by Nina Lemay
“That’s such bullshit.” I giggle and kiss him again, along his jaw and then down his neck.
We make love in the huge bed, right on top of the sheets. It’s slow and languorous, the kind of sex that’s heavy with exhaustion, when you’re too tired to go at it and just want to revel in each other, in the warmth, in the slow build of pleasure. Afterward, we’re both too drained to move from the bed, so we just stay there in a tangle of arms and legs pearled with a sheen of sweat until we both drift off to sleep, with the fire crackling gently as it dies behind the metal grate.
We spend the day exploring the city. In the morning, we go to the café downstairs for espresso and croissants; I bring the camera with me and snap pictures of Emmanuel, smiling, his hair disheveled. He’s dressed in jeans and a t-shirt—and I realize this is the first time I see him out dressed so casually, and with short sleeves that show off his tattoo. He never wears short sleeves in class. I ask him if they gave him crap about the finger tats too.
He makes a grimace. “Sort of. You’d think they were hiring me to supervise a kindergarten. You’re all adults there and seeing tattoos on display won’t damage your impressionable little brains.”
I raise one eyebrow at him. He blushes a little. “Present company excepted.”
“I actually have more ink than you, mister.”
“And? You’re not afraid you’ll run out of room by the time you’re my age?”
“No, not really. And I already thought long and hard about how I’ll like them when I’m eighty and decided I’ll like them just fine.” I lean over and trace the swirls of the vine on his arm with my fingertips. The lines are slightly raised, and in the bright sunlight pouring in through the café windows I can see the spots where the ink fell out and once-sharp edges became a bit blurry, due for a touchup.
“Do you regret them?”
He gives a shrug. “I don’t know. I’m used to them. Like a mole or a scar.”
“How old were you when you got them?”
“The vine? About your age. A bit younger.”
“What’s the story?”
He chuckles. “Behind the ink? Nothing in particular. Les vestiges d’un passé douchebag.”
I only get two words out of that but still it nearly makes me snort coffee out of my nose.
“I got them because everyone else was getting them and I thought it looked cool,” he explains. “Yeah, I know how it makes me sound.”
I wonder if he thinks the same about me and my Leda lady.
“What about the other ones?”
“That’s all I have.” His forehead creases slightly.
“I mean your hands.”
He splays his fingers out on the tabletop so I can see the two words clearly: LIBRE CHOIX.
“That,” he says, “is a long story for another time.”
“It means free choice, right?” I don’t let it go even though his smile fades.
“Ouais.”
“So what choice was that?”
“Another time, Hannah.” He folds his hands, curling his fingers under so I can no longer see the letters. My hand flies out to cover his, but pauses halfway as he hides his hands under the table.
“If it’s so top-secret, maybe you shouldn’t have put it on your knuckles,” I say teasingly. But instead of lightening the mood it only makes things worse. He slides back his chair with a screech.
“Let’s go pay for this and move along, shall we. It’s almost two in the afternoon.”
I follow him, listless, slipping into my leather jacket and wrapping my long knitted scarf around my neck. Outside, a cold gust of wind cuts through all my layers like a knife through butter.
“I’m sorry, Hannah,” he says when I catch up with him. “It’s just… you don’t like me asking you about your private things, so let me have mine. Sounds fair?”
I nod, thinking I’m the one who should be apologizing. After all, here I am grilling him about his past when I have yet to let him set foot in my apartment.
We stroll along the boardwalk, past wrought-iron benches and streetlights, past other tourists squinting in the cold autumn sun. I zip up my jacket against the penetrating wind and pull my hands inside my sleeves. Emmanuel catches my hand and takes it in his, the heat seeping into my bones, melting away the cold; he puts my hand in his pocket and we walk on. Just like a normal couple, hand in hand, openly, happily. At least if you see us it might look that way.
I ask someone to take a picture of us. Emmanuel looks amused and mildly surprised, but no more so than the middle-aged French lady I ask, who’s holding the camera like it’s some kind of relic. I try to show her how to take a picture, but she doesn’t seem to understand. Emmanuel steps in and tells her a few words in French; she laughs, responds in a rapid-fire Quebecois accent. She’s smiling at him like he’s her son. Or her boyfriend.
Emmanuel takes a step back and puts his arm around me. “Collecting photographic evidence?” he whispers playfully in my ear as we smile for the camera. The shutter clicks, and clicks again.
“You read my mind,” I retort.
“People think we’re a pair of pretentious hipsters from Montreal.”
“Well, aren’t we?”
“So you’re a Montrealer now,” he says. He turns and kisses me just as the woman takes another photo.
I take back the camera (she seems to be relieved to be rid of this three-pound mastodon) and put on the lens cap.
“You don’t mind?”
“Not really. Actually, make me extra prints of those.”
We go on a tour in a little boat where they make us wear raincoats in a noxious yellow, to keep us from being soaked from head to toe in murky, ice-cold water of the St-Lawrence River. We get drenched anyway, even though we manage to make out the whole time.
If he thinks I’m still attractive in an old-lady plastic raincoat, he might be a keeper.
Then it occurs to me that keeper or not, I won’t be the one keeping him. I wrap my arms around myself and shiver. Emmanuel pulls me into a hug, moving aside the loose strands of wet hair clinging to my forehead.
“You okay?”
“Freezing,” I say. That’s all it is. Cold.
We retrieve my purse and the camera from the coat check and move on. Emmanuel offers me his jacket but I refuse, knowing he has nothing but short sleeves underneath.
We go to the hotel, sprint up the stairs to our suite and start peeling off our damp clothes. I watch Emmanuel strip down, pull his shirt over his head and toss it aside, then unbuckle his pants and pull them down his legs. Momentarily I even forget about being cold. My teeth stop clattering. I just stand there and stare.
“Wanna help out?” he asks. I run my hand over his chest and his stomach, over the cooled skin covered in goosebumps. His belly button pulls in when I let my fingertips trail down the faint line of hair down to his briefs, and then inside.
“Whoa,” he murmurs. His eyelashes flutter and he slumps on my shoulder when I wrap my hand around his cock. It’s amazing how he springs to life under my touch, hard and smooth and hot within seconds. And then he’s peeling my layers off with shaky hands, my jacket, my sweater, my t-shirt. His mouth on my ice-cold nipples, gooseflesh racing down between my breasts and over my stomach. He pulls down my underwear, which is also damp and cold, and the heat of his mouth on me is indescribable. My legs quiver and squeeze, my muscles taut then slackening as he licks with sheer abandon. I come, my fingernails sinking into his bare shoulder and leaving behind a row of red half-moons.
Warmth courses from the molten core of my belly outward, into my arms and legs and even my icicle-like fingertips and toes. My face is flushed. Emmanuel matter-of-factly wipes his mouth.
“What,” I gasp. “That’s it?”
He gives a nonchalant shrug. “I got what I wanted. I don’t know about you.”
I grab his arm and pull him back, on top of me. “Wait.”
This is the first time I give him a blowjob. The first time since we’ve bee
n sleeping together for more than a month now. I never thought I’d like it or find it enjoyable, but when he moans and his head lolls back, his eyes closed, I understand why some girls say they like it. I have all the power, ridiculous as it sounds. He’s in my thrall. Every flick of my tongue and my fingers causes a different chain reaction. Seeing him so overwhelmed with it, so lost to the sensations, is both power and pleasure and control and everything in between. It makes me happy.
His abs tighten the closer he gets to orgasm, and his back arches off the couch when he releases on his stomach. I curl up next to him as he pants in the post-orgasm aftershocks, naked, warm, comfortable. He pulls me close and kisses me full on the mouth, none of the squeamishness of other guys I’ve been with. He whispers French words to me that I have no trouble figuring out: tu es magnifique, cherie. Je t’adore.
The last one jolts me, and I sit up. He’s still stretched out next to me, blissful. I want to ask him to repeat what he said. Je t’adore is not the same as je t’aime, even someone like me knows the difference. It’s not the same, but it’s enough for me. It is.
I get dressed while he rinses off in the shower. My nicer jeans, the ones without rips, a sleek black top. I rebraid my damp hair and put it up in a chignon. I even start to put on makeup, just the basics.
Emmanuel steps out of the shower, nothing but a towel around his hips, and wraps his arms around me. His skin is still steaming hot. “You look better without that stuff.”
“All guys say that.” I extricate myself from his grip and swipe my blue mascara on my lashes.
“Some guys mean it,” he says, and kisses the back of my neck.
“Well, we don’t do it for guys,” I retort, and pretend to swat at him with the mascara wand.
“You’ll still be the most beautiful one there,” he says. “Makeup or no makeup.”
He takes me to a restaurant on top of the hill, just a block or two from the hotel. It’s hidden away on a tiny, narrow side street; the only indication is a small door with one of those old signs above it that says Chez Gauthier or something like that. Emmanuel holds the door open for me and when I see the place, I immediately regret having listened to him and only packing practical clothes. It’s a white-tablecloths kind of place. Three sets of forks and huge crystal glasses, where the waiters are dressed nicer than I am right now.
We sit at a table in the very back and Emmanuel says something in French to the waiter who nods and disappears. I frown.
“Did you just order for me?”
“Of course not. Well, sort of. Do you like oysters?”
I don’t want to sound like a hick, but there’s really no alternative. “I’ve never had them.”
“Would you like to?”
I only have time to start pondering this when the waiter comes back with a bottle of wine that he uncorks at the table, splashing it into the bottom of our huge glasses. I watch Emmanuel taste it and do my best to imitate him, like I actually have a clue what I’m doing.
The wine flows over my taste buds like silk. It tastes like peaches and flowers with a cool hint of fresh grape when you pop it into your mouth and it bursts between your teeth.
We have oysters. I balance the shell in my fingertips and regard the slimy beige thing floating in it with suspicion.
“So I just slurp?”
“Yeah. You just slurp.”
I throw a glance around me to see if anyone is watching, ready to laugh when I inevitably screw up. Then I bring the shell to my lips and do exactly what he said, slurp it up. It’s salty, meaty, but delicate. A bit of brine drips down my chin.
“It’ll grow on you,” Emmanuel says. “It just takes a little practice.”
“Well, you’ve had plenty of practice.”
“I don’t kiss and tell.”
We have the best fish dinner I’ve ever tasted and wash it down with wine like a bottled summer day.
“Everything all right?”
I look up, only now realizing I’ve spaced out. I nod. “Yeah.”
“You looked sad.”
“No, it’s just… back home, fine dining was, like, Red Lobster.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. “And you don’t miss it at all?”
“What? Red Lobster?” The absurdity of it makes me sputter with laughter.
“No. Back home.”
The laughter dies as suddenly as it appeared. “There’s nothing to miss.”
“You must have had friends.”
“Do I seem like someone who has friends?”
He sighs. “Do you?”
I take a sip of wine, draining what’s left in the glass, and nearly choke. Someone at the closest table glances over his shoulder.
“I don’t know if you seem like someone who has friends, Hannah. Sometimes I don’t feel like I know you at all. Or maybe it’s because you’re so young… you have everything ahead of you. I can’t tell what kind of person you’ll become in three, five, seven years. And you probably can’t either and that’s just fine.”
I catch my breath. The inside of my nose still burns from the wine that went the wrong way and my eyes water. I just focus on breathing without bursting into another fit of coughs. “I know where I want to be in five years and I don’t see what it has to do with whether or not I had high school besties.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions about yourself, that’s all,” he says. Without a word, he refills my glass of wine. “Just because you were a certain way in high school doesn’t mean you’re branded that way for the rest of your life. People change. It’s not a tattoo, it’s not permanent.”
My vision frays a little around the edges. I grip the corner of the table as the whole restaurant grows dim and starts to spin around me. Through the growing ringing in my ears, I hear Emmanuel’s worried voice:
“Hannah?”
I squeeze my eyelids shut and force myself to breathe. Red circles burst in front of my eyes; when I open them, they fade out, leaving only a smattering of red motes.
Emmanuel’s hand alights on top of mine. “Hannah,” he repeats. “Are you all right? What just happened? Is it the wine?”
I look up and meet his gaze. We both know it’s not the wine, but he’s giving me an out and I take it. Not like I have a choice. “Yeah,” I say gruffly. “I think it’s time to take a break.”
Emmanuel takes exaggerated care to call for the waiter and ask for a sparkling water for me, with extra ice. I gulp air, my shoulders hunched, and wish I could just fall right through the floor.
“I won’t ask again,” Emmanuel says softly, almost in a whisper. “You let me keep my secrets and I will let you keep yours.”
I force a smile. The waiter arrives with the water, saving me from having to say something.
We walk to the hotel when it’s nearing eleven and the entire city is lit up like a postcard picture. I focus on putting one foot in front of the other, counting the cobblestones under my left shoe: one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two…
Hesitant, Emmanuel weaves his arm through mine. It surprises me how relieved I am at this small physical contact; I lean into him and let my head rest on his shoulder. Hand in hand, we go through the empty hotel lobby and up to our room.
When he unlocks the door, the room is filled with soft, flickering orange-tinted light. A wave of dry warmth and the scent of burning wood washes over me, welcoming, homey. Incredulous, I step over the threshold: candles have been lit all over the place, huge ones in the iron chandeliers on the walls, more of them on every flat surface. The fireplace is lit and a fire is crackling as it consumes the logs.
I spot a silver bucket on the counter, with a slender, dark bottleneck protruding from it.
My hand flies up over my mouth.
“Emmanuel—oh my God…”
“Sorry. I told them to do that before we left for dinner.” He looks away, awkward. “I didn’t realize—if you’ve had too much to drink, or you’d rather rest, of course…”
�
�No way.” I firmly take his hand.
“Are you sure? You didn’t look so hot earlier.”
“I’m fine.” And I am. No lie. My heart is thrumming, jumping up and down in my chest like an excited puppy. The buzz from earlier has worn off completely and heat is creeping over my face. I get on tiptoes, cradle his face with my hands and kiss him. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me.” I put my finger to his lips as he’s about to say something. “And I don’t care if no one ever does again. I just want the now.”
We have sex until we’re both shaky, exhausted and sore. I let him fuck me on my hands and knees, something I’ve never let anyone do, and it feels good—better than I ever thought. And it makes me feel hot, sexy, beautiful, all-powerful, all these things they tell you sex is supposed to make you feel like, but it never does. Emmanuel makes me come, with his mouth, with his hands, until I can’t manage a third time because the muscles in my legs are quavering and I’m so tense every touch feels like a live wire.
We collapse on the bed next to each other, no blankets, not even a sheet over our sweaty bodies. The air smells like candlewax and sex.
When I wake up, I can’t begin to guess what time it is but sunlight is pouring into the room in a blinding, brilliant river. The gauzy white curtains over the window prove to be no obstacle.
The room has cooled down quite a bit and I find myself shivering when I sit up. Emmanuel is stretched out next to me, on his belly, completely naked and hugging the pillow to his chest like a child. He’s so surreally beautiful, his face relaxed in his sleep, his dark eyelashes lowered and his eyebrows smooth. I pull a sheet over him, but he doesn’t even stir.
I swing my feet off the bed, my toes curling when they hit the floor. My head doesn’t feel the slightest bit heavy despite everything I’ve had to drink and the soreness between my legs is languorous. I stretch my arms over my head, crack my shoulders, forgetting to be self-conscious in my nakedness. Tiptoeing across the floor¸ I lean on the railing and look down into the suite.