‘No, I’ve found a job, helping out in a bookshop,’ she lied.
The Frenchman - he said he was a businessman, something in export/import - ordered her to move in with him and Giuly accepted. She couldn’t stay on at Flora’s without revealing her new relationship.
At first, it was nice to sleep at night in bed with another person, a man. Feeling the warmth of the other’s body, waking up to a naked body next to her own. And to feel herself filled to the brim when he made love to her. To again experience a man’s cock growing inside her as it ploughed her, stretched her. To take a penis, savour its hardening inside her mouth, to hear a man moan above her as he came, shuddered, shouted out obscenities or religious adjectives, and experience the heat waves coursing from cunt to heart to brain. Of course, it reminded her of Peppino. But then again, it was different. No fish face at the moment of climax with this new man, just a detached air of satisfaction, almost cruelty as he often took her to the brink and retreated, playing with her senses, enjoying her like an object.
Day times, he would often leave her early in the morning and go about his work while Giuly would explore Paris, fancy-free, absorbing the essence of the city in her long, lanky stride. For the first time in ages, she felt like a gypsy again, like the young teenager who would live on the streets of Rome and even enjoy sleepless nights wandering from alleys to coffee shops with a cohort of friends or even alone, drinking in life with no care in the world. In Belleville, she discovered a patisserie with sickly-sweet Middle-Eastern delicacies, near Censier-Daubenton she made an acquaintance with a young dope dealer who furnished her with cheap weed, which she would take care never to smoke at the man’s apartment off the quai de Grenelle. As with Peppino, she knew older guys secretly disapproved of her getting high, as if pretending they had never been young themselves. Neither did they appreciate The Clash, she’d found out. . . He would leave her money when he left her behind but she was frugal and never used it all not asked for more.
And at night, after her aimless, carefree wanderings, he would treat her to fancy restaurants - she’d cooked for him a few times at the flat but he was not too keen on pasta or tomato sauce or seemingly Italian food - and then bring her back to the apartment where he would fuck her. Harder and harder. As she offered no resistance and her passiveness increased, the bad man went further. One night, he tied her hands. Giuly allowed him.
Soon, he was encouraged to test her limits.
She knew it was all going in the wrong direction and she should resist his growing attempts at domination. But the thought of leaving this strange new life in Paris and returning to Rome would feel like an admission of defeat, an acknowledgement that she should not have broken up with Peppino, and broken his heart into a thousand pieces, as she clearly knew she had. Maybe this was a form of penance, a way of punishing herself? She just didn’t know any longer. Had she really ever known?
One dark evening, after he’d tied her hands to the bedpost and, somehow, her ankles, he’d taken her by surprise and, despite her mild protests, had resolutely shaven away her thick thatch of wild, curling jet-black pubic hair and left her quite bald, like a child, which not only brought back bittersweet memories of her younger years but also a deep sense of shame at the fact she’d always insisted Peppino should not even trim her.
The next day, the Frenchman used his belt on her arse cheeks and marked her badly.
Sitting watching a film that afternoon in a small art house by the Odéon was painful, as Giuly kept on fidgeting in her seat to find a position that did not remind her of the previous evening’s punishment. Her period pains had also begun, as bad as ever; she’d once been told they’d only go away after she’d had her first child.
That night, the bad man wanted to fuck her as usual and she pointed out that her period had begun. He became angry. He would have been quite furious had she actually revealed that she had once allowed Peppino to make love to her on such a day and the blood communion they had shared was still one of her most exquisitely shocking and treasured memories. He brutally stripped her, tied her hands behind her back and pushed her down on the floor, onto her stomach and sharply penetrated her arsehole, spitting onto his cock and her opening for necessary lubrication. She screamed in pain and he gagged her with her own panties and continued relentlessly to invest her. Giuly recalled how she had once assured Peppino as they spooned in bed one night how she would never agree to anal sex with him or anyone. Another promise betrayed, she knew. She grew familiar with the pain. She had never thought it would be so easy to break with her past.
Later, as she lay there motionless, the bad man said: ‘Next week, I shall continue your education. I’m taking you to a club and I want to watch you being fucked by a stranger, my sweet Italian girl.’
Giuly could say nothing. When he left the apartment, he retrieved her set of keys from her handbag and locked her in. They were on the fifth floor and she had no way out. Giuly sighed.
* * * *
It was a night full of stars and the Seine quivered with a thousand lights.
The taxi had dropped Cornelia around the corner of Les Chandelles. She looked out for a decent-looking café and sat herself at a table over-looking the street, where she would be highly visible to all passers-by. This was one of those rare occasions when she had lipstick on, a scarlet stain across her thin lips. She wore an opaque white silk shirt and was, as ever, braless. Her short black skirt high-lighted her endless pale legs. She’d ruffled her hair, blonde Medusa curls like a forest; and slowly sipped a glass of Sancerre, a paperback edition of John Irving’s A Widow for One Year sitting broken-spined on the ceramic top next to the wine carafe.
The bait was set. A lonesome American woman on a Friday night in Paris, just some steps away from a notorious club échangistes. L’ Américaine. She’d found out earlier, through judicious tipping and a hint of further largesse of another nature, from the club’s doorman, that her target was planning to attend the club later this evening. The entrance fee for single women was advantageous but she felt she would attract less attention if she were part of a couple. She’d gathered on the grapevine that lone men would often congregate here in search of a partner before moving on to the club.
She’d been told right and within an hour, she’d been twice offered an escort into the premises. She hadn’t even needed to uncross her legs and reveal her lack of underwear. The first guy was too sleazy for her liking, and altogether too condescending in the way he spoke to her in the slow, enunciating manner some Frenchmen automatically do with foreigners. She quietly gave him the brush-off. He did not protest unduly. The second candidate was more suitable, a middle-aged businessman with a well-cut suit and half-decent aftershave. He even sent her over a glass of champagne before actually accosting her. Much too old, of course, but then there was something about Paris and older men with younger women. The water, the air, whatever!
They agreed that once inside she would have no obligation to either stay with him or fuck him, at any rate initially. Maybe later, if neither came across someone more suitable. He readily acquiesced. Cornelia knew she was good arm candy, tall and distinctive, a beautiful woman with a style all her own, and an unnervingly visible mix of brains and provocation. She’d worked hard on that aspect of her appearance.
Despite its upmarket reputation, Les Chandelles was much as she expected. Tasteful in a vulgar but chic way; too many muted lights, drapes and parquet flooring, dark corners or coins calins as they were coyly described on the club’s website, semi-opulent staircases leading to private rooms and a strange overall smell of sex, cheap perfume and a touch of discreet disinfectant not unlike those American sex-shop cabins or the tawdry rooms set aside for private lap dances in some of the joints she had once navigated through.
She spent some time at the bar with her escort and enjoyed further champagne, and allowed him to show her some of the nooks and crannies of the swing club, which he appeared to be a regular at. Now she knew the lie of the land. She offered to dan
ce with him.
‘Not my scene,’ he churlishly protested.
‘It warms me up,’ she pointed out. He nodded in appreciation.
‘Just go ahead,’ he said. ‘Maybe we can meet up later, if you want?’
‘Yes,’ Cornelia said.
* * * *
From the dance floor, she would have a perfect vantage point to observe new arrivals as they passed on their way to more intimate areas of the club. She moved languorously to a Leonard Cohen tune and marked her area between a few embracing couples. She’d always enjoyed dancing, it had made the stripping bearable. Cornelia closed her eyes, carried along by the soft music. Occasionally, a hand would gently tap her on the shoulder, an invitation to join a man, a woman or more often a couple in a more private location, but each time she turned the offer down with an amiable smile. No one insisted, obeying the club’s basic protocols.
Amongst the French songs she had not previously known, Cornelia had already delicately shimmied to recognisable tunes by Luna, Strays Don’t Sleep and Nick Cave when she noticed the new couple settling down at the bar.
The girl couldn’t have been older than twenty-five with a jungle of thick dark curls falling to her shoulders and a gawky, slightly unfeminine walk. Her back was bare, pale skin on full display emerging from a thin knitted top, and she wore a white skirt that fell all the way to her ankles, through which one could spy her long legs and a round arse just that little bit bigger than she would no doubt have wished to have, an imperfection that actually made her quite stunning. With deep brown eyes and a gypsy-like, wild demeanour, she reminded Cornelia of a child still to fully mature. She wore dark black shoes with heels, which she visibly didn’t need, as she was almost as tall as Cornelia. A sad sensuality poured out from every inch of her as she followed her companion’s instructions and settled on a high stool at the bar. The man ordered without asking the young girl what she wanted. Her eyes darted across the room, looking at the other patrons of the club, Judging them, weighing them. It was evidently her first time here.
Cornelia adjusted her gaze,
The man squiring the exotic young woman was him, her target. The bad man. Her information had proved correct. As she watched the couple, Cornelia blanked out the music.
Less than an hour later, she had made acquaintance with them and suggested to her new friends they could move on to a more private space. Throughout their conversation, the Italian girl had been mostly silent, leaving her older companion to ask all the questions and flirt quite openly and suggestively with the splendid American blonde seemingly in search of local thrills. At first, the man appeared hesitant, as if the visit to Les Chandelles had been planned differently.
‘I’ve never been with a woman before,’ the Italian girl complained to the man.
‘Would you rather I looked for a negro to fuck you here and now with an audience watching?’ he said to her.
‘No,’ she whispered.
‘So, we all agree,’ he concluded, getting up and gallantly taking Cornelia’s hand. ‘Anyway, you can do most of the watching as I intend to enjoy the company of our new American friend to its fullest extent. You can watch and learn; I do find you somewhat passive and unimaginative, my dear young Italian gypsy. See how a real woman fucks.’
Giuly lowered her eyes and stood up to follow them.
Once they had located an empty room on the next floor, Cornelia briefly excused herself and insisted she had to walk back to the cloakroom to get something from the handbag she had left there as well as picking up some clean towels, which their forthcoming activities would no doubt require.
‘Ah, Americans, always keen on hygiene,’ the bad man said and broadly smiled. ‘We’ll be waiting for you,’ he added, indicating to his young companion to start undressing.
‘I’ll leave my clothes too,’ Cornelia said, turning round. ‘Don’t want to get them crumpled, do we?’
‘Perfect,’ the man said, turning his attention to Giuly’s slight, pale, uncovered breasts and sharply twisting her nipples while she was still in the process of slipping out of her long white skirt. There were red marks on her butt cheeks.
When Cornelia returned a few minutes later, the bad man was stripped from the waist down and the Italian girl was sucking him off while his fingers held her hair tight and her head forcibly and pressed against his groin, even though his thrusts were making her choke. He turned his own head towards Cornelia, a blonde apparition, now naked and holding a bunch of towels under her left arm.
’Beautiful,’ he said, and released his pressure on Giuly’s head. ‘Truly regal,’ he observed, his eyes running up and down Cornelia’s body. ‘I like very much,’ he added. His attention now centred on her groin. ‘A tattoo? There? Pretty! What is it?’ the Cornelia approached the couple. The man withdrew his cock from the Italian girl’s mouth, allowing her to breathe better, and put a proprietary hand on Cornelia’s left breast and then squinted, taking a closer look at her depilated pubic area and the small tattoo she sported there.
‘A gun? Interesting,’ he said.
’Sig Sauer,’ Cornelia said.
There was a brief look of concern on his face, but then he relaxed briefly and nodded towards the American woman, indicating she should replace Giuly and service his still jutting cock. Cornelia quietly asked Giuly to move away from the man so that she might take over her position. The Italian girl stumbled backwards to the bed. Cornelia kneeled. As her mouth approached his groin, she pulled out the gun she had kept hidden under the white towels, placed it upwards against his chin and pressed the trigger.
The silencer muffled most of the sound and Giuly’s cry of surprise proved louder than the actual shot which blew the lid of his head off, moving through his mouth and through to his brain in a portion of a second. He fell to the ground, Cornelia cushioning his collapse with her outstretched arm.
‘Jesus,’ Giuly said.
And looked questioningly at Cornelia who now stood with her legs firmly apart, the weapon still in her hand, a naked angel of death.
‘He was a bad man.’ Cornelia said.
‘I know,’ the Italian girl said. ‘But . . .’
‘It was just a job, nothing personal,’ Cornelia said.
‘So . . .’
‘Shhhh . . .’ said Cornelia. ‘Get your clothes.’
The young Italian girl stood there, as if nailed to the floor, every inch of her body revealed. Cornelia couldn’t avoid examining her.
‘You’re very pretty,’ she said.
‘You too,’ the other replied, red-faced.
Cornelia folded the gun back inside the towels. ‘Normally, I would have killed you too,’ she said. ‘As a rule, I must leave no witnesses. But I’m not big on killing women. Just dress, go and forget him. I don’t know how well you knew him - I suspect it wasn’t long. Find a younger man. Live. Be happy. And . . .’
’What?’
’Forget me, forget what I look like. You don’t know me, you’ve never known me.’
Giuly nodded her agreement as she pulled the knitted top she had worn earlier over her head, disturbing the thousand thick dark curls. The other woman was in no rush to dress, comfortable in her white nudity. Her body was also pale, but a different sort of pallor. Giuly couldn’t quite work out the nature of the difference.
Cornelia watched her hurriedly dress.
’Go back to Rome. This never happened. It’s just Paris, Giuly. Another place.’
* * * *
Back in the street, Giuly initially felt disorientated. It had all happened so quickly. She was surprised to see that she wasn’t as shocked as she should have been. It was just something that had happened. An adventure. Her first adventure since Peppino. Under her breath, she whispered his real name. The Paris night did not answer.
She checked her bag; she had enough money for a small hotel room for the night. Tomorrow, she would take the train back to Rome.
* * * *
The Louvre was lit up as she walked towards the Seine,
and into a harbour of darkness. At her fourth attempt, Giuly found a cheap hotel on the rue Monsieur le Prince. The room was on the fourth floor and she could barely fit into the lift. Later, she went out and had a crêpe with sugar and Grand Marnier from an all-night kiosk near the junction between the rue de l’Odéon and the boulevard Saint Germain. People were queuing outside the nearby cinemas, people mostly of her own age, no older men here. She walked towards Notre-Dame and wasted time in a bookshop, idly leafing through the new books on display. She would have dearly liked to have a coffee, but no Latin Quarter bookshops also served coffee, unlike her favourite haunt, Feltrinelli’s in Rome, where she had spent much of her teenage years. But she knew that if she walked into a café and took a table alone, someone would eventually try a pickup line and disturb her, and tonight she felt no need for further conversation. So she finally went back to her small room and slept soundly. A night without nightmares or memories.
The man in the Police du Territoire uniform handed her passport back to Cornelia. ‘I hope you enjoyed your stay, Mademoiselle?’
Paris Noir [Anthology] Page 17