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What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay.
It was a spectacle of a building— something Papillon had always dreamed of unrealistically inheriting as a boy in the streets, something out of a storybook. Something perhaps Dega may have lived in a lifetime ago.
The purchase of the house had been a blur, a whirlwind of nerves and excitement, anxiety that his forged papers would fall through somewhere along the way. But he had made it here, and his heart felt everything.
For so long, he had never considered returning to Paris— to France. But he was alone now, in life. There was no one to injure because of his past save himself. He had lived and loved, and found himself alone in the end. He did not yearn, exactly, for someone or something. He was fixing to die in this house.
But that was a long way off, and first he wanted to experience the greatness of living in a luxury like this house. It would be a dull adventure, and his last, but he would enjoy it while he could.
The house was situated in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, and inside were a multitude of rooms so bright it was as if they had been carved from ivory. A private garden below was shadowed by the Eiffel Tower— a view that made Papillon feel only cold. A pride of France, where Papillon had fallen short. And yet, this was the opportunity of a lifetime, and when Papillon had toured the house independently he knew it felt right.
Something pulled him forward even now, as he turned the rustic knob of the front door and entered the house. A peace settled over him as he deposited his suitcases in the foyer (the house was furnished with historic pieces, which was all the better for Papillon— he had no keepsakes from his life to bring with him).
He snuck around a corner and found the master bedroom. A curtained bed sat against the far wall, the four high posts towering against the low ceiling. This was a city building, after all, and Papillon felt it in all of the tight corners and thin walls.
A feeling began to creep over his skin, and he recognized it and hated it. He had always been lonely in Paris— this was nothing new. He would get used to it here, as he always did.
There had been a time in his life when he was not crushingly lonely. First, with Nennete, though that had been fleeting and painful. And, of course—
Papillon sat on the cushioned bed and pulled the curtains around him, enveloping himself in the dark. He could almost picture a face before him, painted an illuminating white, dark lips pursed and ready, a silent plea lost to the pitch of black.
He did not realize he had fallen asleep until he awoke.
There was laughing in the walls.
Papillon had unpacked and settled, and three days had passed since he stepped across the threshold of his new home. He had not ventured out into the city, only the little garden below to feel the cold wind nip at his cheeks. If there was anything he had missed of Paris when he first stepped foot on the island, besides Nennete, it was the Parisian air. Tinged with the flavor of earth kicked up by horse-carts and competing motor carriages, of bakeries firing up their ovens for the daily rushes, and the slightly floral decay of the gardens that struggled for life in the city. And it was cold, and biting, and Papillon loved it.
He had thought of it while baking under the suffocating island heat, where the occasional breeze brought only the sting of salt from the sea.
But with the fresh air also came a sense of danger— the remembrance of a life borrowed (or stolen), a life that was swiftly coming to an end. Now he sat on his curtained bed fit for a stately prince, memories swirling around him in the dark.
Had he truly gotten away with it, after all?
And there it was, a low chuckle through the wall, a hearty man’s laughter echoing deeply throughout the house. Papillon had neighbors, this he knew going in, but he hadn’t ever imagined they could make so much noise. And what were they laughing at?
A woman’s dainty giggle pierced the air next, and Papillon felt the hackles on his neck rise. That had not been— not through the wall, but almost right next to him.
Feeling ridiculous, he stood up from the bed sharply, looking toward the window. Was it coming from outside?
In the dim light from the streetlights below, he saw his dull reflection staring back. And behind it—
He turned swiftly and the figure disappeared. It had been so familiar to him that he held his hand to his chest, the ache dull yet engulfing.
Dega.
But he was on an island, a million paces from where Papillon stood now. That is, if he was alive at all. And god, if that didn’t make his heart beat low and slow.
Dega, dead. And so far away. Then it was guilt that made him see these things. He should have known.
The woman’s laugh twinkled through the air again, cutting through the ache.
“Who’s there?” He called. Not Dega, and he knew Nenette’s laughter— not her either.
A hand at the small of his back, rough but familiar.
“Please,” Papillon cried, feeling terribly weak.
That night, he lay with his hand outstretched, reaching for something he had lost long ago.
Dawn came with a rupture of church bells and voices calling over the traffic. Paris had found its calling as a tourist destination in Papillon’s absence from its streets.
His arm was numb beside him, and his cheek wet. Rising for the day, he felt the rush of cold air meet it like a kiss. He closed his eyes and pictured the past, the lips he had long ago longed to capture.
He never let himself do this, lest he be torn apart in grief. Yet, he had nothing but time now.
The smell of burning bacon roused him from his thoughts, and he burst forward from the bed to run toward the kitchen.
A figure, a woman, hair tossed up in messy curls and a white apron round her waist. When she turned to face him, her visage was blurred and unrecognizable.
“Who are you?” He could do nothing but scream at her. He did not dare rush at her.
The next moment, she was gone, and slender arms encircled his waist. He struggled against them, looked down at his captor—
Saw the slim lines of a prisoner’s gown.
“Dega?” He dared not look back.
A voice in his ear, cutting through the silence, and his heart broke at the familiarity.
“What’s the son of two schoolteachers doing in a place like this?”
Papillon had never believed in ghosts. His life was always too fast-paced to dwell in the shock of the past, not even on an island of walking and waiting corpses. The nights in the jungle had been fearful for so many reasons, and when a man passed along, Papillon did not want to believe that he was still there among them. He never wanted there to be anything more to death than darkness, a waiting grave, and eternal silence.
He had never thought about the reunion that death may bring, not even the reunion between living and dead. It was not until now that he realized, in these recent years, it was all he had been seeking.
“Dega,” he breathed with a sigh. The arms loosened around him, shimmering. Papillon made to grasp the frail hands, but could not face the man they were attached to. Not until he knew.
“I thought we had agreed upon Louis,” the voice breathed back in his ear, young, crackling, and perfect.
When he looked back, the air was still and empty behind him.
So this is how the end of his life was going to be— a mad dash towards insanity. He had evaded it once, but could run no longer. Papillon laughed into the solitary air, but the crawling under his skin belied his nerves.
He spent the rest of the day in the garden, shivering in the shade of the tower, unwilling to step foot in the house until his fried-wire nerves stopped buzzing.
Dusk slipped by uneventfully, although Papillon kept a careful ear to the walls to listen for the laughter. He didn’t know what frightened him more— seeing the strange and unfamiliar woman from the morning, or feeling the touch of Dega once more.
They had existed for so long together on the island, skin sliding against skin in brotherhood and something so unlike the touch of simple friends, something that made Papillon’s face burn bright in the middle of the night— not with shame, never shame, but something whole and holy that warmed his heart.
What he had felt when he touched those hands had been real, had taken him right back to Dega lying beside him, Dega wrapped around him, Louis—
Papillon had never been one to crave touch. A person, though… that was different. Papillon craved Dega, had for so many years since he last lost sight of him on the top of that tall mountain, sun burning his eyes as he strained against the waves for one final look.
That was all this was. An awful ache that had manifested itself in the most peculiar way.
He slipped into bed that night and, as dreams tossed him from side to side, he threw his arm out to reach for peace.
His arm landed on a solid figure, and in a fevered moment, he thought Dega had come back for him.
And he could not resist the temptation for one more glance at the man he loved— he opened his eyes.
A horrible face, blurred and masculine, and mouth gaping open— “Honey?” It questioned in a deep rumble.
Papillon shot out of bed, breath ragged, and turned to see the ghostly figure of a woman pass right through him, cold radiating to the farthest reaches of his limbs. He crumbled inward on himself, like a child’s protective pose, and waited for everything to stop.
Arms around him, again. Warm, after there had been only cold.
“My Papi,” the words a caress that made Papillon melt.
“Louis,” he cried. “Why can’t I see you?”
“You can,” the arms released him, although Papillon reached out quickly to stop him. “Just open your eyes.”
“But they are open!” He called, only to realize he had been squeezing them shut, afraid of the horror that awaited him— and something else.
He felt, rather than heard, Dega leave his side, and in frustration he turned back to his bed and felt a scream bubble up from within, red hot as it left his lips.
A woman’s answering wail drowned out all sound as he hit the floor with shock.
The realtor didn’t say anything about—
I’m not paying this much for a hau—
Are you sure it wasn’t just a night—
But we both saw—
And then, Papillon.
Papillon’s parents, ironically, hadn’t taught him much. But his mother had often stroked his hair at night and whispered what she thought were moral lessons in his ear as he fell asleep. The one that had stuck, after all of them, was the value of a promise.
Papillon had made a promise, however implicit, to Dega. He had tried so hard to keep it, too, but in the end he just couldn’t save Louis from himself, and his own skewed moral compass.
Once, Papillon had found himself laughing at Dega, trapped in an imaginary argument with the man he had left behind.
“So taking away the life savings of men is acceptable, but not taking away their life?”
He had felt nauseous the moment he said it. And he knew why— not because he felt bad that Dega thought himself damned, but because he had not been enough for Dega to feel redeemed.
Dega had made his choice, and Papillon his.
And Papillon knew now that Dega’s path had led only to death.
Now, as he muddled his way through memories and stared distantly into the light of the garden, Papillon wondered if the ending of his path was any different.
The soft light of noon illuminated every shadowy corner of the house, frightened away the terror that bit at his brain, the nightmare of the night before. The voices, so unfamiliar to him. And the one that shone through them all, clear as stolen crystal.
“Dega,” he spoke into the air from his perch on the bed, curtains wide open so he could stare at the window. “If you’re here…”
He shut his eyes, afraid of what he might not see.
“I am,” the voice came from in front of him, musical even in the dark. An image of a painted face, carrying him through dark and lonely nights, nearly engulfed in madness—
“Louis,” he breathed, and opened his eyes.
His face was unchanged, since that last moment he had stared up from the sea, holding his hand to his chest to feel his heart beating, half-convinced it would be torn from his chest to remain with its mate on the high peak of a desert island.
Beautiful, to the last, then. Papillon chuckled, feeling the weight of his age. But although terror surrounded him these past few days, he had felt younger, had imagined himself only as he once was, not as he had become. When he looked at his hands, he saw the strong and tan arms that had rowed their body to freedom. That had embraced Louis. Why was this?
“Papi,” Louis’s breath was warm on his lips, reminiscent of the island heat and the warmth of the bed they had shared, sweating against each other.
Papillon could take this torture no longer. It had been so long, though it seemed like time had left them unaffected. He reached out, and saw Louis reach in.
With a push, Papillon fell back against the sheets, and the curtains drew close together, engulfing them in pitch.
Hard lips crushed his, almost bruising, but Papillon would not come up for air. He wondered at the man above him, a tender lion where before he had pictured a wild lamb.
No , he thought, Never a lamb.
As Papillon reached his arms around Louis, he heard the laughter— from beyond the curtain this time. He froze, muscles clamming up, Louis still above him.
“Papi, listen to me,” Louis was saying. “Don’t worry about them, focus on me.”
He tried, oh god he tried, but in the light that beat against the curtain close to the window he saw a silhouette. Something to take him away, to take Louis from him—
“You have to open your eyes,” Louis was saying. “You have to realize what you are—”
He had been in a darkness like this, before. He had imagined Louis with him, near him, as his sentence drew him deeper into madness. That was all this was.
Louis was not here.
He was imagining it all.
The curtains flung themselves open, the laughter stopped, and Louis’ weight disappeared from his arms.
It was a spectacle of a building— something Papillon had always dreamed of inheriting as a boy in the streets, something out of a storybook. Something unreal.
He did not remember the exchange of money, palm to palm, or the exchange of a key, or how he had arrived at the door of this marvelous place. He remembered a flight to Paris, long ago, but not the one that brought him here.
He remembered heat. He remembered cold. He remembered a life on the streets, his woman’s touch, steel around his wrists, his own promise, the stink of an island, his man’s touch, a towering cliff, the burn of salt, an escape, a life of freedom—
And he remembered his death.
The curtains flung themselves open, the laughter stopped, and Louis’ weight disappeared from his arms. Papillon opened his eyes in a panic to search for him, and found himself staring into quite another scene.
“Édouard!” The woman shrieked. Papillon stared at her face, slowly focusing in the light even as his own body became weightless, invisible.
“What is it?” The man, figure flickering into view as he ran toward the woman, embracing her before she fell.
“Oh, it’s horrible,” she was saying. “I can’t stand this house anymore! The cabinets, the shadows in the windows, the man’s voice through the walls— and now, this!”
She flung an accusing finger that fell just short of Papillon’s nose.
“The… sheets?”
“I make this bed every morning and we always find them mussed! And the curtains— I had them open when we left, and return to find them closed!”
The man chuckled. “We do have a maid, you know. Perhaps we should ask…?”
“A maid who leaves things messier than when she arrives? I think not.”
The woman huffed. “It is unnerving. Do you not remember what we saw that night—”
“What we thought we saw—”
“A man! A man in our own bed!” The woman began to cry. “I can’t live like this. We need to find a new place.”
“I—”
“I know the cost, but god, living like this?”
“I understand…”
Their voices began to fade away, and Papillon suddenly found himself in the garden. How strange— he had wanted to be here, in the place that brought him comfort, and now here he was.
“It is a shock, I know.”
Papillon turned to Dega’s voice and smiled.
“Honestly, it makes me feel better. I thought I was going mad, but it turns out I was not the only one.”
“I tried to make you see— I didn’t want you to be afraid of them. It was amusing to see how you three kept overlapping. I know I did my part to chase them out of my house, but your ignorant bumbling around proved far more potent.”
Louis’s eyes sparkled in the sunlight, mocking as they had been in his crueler moments on the island, frustrated with Papillon or himself.
“Did you truly not know you were dead?”
“I couldn’t remember.”
“Well,” Louis’s smile was sharp. “It is the strangest thing. You don’t look any different than when I… when I last saw you.”
Louis cleared his throat, and Papillon could have sworn it was tears that were caught in that slender space.
“I did live a life,” Papillon explained. “But I was always missing a piece of myself. I had left it with you.”
Dega turned his face away. “Oh, Papi…”
“You called this place your home?”
“It was, long ago. Even with my father the way he was…” Louis gestured before him. “This place always made me happy. I don’t know how I made my way back here in death, but I’m glad.”
Papillon reached over and took his hand. “I don’t remember finding you, but I’m glad I did, even in death. I’m sorry for ever leaving.”
Dega shook his head. “You did what you had to do, and I served my penance. I can be free with you now.”
Papillon smiled, and Louis reached his free hand over to stroke his lip with a thumb. “Freedom, with you, sounds beautiful.”
“So you’ll stay with me?”
Feeling a strike of meanness, Papillon grinned. “Are you saying I have a choice?”
Surprise flickered over Louis’s youthful face, but the joke registered a moment later. “You’ve gained a wicked sense of humor in death, my love.”
“Call it gallows humor,” Papillon chuckled, leaning forward and pulling Louis into an embrace.
“Well,” Louis whispered, his breath soft against Papillon’s lips. “We have eternity to improve upon it.”
The kiss opened up the world before Papillon, light flooding every corner of the garden, Louis’s form both weightless and filling in his arms.
Eternity with Louis. This was a promise he would keep.