Owning It

by Leah Marie Brown

  “It’s nice to meet you, Giselle,” I say in French, hoping to ease the awkward tension. “Are you here with a date? Would you like to join us?”

  Giselle continues to stare into Gabriel’s eyes, but her full, pink bottom lip quivers a little. She finally tears her gaze from Gabriel and narrows her smoky, black-rimmed eyes on me. It’s a look that takes my breath away. Not the way Gabriel’s inscription took my breath away, but in a fierce, furious, I am going to reach into your body and rip your heart out with my pointy fingernails kind of way. I don’t need to read Giselle’s aura to know she is projecting some serious hate my way.

  “Thank you, but I have a prior engagement. I should leave soon if I am to make it,” she says, her voice soft and sibilant like a snake. She looks back at Gabriel, dismissing me with a flick of her gaze. “Au revoir, mon cher.”

  She turns on her slender heel, snatches a silver, fur-trimmed coat from the back of a bar stool, tosses it over her shoulders, and walks out of the bar.

  “Awk-ward,” I say, emphasizing both syllables.

  “Oui.”

  The color has faded from Gabriel’s cheeks, but not from his aura. The wildly swirling reds, blues, and blacks tell me that Giselle stirred up a complex brew of emotions in him.

  “Was Giselle an Amélie?”

  “Once,” he says, pushing his fingers through his hair. “But that was before.”

  “Before?”

  He smiles tightly. He’s avoiding again.

  “I am sorry. It’s none of my business.”

  “Non, I am sorry, ma fleur. Giselle was rude, and she made you feel uncomfortable. I hope it hasn’t put a damper on our evening.”

  I think about his non-answer to my question, and I realize Giselle’s sudden appearance hasn’t put a damper on the evening, but it has poked the beast of mistrust that had been sleeping in the darkest basement of my heart. The beast that tells me I shouldn’t trust a smooth-talking, handsome French man.

  “No, it hasn’t.”

  “Bon.” He raises my hand to his lips and kisses my palm. “It would upset me greatly if a specter from my past cast a shadow over my future. Now I will order us another glass of wine, and you will tell me about your life in Colorado.”

  Gabriel goes to the bar to order our wine, and I take several deep cleansing breaths. I try to quiet the beast roaring inside me, the beast roused by the ghosts of Gabriel’s girlfriends past. I remind myself of the sensei’s teachings on jealousy.

  “Jealousy and suspicion are houses built on foundations of insecurity,” she said. “They are sad, bleak dwellings with air so toxic it kills bigger, more beautiful emotions.”

  I take another deep breath and close my eyes. I exhale and imagine my breath blowing those rickety, miserable dwellings away, like stick houses in a tornado.

  Chapter 20

  Laney’s Life Playlist

  “Then He Kissed Me” by Martha and the Vandellas

  “Everything Has Changed” by Taylor Swift with Ed Sheeran

  I am standing outside La Belle Hortense, the two glasses of wine coursing through my veins and giving me a pleasant flush, despite the damp, chilly air, when Gabriel grabs the ties of my raincoat and pulls me to him.

  “I don’t want our evening to end yet,” he murmurs, his breath hot against my ear. “Will you take a walk with me, ma fleur?”

  I close my eyes and press my cheek against his, shivering a little as his warm, scruffy stubble grazes my skin.

  “I would like that,” I whisper.

  “Merci,” he says, kissing my cheek. “Let’s walk to the river.”

  He wraps his arm around my waist, casually resting his hand on my hip, and we walk down rue Vieille du Temple toward the Seine. Most of the businesses along the road are closed at this time of night, their windows dark or hidden behind metal shutters. We move silently past Heaven, a boutique selling gauzy summer dresses, and Orphée, a music store that sells antique musical instruments from the baroque era. At the corner, we stand in the glow of a neon green pharmacie cross and wait until a rusty white van rattles by, its tailpipe belching noxious gray clouds. We cross the street, but Gabriel stops walking when we come to a gallery with a bright, shiny red façade and grainy black-and-white photos propped in the window. Except for the photographs in the window, the gallery is empty, the doors firmly shuttered with heavy red panels. I look up at the faded gold script painted above the door.

  “Galerie Agathe Gaillard,” I read aloud. “The spelling is close to your last name, Gabriel. Is Madame Agathe Gaillard a distant cousin?”

  “No,” Gabriel says. “Agathe Gaillard opened this gallery in 1975 after falling in love with Jean-Philippe Charbonnier’s photographs.” He removes his hand from my waist just long enough to point to a beautiful black-and-white photo of a little girl in a pinafore standing in a Parisian alley, hugging a kitten and laughing. “That is one of Charbonnier’s images. Do you see the way the light reflects off of the cobblestones and the way the vélo leaning against the back wall is in the shadows, yet still illuminated? Brilliant.”

  “This is a happy photograph, isn’t it?”

  “Oui.”

  “It is one photograph, one little girl, and yet it seems to tell a story about Paris after World War II, the hope and return of joy.”

  He looks at me, his brows knit together, his lips curled up in a smile. “Brava, ma fleur. Beautifully said. Charbonnier was a master at capturing humanity during its impulsive and unrehearsed moments. His images were essential in spawning the humanist photography movement, a philosophical effort to document social change.”

  “Are all of his images so happy?”

  “Non.” Gabriel pulls me along, and we cross the quai de l’Hotel de Ville and walk over the pont Saint-Louis onto the Île Saint-Louis. “Many of Charbonnier’s photographs depicted the harsh realities of life after World War II, the poverty, the lack of housing, and the struggles of the urban working class.”

  “You sound like you admire his work.”

  “Oui,” Gabriel says. “I carry Charbonnier’s images in my mind and use them as a yardstick to measure my own work. I aspire to his level of storytelling.”

  “You measure up.”

  “How do you know? You haven’t even seen my work.”

  I keep my gaze fixed on the glowing windows of a brasserie at the end of the street and pretend I didn’t hear his question. He squeezes my waist.

  “Laney?”

  He stops walking. I stop walking.

  “I googled you,” I mumble, looking at my feet.

  He lifts my chin until our gazes meet. “I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

  “I googled you.”

  His eyes sparkle in the lamplight, and his mouth parts in a beautiful, breathtaking, toothy grin.

  “You googled me?”

  “I was curious about your work, so I did a little Internet search. Please don’t worry, though, I promise I’m not a creepy stalk—”

  He leans down and presses his lips to mine in a kiss that makes my cheeks flush with blistering heat—like, volcanic heat. I am no longer standing on a bridge spanning the Seine; I am floating on a lava flow, being swept away by a river of molten red desire, consumed by a force too powerful to resist. It is so excruciatingly—

  —and just like that Gabriel stops kissing me, leaves me spinning in a whirlpool of unfulfilled desires.

  When I open my eyes, he is staring at me with a look that will forever be painted on my mind. He isn’t smiling exactly, but he’s not frowning, either. The predatory glimmer in his eyes makes clear his intention to possess me. It terrifies me . . . and thrills me.

  I realize, with sudden clarity, with the clarity of a sharply focused inner eye, that I will give my virginity to Gabriel Galliard.

  “Merci, ma fleur,” he says, raising my hand to his lips. “I am flattered by your interest. You can stalk me anytime you want.”

  He puts his arm around my waist again, and we continue walking, following
the road until we come to the pont Saint-Louis, the bridge leading to the Île de la Cité and Notre Dame Cathedral. We cross another bridge and take stairs leading to a path that runs alongside the river, the lights of the cathedral glowing golden on the smooth surface.

  We stop walking when we come to a row of moored riverboats. A beautiful blue-painted wooden boat is filled with dinner cruisers sipping wine and eating lobster by candlelight. A man is standing on the deck, pushing and pulling the bellows of a concertina, playing a bal-musette tune, music that evokes romantic Parisian cafés and bistros.

  Gabriel spins me toward him so my chest is pressed against his chest, my thighs pressed to his thighs.

  “Dance with me?” he murmurs, his lips on my earlobe.

  I nod my head because the feel of Gabriel’s muscular body, of his warm breath on my neck, has snatched the breath from my lungs.

  We sway to the music, making slow, intoxicating circles over the path. I rest my head on Gabriel’s broad shoulder and let him lead me around and around, until I feel drunk and dizzy and consumed with desire.

  The music finally stops, but we stand in an orb of silvery moonlight, pressed against each other as if we have been lovers for years.

  The heat of Gabriel’s body warms me to the bone, reminding me of what it felt like to step out of a brutal Colorado winter into a warm, cozy cabin.

  “Are you cold, ma fleur,” he asks, holding me at arm’s length. “You’re shivering.”

  “A little.”

  He reaches his hand into his pocket and pulls out a scarf, the kind of scarves stylish Parisian men wear, and wraps it around my neck. He’s still holding the ends of the scarf and uses them to pull me close against him again, kissing me with a slow, sensuousness that matches our dancing.

  He deepens his kiss, snaking his arm up my back, sliding his hand into my hair, thrusting his tongue between my lips, and I moan, low, deep in my throat. A moan of pure, unchecked desire.

  I want . . .

  I want . . .

  I want things I have never had, things I have only imagined, things I have hoped for since that day in place des Vosges, when I looked into Gabriel’s slate-blue eyes and felt a spark ignite deep inside me.

  I suddenly feel a wetness on my cheeks, like tears, and realize it is raining. Gabriel takes my hand, and we run, laughing, to take shelter in a nearby tunnel.

  We are standing in the archway, watching the rain fall in big, silvery drops, plopping into the river, creating wide ripples, when Gabriel grabs me around the waist, presses me against the wall, slides his leg between my thighs, and kisses me again. That tiny spark of desire that had been gently glowing bursts into flames inside of me, like an ember touched by a breeze.

  I wrap my arms around him, snaking my hands inside his coat, beneath his shirt, up the broad expanse of his muscular back. I dig my fingernails into the smooth, taut skin of his shoulders, and he lifts his knee, spreading my thighs so I am forced to straddle his leg. The sweet, tender kiss we shared on the bridge is a distant, hazy memory, replaced by this scorching urgency.

  I pull my hand out from under his shirt and slowly, hesitantly slide it inside his waistband. I’ve barely worked my way beneath his briefs when my fingers touch the head of his large, swollen cock, and he groans against my lips, muttering something in French.

  “Let me take you home, ma fleur,” he growls.

  “Y . . . you want to take me back to the gallery?”

  The world is spinning. The tunnel. The raindrops. The glow of the lamplight against the rain-slick cobblestones. Spinning. Spinning. Spinning at dizzying speed. If Gabriel didn’t have his leg between my thighs, I would pull a Victorian and faint dead away.

  “Non, my love,” he moans against my lips. “Not to the gallery. I want to take you back to my apartment.”

  He doesn’t wait for my response. He flicks the tip of his tongue over my lips, tracing, teasing, while slowly moving his knee against my clitoris. Slow, maddeningly slow, masterful circles that let me know Gabriel must have surrendered his V card long ago.

  There are multiple layers of clothes between us. The cold night air is nipping at our skin, icy rain is needling our cheeks, but still Gabriel has me burning up like a woman suffering the worst kind of fever.

  What would it be like if we were naked in his bed? How feverish would I feel then, if the threat of being discovered in a tunnel by strangers wasn’t niggling at my conscious?

  Am I ready to give up my virginity to a man I have known for only a week? A man clearly skilled in the arts of seduction? A man with a willowy Giselle hanging onto his shadow?

  “Please, my love.” He kisses my lips. “Say you will come home with me.”

  I drop my forehead to his shoulder and draw a shaky breath. Nothing in my uneventful, unfocused life has prepared me for a moment like this. What do you say when a man asks you to go home with him? Not a Johnny Josephs—not just some silly, fumbling man-boy—but a handsome, charming, wonderful man who makes you go all flushy-crushy and turns your knees to Nickelodeon slime with a single glance. What do you say to him?

  Fanny would say something sophisticated and sexy in her native French that would drive Gabriel mad. Vivia would throw her inhibitions to the rainy wind and make love to Gabriel right here in this tunnel. I am not Fanny. I do not have her sophistication. I am not Vivia. I do not have her fearlessness.

  Gabriel doesn’t want Fanny or Vivia; he wants me. What’s more, I want him. I want him because he makes me feel sophisticated and fearless and sexy. I want him because he brings out parts of me I have kept hidden for . . . well, forever.

  Gabriel reaches up, pushes my hair aside, and whispers in my ear. “We don’t have to make love, ma fleur, if that’s what frightens you. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I just want to hold you in my arms until the night fades away to day.”

  “I . . . I’m sorry, Gabriel, but”—I lift my head and look at him, my eyes filling with humiliated tears—“this is happening too fast and—”

  “Shh.” He kisses my lips, cheeks, eyes. “C’est bon. We have all of the time in the world. There will be other nights.”

  “You promise?”

  He rubs my cheek with his thumb and smiles.

  “I promise, ma fleur.”

  We hold hands and walk out into the rain, climbing the steps to the street with our heads down, bodies close. I wonder if tonight will become my great regret. I wonder if Gabriel will quietly disappear from my life, frustrated by my rejection.

  A guy I dated throughout my junior year in college got so angry when, after seven months of dating, I still wouldn’t let him get beyond the heavy-groping stage, he called me Fridge. “Damn, girl, you’re colder than a refrigerator,” he said. “You don’t just give a guy blue balls, you freeze his fucking nads right off.”

  Gabriel hails a taxi, and it pulls to a stop at the curb, splashing puddle water onto our feet. Gabriel opens the door and lets me climb in first. We ride to the gallery together in silence. His arm is around my shoulders, but there’s a distance between us. I don’t think I am imagining it.

  I am such an idiot. When I am a lonely, dusty, sixty-three-year-old virgin, I will look back on this evening with painful regret. I will close my eyes, rest my head against the back of my rocker, and remember the dark tunnel and Gabriel’s hard body. I will mourn my lack of courage and long for a chance to go back in time, to feel Gabriel’s knee rubbing against my clitoris, to hear his voice in my ear, begging me to go home with him.

  You know what Sensei says about regret....

  Oh, shut up.

  I am so lost in thought and choking on bitter regret, I don’t realize we have arrived at the gallery until I hear Gabriel ask the driver to wait.

  He climbs out, promises the driver he won’t be long, and walks me to the wooden door leading to the courtyard.

  He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses it. “Will you miss me while I am gone, ma fleur?”

  The bitter lump of re
gret is still lodged in my throat, so I merely nod my head.

  “I will miss you, but I will remember the way you look right now, your cheeks pink from the cold, your eyes as wide and blue as the Mediterranean, your lips swollen from my kisses”—he draws a jagged breath—“I will think of you, and I will count the minutes until I see you again, until I can kiss you like this.”

  He leans down and presses his lips to mine, dragging them slowly, sweetly back and forth until we are both out of breath and clinging to each other again.

  The taxi driver honks his horn. Two loud toots that shatter the intimacy like a break through a plate-glass window.

  “Go now, go inside where it is warm, before I pick you up, carry you over to the park, and make love to you on the very spot where we first met.”

  Chapter 21

  Laney’s Life Playlist

  “Lullaby” by Paradise Fears

  “Long Distance” by Bruno Mars

  TEXT FROM GABRIEL GALLIARD:

  You are still asleep under a starry Parisian sky and I am already miles away, staring at the same stars and wishing our nights apart weren’t so long. Be well, ma fleur. Don’t forget there is someone half a world away thinking about you, fondly and often.

  TEXT TO GABRIEL GALLIARD:

  I would stay awake if it would make the nights go faster, if it would make you come home sooner. How could I possibly forget you, when I spend every moment thinking about you and what we will do when you are back in Paris?

  TEXT FROM STÉPHANIE MOREAU:

  How was your date, Laney-Bo-Baney?

  TEXT FROM VIVIA PERPETUA DE CAUMONT

  So, did you take my advice and do you? Better yet, did you do the über-hot French guy?

  TEXT FROM GABRIEL GALLIARD:

  Back in Paris or back in your arms?

  TEXT TO VIVIA PERPETUA DE CAUMONT:

  You’re in my arms, even when you are half a world away.