Chapter IV. There You Are. #2
“Big. Contemporary. California. Lots of light and retractable walls of glass. Our entire first apartment could have fit into her master suite. And they have a butler, for God’s—”
“You were in her bedroom?”
“Briefly. Mostly in her dressing room.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Watching her put on her makeup. She was heading out.”
He’s quiet for a second, his breath palpable on my neck. He smells like spearmint and soap. “Did you tell her you were enamored with her?”
I laugh at that. “I think it was pretty obvious.”
“You really should shoot her. For your project. She is perfect for it.”
When I don’t respond he repeats it. And then adds, in French, “I think you would like that. I think you would like that a lot.”
For a moment, I’m quiet. There’s more there. Details that, even as I struggle to recall now, I know I have never shared with Francois. I have never shared them with anyone.
A stillness falls over the room, illuminating the sounds of night. The pool filter whirring in the courtyard. The frogs chirping in the creek. Somewhere a coyote bays. I feel for Leelou at the foot of the bed. We are so very far from home.
“There are things that happened in Cabo that I’m sure she wants to forget,” I say, my voice hollow in the dark. “And I might just be an inconvenient reminder.”
“Things like what?”
“Like … like I think she may have been assaulted on that shoot.”
“Assaulted? Like…? Like by someone on the shoot…?” He trails off. “Did you report it?”
He can’t see the absurd face I make. And I realize then that whatever I had told him about that trip all those years ago was likely insignificant. Barely scratching the surface. “Report it to whom?”
“J’sais pas.” He sighs and is quiet again.
“Anyway, I said ‘may have been.’ I don’t know for a fact. A lot happened on that trip. A lot.”
He nuzzles into me closer then, his body pressing against mine. How quickly he could change tack. “I only remember you telling me the good parts.”
“Of course you do.”
He chuckles, his hand stealing beneath my T-shirt, moving up to my breasts. “I thought that’s why you shared them with me, non?”
“So you’d remember?”
“So one of us would. Especially if a stranger crashed into the other one’s car and gave her a concussion.”
“Especially then.”
His hand slips down to the waistband of my pants.
Moves inside. This is how it happens now.
Sex. Fifteen years in. There’s no romance.
Little foreplay. Even when he goes down on me, my mind is elsewhere.
And I find myself imagining scenarios to make the clock move faster.
To help me get to where I’m trying to go.
The next-door neighbor’s college-aged son that one summer in Majorca.
The dad in the third row at Julien’s first piano recital.
The art student on the Métro who allowed his thigh to rub up against mine all the way from Michel-Ange–Molitor to Sèvres–Babylone, and then thanked me for the pleasure before hurrying off. In a pinch, any of them would do.
It was not always like this. In the beginning, Francois was lovely.
Young and energetic and eager to please.
Spontaneous, flirtatious, insatiable. And I could not get enough of him.
In the beginning, we were beautiful. Besotted and trusting and kind.
But time changes things. Betrayal changes things.
When it’s over, he envelops me and strokes my hair and whispers my name and does all the things I once told him I loved. And then when his breathing settles, I untangle myself and slip out to the bathroom. Semen dripping down my thigh. The smell of Rogaine on the palm of my hand. Marriage.
He is wearing the shirt I bought him in London. Black, silk, expensive. Black wool trousers. His hair is neatly coiffed, full, thick, dark. No stubble on his chin. Just cheekbones for days, and that sharp jaw, and the twin moles on his cheek, and I remember why I fell for him.
A smile eases across his face, starting at the left side of his mouth, widening, slowly. Strategic, effective. He crosses the hotel room, makes his way to me, against the far wall.
“Mais, qu’est-ce que tu fais là?”
It’s a peculiar question. Why wouldn’t I be there? Our standing date. The third Tuesday of the month. Five o’clock, wasn’t it? The boutique hotel near Saint-Sulpice.
“Ma belle.” His hand is at my throat, angling my face up to his. This close his eyes are blue, even in the waning light of the room. A deep, murky, Prussian blue. Indoors, they typically read brown. In the sun, they’re lapis. I have spent years photographing them. Calculating the right f-stop.
His hand drops to the top of my blouse. He unbuttons one button, then the next, slips his fingers inside the cup of my bra.
His mouth inches from mine. There’s wine on his breath.
He leans into me, presses himself up against me.
His teeth tug on my bottom lip. There is something distant in his eyes, something off.
He spins me around then, facing the wall.
His hands are at my thighs, working up the hem of my pencil skirt.
Black wool crepe, a hair below the knee.
His breath at my ear as he eases off my underwear, wrestles with his zipper, bends me over.
I extend my arms against the wall for support, and that is when I see it.
The wrists, the hands, the fingers are all foreign.
Fair. Young. This isn’t my body. This isn’t my skin.
I hear myself scream. And the sound sends me reeling to the other side of the room.
Where I can see him then, clearly. Doing whatever it was he was doing to me … to her.
I have awakened him. He is propped up beside me, stroking my hair, and repeating, “J’suis là, j’suis là.
” As if I might find his presence soothing.
My T-shirt is drenched, and my breath comes furiously, and the last thing I want is him touching me.
My head is throbbing, and I’m not sure if it’s the effects of the dream or the concussion.
I pull away to the far side of the bed, and curl into a ball. And cry.
“Cile,” he whispers into the dark.
“I’m okay.”
It has been fifteen months and three days since I found out about the affair.
I am not okay.