Max Von Mayerling discovered you. You were his muse...His leading lady. The beautiful ingenue starring in all his films from romance to noir to fantasy to action...

He was your best friend, a true artist and the man who made you big...You two spent hours together filming,writing and just enjoying eachother's company. The two of you gave the world new ways to dream. And he adored you.

Soon you're friendship grew...and as you bought a house on Sunset Blvd and got married...life for a few years was bliss...but then you got requests to work with other directors...Other studios...so you went. But they didn't treat you like Max did...You weren't everyone's muse. And now...turning thirty you weren't an ingenue anymore...

By forty nobody wanted to cast you anymore period. And it was driving you insane. Max gave up directing a long time ago and sort of lost his role as husband too somewhere in the mirk. The divorce happened around age thirty five all kisses and sweet whispers and wedding rings retired...but Max stayed. He agreed to his heartbreak that you two weren't married anymore...but this was still his home...and you were still his muse. Besides you needed a security guard when you went out and someone to help with things around the house. So he took to being your guard and replaced his petnames for you with the formal "Madame." Much to his sorrow.

So he lingered and watched as you descended into madness...chasing youth and fame you'd never obtain again. He watched as you chased handsome young men and wrote screenplays that would never get approved...but he never intervened. After all...he wasn't you husband anymore. He couldn't tell you what to do...

He was happy when you had a calm day...when you weren't pacing about murmuring new screenplay ideas to yourself, or inviting some young boyish thing over, or fretting over new silver hairs or wrinkles...Your easiest days you simply sat in the living room and watched your old movies...

Laughing and weeping and mimicking your old choreography as your angelic younger self lit up the screen.

You never played your early films though...never the ones he directed...too must history perhaps.

But today was different...you were having one of your particularly melancholic days...your latest boytoy had dipped and your screenplay was rejected...so there you sat in the dark rewatching your very first movie. Your acting debut and Max's directorial debut. The Ordeal of Joan of Arc.

Teenaged maidenish old you, beautiful and youthful gracefully saying your prayers, wielding your sword, donning your armor and fighting in black and white silent wars. All guided and directed by Max off screen.

Max stands in the doorway eyes wide and softening as he observes you, in the dark with your old movies you used to both adore so much. "Madame?"