When it started, it was innocent. Like all “larks,” one supposes. Of course, Eloise had always heard about the grave of Victor Noir. You don’t live in Paris or orbit certain internet algorithms without hearing about him and seeing the images. So, finally, after three years of living right near Père-Lachaise, she went to pay his unique grave a visit. To her surprise, it felt like what she had always imagined love at first sight would be. This sort of uninvited electric shock that coursed through her entire body. Not that electric shocks were ever really “invited” to begin with (unless you had that peculiarly masochistic fetish), but that was the best analogy Eloise could come up with. At least for now. Maybe another one, even if slightly more cliched, was the comparison to being hit by a bolt of lightning (but was that not the same, ultimately, as an electric shock?). 

The description of the feeling wasn’t as important as the feeling itself. And that was: Eloise was in love with Victor Noir. Before actually seeing his grave in person, she had tended to roll her eyes at those “iconic” photos of women like Dita Von Teese seductively posing atop “the bulge” in exposed black lingerie (e.g., garter belts and suspenders). And yes, oh what a bulge it was. An “arbitrary” artistic rendering by sculptor Jules Dalou that didn’t seem arbitrary at all. For while Victor Noir a.k.a. Yvan Salmon might not have been anything “major” in real life, Dalou seemed to intuit that he had that certain je ne sais quoi…down there. By all other accounts, Noir was nothing too special. Just another man who came from a nothing town (​​Attigny) to make his way in Paris. Where he felt an unspeakable pull. He could never have known, of course, that it would take his unjust death at the hands of an ignobleman to secure his rightful status as a “fixture on the Paris scene,” if you will. Who knew a phrase could be so literal? Certainly not a man of letters (okay, a journalist isn’t really that) like Noir. For true men of letters delight mostly in the figurative. 

Despite recognizing the feeling of love that pulsed through her heart and down to her loins, Eloise was shy at first. Shy about actually approaching Noir. Especially since there were already so many other “ladies” populating the site. Maybe “populating” was a bad word choice, considering the reason many women materialized in droves at his gravesite was to help populate the planet, with Noir having transcended into a fertility symbol over the centuries since his death. Though it isn’t just fertility that Noir is meant to be a talisman of. Indeed, he’s also meant to serve as a symbol of good luck for women seeking romance. Whatever a woman’s purpose in, er, coming, touch is essential to the process of making “him” work. Of ensuring that the pilgrimage will have an effect once the woman in question leaves the cemetery. 

Eloise showed up for no such purpose. Then again, she knew many of the women congregating around Victor hadn’t either. Most of them just wanted their picture taken while they were mounting him. Hence, the equal number of awkward boyfriends also present at the grave. Eloise instantly despised all of them, knowing full well that she was the only one present who possessed anything resembling a pure heart. One that brimmed with love for Victor. All of these other gits were nothing more than users. Leeches. Trying to suck whatever spirit he might have had left from his patchily verdigris body. The discolored patches being, obviously, his groin area, his mouth (most of his lower face, really) and his feet. By God, they had absolutely violated him. If the crime of rape applied to statues, then there were many Noir rapists walking free right now. It appalled Eloise, who herself refused to do anything untoward to Victor. Unless he asked. 

That’s right, so convinced of their love for one another was Eloise that she knew—somehow, some way—that Victor would find the will to come to life and ensure their consensual consummation. For fuck’s sake, she wasn’t about to rape him like all these other bitches being so casual about it. And so, every day for several months, though it pained her to see him repeatedly degraded, Eloise stood vigil at the grave. Waiting for some sign or signal from Noir that he might be ready to “receive” her. That he might, in short, reanimate…as a statue. Stranger, more “divine” things had happened in this life before, so Eloise wasn’t too worried about bothering with “realism.” Who needed that? Realism was for people who were banal enough to work a nine to five job. Eloise wasn’t that person (clearly, since she was able to appear at the cemetery every day). She was someone who believed in, as Carrie Bradshaw would say, “ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.” Noir was going to be that love, Eloise just knew it.

And her love for him had nothing to do with his “endowment,” but rather, the way he represented being an anti-rich asshole. And, of course, the rich assholes of his day were embodied by so-called royals. Indeed, a royal would be his undoing. Specifically, Pierre Bonaparte, nephew to Napoleon I. Bonaparte found himself entrenched in Noir’s life (or, more accurately, death) as a result of two rival Corsican newspapers, La Revanche, a leftist publication, and L’Avenir de la Corse, a loyalist publication, going mano a mano over an anti-Napoleon I article. At the time, another Napoleon was “emperor,” namely Napoleon III. But that didn’t stop the Bonaparte family, particularly Pierre (cousin to Napoleon III) from taking offense. So it was that the gradual six degrees of separation tying Pierre to Victor began to unfurl. For, rather than directly confronting the person who wrote the “invective” against his precious Napoleon, Pierre chose to write a petulant, fuming letter calling for a duel to the founder of La Marseillaise, Henri Rochefort—connected to La Revanche because the editor there, Paschal Grousset, was also the editor of La Marseillaise. The letter was published in L’Avenir de la Corse.

The following day, Grousset sent Noir, who worked at La Marseillaise, and his fellow journalist, Ulrich de Fonvielle, to set the terms of the duel with Pierre. “Insulted” that Grousset had sent his “menials” a.k.a. seconds to negotiate terms with him, Pierre slapped Noir and shot him, with Fonvielle bearing witness to the callously flippant murder. Indeed, Pierre tried to shoot Fonvielle too, who managed to escape death while shouting, “Assassin!” at Pierre. But, as is typical of the benefits of wealth and influence, the court didn’t see Pierre that way. Particularly since the Attorney General, Théodore Grandperret, was a Bonapartist—that bias being evident in Pierre’s acquittal, simply because his word against Fonvielle’s was more trusted (to add insult to injury, Fonvielle received ten days in jail for his “false accusation”).

The outcry over the ruling in favor of Pierre sent the French people to the streets in hordes (Eloise envisioned something akin to the Rodney King riots). To them, Noir had become a symbol of how ugly privilege (especially gross and unmerited privilege) is, of how it allows those who possess it to literally get away with murder. To the French common man, that simply couldn’t stand. Shit, it was as though the Bonapartes had forgotten all about the French Revolution or something. That the “commoner” was no longer content to bend over to any fuckhead who insisted “God” had bequeathed him with divine ruling power a.k.a. “divine right.” Human brains had evolved far too much to keep believing that shit (except in the case of the British). 

On that note, some might accuse Eloise’s brain of not being quite up to par for continuing to wait at Victor’s grave and continuing to believe in his inevitable reanimation. Even she was starting to question herself once two full years had gone by. Two years of being forced to watch other women “enjoy” him, molest him. Totally unchecked. It was torturous. During the third year of waiting, Eloise had reached her threshold for resisting temptation. She suddenly knew she was no better than any of the other “bitches” she abhorred. She realized now, she was “that bitch,” and not in a good way. What was the point of persisting in the useless art of waiting? In effect, “waiting her life away” for Victor. No, she should just take what she wanted, the same way everyone else did. That was the new lesson Victor was imparting. He was no longer a symbol of standing up against the proverbial one percent; he was, in direct opposition to that original message, a symbol of doing whatever the fuck you felt like, just because you felt like it. And, at last, Eloise could deny it no longer. She felt like mounting him. 

In contrast to the other basiques, however, Eloise wasn’t merely going to mount the statue without getting a far better reward than any photo. Oh no, she was going to wait until it was “lights out” at the cemetery, and everyone (save for the errant homeless person and any other assorted ghouls) had left. That way, she could really take her time. The time necessary in order to achieve the goal: an orgasm given to her by Victor Noir. Something that none of these other women could claim. None of them would have the balls to, goddammit. They with their precious little “IG pics.” They could never, at the very least, show Noir the respect of maximizing their pleasure in a meaningful way. After all, if you’re going to violate something, why not “go the whole hog”? That hog, in this instance, being Noir’s bulge. 

So that’s just what Eloise did, understanding that, in some respects, she was no better than the women she had looked down on these past few years. But also that, in many others, she was. Because she had the ability to assert the kind of relationship with Noir that none of the rest of them could. Or would “dare to.” In this sense, Eloise was convinced, after shuddering and moaning like a car about to break down while she achieved the desired bliss “down there,” that Noir no longer belonged to “everyone,” but to her alone. And, as far as she was concerned, that was almost as good as if he actually did reanimate like she initially believed he would.