Chloe Bourgeois, born one warm summer night, was a rock of a woman. Grand, chiseled, and cold, the young Bourgeois was weak only to her misgivings and quite astute in deriving pleasure from the shortcoming of her peers. My initial meeting with the young Bourgeois had been in our earlier days, years before she was to become the marvelous Queen Bee or later Fashion giant her mother had wanted her to be. In grade school she had danced into a class of twenty, her lacy and poppy-yellow slippers nearly falling from her feet as she pirouetted on one leg to the other. Behind her stood her old butler, Sisyphus in posture and saintly in his patience, holding her luggage, his name unknown to her and would stay unknown til the day 2 years later when he was inevitably let go. The young bourgeois leapt along the front of the class, boundless in her steps, knocking items off the teacher's desk and then raising her leg to hit the pieces she missed. The old school master, Miss Camille, a teacher of twenty years, had not been the most fervent supporter of her actions.

"Miss Bourgeois," she had spoken," this is not the proper form in which a lady should act. Lady's should be disciplined and well-behaved. Fix everything on the desk this instant!" Miss Chloe, it seemed, was deaf to the old crone's words for she continued her performance, her one-act play reaching its crescendo. Miss Camille was quite used to being ignored by her pupils; all students would go on to listen to her in due time. Young stallions like these needed to be broken, just as her mother had done to her and her grandmother had done so before. "And slippers are not allowed in the class, Miss Bourgeois." She added. "Take them off this instance before you are sent home for incompliance!" Miss Camille grabbed Chloe's arm, ending her routine. Miss Camille's hands were crinkled and old, their once soft touch calloused over from years of her profession. Chloe looked to her and sniffed. "This is my room, and nothing you do can stop me." The young mistress snapped her fingers and at once her butler put down her things. He released Chloe from the old woman's grasp and sternly took her into the hall.

The door slammed shut behind them.

Half an hour passed before the door reopened. A secretary spoke to the class. Camille had chosen not to come back. She had been a teacher for 30 years.

I saw an ample amount of Chloe over the next few years, mostly from afar for I never saw it in my favor to speak directly to her; most people never had that option. As much as Chloe enjoyed being the center of attention, she never cared to subjugate herself to the presence of others; the only people worth knowing were the ones you could use. Sabrina Raincomprix, daughter of the Chief of Police, had come into Chloe's ownership early on, the young redhead filling much of the roll her old butler had left unfulfilled. Adrian Agreste, son of the world-renowned designer Gabriel Agreste, filled her need for a soulmate and future lover; she had no need to look for a blond prince when one lived so close to her. When he became famous, he would escalate her to new heights by being the perfect husband, model, and pedestal for her hubris. The world would see, through her steady manipulation of him, that Chloe Bourgeois was a force to reckon with. While alone, Chloe would often toast to herself, sipping from the fine wine her parents were unaware she possessed; great things came from drops of brilliance and she was an ocean. She would not drown in the mire like those other simpletons, she would go on to be greatness, a new monarch more prestigious than any Louise before her. She was a young Marie Antoinette: there was nothing she could not have.

At least it was so until she found the one thing she knew she could never have: a black-haired girl named Marinette.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng was the 14-year-old daughter of Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng, two middle-class bakers with a shop in eastern Paris. Marinette was an awkward girl, clumsy, and often too nervous to understand the extent her light-hearted nature had on others. She was an angel of a woman, uncorrupt and kind, and often the butt of Chloe's jokes. Chloe preyed on Marinette's innocence, her kindness, much as cat preyed upon a mouse not as a source of food but a source of amusement. Chloe loved to see Marinette squeal, to receive a response from her agitations for it was not often that anyone stood up to Chloe Bourgeoise. As the weeks then months went by, Chloe slowly realized she began looking forward to these exchanges. Within moments of walking into class, their battlefield now a middle school, Chloe would seek out Marinette or someone else Marinette knew to trade injuries with, a pleasantry that immediately warranted action from the young Dupain-Cheng. Marinette would respond, denounce Chloe's choices, and then the teacher would come in and end the argument. If it was a bad day, a friend of Marinette would intervene, for everyone was Marinette's friend, and suddenly Chloe's fun would be cut short; she would have to wait another day to have her daily fill of this woman.

It was on day when their exchange was cut short that Chloe began to question the nature of Marinette's interactions. It was during a warm day in Paris, the sky blue with little clouds scattered about, that Chloe had her first epiphany. The ancients will tell you, as it is so, that nature is the source of all true knowledge, but to the young Bourgeoise it seemed to be alcohol. She had been on the roof of her parent's hotel, sipping a glass of wine, when she first understood that she may be in love with Marinette. At first attributing this emotion to her sweet drink she promptly poured her glass over the roof onto the bystanders nearby, but on further deliberation, she realized her emotions were not unwarranted.

Chloe understood she had an attraction to women as much as she did men. Her appreciation of beauty began with the dozens of models, both female and male, going in and out of her hotel at a young age. The glamour, the shine of the bodies, the soft nature of the female model's skin always attracted her as much as the sculpted and stiff nature of the men. Before long, it became apparent to Chloe that she preferred the models for more than just their looks. As a child, Chloe had labeled this awkward attraction as an illusion of the eye, a dissociation with beauty and a corruption of the mind. But as she grew older, her preference towards women never changed. And as she sipped on her wine, she understood a little more of her nature.

Chloe was attracted to Marinette. She enjoyed Marinette's soft hair, her light-hearted voice, the warmth she brought others; to Chloe's contempt, this knowledge unnerved her. For it was unlike Chloe to be put-off by an attraction to someone so lowly and so abhorrent. There were millions of beautiful people in the world to make her question herself, millions of other scenarios to make her reexamine her life.

If anyone was to have her question her disposition towards the sexes, why did it have to be Dupain-Cheng?