Chapter 8 #2
“But do you think the diamond and the crown thing can really do stuff? Like change the future?” asked Timothy. “The professor said that nowadays people think the Greek gods were just fairy tales, but they’re willing to believe that Jesus was resurrected and Moses parted the Red Sea.”
“If there’s one thing I know for certain,” Brock decreed, “it’s that statement jewelry can change your life.”
A day later, everything was in place: I’d be a gym member with Brock as my trainer, and Timothy would be a towel boy, with free rein in the locker room.
Reggie would be an American businessman interested in opening a branch of La Salle in New York, being led on a tour by his friend Tate Banton, who had Luc’s schedule.
Luc’s regular trainer would take a sick day, and Brock would fill in for him.
Since Brock was very much Luc’s ideal, a relationship, both professional and personal, would hopefully ensue.
The gym was on a side street and rented the ground floor of a postwar office building.
There were the expected free weights, treadmills, mats, and machinery, but the walls were a sleek subway tile and the lighting was more bistro than the headachey fluorescence of an American fitness chain.
Back in New York I had the cheapest membership at one of those places that functioned mostly as a before-and-after-work hangout for single women in flesh-toned yoga pants, who’d sweat off extra ounces while trolling for recently divorced straight guys who spent most of their time on their phones.
Riding my bike, some almost-completed half-marathons, and spasms of more serious regimens had left me in acceptable-but-not-outstanding shape, unlike Brock, who today wore a painted-on white tank top and shorts designed to showcase his glutes and thighs; “I’m like a Zumba instructor in Vegas,” he decided, as we got dressed, or undressed, in the locker room before the facility opened, so we’d be ready for Luc’s 7 a.m. session.
“Gym bunnies?” asked Timothy, wearing a Le Salle de Sport T-shirt, track pants, and headband and carrying a stack of towels. “I wonder if guys have sex in the steam room over here, and if I’ll have to mop stuff up.”
“And everyone here is uncut,” Brock told him. “So there’ll be smegma everywhere.”
“Shut up!” said Timothy, as legitimate gym members began to check in, and Timothy practiced his “Bonjour!” as if he was about to distribute complimentary baguettes.
I wore a much-laundered T-shirt silkscreened with the logo of a now-defunct food delivery app (the T-shirt had been a promotional giveaway), along with the black shorts I’d owned since high school and sometimes slept in.
I was there to magnify Brock’s robust beauty, as if I were his preadolescent little sister.
I lay on my back on a padded bench, lifting a minimal amount of weight as Brock used his butchest voice to count off the reps and say, “You can do it, pal,” “Three more, bro,” and accidentally, “Atta girl!”
At exactly 7 a.m., Luc LeMote showed up, in a trim, sleeveless black top and matching nylon shorts.
Reggie had shown us photos, but he was even more handsome in person, exceedingly tall, with good arms and a face that, while long-jawed with a generous nose, exuded a privileged sexuality.
In America, Luc might have been considered a bit much or even odd, because my countrymen often value symmetry and the most conventional facial features.
But Luc made such standard, NFL-quarterback normalcy seem bland and uninteresting.
There was something discreetly ravenous about Luc, the glinting, predatory hunger of a man who gets what he wants.
As Brock adjusted the bench for deltoid work, Tate, Reggie’s navy pal, conferred with Luc, apologizing profusely for the absence of his usual trainer, who’d developed flu-like symptoms and didn’t want to infect anyone.
Tate duplicated Reggie’s solid, working-man frame and just-the-facts manner, and he was calling over for Brock to substitute with Luc.
Luc appraised Brock, who was shamelessly executing a standard beefcake-in-public maneuver, by lifting the lower hem of his tank top to wipe the nonexistent sweat from his brow.
This seemingly unconscious movement fully exposed Brock’s extraordinary stomach, which, in New York, had once caused an almost equally well-proportioned and corrugated bodybuilder to slap him.
But something was off. Luc was shaking his head no and indicating—Was someone standing behind me?
Someone even more ripped than Brock? Tate was pointing directly at me, impatiently—no.
This wasn’t possible. Had the rules of the gay male universe been tampered with? Had fundamental wires been crossed?
Brock was gracious and shoved me toward Luc and Tate. I crossed the gym awkwardly but with a shy pride, like Miss New Jersey, with her slight mustache and overly plumped lips, somehow snagging the Miss America tiara.
“Andrew, this is Luc LeMote,” said Tate. “And since his trainer is out for the day, he was wondering if you’d like to work out with him.”
“Um… sure. Why not?”
“Luc,” he said, offering a firm and, I’ll admit, dizzying handshake. Luc was smiling and looking right into my eyes, as if we were already having sex.
“Andrew,” I said, since Reggie had discouraged any false identities while the Tuxes were in Paris, because the LeMotes’ security force, which occupied two full floors in their office tower, would easily ascertain who anyone really was.
My cover story was embarrassingly simple: I was an underemployed American would-be actor on vacation in Paris, thanks to a discount airfare.
“What would you like to do?”
As I said this my face flushed, from the cheap innuendo and Luc’s ongoing smile.
“Whatever you’d like,” he said, as nearby gym members acted like gay guys anywhere, with an overlay of French hauteur: their expressions didn’t change, veiling a volcano of gossip waiting to erupt until they’d start texting.
“Your friend is nice-looking,” Luc told me, as we took turns on a leg press. “But you’re far less, what is the American word? ‘Obvious’?”
As I blushed again, I wasn’t completely sure if I’d been flattered.
We exercised together for an hour, like workout buddies since time immemorial.
Luc was well mannered and appreciative without getting handsy or slobbering in any way.
There was something coiled and withheld about him, because he was a world-class businessman.
As we were finishing up, he asked, “Do you have time for a coffee?”
“Of course. I mean, fine. I mean, good, yeah.”
Luc’s smile beamed just a bit brighter and it occurred to me: Was my Long Island ordinariness, my lack of game, the mystical catnip? Should I push my na?ve, dude-from-the-States simplicity? As an actor, I could draw on, oh, pretty much my entire life to facilitate this impression.
“So, Andrew,” said Luc, once we’d sat down at a nearby outdoor café with small marble-topped tables and rattan chairs (French cafés are Starbucks without the stale brownies and overpriced bags of plantain chips). “Are you enjoying Paris?”
Luc’s voice was almost unaccented; no, that wasn’t it—he came off as unplaceably cultured, because, as I’d learn, he was fluent in at least five languages.
Having been raised all over the world, Luc could fit in anywhere.
He sounded like the Euro voice-over for an ad showcasing an unthinkably costly sports car or chronometer.
“I’m having a great time. Your city is unbelievably beautiful, so I’ve just been walking everywhere. It’s so much less grungy and mobbed than New York.”
“New York has its appeal. You’re a New Yorker.”
Oh my fucking God. He was wooing me, which was undoubtedly his bedroom-eyed technique for closing any deal or persuading a prime minister to break a few tax laws.
I was caught between keeping in mind that I was supposed to be infiltrating this guy’s family and tracking the diamond, and melting into an adoring puddle of if-you-touch-me-I’ll-marry-you.
Here’s my excuse: aside from hookups and hookups who’d returned for seconds but nothing beyond that, I’d had two boyfriends in my entire life.
My first (everything) was Ethan, who I’d met in an introductory college acting class.
He was from Arkansas and while not quite a farmboy, still said “golly” and could play believably innocent characters with cowlicks and freckles.
We’d spend hours strolling around campus and then locking his bedroom door (he had roommates) and doing everything we’d been counting on as we’d strolled.
He’d been a great first boyfriend because we’d both been virgins, and he loved cuddling, but sometime during sophomore year, we realized there were other guys in the world, so we broke up amicably and had nostalgia sex right before graduation.
My second boyfriend was Peter, who I met online.
He lived in Bushwick while studying to become a nurse, which I sincerely believed balanced out the vanity of my being an actor.
He’d been raised in a rabidly Catholic Polish family in Pennsylvania, where he’d often visit even though his parents called him demonic.
Peter was bearded and earnest and read self-help books without cynicism, which was heartbreaking and sexy.
He’d talk about how much he wanted to get married and have kids in a way that only peripherally included me (who he sidelined as sweet but frivolous).
Because I liked having sex with him, and because I intended to become worthy of him, we stayed together despite almost daily cheating (on both our parts) and his mounting alcoholism.