Femme Fatale

Joan pictured herself slouching elegantly in the shadowed corner, smoking a cigarette. Smoke curling up around her face; a slash of light revealing the sardonic look in her eyes. Men shuffling nearby waiting for an opening to talk to her. If they dared. “Men cluster to me, like moths around a flame,” she sung under her breath, mimicking Marlene Dietrich’s husky voice. But then there was the line, “Falling in love again, never wanted to…” Unfortunately, Joan could identify with that helplessness far more than the powerful image of the femme fatale that she would have preferred to evoke.