Chapter 7 #2
“Let’s do it again sometime soon,” Clément said as they walked outside.
“I don’t normally do lunch,” he admitted.
“I work all day, and go out for dinner rather than lunch. I don’t paint as much at night anymore, it’s harder to get the colors right.
Daytime is easier.” He reclaimed his car from the valet, and her driver was waiting for her.
Marie-Aurélie felt a little silly having a chauffeur, but she no longer drove and hadn’t for years.
Clément had a vintage Aston Martin that looked very racy.
“I was going to offer to drive you home to impress you,” he said. “Do you still have the lovely house?”
“I do.” It was the same one where she had lived with Armand.
Clément had been jealous of him then, but that was all ancient history now.
“You’ll have to come to dinner,” she said, feeling a little shy with him, and wondering where it was going, but she had started it, and had no idea where it would end.
She wasn’t sure what she’d been doing when she wrote to him, or what she thought would happen at their age.
They seemed much too old for romance, perhaps only harmless flirtation, pretending to themselves that they were still young.
“Let me take you out to dinner first. I love being seen with you. I think every man in the restaurant was jealous of me at lunch,” he said, and she laughed.
“You’re a shameless flirt, Clément Bertrand, you always were.”
“No, I’m quite sincere,” he said. “Every man in the room looked at you when you walked over to my table. You never knew how beautiful you are, and you still don’t.”
“I don’t believe a word of it, but it’s nice to hear,” she said, as he kissed her on both cheeks and promised to email her.
“Are you free on Saturday?” he asked, as he started to get into his car.
“Of course. I’m not currently dating anyone,” she said, and he smiled.
“You might be going to the theater or ballet. If I don’t go back to Normandy, let’s have dinner. Or a movie?” She loved the idea. She loved going to the movies, but not alone. Having someone to go with changed everything.
In the end, Clément didn’t go back to Normandy, and they had dinner at the Plaza on Saturday, and pizza and a movie on the Champs-élysées on Sunday.
They talked as easily to each other as they had forty years before, and she felt as though they had picked up where they left off, and no time had passed.
He said he was going to spend the next week at his studio in Normandy, but he planned to come back the following weekend and she invited him to dinner at her house, and he was delighted.
Clément emailed Marie-Aurélie several times that week, and they had playful funny exchanges. He still had a great sense of humor, and he liked her wit, and her descriptions of things. On Thursday night he called her.
“I miss you. I like hearing your voice,” he said.
“It’s been quiet all week, and the weather has been terrible.
I think I’ll stay in the city for a while.
January is just too depressing out here.
Besides, I want to see more of you. At our age, we don’t have time to waste.
” It was a sharp reminder of their ages, and she was aware of it too.
Clément loved the dinner her cook prepared for them on Saturday. They had a delicate lobster bisque to start, sole for their main course, and chocolate soufflé for dessert.
“This is better than a restaurant,” he said as they drank their coffee in the drawing room after dinner. He admired her art, and the house was as pretty as he remembered. He loved her taste, and she had a gift for creating warm, cozy environments.
“My house is so dreary now that Mathilde is gone. All those feminine touches that make a difference, flowers around the house, getting rid of old magazines, fluffing things up. I haven’t paid attention to my house in ten years, since she’s been gone.
” Clément needed a woman in his life and hadn’t thought about it in years, until Marie-Aurélie wrote to him.
Now everything felt exciting and new. And she felt that way too.
They saw each other about three times a week for the next three weeks, and were totally at ease with each other.
They’d had another of her chef’s wonderful meals, one of his favorites, hachis Parmentier with black truffles, on a cold winter night, and they were sitting on the couch together looking at an art book she had remembered and wanted to show him, when he turned gently toward her and kissed her, and she was surprised.
She had assumed that at their age, their newly revived friendship would be strictly platonic, but his kiss was far from that, it was filled with passion and longing, and she suddenly remembered how much she had liked kissing him before.
She seemed startled when they stopped, and looked at him. “I’d forgotten how nice that is.”
“I haven’t. And I remember how passionate you were. That doesn’t seem very long ago. It’s all still there when I kiss you.” She had responded with just as much longing when she kissed him back.
“I didn’t know you were interested in that side of things,” she said discreetly, and he laughed.
“I am very old, my dear, there is no denying it. But I’m happy to say, I’m not dead yet.
And all the moving parts still function, or they appear to.
” She was surprised to hear it, and it added another dimension and interesting possibilities to their growing relationship.
“I just didn’t want to rush you. It’s been a while since either of us has had a romance.
” He kissed her again after he said it, and it was a longer, lingering kiss.
Things were changing quickly between them, and he seemed impatient for more.
She hadn’t expected that when she contacted him, or even after several evenings together.
“Marie-Aurélie, I was in love with you when you broke it off with me, and I fell in love with you again for all the same reasons, and more, when I finally saw you again the first time we had lunch. I don’t want to press attentions on you that you don’t want, or spoil what we have.
You’re precious to me, and I don’t want to lose you again.
” What he said seemed so honest and heartfelt that she was deeply touched, and he held her hand as he sat next to her.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said, feeling shy with him suddenly.
“Just be honest with me. Is there any hope for us as more than just friends from the distant past?”
Instead of answering him, she kissed him again, in a way that encouraged him to hope.
“Yes, there is. I thought I was much too old for all of this, but maybe I’m not.
Getting old is so lonely, and there is so much I’d like to do with you.
It’s no fun to be alone all the time. It’s taken a long time for me to get here, but I love what we have, it’s even better than before.
” She didn’t want to tell him yet that she loved him, she wasn’t sure, but she wanted to explore it with him.
They were powerfully attracted to each other, and she had feelings for him that she thought had died years before, but they hadn’t.
She had always regretted ending it with him when she did.
She was lonely for a long time after that.
But he still wanted babies and she didn’t, and she wasn’t ready to let go of Armand’s memory yet, and now she had, a long time ago.
They sat on the couch kissing for a while after that, with mounting passion, and he was going to leave at the end of the evening.
They had made progress that night and she surprised him by asking him if he wanted to come upstairs.
He didn’t want to assume anything, and they walked upstairs, looking very circumspect.
She walked into her bedroom and he followed her, and she turned to him looking shy and vulnerable.
“I’m in love with you too, Clément. I love being with you.
It has been so long since I let myself love a man.
I don’t want to lose you again, or do anything wrong.
I can’t even remember how to play a seduction game.
All I have left is my heart. The rest is unimportant now.
” He could see how afraid she was, and he kissed her and led her gently to her bed and slowly undressed her like a priceless work of art he was unveiling, and it all came back to her.
The passion, the desire, the loving were no different than before, only slower and more sensual, as they savored each moment and cherished each other.
She was totally at ease with him, without shame or embarrassment.
He made her feel beautiful, desired and loved, and they satisfied each other deeply, physically and emotionally.
She couldn’t remember lovemaking ever being that tender and sweet, and they lay in bed afterward and smiled at each other.
“Maybe sex is like great wine, it just gets better with age.”
“I think you’re unusual as far as that goes,” she said to him with a smile. “As I recall, that was pretty spectacular.”
“Getting up in the morning is spectacular at our age,” he said, and lay on his side on one elbow, smiling at her. “You make me incredibly happy.” He looked it and so did she.
“You make me happy too,” she said, admiring him. They had added a whole new range of possibilities to their relationship, but it was plainly obvious to both of them that sex was going to be one of the possibilities from now on. “I thought that was all over for me,” she admitted.
“It’ll never be over as long as I’m alive,” he assured her.
He spent the night with her, talking and laughing and confiding in each other until they fell asleep, and when they woke in the morning, they made love again.
They had reopened a door that they intended never to close again.
They didn’t want to lose each other this time.