If I were the femme fatale in a film noir I would transmute beauty into necromancy. My face would be the rock men would break their ships upon. My chiseled cheekbones, my shadowed eyes. Staring without compassion, the ageless mask of a Greek goddess.
I would ensnare them as they sailed past my island. My wine-dark lips, beguiling as a siren’s song. No wax could stop their ears against my hushed whiskey voice. Eyelids drooping languidly. Smoke drifting from the cigarette in my careless hand.
If I were the femme fatale, stark shadows of branches crossing my face like the bars of a jail cell, no man could walk away. I would be the spider woman, ensnaring them in my web. I wouldn’t be the one wrapped in thread, left hanging. A trophy caught but no longer wanted.
The femme fatale wouldn’t go back to the well that’s so clearly dry. Wouldn’t cancel plans, miss opportunities, refresh her phone every ten seconds, waiting for three dots to fill a screen. With what? An apology? An explanation? A promise: This time I’m going to leave her.
She wouldn’t wait for that well to refill.
The femme fatale wouldn’t let herself be exposed on the Jumbotron. Wouldn’t be the punch line, the side piece, the error in judgement he self-justifyingly apologizes for. The femme fatale wouldn’t wait to be caught on camera. The femme fatale would be the camera. She might fall but she would never stumble. She would fall like a rebel angel. Like an avenging fury.
The femme fatale would take him down with her.
The femme fatale might be caught in a trap, but she’d escape. She’d rip a rich man’s earrings from her ears and never mind the pain. She’d crash a car. Smash a window. Pull a pearl-handled gat from under her fur coat.
It’s always a rainy night when she gets away. Black cars, headlights like dull stars. Hair in a snood, like a medieval nun on the lam.
The femme fatale lives in shadows but she knows when to shine a light. She’s the camera obscura. The recording angel. The girl who keeps the books. Who knows where the bodies are buried, and so many are.
The femme fatale yells cut. Calls for a final edit. She pulls the page from the platen, starts a new page. Tells a new story, with an ending only she knows. Typewriter keys hammer black ink, indelible as truth.
The femme fatale does what she must. She survives.
