The Paris Affair

by Pip Drysdale

  I grasp the cool black railing and move down the steps, searching for a building number.

  Number twenty-three.

  It’s cream and residential with those very-Parisian-shutters and, even in the dim light, I can tell that much of the paint is peeling off. The brown wooden doors are open, all the downstairs lights are on and the muted boom of drum and bass reverberates through the walls. I can feel it in my chest.

  I stare at the entrance.

  I’m here now, I should just go inside.

  But I stay glued to the spot. My eyelids are heavy, my arms are covered in goosebumps beneath my denim jacket and maybe I’m sobering up now because I’m having some pretty strong second thoughts. I look down at the ground and it sways up towards me.

  What precisely is my plan here? Just go in and ask him a bunch of questions and put the answers in my article? What exactly am I hoping he’ll say?

  I should go.

  I reach into my bag, pull out my phone and go to the Uber app to order a car home. But just before I put in my address I hear, ‘Are you just going to stand there all night?’

  Shit.

  I look up and around: left, right.

  And then I see him. Standing right in front of me in the open doorway. Waving. I limply wave back and move towards him. He’s wearing light blue jeans that are ripped at one knee and a black sleeveless T-shirt. His left arm is covered in tattoos. There’s a big jagged speech bubble with the word ka-pow! on his bicep; he looks like he just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, swallowing hard as I get to him.

  ‘Grace,’ he replies, leaning forward and kissing one cheek and then the other. His skin is warm and his stubble rough, he smells just like he did on the day we met and my pulse is speeding up.

  ‘Come,’ he says, taking me by the hand and leading me inside before I can say anything else.

  There are people in the hallway; a couple kissing against the wall to my right.

  ‘This is Grace,’ he announces as we move towards another door at the end of a hallway.

  ‘Hi Grace,’ everyone says in unison and I cringe. I’m good at lying, great at lying, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

  He pushes open a heavy black door and the room beyond smells like oil paints and turpentine and weed and dust. The music is loud, far louder than it seemed from the street outside. It’s old-school hip-hop. The walls are lined with canvases all covered in the same white cloths I saw at Le Voltage, and the shelves are filled with a selection of paints. A general mess of newspapers and comics lies scattered haphazardly.

  All around us swirl people I don’t know – dancing, drinking, looking at us as we move through – but Noah keeps hold of my hand and leads me to a sort of kitchenette. He opens a fridge and pulls out a bottle of champagne as I lean back on a counter and watch him. He pours us each a drink and then hands one to me with a wink. ‘I’m glad you came,’ he yells over the music.

  ‘Me too,’ I yell back, taking a sip but not breaking eye contact, not even for a moment.

  ‘Are you going to show me some of your work in progress?’ I ask loudly, reminding myself that I’m here for a reason. But he frowns – did he hear me? – and so I point to the covered up canvases.

  ‘What?’ he yells, bringing his face in right beside mine so he can hear me.

  But now I can smell his shampoo. Muted peppermint.

  ‘Are you going to show me some of your work in progress?’ I say into his ear.

  He turns to me, and I can feel the warmth of his breath on my ear as he says, ‘Hell, no. I still haven’t recovered from being told I’m like Berthe.’ Then he pulls away and he’s grinning.

  And I’m grinning too; my pulse is tapping fast.

  He reaches for my wrist and pulls a Sharpie out of his back pocket. ‘But I am going to brand you.’ I watch as he draws something on my inner wrist: it’s round on one edge and jagged on the other. It’s half a broken heart.

  ‘Is this some sort of warning?’ I shout over the music, eyebrows raised.

  ‘No.’ He laughs, letting go of my wrist and leaning in close again so I can hear him. ‘It’s just so nobody asks you to leave. This is a very exclusive party, you know,’ he mocks.

  Then his eyes shift; he’s looking past me, focusing on something over my shoulder. He smiles at whoever it is. Waves. And I turn to look: it’s a guy of about fifty in a green velvet jacket.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ Noah says to me, touching me on the shoulder as he moves past me towards the man. So I lean back against the counter, sip my drink and watch him go.

  That’s when I see Sabine.

  His model.

  I recognise her immediately – the red hair, the pale skin, the vulpine face. She’s wearing a pair of black jeans and an olive green netted top, and is talking to a guy with a long, limp brown ponytail.

  Everyone else is either huddling in small groups or swaying on the dancefloor. I don’t know anyone and nobody is talking to me. And even if I wanted to try to make conversation – which I don’t, I hate small talk – they’d probably speak French and I’d get lost after the introductions.

  So instead, I sip on my drink, pull out my phone, scroll through Instagram and wait for Noah to come back.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later I’m getting annoyed. Noah has moved on from the guy in velvet to another guy of about twenty-two in baggy light denim jeans and now to a small group of girls. And I’m still standing here in the kitchen, trying to pretend I’m not watching him and feeling awkward. One of the girls he’s talking to laughs. She’s got long, pin-straight dark hair and it shimmers like onyx under the light. She looks like she’s in a shampoo ad as she throws her head back in that flirty way girls do. I can feel myself wanting to go over, to try to pull him back to me, like he’s some prize to be fawned over. I used to feel that way about Harrison too.

  I shouldn’t have come here.

  So I down my drink, leave the glass on the countertop, set my eyes on the door and head in that direction. I’m almost free and clear when a hand reaches out, grabs mine and stops me.

  ‘Hey,’ comes his voice. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘You seemed busy and I don’t really know anyone…’

  ‘I’m not busy,’ he says, pulling me close so he can whisper in my ear, ‘I’ve run out of weed. I was asking around.’

  Goosebumps.

  I can smell the booze on his breath and my skin is getting warm.

  Then someone yells something and turns the music up louder. Tupac, ‘All About U’.

  ‘I love this song,’ Noah yells over the music, ‘come.’ He takes my hand and leads me to the makeshift dancefloor.

  Everyone is yelling and the walls spin around me as I sway side to side. There are four piña coladas and a glass of champagne pumping through my veins right now and I haven’t eaten since a chocolate croissant at 11 am. I’m worried that if I don’t hold onto something and keep moving around like this I’ll topple over. So I drape my arms around Noah’s neck and his hands land on my hips. We’re barely moving, and that suits me just fine. I’m trying to remember what I wanted to ask him, why I came here, because right now all I can think about is the heat of his chest pressed against me. I look up at him, he’s watching me and it puts my heart out of rhythm. I look away. To the side. And that’s when I catch sight of his model again. Sabine.

  She’s watching me.

  Watching us.

  Wait, no, it’s more than that: she’s videoing us.

  She’s holding her iPhone at chest level, but it’s pointed right at us and she keeps glancing down at the screen like she’s checking her framing. This is just like what she was doing the other night at the gallery.

  I don’t want to be videoed.

  A wave of heat flows through me. I need water.

  I look back to Noah, he’s grinning down at me.

  ‘I’m thirsty,’ I say, moving back to the kitchen. Noah
follows me.

  ‘Hey, are you okay?’ He places his palm on my lower back as I reach for a glass, rinse it out and fill it with water.

  ‘Yeah, I just feel weird,’ I say. ‘Dizzy.’ I take a sip of water and glance back towards Sabine. I can’t see her anymore. She must have moved on to someone else now.

  ‘Come,’ he says.

  We move out of the studio, into the hallway and through a steel door that looks like it might lead to a parking garage but doesn’t. Instead, it leads to a set of brightly lit cement stairs that smell of damp. He’s already taking them two at a time.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask as I grab onto the bannister and follow him up.

  ‘To get you some air.’ He smiles back at me.

  Soon we’re at the top, I’m breathless and he’s pushing open another big metal door. A gush of air as cool as a supermarket freezer hits my cheeks. He moves aside to let me pass and then the door clicks shut after us; the quiet is a relief. A single light glows from above the door.

  We’re standing on a small rooftop. There’s a sturdy cement barrier in front of us and some sort of ramshackle tin shelter in the corner of the back wall. There’s something underneath it, pushed up against the bricks: a couple of striped deckchairs. He flicks a switch and a series of small orange lanterns glow on the periphery.

  A breeze catches my hair, and I hold it in one hand as I follow Noah towards the wall and look out at the view: the twinkling lights of Paris sprawl before us like a big black velvet blanket covered in sequins and glitter. I can see the glow of the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

  ‘It’s beautiful, right?’ he asks.

  I nod.

  ‘Better up here?’

  ‘Much better,’ I say. We’re standing close enough that our arms are touching. His hands on the railing are big and rough and his nails are flecked with paint. I gaze at his wrist. His forearm. His bicep. Without thinking, I reach out and trace the ka-pow tattoo with my finger.

  ‘This is cool,’ I say, as our eyes meet. Something changes behind his. I try to read it in the low light but I can’t.

  ‘I got it for my little brother,’ he says, his voice cracking as he pulls a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. He offers me one and I take it. He lights his first, then holds it up so I can light mine off the end.

  ‘He likes comics?’ I ask, leaning in and touching the end of my cigarette to his. I inhale deeply and our eyes meet.

  He grins and his teeth catch the light. ‘He loved them. Was always asking me what my superpower was.’ His Adam’s apple bobs and he lets out a big breath. ‘He passed away last year.’ Then he takes a drag and looks back out towards the Eiffel Tower.

  Shit.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, my voice faltering as I reach out to touch his arm. When someone is in a lot of pain, you can almost see it pulsing off them. Like steam from a pavement in summer. And that’s what it’s like with Noah right now.

  ‘It’s all over, just like that,’ he says, clicking his fingers. ‘Puts things in perspective.’

  We stand there for a little while, just looking out at the lights. The Eiffel Tower begins to twinkle the way it always does in the first five minutes following the change of the hour, and I wonder what the time is. Eleven? Twelve? My hair whips around in the cool breeze and I regather it to one side, trying to control it as my mind whirrs. I’m not sure what to say now. It seems insensitive to just change the subject but what if he doesn’t want to talk about his brother?

  ‘Is he why you started using comics in your work?’ I ask eventually.

  ‘Sure is,’ he says, turning to look at me. ‘You’re quite the perceptive one, aren’t you?’

  ‘I have my moments.’ I smile.

  His eyes narrow and he starts to nod. ‘I see what you do, you know,’ he says. ‘You ask all the questions but give nothing away. I’m onto you…’

  ‘Or maybe you’re just so self-obsessed you don’t ask anything back,’ I quip back.

  He grins and stubs out his cigarette on the wall. Then I do the same.

  ‘So tell me something. Anything about you,’ he says.

  ‘Ask me a question.’

  ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘What would your superpower be?’ And there’s something flirty in his tone, in the flicker behind his eyes, but I don’t bite. Not yet.

  ‘Right…’ I laugh. ‘Well,’ I say, taking a moment to think.

  Say something cute.

  ‘I can kind of read what people are thinking.’

  ‘Really?’ he asks, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Yes.’ I nod a knowing nod.

  ‘So what am I thinking right now?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ I say, squinting my eyes and bringing my forefingers to my temples. ‘Right now you are wondering if I can really read what you’re thinking.’

  He laughs. ‘Impressive.’

  ‘Right?’ I say. ‘Now your turn. Tell me something.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ he asks, his eyes locked on mine.

  I pretend to think about it but I’ve used this line many times before.

  ‘What would I find if I looked through your search history?’

  He starts to laugh. ‘What kind of bullshit question is that?’

  ‘You can tell a lot about a person from their search history.’

  ‘That’s probably true. But I’m an artist, Grace.’ I flinch as he uses my fake name. I want to hear him say my real name. ‘You can tell what I care about from my work.’

  I think of all the paintings of Sabine. ‘So you and Sabine…’

  ‘She’s just a model.’ He smiles. ‘A stand-in. Why, are you jealous?’ His smile turns to a grin.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘A stand-in for who?’

  ‘For someone I’m still looking for.’ He winks.

  ‘Right…’ I say, breaking our gaze. Because now he’s the one using a recycled line, one he’s probably used a million times before, but my heart is dumb as shit and she’s banging so hard against my ribs it’s like she wants to jump from my chest into his.

  ‘Any other questions?’ he asks, his arm touching mine.

  ‘Oh, just whatever you’re most scared to tell me.’ I smile, our eyes meeting again.

  ‘Sure,’ he says, and we both turn to face each other. ‘If you think you can handle it.’

  ‘Of course I can handle it,’ I say.

  He reaches forward and tucks a piece of hair behind one of my ears, and says, ‘I think I like you, Grace.’

  My breath is shallow and the dizziness is back.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asks.

  His eyes are sparkling like the fucking Eiffel Tower and we’re standing on a rooftop in Paris. And I may not believe in love, I may not do the love stuff, but that doesn’t mean I’m immune to the rush. My brain pumps out the same lethal cocktail of dopamine, serotonin, norephedrine, oxytocin, and all the other things that shut down our critical thinking faculties better than a bottle of gin. The only difference between me and the rest of the world is I know I’m high.

  And high people shouldn’t make decisions.

  I hear my voice crackle as it says, ‘Nothing.’

  And then I stand there, my pulse thumping in my throat as he takes a step towards me. And just like that I know what’s going to happen next. He leans in and I lean forward too. His mouth meets mine and he tastes like metal and salt and booze.

  His hands are in my hair and he’s pulling me towards him; he’s so warm. But then something cold hits my cheek. Then my forehead. It’s raining. We both pull away and look up at the sky as the downfall starts in earnest. I squeal as he takes me by the hand.

  ‘Over here,’ he says, leading me to the shelter in the corner of the roof.

  We stand there for a moment, under cover, leaning against the deckchairs, his arms around me as we listen to the rain pelting harder and harder on the tin above us. Both grinning like idiots. A bright ‘ping’ sounds in the darkness and he pulls his phone from his pocket, glances down at the
screen and then places it beside us on a big metal barrel with an ashtray on top of it. Then he turns to me slowly.

  ‘Where were we?’ he asks.

  And I could leave right now before this goes any further. Dash through the rain, run back down those stairs. Call an Uber. That would be the sensible thing to do.

  But here’s the thing: I don’t want to.

  So instead, I reach into my handbag, and feel around in the front pocket for a condom. I find one, place my bag on the floor, stand on my tippy-toes and kiss him. His tongue moves into my mouth and he pushes me against the wall. I can feel him under his jeans, pushing against my leg and I reach for his zipper but I don’t pull it down. And all I can hear is the rain and our breath as his hands reach under my skirt, up to my hipbones and gently tug at the edges of my underwear.

  Slowly, he begins to peel them down to my thighs.

  ‘Is this okay?’ he asks, pulling away for a moment.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, my voice croaky. Now they are down to my knees and he’s crouching in front of me, and I’m stepping out of them. He stands up again, his hands on my face, his eyes looking straight into mine. I reach for his zipper and pull it down this time; it sounds out in the low light.

  His eyes are still on mine as I press the condom into the palm of his hand.

  ‘Prepared?’ He smiles.

  ‘Always,’ I whisper.

  I hear the sound of the wrapper tearing and wait as he puts it on. Then he leans in and starts kissing me again, lifting one of my legs up around his waist. He’s touching me now and I can feel the tip of his tongue on mine; the rain has stopped and all I can hear is my heartbeat and his breath. And then he pushes himself inside me.

  I inhale sharply; a split second of pain. But then we’re moving, slowly. He lets out a small groan, my hands are in his hair, he’s grabbing onto my hips, his stubble is on my cheek and we’re moving together now. It’s just his breath then mine, his, then mine, his, then mine. I can hear him moan in my ear, and then I can hear—

  Wait. What was that?

  A creak. A shuffle.