Ma maitresse. Mon amant.

I remember the first time I saw you. You were younger then. I remember the hair falling across your pale face like the clouds of night covering the moon. You weren’t beautiful, but in your face there was something, in your narrow shoulders, in the agony of your eyes, I saw something, and I wanted it. I wanted you. I wanted you under a bridge in the raw and senseless passion of the night. We would be like two animals, chased away into the empty darkness. I could feel my hands over your skin as I watched you.

You thought I was beautiful and frightening. I could feel you tense at my touch. I loved the power. All of you was mine.

I remember the first time we were together. When I asked you if you'd been with a man before, you simply turned away. You were so unsure. Uneasy hands that groped in the dim light, you wanted to be led to everything. I knew how to lead you, Eponine. For a moment I thought of stopping, and leaving you with the last trace of your innocence, but I couldn't. I could never stop when it came to you.

In the beginning you were like everyone else. Nothing but short, awkward conversation. I didn't need to talk to you. You were just a girl, just a fling, just for my amusement. I wondered about you sometimes though. I wondered who you were, and how you had come to be in that hellish world.

One night blood and bruised skin covered your face like flower petals. When I asked what had happened you told me about your father, and the life you had had before, and how everything fell away to hopelessness so quickly. And I told you about my life, because I thought you would understand. And you did. You were more than just a fling then.

I remember those times when we loved it. I remember you ran to me when I came into sight. Those kisses, so soft and gentle, so unlike everything else in the world, it was the best thing I knew. You weren't afraid. You could lead yourself. You told me one night I was the only thing you could feel anymore.

I remember when you pulled away. How could you? You were just a slut, just a girl, it wasn't your place to say yes or no. I still wanted you. The passion still stirred within me, but your's was gone. The power was yours to hold. But you should have known that wouldn't last.

I remember the first time I hit you. I loved it. I loved the way my hand felt grazing against your skin. I loved the way you turned your eyes to the ground. When you faced me again, I could feel the fear, just like in the beginning.

But that wouldn't stop you. You wouldn't return to me, you just ran farther. Even when you let me have you, you seemed distant and aloof.

I remember the first time I threw you to the ground and tore your skirt back. I remember that you begged for me to stop. That was true power, I knew it then. I pulled my hand across your mouth so you couldn't scream. Either way there was never anyone there to save you. Your eyes flashed wildly with fear, and when the pain shot through you, you dug your nails into my wrist, but not to try and stop me; you had given up by then. And I thought of stopping, but I could never stop with you.

I watched you once after I was done. You didn't cry. You put your clothes back on and sat with your back to the wall, your helpless eyes staring at the sky as if you would find a savior there. And I watched and I understood that there was no one to save either you or me, there was no Easter morning, no end to the pain, I could tell you understood too.

I didn't mean to hurt you. Maybe I did. In the moment I liked it. I loved it. You would never understand, but I wouldn't have done it if I hated you.

You're gone now. I can never taste your kiss, or feel you breath as you go to sleep. Everything about you fades little by little, until my memory of you is just a shadow of what was once there. Some nights I will see a girl walking alone and I run to meet her, thinking I've found you again, only to see that she's someone else. Just a girl.

Eponine, ma maitresse.

After it all, I remember you sitting on the edge of a bed, in the still, painfully calm moments of the time afterward. A street lamp lights half your face, and you're wearing nothing but my jacket. I ask you what you think and the words "It was beautiful" roll off your lips into the silence of the air.

That was you and me, beauty in the darkness.

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