness‘ subtle mockery a prodding poker to Miss Princhek‘s growing flame of impatience. Cattily, the couturier’s assistant lunged forwards and snatched the crystal tumbler away from her unlikely hostess. She brought the drink to her lips, but her celebratory toast was waylaid by the off-putting odour of the liquor.
“It smells like Dettol.” Miriam took a wary sip. “And it tastes like Dettol.”
Vivianne laughed outright at the unschooled grousing. “Well if it smells like it, and tastes like it, I suppose you’ve caught me out, lovely Alice. Because, as I’m sure you’ll readily believe, my reason for inviting you here could only be that I planned to murder you, and before we could have any fun at all.”
“Fun?” Miriam asked quietly, taking a much larger quaff from her glass; other than that, she displayed no quandary with the older woman’s elusive statement. Miriam had quite forgotten her trepidation; it seemed to be reclining, abandoned, with Anton’s sketches on the floor.
Vivianne nodded, and Miriam imagined that the Baroness seemed just a little flushed in the low light of the sitting room. The young woman watched a curl of lemon zest as it wound itself lovingly around a quickly melting ice cube.
“And are we going to have,” Miriam paused for effect, her voice falling lower “--fun?”
Vivianne nodded, seeming not to breathe at all. “I should hope so.”
Miriam mimicked her unlikely companion’s movements, her head dipping in a manner which was ironically similar to the mating machinations of a Grebe- or, Miriam thought a little hysterically, a penguin. Perhaps the young woman’s deranged musings on the ritual dances of randy birds were what caused her to say what she said next. Or maybe it was that Miriam had zeroed in on Vivianne’s one weakness so spectacularly; it hardly mattered. Not when Miriam considered exactly how deep a grave she was digging for herself with one loaded little word.
“Together?”
It seemed that Vivianne had been breathing after all, for the audible catch which signified the cessation of that oh so necessary function was a thunderous sound in the desperate quiet of the sitting room.
“Is that what you’d like, my darling?”
Miriam jolted at the strange, sweet endearment as it tumbled so incongruously from the lips she knew could spout such cruelties. “Yes,” she hissed, trying to hold on to valuable oxygen as stars prickled her vision. “That’s what I’d like.”
There was no sense in lying about it now.
Vivianne nodded, and picked the young woman’s clammy hand from the settee, raising it to her lips as if to kiss it. Gently, she turned Miriam’s hand in her own, and pressed a ghosting caress along the young woman’s wrist, Miriam’s pulse flickering, then surging beneath the painted lips.
Vivianne surveyed the girl, grey eyes flinty and scrutinizing under kohl-lined lids and velvety lashes; sparking to life as Miriam swayed into the wing of the sofa, her smooth, ivory neck exposed as her head fell back, floating on the surface of a wellspring of yet undiscovered pleasure which the older woman’s simple eroticism evoked.
Vivianne smiled, and bit harshly down into the cream skin with straight white teeth. Miriam moaned at the unexpected, burning pain, so stark against the arousal which seemed to glow from the marrow of her bones. And yet---
The Baroness flushed as the girl arched her back, hips squirming against the plush cushion of the settee.
“I didn’t expect you’d like that,” Vivianne commented blithely, though Miriam delighted at the undercurrent of electric excitement in the timbre of the older woman’s voice. “You’ve surprised me, my Alice.”
“I’ve surprised myself,” Miriam murmured the confession, and moved to capture Vivianne’s hand, which was currently smearing a small amount of blood over the developing welt on the ginger assistant’s arm.
The Baroness withdrew sharply, but before Miriam could question Vivianne, who seemed to have forgotten their incredibly intimate interaction just as suddenly as Miriam had initiated it, was interrupted by a source-less bell tolling within the house, which told the young guest that the dinner hour had arrived.
Vivianne stood abruptly, abandoning her untouched drink on the low occasional table of dark walnut; Miriam stood to follow, and pounded back the rest of her gin before stoically marching after her retreating hostess. She trailed the agitated woman into a relatively small room, made smaller by the gargantuan, ornately carved table which seemed to hail directly from eighteenth century Andalucía.
“Sit,” Vivianne ordered quietly, and Miriam hastened towards the nearest chair, settling herself down eagerly lest she anger the Baroness in some fashion and risk never feeling the older woman’s soft lips pressed against her skin again. With that terrible possibility coasting at the forefront of her neuroses, the young woman warily eyed Vivianne, wondering if the aristocrat would seat herself at the other end of the impossibly long table, or if she would breach etiquette, her draw to the fresh, supple naivety before her too strong to quell.
It seemed, indeed, that Vivianne was warring with the same choice, as the older woman prowled along the narrow walkways left by the high backs of the lushly upholstered dinning chairs and the gleaming walls, which Miriam decided were covered entirely in gold leaf. Ostentatious, she thought, but not entirely without an ethereal kind of beauty.
The young woman seemed willing to try any menial tactic to distract herself the present company, who was still stalking the room like a caged victim of safari.
Happily- or at least fortuitously- a tall, stooped man in a pristine apron shuffled into the room, bearing a silver tray laden with small jewels of canapés, and the Baroness had no choice but to sit, or appear to her guest as though she’d entirely cracked her nut.
Vivianne abruptly stopped pacing the room and sat around the table corner from her guest, smiling almost serenely at the young woman she seemed, in some strange way, to be trying to impress.
And then she did the most improbable thing. She asked Miriam about herself.
“Where in England are you from?”
The aspiring fashionista eyed the tray of h’ordeuvres longingly, wondering if she shoved one in her mouth quickly enough, she could avoid this disturbing occurrence of small talk.
But Vivianne eyed her expectantly, and Miriam was once again reminded with a surge of fear that she would be ejected, no doubt painfully, from the Baroness Reshetnikova’s presence if she did not behave exactly as the older woman wanted her to.
“Bethnal Green,” Miriam managed to choke out over a wave of nauseating embarrassment. “Although, I think they call the area the East London Boroughs, now.”
Viviane nodded, as if she were completely un-phased by her guest’s meagre origins. “So, you’re quite out of your element in chic, central Paris, then.”
Miriam frowned. “I prefer to believe that I was born out of my element, Vianne.” She drawled the older woman’s name out with forced confidence, trying to hold her ground. Vivianne regarded her seriously for a moment, and just when the young woman was beginning to feel she’d regained some control of the unwieldy conversation, the Baroness dissolved into peals of ironic laughter. Miriam scowled.
“You’re adorable when you’re indignant,” Vivianne offered suddenly before popping a canapé into her mouth.
“Am I?” Miriam countered disinterestedly. So much for her tactical sycophantism.
“Mmm,” the older woman confirmed. “Quite.”
For lack of an appropriately scathing response, the couturier’s assistant daintily selected a cherry tomato, stuffed with what appeared to be sautéed mushrooms, and placed it just as delicately into her mouth, chewing slowly; avoiding having to answer another question about a past she’d rather forget for as long as possible.
As it turned out, Vivianne was willing to offer a brief respite. Of a kind.
“What are your plans for yourself, then?”
Miriam didn’t blink; didn’t falter. “I’m going to run a fashion publication.”
“Are you?” the Baroness queried indulgently.
“Oh yes.”
The older woman pursed her lips thoughtfully. “So you think quite highly of yourself, it would seem.”
“I know what I’m capable of,” Miriam corrected icily. “And I refuse to accept anything less of myself.”
Vivianne smirked. “Which is why you’ve apprenticed yourself out to our dear Monsieur Basset.”
The young woman sighed her growing frustration, and jabbed viciously at another of the tomato h’ordeuvres; she watched with mild satisfaction as it toppled over and rolled about the plate, scattering little crumbs of buttery mushroom in spirals until it slowed to a stop. “I have no choice in the matter. I have no name for myself. Some people have to start at the bottom and work their way up.”
“Now, now Alice,” Vivianne chastised gently, though there was a dangerous lilt of patronization to the words. “You have a temper, my dear. A nasty, vicious temper. You’ll have to learn to control it, or suffer the consequences.”
“Consequences?” Miriam riled.
“You know what I mean, Alice. We could have such a lovely time together, you and I- but there are rules. Many rules.” Vivianne paused to accept a glass of wine from a smartly dressed young man, whose silk gloved hand seemed to have no trouble handling the smoothly curved crystal decanter. “You’re a smart girl, Alice. But I fear you may disappoint me, after all.”
“No, Vianne.” Miriam hated the wanton desperation in her voice. “I won’t. I promise.”