by Nina Lemay
Our clothes are still strewn all over the floor below. One shoe in one corner, another by the window, pants, a belt. My panties are hanging off the railing of the spiral staircase. And to be fair, I’m in no rush to put them back on.
Naked, I creep down the stairs and climb into the shower. With the hot water on full blast, I stand under the stream and let it comb through my tangled hair and run down my shoulders, loosening my muscles.
I haven’t been there for two minutes when the door slides aside and Emmanuel steps into the cabin behind me. “Morning.” He kisses the back of my neck. “Sleep all right?”
I tense a little. I’m not used to having someone in the shower with me—actually, I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone else in the shower with me. My ex certainly wanted nothing to do with my grooming procedures unless it was to pester me for hot-tub sex in his parents’ back yard. And anyway, my shower has always been my me-time, my ten minutes of mindless relaxation, letting thoughts stream through my mind as hot water streamed down my body. Having someone else in my space is weird. Especially him. I don’t want him to see me with my face steamed red and pruney fingers and my eyelashes all struck together as I try to blink the chlorine out of my eyes.
Self-conscious, I step out of the stream—so that he can step in, and so that I can wipe my eyes and move the wet hair out of my face.
Emmanuel’s hands rest on my hips and he pulls me closer. My feet slip and slide on the tiles as I resist the pull. “Watch out. You want me to fall and crack my head open on the tiles? Good luck explaining that one to the ambulance people.”
“I’d catch you.” He aims his kiss for my lips, but I turn my head and he gets my temple.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I murmur. I stop fighting and let him draw me close, my water-slick skin against his. I try to relax but it’s proving difficult.
“Do you want me to get out?”
I don’t answer. The steam covers the fact that I’m blushing. “That’s okay. I was done anyway.”
“Stay. Keep me company.”
I look up at him, his wet hair clinging to his forehead in shiny ringlets, water pearling on his stubble. No artifice, no self-consciousness. He’s so perfect my heart hurts.
He leans past me to get a loofah and one of the hotel shower gel bottles, his naked, wet torso brushing against mine as if by accident. And then he starts to scrub my shoulder, working up a citrus-scented lather. He rubs my skin in small, careful circles, like I’m something delicate, a work of art.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t tell me no one’s ever rubbed your back before.”
No one has. But he doesn’t need to know that. So I let him unknowingly be the first to rub my back. He massages between my shoulder blades, over the top of my arms, down to the small of my back.
Before he can get any lower, I turn around and take the loofah from him. He lets me wash his chest and stomach, suds sliding in rivulets down his legs to swirl around our feet. He holds me close as the water runs over both our heads, and the feel of his taut, soapy body against mine isn’t bad. Not at all. I rest my forehead on his shoulder and let the shower stream course through my hair as he continues to make small circles with the loofah, all the way down the groove of my spine. I feel his cock harden against my thigh and reach for it, but he doesn’t let me pull away. He just holds me, kissing along the slope of my shoulder, his hands massaging my lower back while his cock is pressed between his hip and my stomach, hot and throbbing. I feel myself melt into him, getting turned on despite the water and the thick steam that makes it hard to see and even harder to breathe. I sway against him, the soap slick between our bodies, and we rock back and forth like this until with a soft moan he gives in and pulls away enough for me to reach down and take care of him. He presses his hands into the glass walls of the shower as he comes, his legs quivering with tension, his navel pulling in, his head thrown back. Then he collapses and puts his arms around me. I feel his chest rising and falling rapidly against mine.
He murmurs something in French and I feel his fingertips trailing over my stomach, making me shiver in spite of the heat and steam. They circle my belly button, then my hipbone. His fingers slip inside while the heel of his hand rubs my clit, and I come within minutes, nearly losing my balance so he has to steady me.
Clad in nothing but a towel around my hair, I go out into the main room. The air feels extra-cold on my overheated skin and I gulp it greedily, finally able to catch my breath. My hands are pruney and my whole body is covered in red blotches because of the hot water.
Surprisingly, I couldn’t care less.
I dry my hair in front of the window, with the breeze gently billowing in the white curtains. Either way there’s no one to see me—no windows on the other side, just the expanse of the city below the hill. I watch it, the distant river sparkling like liquid diamonds in the sunshine, the colorful blotches of yellow, orange and red trees, the stretch of the boardwalk.
The sharp snap of a shutter makes me jump. I look over my shoulder. Emmanuel is standing a few feet away, the camera in his hands, the shiny dark eye of its lens trained on me.
Even as I spin around, I hear another click.
“What the hell are you doing?” I wrap my wet towel around my torso and knot it so it doesn’t fall down.
“You looked so lovely,” he says. “The light on you, and those curtains, and the curve of your back. I couldn’t help it.”
“Well, I wish you did.” I walk away from the window, to where my I’d left my jeans hanging over the back of one of the barstools.
“Don’t worry,” Emmanuel says, in a light tone—like it’s not a big deal. “You can’t see anything, ah, incriminating. Just a part of your back. You have a beautiful back, anyone ever tell you that?”
But the compliment rolls off me like soap suds under scalding water. “I don’t care. I’d really appreciate it if you refrained from taking pictures of me when I’m buck naked.”
“Hannah.” He lowers the camera. “You can’t even tell it’s you. It was really just a part of your shoulder, you can’t even see your tattoos.”
“I never said you could do that.” I cross my arms on my chest, holding the towel in place when it starts to slide down.
He puts the camera down on the counter, lightly like an active grenade that could blow up in his face any second. He takes a hesitant step toward me. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. “It was out of line, the film is yours anyway, just destroy it if you want.”
I gulp. Taking a step back, away from him, I awkwardly hop on one foot as I struggle to pull the skinny jeans up over my still-damp legs. My shirt is next, and then the hoodie that I zip up all the way to my throat.
“I didn’t mean to freak you out like that,” Emmanuel says. I storm past him to my duffel bag in the corner and start to rummage through it for clean socks.
“Hannah.”
Sitting on the floor, I take longer than necessary to put on the socks and then my sneakers, carefully lacing up each Converse high-top and making a double butterfly knot.
“Hannah, I’m sorry. I’ll never do that again.” There’s a note of exasperation in his voice. His shadow falls over me and I look up at him, looming above me.
“Yeah, go on, say it,” I snap.
“Say what?” a frown creases his forehead.
“The thing you’re thinking right now. Bitch got issues.”
He flinches, like the word actually hurt him. “Please don’t say things like that.”
“Why not?” I scramble to stand up. I’m still not face to face to him, not by a long shot, but it’s better than cowering at his feet. “You thought it. She can show her tits to a bunch of strange men and split her legs on stage. But I can’t take a classy little picture of her back without her throwing a fit like I’m trying to kill her.”
I watch for a reaction, for any twitch or grimace that might give away what he’s thinking. But his face smooths out. Except f
or his eyes narrowing, you couldn’t tell he’s mad at all.
“Is that how you see it?”
“You could have asked. And not just assumed I’d be up for casual artistic nudity because of what I do. On my own time. As a job, to make money.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask. But I didn’t assume any such thing.” He draws in a sharp breath. “When have I ever assumed anything? I can’t assume a thing about you. You never let on what’s going on in your head. You never tell me what you’re thinking, what you want or what makes you angry. I’m left to try and puzzle everything out. I feel like I’m constantly navigating a minefield with you, trying to figure out how to avoid hitting one of your sore spots. And I don’t know if I have until it’s too late and you’re lashing out at me.”
There’s a single sharp worry line between his eyebrows, and his eyes, when I look in them, are full of hurt. A flush of guilt creeps over me and I immediately get angry at myself for letting him get to me like this. The puppy-dog eyes won’t work this time.
“I was not lashing out. You were—”
“It’s not just the photo. I agree, the photo was uncalled for. But it’s everything. I ask you something perfectly normal, about your friends or your hometown, and you look like you’re about to have a panic attack. You won’t tell me why and you won’t even tell me what not to ask so that I don’t stumble over the same thing again fifteen minutes later. How do you expect me to behave?”
I wrap my arms around myself. “I thought we agreed. No overstepping.”
“Fine. We’ll just meet a couple of times a week, fuck without saying a word to each other, and then part ways with a kiss on the cheek. Does that sound like a better idea?”
“Isn’t that what it is to you anyway? Just an adventurous weekend fuck? Nothing serious?”
We face each other. I’m not sure which one of us is more stricken by the words I’ve just blurted out.
His chest rises and falls. I see his throat move as the sorrow line on his forehead deepens. I mentally berate myself with every word I can think of, my resolve evaporated without a trace along with all the vitriol I was feeling two seconds ago.
“I have no idea,” he says slowly. Just like every time he’s agitated, his accent deepens, becomes more pronounced. “Aucune idée. I don’t even know anything about the person I might be falling for. And yeah, maybe I sound like a damn coward for saying that, but it terrifies me.”
Ice claws grip my heart. I look at him, at this beautiful man, way better than anything I’ve ever had or anything I deserve. And I want to tell him everything, spill my sad little life story at his feet, all the little disappointments and the shortcomings and the almost-there-but-not-quite times, all the times when I’d been fatally wrong, which are so much more numerous than the times I had been right. But I don’t do it, and not just because I’m convinced he won’t want me—he already knows way too much about me and somehow he’s still here. No. Because I’m convinced I won’t let myself have him if he knows the loser Hannah, the idiot Hannah, the cowardly runaway Hannah. I won’t be able to bear seeing her reflected in his eyes whenever I look at him. I won’t be able to live with the fact that he’s the catch and I’m just the charity case he’s infatuated with for some weird reason. I don’t want to be the girl everyone whispers about, what on earth does he see in her?
So I do the only thing I have left to do. I cross the distance between us and kiss him, catching him unawares, our lips violently colliding, our teeth clashing. I kiss him until he kisses me back, and then we’re swept away, hands and lips, sunshine and dust. We fuck without saying a word, just like he said, and the irony isn’t lost on either of us. He doesn’t ask me what I want, I don’t guide his hands to the right places. His face is so close to mine it’s out of focus and I know he can see me like I can see him, everything, every pore and beauty mark, the prints my jeans left on my hipbones after he eases them off, the stray shin bruise. There’s no room for self-consciousness, for flattering poses and good angles.
The towel around his hips falls away and he’s hard, gloriously hot and thick and smooth, ready. Neither of us even thinks about the condoms that are up on the mezzanine, on the nightstand—that might as well be on another planet right now, and if we break away from each other something’s going to happen and it’ll be irreparable.
I ignore the soreness that makes me hiss with a mix of pleasure and pain as he pushes in, and either way, it soon fades, dissolved in the heat of our bodies. The skin contact is raw, wet heat, exhilarating and frightening at the same time—the ultimate surrender, thrill and terror. In the back of my mind I briefly wonder what I’m doing, try to remember if I even took my pill this morning.
It’s the first time he’s ever like this. Rough, aggressive, pounding my hips mercilessly into the couch. He flips me over onto my stomach and crushes me with his weight as his hips slam into mine with that wet smacking sound that would disgust me if I could even think about it long enough. I can’t tell how we move from the couch to the floor. I’m only aware of the ropey muscle and sinew in his arms as he pushes himself up, his hair falling over his forehead. He drives himself in deeper with every thrust like he’s trying to nail me to the floor. Something within me, deep in my belly, builds and builds until I can almost reach it. My lower back goes numb, I hoist myself up on my elbows and he catches my nipple with his mouth, sinking in his teeth hard enough for me to gasp in shock, if not in pain.
Electric pleasure bursts in my lower belly, tearing a cry from my lips. My thighs squeeze, pulling him in until I realize he’s struggling against me, trying to push me away. He groans through clenched teeth and I feel him pulse, spilling hot inside me. I unclench my thighs and he pulls out, too late but in time to spill a few more drops on my stomach.
He curses in French. Punches the floor. He’s panting and sweat beads on his forehead and his chest. The sharp, musky smell of sex fills the air.
We gape at each other, still in shock at what just happened.
“Do you—are you—”
“I’m on the pill. Don’t worry about it.”
“I was trying to—why did you—”
“It’s okay.” I reach over and brush his hair out of his forehead. His eyelids are heavy with the post-sex serotonin. This is the moment when most men say something they’ll later regret, like I’ll buy you those earrings you wanted or I’ll call you tomorrow or I’m starting to fall for you.
I don’t know how, but I start to laugh. I cover my mouth with my hands, but I can’t help it, hilarity is bursting forth, my belly quivering, my ribs contracting. Pretty soon I’m all but rolling on the floor.
“What is it?” Emmanuel is looking at me with alarm written plainly on his face, which only makes me laugh more. “Hannah, are you all right? What’s funny?”
I catch my breath until I almost regain my ability to speak.
“We do everything, backwards, you and I. Don’t we?”
The day passes in a tangible awkwardness. We still walk hand in hand like a proper couple even though we’re anything but. We visit little art galleries that line the main street of the Vieux Quebec core, everything ranging from glorified souvenir shops to enormous lofts with ten-foot-tall, $10,000 abstract masterpieces lining the walls. In a photo gallery, we linger in front of a series featuring raw, grainy black-and-white close-ups of a sex act, an anonymous penis and vagina through every stage of the process, every fold and vein and ingrown hair depicted in unflinching detail.
It makes the picture Emmanuel took of my naked back seem downright chaste.
“So,” he says, elbowing me in the ribs when the gallery employee is out of earshot. “How about this one for the living room, huh?”
I tilt my head: it’s a view from below of a vagina being penetrated. I can see a smear of wetness on the shaft, the glossy skin inside of the labia like a fruit split in two. Something about it, even despite the porny pose, is just so asexual. There’s no love, no tension, I’m not even sure if there’s lust
. Just mechanics. Preoccupation with detail at the expense of the bigger picture.
When we’re back outside, leaving the gallery with its blacked-out windows and 18+ sign behind, I tell him so.
“Cheap shock tactics,” he says, waving his hand. “Who hasn’t done it. It catches the eye… no joke… but it doesn’t have anything to say.”
“I thought you liked sex without words.”
His gaze lingers on mine for just a second too long before he answers:
“Sex without words is just biology. There’s no art in it, just an exact science.” He chuckles, but he won’t look at me again. “And I was never very good with exact sciences.”
He showers me with gifts through the rest of the afternoon. At a small indie bookstore he buys me a 400-page tome on some famous photo artist; then a bracelet at a jewelry shop, delicate silver with tiny charms, enameled replicas the fleur de lys, the Quebec symbol. “Now you have something to remember this place,” he says as he fastens the bracelet around my wrist. “When you go back to Minnesota, you’ll wear it and remember that weird cold place where everyone spoke French.”
“It’s not that much colder than Minnesota,” I say, to disguise the pang I feel under my ribs. “And I don’t know yet if I’m going back.”
“You’re going to stay here forever?” his eyebrows rise a little.
I shrug. I don’t even know if I want to stay here forever, assuming I could pull off something more permanent than my student visa. Is this all there is to my life, stay here and keep working in a nudie bar on Ste-Catherine until my tits are by my knees and no one wants me?
“I might move someplace else. Once I finish my degree, I mean.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Do?”
“After you finish your degree.”
“I haven’t thought about it,” I say. Which is more true than he realizes.
“What I mean is, what do you want to do. For real. What’s your dream?”