PRIMROSE
Is this utter stupidness?
Complete selfishness?
Or could it be an amazing holiday fling like Lavender suggested?
It took until dinner time for me to realize that today is Thursday, and Thursday is the night M.
LDH said he wouldn’t be home because he had a dinner on the mainland.
It’s easy to see how I might’ve forgotten this information given that the conversation seemed to take place eons ago.
Back when our relationship was purely professional but on the cusp of becoming less contentious, I’d hoped.
Instead, those tentative beginnings took a hard right into something else entirely. That night, I was craving cake, and now I crave something else entirely. Oh, simpler times, because cake has never made me question my judgement or my sanity. Unfortunately, cake isn’t what I’m craving anymore.
How did we jump from warming to each other to being red hot for each other? I mean, maybe that’s his MO, even if it isn’t mine. “I’ve fucked a lot of women,” his deep voice echoes in my head. In fact, I’m fucking a lot of women right now.
Okay, that last part he didn’t say, but he might have.
In fact, he might be doing that right now.
And when Zoe set the table for three earlier, then reminded me the boss wouldn’t be home, I’d almost bolted for the stairs because the overwhelming instinct was to grab my phone to google lifestyle clubs on the mainland.
Organised orgies? Swingers R Us? All of the above.
I didn’t, of course, because I opted for a little decorum as I reminded myself that his sex life is his own private business and nothing to do with me. Supposedly. Actually.
“Urgh!” I tip my head back against the plush velvet cinema-style seating, irritated that I’m still unsure of the correct terminology. I’m also frustrated at myself because I’m annoyed I don’t know what he’s doing tonight, while also angry that I’m still thinking about him.
Basically, I’m a mess.
“Are you not enjoying the movie, Primrose?” Sylvie’s eyes dart my way, reluctant to stray from the screen for long.
“Of course I am.” I lightly touch the back of her hand. “Sorry, sweetie. I just remembered something I’ve forgotten to do.” And I don’t mean your father. Or maybe I do. Ack!
“We can pause it?” she offers.
“No need.” Because craniotomy by kitchen utensils is probably frowned upon in medical circles.
I just need to get over the fact that I’ve become slightly obsessed with the man who taught me it’s possible to achieve a non-solo orgasm.
He taught me so well, that I decided to revisit the experiment this morning in his office as a form of data collection verification. Or so I’m telling myself.
Sadly, my self remains unconvinced.
The Hermès monogrammed blanket lifts from my legs as, to the left of me, Felix kicks his feet. I slide him a chiding look, though Sylvie barely stirs, still enthralled by the immortal quest of an animated rat with culinary ambitions.
“Désolé,” he murmurs, brushing popcorn kernels from his legs as an explanation.
“Mm-hmm,” I reply with a little side-eye. I mean, I get it. Ratatouille wouldn’t have been his choice of movie. But also, being confronted by a hugely endowed woman getting railed from behind wouldn’t have been mine, either. At least he’s here of his own volition.
Apparently, it was Sylvie’s turn to choose a movie, and not only did Felix agree it was, but he also agreed to attend.
Reluctantly, of course. The boy has a reputation to uphold.
I think it’s very sweet that he’s here when he could be upstairs killing (virtual) things.
Because, as it turns out, CoD isn’t a fishing game at all, but a combat… game… thing.
“Do you still want to try to play CoD when Sylvie is asleep?” he whispers.
I nod my head. “I’m in the mood to kill things.”
“Pardon?”
“I said I’m in the mood to learn things.”
“Bon,” he replies eagerly. “We will play an easier version. You will enjoy it, I think.” He reaches for his milkshake, clamping his lips around the paper straw. Because it wouldn’t do to be over-effusive.
“Primrose, do you think rats can really cook?” Sylvie’s eyes remain glued to the theater-style screen, its colors playing across her rapt little face.
“Maybe if they had lessons.” I give a tiny shrug. “In any case, they’d be no worse at it than me.”
“You cannot cook?” I’m not sure if that’s dismay or judgement one her face as she half-peels her attention from the TV.
“Well, I’ll never starve,” I reason, trying not to laugh.
“I can do noodles and toast. And eggs on toast.” And eggs on noodles, I suppose.
I eat a lot of takeaway salads and pizza.
To put it another way, if Uber Eats had a loyalty program, I’d be in the top tier.
Lavender, who is by no means a domestic goddess herself, just gifted me an air fryer, so I suppose I should learn how to use that. Though I probably won’t.
“Maman could not cook.” So not dismay or judgement but… I’m not sure what that is on her face. “I heard Madeline said so,” she says as her mouth turns down.
“Cooking is overrated,” I say with a wave of my hand. “I’m sure your mum was too busy doing other things.”
“Like what?”
Like being glamorous and beautiful and loved. “Like reading you both stories and giving squeezy cuddles.” I tuck a loose strand of Sylvie’s hair behind her ear. “I’m sure she was very good at giving those.”
“She was,” Felix says quietly from my left.
“There you go.” I straighten the monogrammed blanket, then give a quick pat to his arm. “Who needs to learn to cook when you give the best cuddles?”
“I do not remember her very much, and sometimes that makes me sad.”
“She was just a baby,” Felix says, plucking at the blanket’s fringe. “I was also very small. Only seven years.”
“Sometimes I don’t remember her face,” Sylvie says quietly. “Even with her picture in my room.”
“That’s okay.”
“But what if that makes her sad in heaven?”
“I promise it won’t.” My heart pinches for these motherless children. “Heaven isn’t a place where people get sad. I know, let’s try something,” I suggest. The little girl nods. “So sit back and close your eyes.”
“Like this?”
“Exactly.” I pause the movie, and keep my attention focussed on Sylvie, though something tells me Felix is doing the same.
I don’t look. Somehow, it would feel like invading his privacy.
“Now slow your breathing.” I inhale and exhale a few times audibly myself.
“And think of you mother—you don’t have to see the picture of her in your head, just think of her. You doing that?”
“Oui,” she whispers, and then she smiles.
“Good?” I ask softly.
“It feels nice,” she says.
“Warm,” whispers Felix from behind me. “Like sunshine.”
I can’t resist reaching back to clasp Felix’s hand.
Just briefly. “That’s your heart filling with love.
Sometimes our heads forget, but our hearts remember long after memories fade.
You can do this anytime, anytime you want to remember.
” Thanks, Mum, I think to myself, recalling a similar conversation from a long time ago.
Family. It might sometimes feel like the other F word, but I would never be without them.
I restart the movie and the soundtrack changes, heralding an important scene. Sylvie’s attention is rapt once again.
“I remember her perfume.” I turn to Felix’s quietly spoken words as he concentrates on his thumb as though suddenly discovering a hangnail. “And she would dance when she drank a glass of wine and cover my face with kisses.” He suddenly looks so vulnerable, his whole heart in his eyes.
“Bisou!” His sister enthusiastically kisses the air, though her attention doesn’t move.
For once he doesn’t complain, but smiles.
“What did she sing?” I ask softly.
He doesn’t answer immediately, his expression a complicated thing. But I can almost see his mind slipping back, see the resistance and the bitter-sweet ache in the way he bunches the blanket around his fist.
“Old songs. I don’t know them. But she would always sing.
At breakfast. When she tucked me into bed.
And when she would get dressed to go out with Papa.
” His voice gets thinner at the end as though the words use more breath than they should.
“I sometimes hear Papa playing one song on the piano. Maman used to sing it to Sylvie when she was a baby.”
“Really? I will ask him to play it for me,” Sylvie asserts.
“Don’t,” he answers immediately. “I think it makes him feel sad.”
My heart squeezes for the motherless boy who looks so like his father right now that I find myself looking away, back to the screen where the rat chef is teaching his rodent siblings the art of making a beurre blanc, whatever the heck that is.
The blanket tightens and, as I glance down, Sylvie’s fingers splay over my wrist then tighten. I wonder if she’s thinking about when I’ll leave. And I will. Soon. But Emmy will be back then and I’m sure the children would much prefer her presence over mine.
The thought causes a tiny ache in my chest. It feels like regret.
But this isn’t my life, and you don’t have to be a logician to realize it never will be.
And suddenly it feels uncomfortable sitting here with these two.
It’s not exactly a moral code I can feel poking at me, but all this longing isn’t safe for any of our hearts.
And all this lust. Well, it isn’t sustainable.
These children deserve better. Emmy deserves better. And, heck, I deserve orgasms, but not to the detriment of my sanity. Luc is paying me to look after his children, so if I’m sleeping with him, what does that mean, exactly? Where’s the line?
This doozy of a revelation came to me earlier as I rinsed out the blender for the milkshakes.
I’ve had sex with the man who pays me. The realization was not only sobering, but it made me feel quite icky.
There was a whole host of other stuff that swam through my brain that I’m not ready to unpack yet.
“I would teach a rat to cook.”
Felix makes the huffing noise he seems to reserve for dealing with his little sister. But I am grateful that the temperature, the tone, has turned.
“Sylvie, rats do not have thumbs,” he says, leaning around me to flex his. “Or hygiene.” He mutters something under his breath in French that sounds suspiciously like he’s questioning his sister’s intelligence.
And there’s my cue.
“As you well know yourself, Felix, a lot of things on the big screen are vastly exaggerated.” While my meaning sails over Sylvie’s head, it’s not lost on Felix, who peers back at me, red-faced, and waiting for me to dare say another word on his viewing habits.
I flick a stray kernel from my own lap. “You also know that, sometimes the TV shows us things that would never happen in real life.”
“Yes.”
“Wild things,” I add. “Silly things. Improbable situations. It’s called artistic license.
” I widen my eyes just enough to suggest that the last term is a euphemism in itself, then I turn, slow and casual, in Sylvie’s direction.
She’s watching the screen, rapt, sad topics forgotten.
Ah, to be a child again. “But we’re all individuals, and we like what we like, so… ” I turn back with a shrug.
Felix slouches deeper under the blanket, then furrows his brow like he’s trying to kill me with brain-lasers as, in French, he mutters, “That is not what you said to me the other night.”
I mean, he’s got me there, but I’m not supposed to understand so I don’t have to answer.