am i more than you bargained for? : margaux strauss.

[Noir City]

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i've been a bad, bad girl
i've been careless with a delicate man
and it's a sad, sad world
when a girl will break a boy just because she can

don't you tell me to deny it
i've done wrong and I want to suffer for my sins
i've come to you 'cause I need guidance to be true
and I just don't know where I can begin

what I need is a good defense
'cause I'm feeling like a criminal
and I need to be redeemed
to the one I've sinned against
because he's all I ever knew of love

heaven help me for the way I am
save me from these evil deeds before I get them done
i know tomorrow brings the consequence at hand
but I keep living this day like the next will never come

oh help me but don't tell me to deny it
i've got to cleanse myself of all these lies 'till I'm good enough for him
i've got a lot to lose and I'm bettin' high so I'm begging you
before it ends just tell me where to begin

let me know the way
before there's hell to pay
give me room to lay the law and let me go
i've got to make a play
to make my lover stay
so what would an angel say the devil wants to know
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( fiona apple : criminal )

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ January 14, 2006 06:35 PM: Message edited by: nothing like losing you ]</font>

[Noir City]

She was raised amongst romantic Parisian streets and coffee, cobblestone, the Notre Dame and cigarettes. She was the result of a heated affair between an Aries woman (although a French beauty, she was rumored to have been laced with Japanese blood) who dreamt impossible dreams and a married green-eyed American writer. Margaux's ancient grandmother often told her the story of the Aries woman who bled herself to death in a bathtub six months after her American lover fled to San Francisco in fear that his wealthy wife was going to leave him for good. Margaux was at the tender age of four when this tragedy occurred, which is fortunate because she doesn't remember all the blood. There was so much blood. But this also unfortunate because she was aware enough to remember the yellow tulips they had planted just for their love, for their Margaux. She remembers her father's weathered hands, and her parents' secret laughter (after they made love), and how her mother smelled like lavender and eternal twilight. After the stories died out and she was tired of living with her mother's ghost, Margaux packed all the sadness, the old French books, and brilliant red wine and left to Venice and then to Greece, Egypt, Japan, Morocco, Prague, Indonesia. She was only sixteen, but wiser than most and with a ravenous hunger for something more than death. Finally she settled in San Francisco in search of a father she could only recognize by the lines of his palms. Instead she had fallen in love twice (both proven to be fruitless relationships), learned about photography and how to bind her own books. For a much needed breath of fresh air, she moved to Chicago at the age of twenty-two.

[Noir City]

[ we could have it all ]

New York, five hours closer to home. home. is that even the right word for it? paris feels like a disease. i can't forget the ghosts... i'll never escape paris, i could never forget what i left behind. but New York. now that's a different story. i'm dreaming about manhattan, thinking about how brooklyn boys taste. san francisco won't miss me. my father... he's dead to me. he was never born. he was never a part of paris, he was never a part of me. I don't belong to anyone. I'm Margaux, broken in New York. it'll probably be disastrous, just like this bottle of champagne i've finished. it was delicieux. it was from two octobers ago when jules and i were in love. before i met marilyn and learned that they had been married for six years and had a seven year old daughter with blueberry sky eyes. before. when i thought we could have it all, cake and everything.

[Noir City]

i was only in new york for two days before my journey back to paris.?on the plane i could already smell the copper of my mother's blood that awaited me. and those forever blooming tulips. i had wanted so desperately to forget all about paris. but it has found its way back into my thoughts. gregory, an old friend of my mother's, convinced me it was going to be a quick evaluation of my apartment and an espresso with the new tenants over paperwork and then i "could go back to that precious america, forget all about passion, wanting." gregory, who watched over that forsaken apartment of mine while i travel the world, insisted on taking me out for the fine french cuisine. which interestingly enough turned out to be hungry, wine-driven, half-clothed sex. i wonder if he saw my mother in me while we were fucking. he had been looking at me like i was a ghost, like i was a secret he was dying to know, and i unraveled all over his bedroom for him to see.?

...you're divinity, you're spring...
he tells me. and i think i'm more
like autumn, but i will be spring
for him, for this moment that we
lay entwined in embodied poetry.

gregory insisted that i come back for his forty-first birthday. "paris cannot celebrate without you," he whispered in our native tongue, "i cannot live another day without tasting the salt of your skin." i didn't know whether to flee or to embrace him. i lit a cigarette, and decided it was time to leave. and it only took me a total three days to push paris away and drown in a new city.

chicago: one of the big city political machines in america, a city which also has the most criminally diverse population. this place makes me think of al capone and oprah and a lover i once took on in san francisco who talked about the food at le francais on south milwaukee avenue, and how i was ultimately the best french he's ever tasted. gah. he didn't have the sincerity that craddled gregory's tenderness.

i luckily found a place to stay. an apartment building. third floor. twenty-seven C. i haven't met anyone yet, but i hear them in the walls. i wonder what chicago has for me. i don't know how long this city can hold me, save me from myself, keep me from abandoning it.

[Noir City]

i haven't invested in a G since i was seventeen (prague: new years eve). last night i got some for fifty, and using a CD case as my palette, i crushed the powder with my atm card and guided it into appetizing inch and a half lines.

i didn't sleep all night, i just let my chemical god purr through my bloodstream. it wouldn't let me stand still, it whispered in my bones, played me like a violin, and i felt like the mediterranean sea. i danced barefoot in my kitchen to nirvana and drank Japanese Typhoons [midori, lime juice, champagne]. i felt so incredibly zoetic and glorious even when my lips, gums, teeth went numb. at four a.m. i smoked a blunt and i didn't feel high off the weed at all. all i could do was feed this thursday night addiction, line after line.

a couple hours after i couldn't do anymore, my nose felt incredibly raw, my throat ridiculously dry, and everytime i coughed, i tasted the bitterness of cocaine, of forgotten dreams. i thought about the first time my heart got broken.

[Noir City]

she was unthinkably sad pasted on the hardwood floors, her favorite martini glass with the spiraling green stem broken, and her brilliant green eyes could no longer focus. "i don't know what's wrong with me," she scrawled in her journal," i do not want this city to see me cry." she sobbed quietly, resting on her side, lighting a cigarette [only gauloises] in her gentle madness.

she couldn't even remember how many black velvets [guinness and champagne] visited her. she had spent her first two days in chicago working on new illustrations for a French children's book (watercolors, pastels, half-finished art sprawled under the window), and now on her third day she was thinking too much about how she was turning into her dead mother.

she suddenly peeled herself off the ground, nearly falling from trying to do too much at the same time. she inhaled deeply, the smoke almost making her choke, as she abandoned the idea of writing anymore about how pathetic she felt. stumbling into the kitchen in nothing but black panties and a white ribbed tank she balanced a cigarette in between her lips while taking a blade to the swisher. the phone rang twice before she picked it up, cradling it between her head and shoulder, while emptying the tobacco in the trash under the sink.

"hello..?" silence. "margaux." she could faintly hear the anger in his voice. but there was relief, at least a little. "robert." she remembered how he loved it when she said his name like they do in france, much prettier than how they say it in america.

"have you been in chicago all this time? what the fuck, margaux, what the fuck?! i've been sitting here, worried sick about you for a week, and then you just leave some bullshit message on my voicemail with some fucking number to a phone you never pick up! i know --"

"that you fucked me over? that you should've told me that you were married the day that we met?" she was leaning against the counter, rubbing her forehead. this conversation was beginning to sober her up.

"NO! i don't have time to regret anything about you, margaux. i love you. i know you believe me. otherwise you would've never given me your number. you wanted me to call. you want me to come to chicago."

"you would think that." disgusted, that's all she could feel at this moment of time. "i can be there tomorrow morning." she could almost laugh that maniacal crazy laugh she's capable of. "i'm pregnant, robert." those words echoed in both their heads. "...what?" she put out her cigarette. "i want ten thousand dollars."

[Noir City]

loneliness watches me closely, with its tight smiles and hiding claws. and as i sit at this coffeeshop not more than a couple blocks away from my apartment, i wonder. will this city eat me alive? will no one notice? ... i feel as though i could drown right into the sidewalk, and everyone would just watch with that strange american disconnected look in their eyes. No one could've saved her, they'd think.

that french girl is a lost cause.

. . . . .

This is a mental institution. This building. This apartment. These hallways and fluorescent lights and quiet stairwells, the dead walls and creaking pipes were starting to get to her. And it seemed like no one ever left the confines of their room.

She never saw anyone, and when she did, they were usually a couple men caught up in each other like magnets or blood-thirsty leeches. Everyone was an addict here of some sort, she could see it in their glazed, fuck-me-honey eyes. Okay, she was a pothead of sorts, but she wasn't a crackhead, that's for sure.

Finally feeling like death, Margaux decided to roll out of bed and got ready to meet Chicago for an afternoon stroll. Keys were thrown into her bag, and she was in the lobby in no time, soooo incredibly craving Chicago. She could taste the city's blood in her mouth, smell its intoxicating perfume, feel its sweet glow through her veins and arteries like the perfect drug.

This is what she loved about coming to a new city. It was like a new cock. This could be it; this could be the city that tames her, that claims her. Maybe. She was beginning to get used to seeing Chicago through her windows. It was reminding her of that foreign movie she had seen when she was eleven. Window to Paris. It was about people in the Soviet Union who could escape to Paris through a window.

This city was going to be her Paris, where she could quit this ugly existence of work and take-out and? depression, and maybe take on this new, crazy adventure. Yes, that's it. This is going to be everything that Paris wasn't for her, she could feel it. Feel it. The concrete felt new under her soles, and she was suddenly overwhelmed with all the stimuli that this one block had to offer. Margaux lit a cigarette, and decided she would keep walking until she found what she was looking for.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ January 14, 2006 06:58 PM: Message edited by: nothing like losing you ]</font>

[Noir City]

"Do you dream in color?" he had asked, eyes full of grace, japanese accent thick like static. I remember Japan like I was there yesterday, beneath cherry blossoms, drinking sweet wine in Yamagata. I remember right-handed teapots (frustrating for us lefties) and drinking Sapporo under the sun's blistering rays, and dancing dizzy in all the flashing beams in a Tokyo club called Harlem. I remember, and I miss being on an island where you don't really speak the language, but you can get by politely. I remember the man who talked of dreams over sushi, and how my legs ached from sitting on the floor for so long. I dream in color. Do most people dream in black and white? My ex-boyfriend did.

[Noir City]

Margaux had awoken abruptly from the hard knocking on the door. She sat up in her bed, blinking a couple times before gazing at the clock. Five-thirty. She had only gone to bed a little over two hours ago. She rubbed sleep from her eyes while turning on the lamp. Maybe there was an emergency? A fire in the building, maybe? Barefoot, she treaded off to the front door where she was greeted by more heavy, increasingly impatient knocking.

"This better be important." the annoyance apparent in her voice as she released the dead bolt and swung the door open. Gregory. The shock widened her eyes and for a moment she was incredibly glad to see a human being, someone who could relieve her of this loneliness. Suddenly that eager and soft smile melted off her face as the grief on Gregory's face registered. "What's wrong?" she asked, eyes narrowing. He abruptly pushed himself in and locked the door behind him.

"So, you've been here this whole time. You've got me sick in Paris, thinking about you, dreaming about you. In love with you," his voice was so dark, so quiet, so unlike the Frenchman she had known her whole life, "And here you are." Bitterness. He took the phone off the hook, pressed it against his ear. "Oui... still works." She hadn't heard French spoken so harshly, so blatantly hostile. Well, not since her mother had killed herself years ago.

"You know how work can be," she said carefully, absently wringing her hands together while backing into the kitchen, "Do you want some coffee? Maybe some tea?" He didn't even seem to hear her. He was too preoccupied with his thoughts, and this frightened Margaux. She had never seen Gregory like this. Some green tea could remedy this, she thought as she put the kettle on the stove. That is what Japan taught her.

The surprise rang in her ears over and over again until all the could feel was the alarm of her pulse when she swallowed. She couldn't remember how hard she had slammed into the cabinets, how she ended up with skinned knees, fingers bleeding into the blade of a kitchen knife that was now forgotten on the linoleum. She couldn't remember how she clawed herself down the hallway and how he had chased, and it all felt like a dream -- sanguine fingerprints like she had gotten booked all over the walls, all beauty washed out of her eyes and replaced with primitive fear and hysteria.

Her initial reaction was to hide under the bed (for some reason), but she fell into the television when his palm forcefully met the back of her skull, and he dug his fingers into her shoulder, whirling her around before she could even recover her balance, pushing her against the weeping white walls. All she could see was the boiling wrath and the deep excitement as his intense blues dropped down to watch her breasts; the panicked way her chest cavity rose and fell like a scared mouse dressed in cat's claws.

Margaux winced while trying to shrink into herself, shaking (couldn't stop, can't stoppp) as he had her by the throat. Choked sobs sputtering out from her puckered bloodied mouth; green eyes pleading, begging, caught in prayer. An Antarctican cold grin spread across his face before he released her and she collapsed in the corner, knees drawn in tight.

He had rolled up the sleeves of his blue-striped dress shirt while eyeing the ripped mauve slip she wore, one satin strap broken. "Am I too old for you now? You need young American boys to satisfy you now, whore?" She painfully closed her eyes in response. "Answer me. You fucking cunt. Answer me!" He pulled her by the ankles, ignoring the screams and the violent flailing as the back of his hand did more than just threaten to shut her up.

He grabbed her by the jaw so she would look at him. Silent pleas were buried deep in her stare and when she began to speak, he slapped her again. Hard. It happened so quickly -- how he dragged her into the bedroom by tangled fistfuls of chocolate locks, unbuckled and unzipped himself, pushing the silk up her thighs with weak resistance from her.

"Take it like the spoiled brat you are..." he had lustily murmured, head tilted back in deep pleasure as he grinded into her. She sobbed through the unloving thrusts, eyes tightly shut like a child in the dark, until he pounded and nailed her so deeply her head hit the headboard with a loud clunk. She cried out when stars exploded from her frontal lobe and she was overwhelmed with fluorescent yellow and then just a humming black. And all the pain felt like static, and she was a bird fleeing out the window. Free.

He was panting heavily as he backed away, wiping the sweat off his brow with his forearm. His ears filled with the kettle's whine and urgency. And that's when he realized what he had done. He cried her name and held her broken body in the mess of sheets, clutching the unconscious girl to his chest. Oh Margaux! He didn't mean to do this! Honest! He was just trying to demonstrate what your kind of love does to him.

Loving you -- it's a disease that eats his marrow.

[Noir City]

God is not here.

But lover was. Curled like a child into it's mother, feeding off her warmth. It pained her to move. Her body had simply failed her, muscles refusing this aching demand. And the way the sun bled through the blinds -- Jesus -- she couldn't breathe in this blindness.

She managed to free herself from his trapping limbs, pushing herself up so she was leaning against the headboard. Head throbbing. She couldn't remember how she ended up in a pale blue chemise. Fuck. Her fingers played across those pretty bruises nestled on her thighs, wrists, ankles, ... she could feel them everywhere. The clean cut on her palm.

Oh Fuck. With disbelief she glanced at sleeping Gregory, hiding from reality in slumber. That bastard! She attempted to get up again, and this time her sheer raw fear willed her body to GO! Margaux, RUN! But when she found her footing, he was on her like a lion. Fierce paws pinning her to the bed, prey whimpering beneath hot breath.

"Margaux," he sounded so sad, so desperate, so lost, "I don't want.. to hurt you. Anymore. My love! Listentome." He showered her face with heavyhearted kisses. "Please forgive me. Pleaseee. I swear on your mother's grave, I will never do this to you again."

My Mother. My dead mother. Now it was the victim's glorious moment! -- and she gave him the predatory stare -- detached and glacial and I WILL HUNT YOU. He questioned this with his own tired eyes, but she did not wait. She moved beneath him, tigress awakening, and in one fluid moment she had pulled a knife from her mattress and threateningly pressed the serrated blade against his adam's apple. "Don't move. I will kill you. I'll slit your throat and run the blade along your belly and gut you, motherfucker."

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ January 14, 2006 07:05 PM: Message edited by: nothing like losing you ]</font>