Chapter XX. Cecilia, Nue.
XX.
CECILIA, NUE.
NAPA VALLEY.
For two weeks I wrestled with the decision.
Well, not wrestle per se, since I knew I was going to make the trip, and I knew what was likely to happen when we got there.
But I mused on what it meant, how I saw myself, how others would see me, and whether I cared.
This was Los Angeles, after all, a bastion of liberal elite, and a place where evidently few people were aware of my existence.
But I was still firmly Generation X, and while millennials seemed comfortable being fluid and not necessarily claiming one sexuality over the other, I was still stuck thinking of myself as mostly heterosexual. Mostly.
I’d also conveniently decided my marriage wasn’t a factor.
Because Fran had already sullied it. And because, in some twisted way, I knew he would get off on the idea.
I would withhold it from him for the time being, and then reveal my secret later.
Months, maybe years after the fact, let it slip out at an intimate moment.
A lure. “Did I ever tell you about the time when…?” And then disclose my liaison in delicious detail.
Surprisingly, when I tell him I am running off to Napa Valley the week before Memorial Day because I’d been playing single parent for the past two months, he only balks slightly. He has a full six days off, including the holiday weekend, and he’d intended to make the most of it.
“I was hoping we’d do something as a family.”
“The kids and I have been doing things as a family for seven weeks, Fran. I need a break. I need some me time. It’s three days. Parisa will fill in.”
“Fine,” he says. “Go.”
“I’ll be back by Friday night.”
“Go. We’ll have fun without you.”
“Please do.”
Anouk bought the plane tickets, booked the resort, and arranged for us to rent a car from Oakland, because she thought hiring a driver was too much of a fuss.
“If we drink too much we can always Uber,” she’d reasoned.
Although she did manage to secure a highly coveted dinner reservation at the French Laundry for our first evening, which certainly seemed like a fuss to me.
“You must have the experience. It’s otherworldly. ”
At five hundred dollars a head, I did not doubt her.
But oh, what a delight to have Napa Valley reveal herself.
Her rolling hills, her abundant vineyards, her green.
Otherworldly, indeed. And then the accommodations at Solage: a luxurious spa resort replete with an impressive selection of pools (thermal, mineral, cold plunge, jacuzzi), an award-winning restaurant, endless winding paths connecting detached bungalows, and ribbons of lights strewn throughout, rendering the entire property magical, enchanted.
That there were three bottles of champagne, an artisanal cheese plate, and a dozen macarons awaiting us in our suite upon arrival was just the icing.
We had a separate living room and our own private enclosed patio, with an outdoor shower and firepit.
And in the bedroom, conspicuously (or not), one king-sized bed.
“It’s lovely, no?” Anouk smiles as we peruse the premises. “Quaint.”
I laugh. Anouk and I have very different definitions of quaint. Perhaps the word was lost in translation. “It’s beautiful. Thank you for arranging this.”
“Of course.”
I follow her as she makes her way out to the patio. The air is crisp, moist. If I inhale deeply enough, I can taste the grapes.
“About the one bed,” she says, and I turn to her. Her lips quirk, ever so slightly. “There were a couple of bungalows with doubles. But they weren’t suites. I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
It takes her a moment to read me, and then she laughs. “No. I guess I’m not.”
For a moment neither of us speaks. Someone is walking along the path beyond our walls. Their footsteps audible. I imagine they can hear us, as well.
“You’ve never done this before, have you?” Anouk says, eventually.
“Not really, no.”
“Not even at Yale?”
“Not even at Yale.”
“I thought American coeds were known for being experimental.”
“I’m Jamaican, remember?”
She laughs at that. Then makes her way across the patio and kisses me squarely on the mouth. Once. Twice. A third time. And then, “Don’t overthink it … Jamaican.” She smiles then and heads back inside, leaving me speechless by the firepit.
Dinner at the French Laundry is ridiculously indulgent.
The chef’s nine-course tasting menu, champagne cocktails, countless glasses of wine.
We’d dressed for the evening in head-to-toe black: she, in a vintage Ala?a silk sleeveless mid-length dress; and I in Jason Wu tuxedo pants and a diaphanous Saint Laurent blouse.
The latter, by Hedi Slimane, was far more rock ’n’ roll than my typical apparel, but surely the occasion warranted some rebellion.
In the Uber back from Yountville, she sits beside me, the front of her dress all shadowy lined, her thigh pressed against mine, her hands clasped in her lap.
It feels like a tease: her touching me, but not.
And for all the alcohol that I’d hoped would dull my senses, I am hyperaware.
Of everything. The smell of the driver’s aftershave, the cool of the leather seat beneath me, Anouk’s breathing, and my heart—pounding, racing—threatening to escape my skin.
My pulse thumping in my temples. Loud. I am trying to convince myself that she cannot hear it, when she turns to me, her head reclining, her lids at half-mast. “Cecilia,” she says soft, low. “What happens in Morocco…”
It takes me a second and then I smile. “What happens in Morocco…”
The first time I had sex with Lorry Kenter felt an awful lot like kismet.
He was attentive and kind and gentle, and even though the size of him made our initial attempt astonishingly painful, I knew he was the person I’d been waiting for.
That I’d found home. And in the aftermath of my problematic musician, and the ensuing self-torture, I felt an unexpected, beautiful peace.
With Anouk, it is the same. An unforeseen warmth, a sincerity that I do not anticipate. And maybe it is just my response to being adored. It had been so long. But everything about it, everything about her, feels honest and true.
We are still in the living room of our suite when she edges me up against the concrete cladding of the modern fireplace, pinning my hands with hers. Her movements deft, fluid.
“Oh.”
“Oh.”
“This is happening now,” I hear myself say. It’s more a realization than a question.
“You’re nervous?”
I nod.
“Why? What is it about me that makes you nervous?”
“Everything.”
She laughs. Deep, throaty. “Close your eyes, Cecilia.”
I do as she says. I can feel her, inhaling me.
Her breath at the side of my face. Her hands suddenly at the nape of my neck.
Cool, smooth, unfamiliar. Releasing my hair.
Fanning it over my shoulders. Her fingers at the hollow of my throat.
Unbuttoning the top of my sheer blouse. Skin moving over my clavicle, my shoulder. Her breath on my neck. Sweet.
This close, her perfume is beguiling, almost sinister. Some potent elixir that has rendered me senseless. Dumb. The id of a fifteen-year-old boy.
Her hands return to the opening of my top again. I can feel her palm moving over my sternum. She unfastens another button, and then another. Her fingers stealing inside my blouse, trailing over the lace of my bra. Kiki de Montparnasse. Obscenely expensive. This time, I’m prepared.
“C’est sublime,” she says, low. It strikes me then that I cannot recall a man ever commenting on the extravagance of my underwear, as opposed to what lay beyond it.
“Merci.” It is barely a whisper. Her fingertip is tracing circles around my nipple with an effect I find utterly maddening.
Eyes still shut, I reach out and grab for her waist, pulling her into me. I want to feel her against me. Her warmth, her weight, her need.
For a moment we remain there, still, breathing each other in.
Her hip bones align just above mine. Her stomach smooth, hard against my ribs.
Silk against silk. My hands move up over her sides.
She is so slender, firm—I want to tell her that she feels like a college boy.
In the best way possible. But I know that it will likely land wrong.
“Still nervous?” she asks, her lips at my ear. She has no idea what that does to me.
“Less so.”
“Good.”
My hands move around to her ass then, and I am amazed by how it is at once firm, full, lush. The opposite of masculine. This is why they love us, isn’t it?
Yes. This is why they love us.
Eventually, we progress to the bedroom. She leads me by the hand.
Fingers entwined with mine—lithe, delicate—not at all like Fran’s.
For a second, I picture him at home. In our media room, watching dailies from earlier in the week.
Scenes they’d shot out in the desert. Parched land substituting for an alien planet.
Different angles, myriad takes. Over and over and over again.
The monotony of filmmaking. If only he knew …
The kids were probably in their bedrooms. Julien covertly playing Minecraft in the dark, Lucie fast asleep, visions of sugarplums.
“?a va?” Anouk asks. She is freeing the hem of my blouse.
The room is dim, moody, the only illumination stemming from one of the bedside reading lamps.
Wind bristles outside in the trees. Time seems to speed up and slow down simultaneously.
The unfastening of pants, the kicking off of shoes, her black dress on the bench, my breath audible.
She unclasps my bra. Then hers. We move to the bed.
I let her lead, mostly because I don’t know what I’m doing.
Because the landscape of another woman’s body feels both foreign and familiar.
Because I am uncertain of how delicate to be, how rough.
And I am curious if all the things that work for me will work for her.
I feel like I’m in college again. The inaugural hand job that was 17 percent successfully eliciting pleasure, and 83 percent assessing his dimensions in the dark. The thought makes me smile.
She is suspended above me. Her mouth on my breast, her tongue soft, deft. Her cool fingers move across my stomach, and south, her thumb playing over the waistband of my underwear. Testing, teasing.
I flinch. But I don’t stop her.
It is tremendous to give yourself over to someone new.
I can’t stop my brain from working. From racing forward and darting behind and whirling without end.
I could use some mindful awareness, I think, when her hand is between my legs.
I could use a gummy. Or two. Judgmental Jamaican parents be damned.
Anything to pause this carnival ride in my head.
This is not her first time. Her fingers move against me.
Slick, seeking, spreading me open figuratively and literally.
Her eyes never losing contact with mine.
Watching me and gauging. Reading my response.
I am reminded of that night in Cabo. In her hotel room.
The blood. The shards of glass. Her fingers pressed against the inside of my thigh. The waves of pleasure. The way I fled.
But this time I allow it. I hold her gaze until I no longer can. Until I am completely consumed and writhing in a manner that is neither delicate nor ladylike and I’m not sure I care.
She hovers above me as I return. Her hands stroke the side of my face, my breasts, my belly, my thighs. I am shaking. In her arms. In her bed. In her aura.
In the aftermath, the moment sinks in, and the realization that something has shifted.
“Okay,” I say, because nothing else comes to mind.
“Okay.” She laughs. “Just okay?”
“Okay. That happened.”
“Ouais. C’est fait.”
It’s done.
I do not feel guilty. I wonder at what point Francois had with élodie. Assuming he had at all. I imagine with him it would take more than a good fingering. They would have had to progress to actual intercourse for him to think, Oh, wait. My wife.
I wonder what qualifies as actual intercourse in my current situation.
But no, I do not feel guilty. What I feel is light. Giddy. Like I’m in my twenties with a new lover. Or like I’m in my forties and have finally gotten out of the house. Tomato, tomahto …
“I just want to warn you,” I say at last. My eyes meet hers.
She is propped up on her elbow, leaning over me, her hair falling in her face.
Her beautiful face. I reach to tuck her hair behind her ear.
As I do, I’m struck by how intimate the gesture is, how natural.
We are already here. “I might not know what I’m doing exactly. So please be patient with me.”
She nods, smiles. “Okay.”
And she is.
In the morning, it is damp, gray. It has rained during the night, a rare occurrence in Napa at this time of year.
We take it as an omen to stay inside. Entangled in the sheets.
We order room service—fresh berries, yogurt, a lobster omelet—and we pop open one of our three bottles of champagne (day drinking be damned) and return to lovemaking.
Is it lovemaking if neither of us is in love?
Fucking, I have decided, sounds too crass.
And sex lacks a certain gravitas. What Anouk and I are doing, what Anouk and I have, feels wholly different. It lacks a label.
“Is this what you were referring to, at Gjelina? When you said you and Frederick had an understanding?”
“Did I say that?”
“You did.”
It is early afternoon, and the sun has peeked out from behind her clouds. We are still in bed, debating whether to go for a hike or a bike ride or a swim. Or none of the above.
“Ha.” Anouk smiles, rolling onto her back, gazing up at the ceiling. Her breasts are firm, small. They do not slide into her armpits as I fear mine are starting to do. “Maybe,” she says, finally.
“Do you do this a lot?”
“Define a lot.” She laughs. And then, “No. No, I do not do this a lot. Do I seem like someone who does?”
I shrug. “You have far fewer hang-ups than I do.”
“I’m French.”
We both laugh at that.
“I’m not this wild woman who has all these affairs. I just like what I like. Frederick likes what he likes. Mostly we like each other. But every now and then we get bored.”
It sounds so simple. Reasonable even.
“So what is it that you like?”
She rolls onto her side then, facing me. Her forehead pressed against mine. “I like you.”
It sits there for a moment between the two of us, her proclamation. Effortless. Casual, almost. Could it be this easy?
I allow my lips to brush against hers. Before kissing her, deeply. She tastes like sex and linen and berries. Like love, like honey. She tastes, I realize, like me.
“I like you, too.”