D'Autrefois - Chapter 3 - Knife in the back
Title: D'Autrefois
Part I: Chapter 3: Knife in the back
Author: koushi
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 2622
Disclaimer: I do not own nor am I in any way affiliated with Inception and/or its creators.
The seconds ticked on into minutes. Cobb felt empty, drained. As if he’d just ran a marathon in place, the earth eroded and sinking beneath his feet, his muscles numbed and nerves dulled. It was hard to believe that his subconscious had been betraying his five senses, feeding him some processed version of reality, full of anesthetizing preservatives. His stomach had never growled louder for the untainted truth.
And there was much feasting to be had.
“He’s right, you know. You’ve never given two shits about anyone but yourself. You were using that poor woman to keep yourself grounded in your distorted version of reality,” a whiny voice harped on from the opposite nook. Okay, maybe this wasn’t the particular brand of truth I was envisioning, Cobb thought as the words battered his weary head like drumsticks. “Wake up, Dom, to the fact that you are far from the perfection you imagine yourself to be.”
“As if you have any right to talk, you backstabbing, dishonorable piece of shit,” Cobb whispered, sharp and menacing.
“And you know perfectly well why I did that, Dom,” Nash continued, “because you’ve engaged in more than a little backstabbing of your own.”
“Bullshit, I don’t owe you anything. I never made any promises,” Cobb protested, unheard as usual.
“I planned on keeping quiet for the remainder of our stay here thanks to our initial scuffle. I could see it was useless to even try,” Nash badgered him with a snide tone. “But, fuck, if you can’t get it through that dense skull of yours right now, I doubt you’ll ever understand a thing about being a human being.”
“Fine, go at it. Have a ball. The fuck do I care what you think.” Why do you even care if I achieve some state of enlightened understanding? Cobb snickered sarcastically.
“Alright,” Nash took a deep breath. “First of all, college. I wasn’t a complete fool. I knew you just wanted to free-ride to an A in that class, but then you surprised me. I mean I saw something there: a real connection.”
Cobb felt a wave of disgust roll unabated through his abdomen, but he remained begrudgingly silent.
“That’s why I came back. That’s why I answered that ad you put out for an architect. I’d heard about what you’d gone through, and I thought that it might have taught you a lesson. But no, you were just the same Dominick Cobb who’d trampled all over me the first time, stomping my body flat like road kill. And you saw nothing wrong with sitting idly by as I was sent to my presumed death. How could you honestly be so cold, Dom, after everything? I knew you felt the same-”
“No, no, no. No...” Cobb sidestepped all of Nash’s biting accusations, deflecting the blows with his already-chipped and worn down shield like a seasoned warrior. Yet something propelled him forward out of the quicksand, and he trudged ahead, closer and closer to the source of those dangerous words.
“I told Saito everything... about how you had me on the carpeted floor of your hotel room just days before the job...” Nash hesitated slightly, cognizant of letting his ranting run amuck, “and that’s why I screwed up midway. I was too preoccupied with other thoughts...”
Cobb wanted to bash the rest of his sniveling face in until it was unrecognizable... as if it would allow him to forget that loathsome expression, laughing and laughing only at him, to wipe away all the unpleasant memories. A clean slate of a face.
Nash’s soliloquy became more and more bitter, as if the sugary exterior of the pill had melted away to reveal the harsh strychnine beneath. “But of course, he didn’t believe me. Haha. You were too good at this game already, Dom. Airtight disguise with the requisite boohoos over the dead wife. Bravo, really. He would never have guessed you were some pathetic repressed homosexual.”
Something snapped. The same monster that had taken over his reflexes before emerged in full force. Despite how foreign the phantasm was to him, he now understood. Its name was Cobb. By then he’d reached the grounded Nash, towering above him at an intimidating angle.
“It’s what you all want, isn’t it? You want me to be some crazed lunatic, some depraved pervert whose world revolves entirely around himself?” Cobb asked, struggling to rebuild the fragile ego that had sheltered him for years. But the foundation had been shattered, and the debris scattered about crushed his will. “Well, I’ll just show you how accommodating I can be.”
We’ve done this dance before. And we’ll do it again, won’t we? Here, I’ll even lead...
He reached down, grabbing Nash by the remains of his collar and slamming him back against the wall with a thud. He was no longer in control, the calm calculated Cobb, the one prescribed by family, friends, society. He was Cobb, as raw and unfettered as if he’d been shipwrecked on an island and decided to worship a rotting pig’s head.
“Let’s not speak of me anymore. Let’s talk about you, hm?” Cobb said, pressing up against him, his leg between his former team member’s, forcing them apart. Nash gulped, clearly frightened but also somewhat resigned to his fate. “What are you, a masochist or a moron? I really cannot tell. Why else would you keep coming back to me?”
A tango, a waltz, a salsa, you decide. We can dance until we topple over, but I promise you I won’t be the first to go...
“I f-fucking loved you, okay?” Nash scowled, a drop of sweat slipping out from under his facial visor. In a lower voice, “And I fucking hate loving you...”
“A moron then,” Cobb smirked, shaking his head in disappointment. He then passed his free hand down the spread of Nash’s bony body until he reached the intersection of his legs, taking the protrusion tightly into his grip. “No, a masochist as well it seems, from how much you’re enjoying this.”
He then stepped back, roughly pulling Nash along with him until they reached the lower bunk. Cobb then pushed him onto it, causing him to fall back, and followed him onto the bed, straddling his prey. “Do you remember our first time? The night we got drunk after finishing our final project junior year?”
Nash stared upward, nodding reluctantly.
“Well, this will be nothing like it.” Cobb motioned for Nash to flip over, and he obeyed without a peep, too afraid, perhaps, of the multitude of negative consequences if he did otherwise. Unfastening his grey tie, Cobb then bound Nash’s wrists together, murmuring, “Just in case you decide, however unwisely, to struggle.”
Forward and back. And a spin, and a spin! Steady now, just follow my steps...
A firm tug on Nash’s drawers and a finagling of his own buckle, and their bodies were inseparably connected. Cobb spit into his hand and rubbed the saliva onto himself. It’d been way too long since he allowed himself to indulge in the fantasies under lock and key within the innermost compartments of his mind, the only ones that could bring him to completion.
“Did you...” Cobb paused to groan as he pulled apart Nash’s surprisingly fleshy cheeks and entered, the explicit view of their intimate connection causing the blood to pound through him with a heightened ferocity. “Did you miss me?”
There was no reply on Nash’s part except for an involuntary arch of the back, his fingers grasping at nothingness. With each self-serving stroke into what may as well been a prone slab of flesh, he pushed Nash’s face deeper and deeper into the pillow at the head of the bed until he heard muffled moans and felt the body below him rigidify.
Dancing with you, I feel that my feet never touch the ground. Take me away...
He, too, quickly succumbed to the clenching rhythm of release. Along with the impending flood of ecstasy, images broke through the dam of his reluctance, sending a torrent of déjà vu back to him. He could almost relive the scenes: Nash’s embrace as they first awkwardly ventured into the realm of soft touches and glistening wet skin, both inexperienced and inebriated but so damn... happy. Happy. What the fuck does that mean again?
But, in contrast, as he came his only thoughts were laden with remorse, remorse he thought he’d washed his hands of: I’m sorry, Mal, for never loving you the way you wanted. For always having someone else on my mind, at the tip of my tongue, in my arms as we swing to the music.
Collapsing, he rolled over to his side, mind clouded by the rush of endorphins. Unconscious of his actions and following in some distantly tangible routine, he released Nash’s hands from the tie and lightly kissed the spot where neck became back.
Huh? He instantly recoiled from what, at that instant, felt like the natural thing to do, although he knew it wasn’t what he, Dom Cobb, would ever do. Yet he knew he’d done it before... and he yearned for nothing more than the opportunity to do so again.
Is this what happiness felt like? Or that elusive and inherently destructive ideal they call love? Being opened up like a dissection in a lab, vulnerable and intimately exposed for your partner to scrutinize every fucking detail?
He wanted to shrink away, pop his head back into his shell, his fortress, but it was no more, the threads of existence unraveling in the polar wind. Cobb felt so cold, naked against the ruthless elements of uncharted tundra. So he clung to the only available source of warmth, a dancing flame, insignificant against the expansive horizon.
Sure our legs ache, our feet are blistered... but twirling with you, like a top that’ll never fall... that made it all worthwhile.
With Nash cradled in his arms, Cobb fell soundly asleep.
***
Multi-colored lights flickered in the semi-darkness of the crowded karaoke bar. The three of them filtered in, lucky enough to find a booth on the side of the room. Above them was a banner that read “Time Machine Tuesday.”
Cobb slid in next to his wife, reaching under the table for her hand, but she was already beckoning for a waiter. Arthur sat opposite the couple, facing them both with a satisfied smile. They sifted through the long list of songs in the binder provided with the menu.
“Yikes, so many choices,” Mal said. “But we have plenty of time tonight. I asked Maman to watch the kids.”
“I can’t say I’m familiar with most of these,” Cobb laughed, going down the list, tracing the titles with his fingertip. “Plus I’m not much of a singer really.”
“Don’t worry, Dom,” Arthur said reassuringly, patting him on the hand. “I have just the song for you.”
He then nodded to the couple before going to the DJ’s box to submit the group’s requests. Arthur had, as Cobb knew, an extensive library of musical tastes, ranging from classical to post-rock and everything in between, so he trusted his best friend’s judgment.
The first of them to be called was Arthur himself, who, with his trademark confident smile and military posture, took the stage, immediately putting the audience at ease with his “I’ve done this a million and one times” body language. The music started playing and his voice, smooth but not overly so, filled the room as everyone watched intently.
“Each night in dreams I see your face, memories time cannot erase [1] ,” Arthur opened his dark eyes again, searching through the audience until he landed on a particularly focused Mal. “Then I awake and find you gone. I’m so blue and all alone [2].”
He lowered the microphone, letting the refrain recite its verse, all the while swaying to the music. “That lonesome feelin' all the time, knowing you cannot be mine [3] ...”
“Too far away from lips so sweet and warm [4] ,” he really belted as he resumed singing, enthralling in his intensity. Arthur took one hand from the microphone and extended it as if he could, if he tried hard enough, touch the object of his desires. “Just out of reach of my two open arms [5]...”
The room exploded with clapping and hollering when he stepped down and returned to the booth, grinning due to the appreciation received.
“You were amazing,” Mal avowed, her hand fluttering to her chest as if this had been her first time hearing him sing. Meanwhile their drinks had arrived, and Cobb gulped his scotch down like air, flagging down the waiter yet again.
They listened through a few disheartening renditions of Elvis and Bing Crosby before Cobb’s name was called to go up to the stage. He shrugged. Might as well give it a try; it’s Mal’s birthday after all. Pecking her on the cheek, he stood and strolled towards the awaiting microphone.
The music started playing, the twangy notes of honkytonk reverberating across the bar. He read from the block letters floating across the blue screen, “What’s the use to deny we’ve been living a lie [6]...” Strange that Arthur would pick something with such gloomy lyrics for a night out, he thought. I guess he probably just likes the song.
“...the kisses we steal we know were not real. So why should we try anymore [7]?” The words. The blatant applicability of each suffocated him, and he wondered how he was able to go on. He was someone who preferred to ignore these glaring issues as his way of coping. He wanted to protest. But he couldn’t stop and fall apart, not with a hundred eyes on him.
Despite his unfamiliarity with the song, the crowd seemed to enjoy his performance, taking his inadvertent choke-ups as dramatic effect and therefore an intended part of the show. “The dreams that we knew can never come true... they’re gone to return no more [8].”
With the bright stage lights on his face, he could barely make out the people in the audience. He was alone up there with the words that weren’t his. “False love like ours fades with the flowers, so why should we try anymore [9]?”
When he reseated himself next to Mal, he noticed her reddened nose and a slight sniffle that she tried to hide. Please don’t take those lyrics to heart, he wanted to say. But she was up next.
She was wearing her favorite outfit, a tight-fitting black mini-dress with gravity-defying heels. Cobb couldn’t help but notice the awed expressions on the faces of the men and the women as they watched her slink to the center.
“Tu me fais tourner la tête. Mon manège à moi, c'est toi [10],” she sang in her husky voice, any residual tears completely dried. It was Edith Piaf, this much Cobb could tell. Was she looking at me, speaking to me? he wondered.
“Quelle vie on a, tous les deux, quand on s'aime comme nous deux [11],” she crooned in her signature vibrato, a spot-on impression of the French songbird. She almost kissed the microphone with how close her rouged lips came to the device, a sensual yet devious display certain to be a crowd-pleaser.
Cobb could catch some of the words, but his French proficiency had really gone downhill since college as he and Mal spoke in English with each other and with the children. But the meaning was clear as Mal sat back down blushing at the raucous listeners because the connected gaze never broke between her and the francophone Arthur.
Cobb couldn’t order his drinks fast enough for how quickly he downed them. Liquid amnesia, he thought sarcastically. Cheers.
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] "Just Out Of Reach" by Patsy Cline.
[6] [7] [8] [9] “Why Should We Try Anymore” by Hank Williams.
[10] “Mon Manège à Moi” by Edith Piaf. (You make my head spin. My merry-go-round, it’s you.)
[11] “Mon Manège à Moi” by Edith Piaf. (What a life we have, both of us, when we love each other like we do.)
Next Chapter
D'Autrefois - Master Post
Part I: Chapter 3: Knife in the back
Author: koushi
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 2622
Disclaimer: I do not own nor am I in any way affiliated with Inception and/or its creators.
The seconds ticked on into minutes. Cobb felt empty, drained. As if he’d just ran a marathon in place, the earth eroded and sinking beneath his feet, his muscles numbed and nerves dulled. It was hard to believe that his subconscious had been betraying his five senses, feeding him some processed version of reality, full of anesthetizing preservatives. His stomach had never growled louder for the untainted truth.
And there was much feasting to be had.
“He’s right, you know. You’ve never given two shits about anyone but yourself. You were using that poor woman to keep yourself grounded in your distorted version of reality,” a whiny voice harped on from the opposite nook. Okay, maybe this wasn’t the particular brand of truth I was envisioning, Cobb thought as the words battered his weary head like drumsticks. “Wake up, Dom, to the fact that you are far from the perfection you imagine yourself to be.”
“As if you have any right to talk, you backstabbing, dishonorable piece of shit,” Cobb whispered, sharp and menacing.
“And you know perfectly well why I did that, Dom,” Nash continued, “because you’ve engaged in more than a little backstabbing of your own.”
“Bullshit, I don’t owe you anything. I never made any promises,” Cobb protested, unheard as usual.
“I planned on keeping quiet for the remainder of our stay here thanks to our initial scuffle. I could see it was useless to even try,” Nash badgered him with a snide tone. “But, fuck, if you can’t get it through that dense skull of yours right now, I doubt you’ll ever understand a thing about being a human being.”
“Fine, go at it. Have a ball. The fuck do I care what you think.” Why do you even care if I achieve some state of enlightened understanding? Cobb snickered sarcastically.
“Alright,” Nash took a deep breath. “First of all, college. I wasn’t a complete fool. I knew you just wanted to free-ride to an A in that class, but then you surprised me. I mean I saw something there: a real connection.”
Cobb felt a wave of disgust roll unabated through his abdomen, but he remained begrudgingly silent.
“That’s why I came back. That’s why I answered that ad you put out for an architect. I’d heard about what you’d gone through, and I thought that it might have taught you a lesson. But no, you were just the same Dominick Cobb who’d trampled all over me the first time, stomping my body flat like road kill. And you saw nothing wrong with sitting idly by as I was sent to my presumed death. How could you honestly be so cold, Dom, after everything? I knew you felt the same-”
“No, no, no. No...” Cobb sidestepped all of Nash’s biting accusations, deflecting the blows with his already-chipped and worn down shield like a seasoned warrior. Yet something propelled him forward out of the quicksand, and he trudged ahead, closer and closer to the source of those dangerous words.
“I told Saito everything... about how you had me on the carpeted floor of your hotel room just days before the job...” Nash hesitated slightly, cognizant of letting his ranting run amuck, “and that’s why I screwed up midway. I was too preoccupied with other thoughts...”
Cobb wanted to bash the rest of his sniveling face in until it was unrecognizable... as if it would allow him to forget that loathsome expression, laughing and laughing only at him, to wipe away all the unpleasant memories. A clean slate of a face.
Nash’s soliloquy became more and more bitter, as if the sugary exterior of the pill had melted away to reveal the harsh strychnine beneath. “But of course, he didn’t believe me. Haha. You were too good at this game already, Dom. Airtight disguise with the requisite boohoos over the dead wife. Bravo, really. He would never have guessed you were some pathetic repressed homosexual.”
Something snapped. The same monster that had taken over his reflexes before emerged in full force. Despite how foreign the phantasm was to him, he now understood. Its name was Cobb. By then he’d reached the grounded Nash, towering above him at an intimidating angle.
“It’s what you all want, isn’t it? You want me to be some crazed lunatic, some depraved pervert whose world revolves entirely around himself?” Cobb asked, struggling to rebuild the fragile ego that had sheltered him for years. But the foundation had been shattered, and the debris scattered about crushed his will. “Well, I’ll just show you how accommodating I can be.”
We’ve done this dance before. And we’ll do it again, won’t we? Here, I’ll even lead...
He reached down, grabbing Nash by the remains of his collar and slamming him back against the wall with a thud. He was no longer in control, the calm calculated Cobb, the one prescribed by family, friends, society. He was Cobb, as raw and unfettered as if he’d been shipwrecked on an island and decided to worship a rotting pig’s head.
“Let’s not speak of me anymore. Let’s talk about you, hm?” Cobb said, pressing up against him, his leg between his former team member’s, forcing them apart. Nash gulped, clearly frightened but also somewhat resigned to his fate. “What are you, a masochist or a moron? I really cannot tell. Why else would you keep coming back to me?”
A tango, a waltz, a salsa, you decide. We can dance until we topple over, but I promise you I won’t be the first to go...
“I f-fucking loved you, okay?” Nash scowled, a drop of sweat slipping out from under his facial visor. In a lower voice, “And I fucking hate loving you...”
“A moron then,” Cobb smirked, shaking his head in disappointment. He then passed his free hand down the spread of Nash’s bony body until he reached the intersection of his legs, taking the protrusion tightly into his grip. “No, a masochist as well it seems, from how much you’re enjoying this.”
He then stepped back, roughly pulling Nash along with him until they reached the lower bunk. Cobb then pushed him onto it, causing him to fall back, and followed him onto the bed, straddling his prey. “Do you remember our first time? The night we got drunk after finishing our final project junior year?”
Nash stared upward, nodding reluctantly.
“Well, this will be nothing like it.” Cobb motioned for Nash to flip over, and he obeyed without a peep, too afraid, perhaps, of the multitude of negative consequences if he did otherwise. Unfastening his grey tie, Cobb then bound Nash’s wrists together, murmuring, “Just in case you decide, however unwisely, to struggle.”
Forward and back. And a spin, and a spin! Steady now, just follow my steps...
A firm tug on Nash’s drawers and a finagling of his own buckle, and their bodies were inseparably connected. Cobb spit into his hand and rubbed the saliva onto himself. It’d been way too long since he allowed himself to indulge in the fantasies under lock and key within the innermost compartments of his mind, the only ones that could bring him to completion.
“Did you...” Cobb paused to groan as he pulled apart Nash’s surprisingly fleshy cheeks and entered, the explicit view of their intimate connection causing the blood to pound through him with a heightened ferocity. “Did you miss me?”
There was no reply on Nash’s part except for an involuntary arch of the back, his fingers grasping at nothingness. With each self-serving stroke into what may as well been a prone slab of flesh, he pushed Nash’s face deeper and deeper into the pillow at the head of the bed until he heard muffled moans and felt the body below him rigidify.
Dancing with you, I feel that my feet never touch the ground. Take me away...
He, too, quickly succumbed to the clenching rhythm of release. Along with the impending flood of ecstasy, images broke through the dam of his reluctance, sending a torrent of déjà vu back to him. He could almost relive the scenes: Nash’s embrace as they first awkwardly ventured into the realm of soft touches and glistening wet skin, both inexperienced and inebriated but so damn... happy. Happy. What the fuck does that mean again?
But, in contrast, as he came his only thoughts were laden with remorse, remorse he thought he’d washed his hands of: I’m sorry, Mal, for never loving you the way you wanted. For always having someone else on my mind, at the tip of my tongue, in my arms as we swing to the music.
Collapsing, he rolled over to his side, mind clouded by the rush of endorphins. Unconscious of his actions and following in some distantly tangible routine, he released Nash’s hands from the tie and lightly kissed the spot where neck became back.
Huh? He instantly recoiled from what, at that instant, felt like the natural thing to do, although he knew it wasn’t what he, Dom Cobb, would ever do. Yet he knew he’d done it before... and he yearned for nothing more than the opportunity to do so again.
Is this what happiness felt like? Or that elusive and inherently destructive ideal they call love? Being opened up like a dissection in a lab, vulnerable and intimately exposed for your partner to scrutinize every fucking detail?
He wanted to shrink away, pop his head back into his shell, his fortress, but it was no more, the threads of existence unraveling in the polar wind. Cobb felt so cold, naked against the ruthless elements of uncharted tundra. So he clung to the only available source of warmth, a dancing flame, insignificant against the expansive horizon.
Sure our legs ache, our feet are blistered... but twirling with you, like a top that’ll never fall... that made it all worthwhile.
With Nash cradled in his arms, Cobb fell soundly asleep.
***
Multi-colored lights flickered in the semi-darkness of the crowded karaoke bar. The three of them filtered in, lucky enough to find a booth on the side of the room. Above them was a banner that read “Time Machine Tuesday.”
Cobb slid in next to his wife, reaching under the table for her hand, but she was already beckoning for a waiter. Arthur sat opposite the couple, facing them both with a satisfied smile. They sifted through the long list of songs in the binder provided with the menu.
“Yikes, so many choices,” Mal said. “But we have plenty of time tonight. I asked Maman to watch the kids.”
“I can’t say I’m familiar with most of these,” Cobb laughed, going down the list, tracing the titles with his fingertip. “Plus I’m not much of a singer really.”
“Don’t worry, Dom,” Arthur said reassuringly, patting him on the hand. “I have just the song for you.”
He then nodded to the couple before going to the DJ’s box to submit the group’s requests. Arthur had, as Cobb knew, an extensive library of musical tastes, ranging from classical to post-rock and everything in between, so he trusted his best friend’s judgment.
The first of them to be called was Arthur himself, who, with his trademark confident smile and military posture, took the stage, immediately putting the audience at ease with his “I’ve done this a million and one times” body language. The music started playing and his voice, smooth but not overly so, filled the room as everyone watched intently.
“Each night in dreams I see your face, memories time cannot erase [1] ,” Arthur opened his dark eyes again, searching through the audience until he landed on a particularly focused Mal. “Then I awake and find you gone. I’m so blue and all alone [2].”
He lowered the microphone, letting the refrain recite its verse, all the while swaying to the music. “That lonesome feelin' all the time, knowing you cannot be mine [3] ...”
“Too far away from lips so sweet and warm [4] ,” he really belted as he resumed singing, enthralling in his intensity. Arthur took one hand from the microphone and extended it as if he could, if he tried hard enough, touch the object of his desires. “Just out of reach of my two open arms [5]...”
The room exploded with clapping and hollering when he stepped down and returned to the booth, grinning due to the appreciation received.
“You were amazing,” Mal avowed, her hand fluttering to her chest as if this had been her first time hearing him sing. Meanwhile their drinks had arrived, and Cobb gulped his scotch down like air, flagging down the waiter yet again.
They listened through a few disheartening renditions of Elvis and Bing Crosby before Cobb’s name was called to go up to the stage. He shrugged. Might as well give it a try; it’s Mal’s birthday after all. Pecking her on the cheek, he stood and strolled towards the awaiting microphone.
The music started playing, the twangy notes of honkytonk reverberating across the bar. He read from the block letters floating across the blue screen, “What’s the use to deny we’ve been living a lie [6]...” Strange that Arthur would pick something with such gloomy lyrics for a night out, he thought. I guess he probably just likes the song.
“...the kisses we steal we know were not real. So why should we try anymore [7]?” The words. The blatant applicability of each suffocated him, and he wondered how he was able to go on. He was someone who preferred to ignore these glaring issues as his way of coping. He wanted to protest. But he couldn’t stop and fall apart, not with a hundred eyes on him.
Despite his unfamiliarity with the song, the crowd seemed to enjoy his performance, taking his inadvertent choke-ups as dramatic effect and therefore an intended part of the show. “The dreams that we knew can never come true... they’re gone to return no more [8].”
With the bright stage lights on his face, he could barely make out the people in the audience. He was alone up there with the words that weren’t his. “False love like ours fades with the flowers, so why should we try anymore [9]?”
When he reseated himself next to Mal, he noticed her reddened nose and a slight sniffle that she tried to hide. Please don’t take those lyrics to heart, he wanted to say. But she was up next.
She was wearing her favorite outfit, a tight-fitting black mini-dress with gravity-defying heels. Cobb couldn’t help but notice the awed expressions on the faces of the men and the women as they watched her slink to the center.
“Tu me fais tourner la tête. Mon manège à moi, c'est toi [10],” she sang in her husky voice, any residual tears completely dried. It was Edith Piaf, this much Cobb could tell. Was she looking at me, speaking to me? he wondered.
“Quelle vie on a, tous les deux, quand on s'aime comme nous deux [11],” she crooned in her signature vibrato, a spot-on impression of the French songbird. She almost kissed the microphone with how close her rouged lips came to the device, a sensual yet devious display certain to be a crowd-pleaser.
Cobb could catch some of the words, but his French proficiency had really gone downhill since college as he and Mal spoke in English with each other and with the children. But the meaning was clear as Mal sat back down blushing at the raucous listeners because the connected gaze never broke between her and the francophone Arthur.
Cobb couldn’t order his drinks fast enough for how quickly he downed them. Liquid amnesia, he thought sarcastically. Cheers.
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] "Just Out Of Reach" by Patsy Cline.
[6] [7] [8] [9] “Why Should We Try Anymore” by Hank Williams.
[10] “Mon Manège à Moi” by Edith Piaf. (You make my head spin. My merry-go-round, it’s you.)
[11] “Mon Manège à Moi” by Edith Piaf. (What a life we have, both of us, when we love each other like we do.)
Next Chapter
D'Autrefois - Master Post