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The moment Christian’s fingers brush Satine’s bare shoulder she jerks away from him as if she can’t stand for him to touch her, rising to her feet and out of his reach.
With a sinking feeling in his gut Christian remains kneeling there on the Duke’s couch, stunned, his arm returning to his lap so slowly it seems as if he were moving underwater.
“You embarrass yourself.” Satine’s voice is frigid, harsh and unforgiving. She barely spares Christian a glance as she starts to walk away from him and toward the Duke, recreating a scene from one of Christian’s worst nightmares. The room has gone hauntingly silent, save for the click of Satine’s heels and the swish of her dress along the floor.
Christian knows what this is about—knows what she’s going to say before she even says it—and he also knows he won’t be able to stand hearing it. He tries to leave before Satine can say anymore but his body is slow and uncooperative. He eventually gets to his feet, too late.
Satine continues severely, “What makes you think I would leave all this—and this beautiful man —to run off with you?”
And there it is, one of Christian’s greatest fears confirmed: that Satine has believed all along that Christian isn’t a real man—will never be a real man—because of the way he was born. That she has merely been lying to him, stringing him along for her own amusement. She doesn’t say that exactly but Christian hears it all the same. It’s the underlying message in the words she chooses to emphasize, in the phrase she selected to compare him to the Duke.
It feels like he can’t breathe, as if the fabric binding his chest suddenly shrunk several sizes too small. How revolting someone like Christian must be for Satine to find the Duke—a man who treats her like a possession, a man she doesn’t love—to be a more suitable and appealing choice.
Satine laughs at the end, a cruel and humorless sound that Christian has never heard from her before. Christian finds himself recalling the last time he had made Satine giggle, a delighted and bubbly noise emitted between secret and stolen kisses backstage. Had that been faked too? Every laugh, every touch, every kiss, every promise and declaration and ‘I love you’— had a single moment of it been real or was it all an act? The spinning in his head which started after his first taste of absinthe only intensifies. Christian feels as if his world—the one he’d been dreaming of, the one he’d been so sure could exist, the one in which he and Satine find their happy ending together—is crumbling to pieces with every sentence Satine speaks.
“Your delusion is pathetic.”
She does not have to spell this out explicitly either. It’s the same word his parents had used when he’d tried to tell them who he really is, the final incident that led to Christian throwing everything he could fit inside a single suitcase and then leaving Ohio. Delusional.
He’d confessed that to Satine, once. He wonders if Satine remembers that, if that’s why she chose that specific word right now. They’d been all tangled up in bed together after making love, his head resting on her chest, Satine running her hands through his hair while Christian laid his heart as bare as the rest of him. He’d thought someone who respected where on his body he did and did not like to be touched had proven herself trustworthy to help him hold the weight of the secrets he carried deep in his soul. Instead, Satine has merely been storing them all up to use against him someday, placing the full burden of them back on Christian’s shoulders just when he’d started growing accustomed to the relief of feeling weightless.
Satine continues as she stalks back toward him, “Hear me now once and for all: you mean nothing to me. I feel nothing for you. You. Are. Nothing.”
Christian finds himself unable to do anything other than stare at the distance between his own shoes and the place where Satine’s dress meets the floor. She looks gorgeous in that dress and now Christian will never get to tell her. Even when she’s rending his heart in two and stomping on it with her heels, Christian still wants to fall to his knees before her, to heap compliments at her feet until she blushes and he catches a glimpse of the woman he loves, the person usually tucked carefully away behind the ‘Sparkling Diamond’ facade. But had the woman Christian thought he knew merely been another persona?
He’s surprised to find it doesn’t matter. He still loves her, whoever she really is. Christian knows there must be something wrong with him to still want to adore her even as she’s treating him like this but he can’t help it; she’s Satine. She’s Satine, and since the moment Christian first stood by her side he knew, without a doubt, that he’d found the place he belonged, that his purpose on this earth was to love and cherish and worship the beautiful woman who had captured his heart.
So what is he to do now that Satine has decided she no longer wants him by her side, what can he do if his purpose is being denied to him because of who he is?
In another lifetime, if he’d been born differently—if he’d been born right— their affair might have been real. Satine might’ve left the Duke’s home with Christian tonight instead of this. Christian could have apologized to her for what he said at rehearsal. He could be the one who gets to help her out of that dress and lead her to his bed. He could put his mouth on her and show her exactly how sorry he is until Satine is pulling his hair and demanding ‘more,’ in that needy, breathy voice of hers. Then he could make love to her without doubt that she’s satisfied, without anxiety in the back of his mind that she’s secretly repulsed by him, without requests that she keep her hands in certain places and not stray. He could make love to her the way a real man does. Then they could hold each other close in the aftermath, deciding where they’ll run away to, planning their future together. Instead—
Satine positions the tips of her fingers under Christian’s chin, forcing it upwards until his eyes meet hers. Her expression is devoid of all warmth and love he once believed she felt for him. There is nothing but loathing and disgust and perhaps even mockery and judgment behind Satine’s dark eyes.
“Nothing,” she says, snapping her fingers directly in front of Christian’s face, the noise resounding in his ears like the final nail in the coffin of their love.
Christian swears he actually feels his heart shatter in his chest. Satine moves past him as if unable to look at him a moment longer. Christian still stands there—gaping after her as tears roll down his cheeks—his feet rooted to the floor. As if Satine needed further proof that Christian isn’t a real man, now he’s crying in front of her. How humiliating. But Christian doesn’t even have the strength required to lift his hand and wipe away his tears.
“I think you know the way out… lad.” This time it’s the Duke who speaks up.
Christian had forgotten there was even a third person in this room. He registers the Duke’s words like a punch to the gut, looking between him and Satine in horrified shock. Had the Duke discovered Christian’s secret just by looking at Christian? Had he puzzled it out here and now after listening to Satine’s words and insults? Or, worst of all, had Satine shared Christian’s secret with the Duke? Surely she wouldn’t have. Or, then again, why not? Perhaps they’ve been laughing together at Christian’s delusions behind his back all along.
Christian stumbles to the door. He chances one last glance at Satine, hoping against hope that he somehow misunderstood, that she didn’t mean it, that she merely wanted to hurt Christian because of what he had said at rehearsal, that there is some other rational explanation for all of this and he’ll find her looking back at him with an apology in her eyes. Instead, Satine’s elegant back is turned toward him as if she were still unable to look at him.
Without another word, Christian leaves the Duke’s apartment, shutting the doors as softly behind himself as he had once shut the doors to his childhood home in Lima, Ohio.
This incident is exactly like that one.
This incident is nothing like that one.
There’s only one thing left Christian can think of to do. This time, he cannot solve his problem with a quick haircut or a new wardrobe (complete with extra fabric for binding his chest) or a ticket for passage on a ship to another country and another chance at love and acceptance. If he didn’t find that here in Paris, Christian doubts he will find it anywhere else in the world. Last time he experienced this level of rejection he had sought out opportunity.
This time, he will seek the means to his end.