by Jeremy Bates
“Nuh-uh, you said it was a funny story.”
“Shut your mouth, Rosbif.”
He held up his hands. “I’m just saying it wasn’t funny.”
“Mon dieu!” she exclaimed. “You are infuriating!”
“Rascal,” Rob said, draining his beer. “You gotta have a funnier story than that?”
Pascal scratched an eyebrow, nodded, and began speaking in French.
“English, bro,” Rob said. “How’s Will going to understand?”
Pascal scowled. “We are four people. Three speak French. Why must we speak English?”
“Because four speak English.”
Pascal mumbled something that sounded like a curse.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Talk French. I’m good.”
Pascal flicked his plastic cup away and stood. Ignoring Rob and Danièle’s protests, he snatched his flashlight and stalked out of the room.
“He can be emotional sometimes,” Danièle told me quietly.
I said, “Should someone go get him.”
“Yes, Rosbif, you should go find him.”
“Me?” Rob chuffed. “Why me?”
“Because you made him angry.”
“Bullshit. I just told him to speak English.”
“It is dangerous for him to be by himself—especially high like he is.”
“I’ll go,” I said, grinding my cigarette out in the dirt.
“Fuck that,” Rob said. “He’ll never let you find him.”
He stood and left.
“About time,” Danièle said, exhaling heavily. “Some quiet.”
I said, “You understand why he doesn’t like me, right?”
“Who? Pascal? Yes, I told you. Because he has a crush on me.”
“Right. So do you think it was a good idea announcing that we’re going to sleep together? I think that’s what he’s pissed about.”
“But we are going to sleep together.”
“No, we’re not.”
“The floor—”
“No, Danièle, no way.”
She sighed dramatically. “I cannot help it if Pascal has a crush on me, Will. What am I supposed to do, never be with someone to make him happy?”
“You could be more discreet.”
“You know, you are cute when you are embarrassed.” She plucked some more weed from the Ziploc bag and began to grind it between her fingers.
“I’ve had enough,” I said.
“Do not be a party pooer.”
“Pooper.”
“Do not be that.”
I didn’t argue. I simply wouldn’t inhale again.
She lit the joint with my lighter and took several quick puffs to get the ember burning. But instead of passing it to me, she flipped it around, stuck the lit end in her mouth, and beckoned me with her finger.
“Aw, no…”
She made a mmm-mmm noise.
I leaned close to her. Our lips touched. Her cheeks puffed out as she blew hard. The reverse-engineered joint shot a jet of smoke straight into my lungs. I jerked backward and commenced a coughing fit. My eyes watered, my throat burned. It took me twenty seconds to get myself under control.
“That is good?” Danièle said, offering the joint to me.
I shook my head: no to it being good, and no to any more.
She took a long drag, then put it out. “Come, Honeybear, I want to show you something.”
“What?”
“Come.”
She stood, pulled me to my feet, gathered the beer can lantern, then led me from room to room. My head was spinning, and I had to concentrate on walking properly. I’d gone from sober to stoner-high in a matter of seconds.
Danièle entered one of those rooms with the iron doors. She went to a wall, raised the lantern to eye-level, and carved something into the brick with her Swiss-Army knife.
I peered over her shoulder. It was a crudely drawn heart encircling W + D.
“Should be H plus SG,” I said. “Our catacombs names.”
She turned, wrapped her arm around my neck, and kissed me. In the back of my mind was a vague thought of Bridgette and the cop fiancé, then another of Pascal appearing unannounced.
Danièle dropped the lantern, though it continued to burn. She fumbled with my belt buckle, tugging free the prong. I shoved her tight jeans down her thighs, then her panties, then entered her. She moaned.
“Shhh,” I whispered into her ear.
I slipped my hands around her waist, down over her buttocks. She’s so thin, almost like a child. I’d thought the same thing when we had sex at her place on the weekend, though I didn’t remember thinking that until now.
I’ve always liked rounded girls, like Bridgette, with curves to them. Someone so thin felt oddly delicate—and light.
I heaved Danièle off the ground with little effort, pressed her against the wall.
“Oh Will,” she said. “Yes, keep doing that.”
I was moving back and forth, trying to find a rhythm, though it somewhat difficult while standing and supporting most of her weight.
“Yes, Will, yes.” She was kissing my neck, running her hands through my hair. “Oh Will, don’t stop, yes, yes, yes…it feels so good.” She locked her ankles behind my back and gyrated her hips, talking dirtier and dirtier, kissing, biting, even fucking snarling…and, man, I got into it, losing myself. She was so wild, so free, so sensual. Bridgette had never been like this—
Fuck Bridgette, I thought. I’m with Danièle now, and Danièle is nuts, fun nuts, I’m totally enjoying this, and if this is what sex is like with her…well, damn…why had I been brushing her off for so long…we could have been doing this every night…
“Oh fuck Will fuck yes harder Will fuck me fuck me.”
I did what she wanted and drove her harder into the wall, my hands cupping the bottom of her thighs, holding her as if she weighed nothing, moving harder, faster, my face buried in her hair, breathing in the flowery freshness of it, her body so thin, so sexy, like a model’s… “You ready?” I grunted, unable to hold off any longer.
“Yes, Will, yes!” Her fingernails tore my skin like claws.
I swallowed a groan as my body thrust and convulsed and turned to mush.
Danièle shrieked.
“Shhh!” I told her.
She all but screamed.
I shut her up with a long, forceful kiss.
Chapter 23
PASCAL
Pascal had never removed his helmet in the grotto, so he still had the headlamp to see by. No one had called out to him. No one had tried to stop him. He was sure they were all whispering about him in hushed tones. And what were they saying? Nothing good, or they wouldn’t be whispering.
He had half a mind to sneak back when they were sleeping, collect his backpack, and leave the lot of them. But he knew he wouldn’t do that. He didn’t want to return to where he found the video camera by himself. He wasn’t scared. He was sensible. Someone did something to the woman, murdered her most likely. It would be reckless of him to return there by himself. That’s the reason he didn’t stick around to search for her, or her body, in the first place. He’d played the footage, heard her screams…and then he was out of there. Anybody in his position would have done the same.
He passed through several rooms until he spotted another makeshift table nestled behind a support column. This one had been created with bricks for legs and a large circular saw for the surface. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, he took a cellophane baggie from his jacket pocket, tapped out two powdery lines onto the table, thought one was rather small, and added a third. He rolled a ten euro note and snorted all of them. The cocaine burned the inside of his right nostril. He sniffed deeply, then sat there listening to the silence as the high kicked in.
He had first tried coke three years ago when a friend offered him a key at a party. It didn’t do anything for him. He didn’t know whether it was bad blow, or whether he didn’t do enough, but he didn’t try it again until last July. Th
e girl he was casually seeing, Marlène, pressed up against him while they were at some bar, kissed him, and stuck a small baggie in his hand. He went to a stall in the restroom, placed his credit card on top of the toilet tank, and tapped a single line onto it. For the next hour he was flying, and all he could think about was when Marlène was going to give him the baggie again. He got in touch with her dealer a few days later, a yuppie from an affluent family, and had bought from him ever since.
Pascal recalled how excited he had been to get Danièle high. They always entered the catacombs at night and rarely left before dawn. It was sometimes hard to stay alert, and blow seemed to be a perfect remedy for that. But when he offered her some at a party at the Beach, she flipped out, asked him all these questions. Where did he get it? Who did he get it from? How often did he do it? Defensive, he told her someone gave it to him, and, no, he’d never tried it before. She accepted this, and he’d never mentioned it to her again.
Still—maybe he should give her a lecture about smoking so much fucking pot…
“Rascal?” It was Rob.
Pascal considered not answering, but he said, “Here.”
“Where?” Closer.
“Here.” He peered out from behind the column and saw the light from Rob’s headlamp ten meters away.
A few moments later Rob stood before him, a can of beer in each hand. He plopped down across the table. “I think I get what you dig about this place,” he said affably, handing a beer to Pascal and cracking open the other. “Peace, serenity. Awesome.”
Pascal rolled the cool can from one palm to the other. “Did Danièle send you over here to check up on me?” he asked. “Because I don’t need her or you or anyone checking up on me.”
“I’m not checking up on you, boss. I—” He saw the baggie of coke. “You’re doing that shit down here?”
“So?”
“I thought you were getting clean?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t want to bust your balls—”
“Then don’t, Rob!” he snapped. “You and Danièle. Fucking Danièle. How much pot does she smoke? You never say anything to her.”
“Blow’s different. It’s addictive—”’
“Addictive! You’re going to lecture me on addiction now? What number beer are you on? Five? Six? And those ones—twelve percent? That means you’ve had like twelve regular beers. And you’re going to tell me about addiction?”
Rob’s lips tightened. He looked away.
Pascal immediately regretted the outburst, and he was thinking of something to say, a way to patch things up, when Danièle cried out.
Chapter 24
ROB
Rob and Pascal jumped to their feet. Rob grabbed Pascal’s bicep, preventing him from leaving, but Pascal tugged free. “Something happened!” he exclaimed.
Rob shook his head, watching Pascal. Understanding registered in his eyes, and they thundered over. He flinched backward, almost as if slapped.
Rob wanted to say something to him, but there was nothing to say.
Pascal left.
Rob didn’t go after him. What was the point? If Pascal went off on his own, he would want to be by himself. If he went after Will…well, Will could handle himself.
Rob slumped back to the ground and listened. Danny, thankfully, didn’t make any more sex shrieks, nor was there any sound of a confrontation.
He shook his head. Danny needed a fucking frontal lobotomy. What the hell was she thinking? He got it. She didn’t like Pascal romantically. Fine. It was perfectly within her right to see other people. And it was a tough situation. She and Pascal were friends; they got together on a regular basis. He was bound to see her with other guys. Nevertheless, did she have to be so insensitive to his feelings? All the touchy-touchy stuff with Will in the restaurant and the van was one thing—but having an orgasm loud enough to wake the dead?
Rob skidded a hand over his face and wondered if they should cancel the whole expedition. Maybe Pascal was gone already, heading off to find the woman on his own, and maybe that would be for the best.
He brought the beer can to his lips, hesitated, then set it back on the table.
How many had he had? Two at the Beach. Two where they had set up camp. This one. Five.
Was he soused? He had a buzz, but he felt more high than drunk.
Goddamn Pascal had sounded like the wife there for a bit. Dev was on his ass all the time about the drinking. It seemed they fought about it every day. Rob simply didn’t get her. He’d been drinking ever since they met, it didn’t bother her then, but all of a sudden it’s some sort of problem? Fuck that. He’s never become a Mr. Hyde, never gone on a drunken rampage, never turned violent, never done any of that bad-drunk shit. So it wasn’t him who’d changed. It was her. They would be fine if she wasn’t always nagging and getting into moods.
And that last fight, before he’d left to meet Pascal and Danièle at La Cave—sweet Jesus, that had been bad. He knew the gloves were off as soon as Dev stepped through the front door. She’d been tight, withdrawn, you could see it in her walk, and she had gone immediately to the master bedroom to change. Rob stayed out of her way, in the kitchen, making macaroni and cheese for the girls. When she came out, she was wearing an old tee and joggers.
“Guess your work thing’s no black tie event?” he kidded.
“I’m not going to the dinner,” she stated, opening the fridge and snatching a bottle of chardonnay.
Rob stopped stirring the pasta. “Why the hell not?” Though he knew why, of course. She was making a point. She was pissed off he was going out—“abdicating his responsibilities” was the phrase she liked to toss around—and to make a point, she would stay in.
Rob said, “The babysitters coming in thirty minutes.”
She took a wine glass from the cupboard, filled it nearly to the rim. “Better call her and cancel.”
He clenched his jaw. He should have done just that: called the sitter, cancelled, let Dev stay in and sulk—but her behavior was so petty it was begging to be rebuked. Yeah, she’d told him about her work dinner last week, and yeah Pascal had only invited him to the catacombs two days ago, so she had dibs on going out, but situations like this were the reason babysitters existed. How was hiring one abdicating his parenting responsibility, for Christ’s sake? He had been home with the girls—and Dev—all weekend. “I’m not canceling,” he told her. “You’re going to your dinner—”
“No, I’m not.”
“—and I’m going to the catas with Rascal and Danny.”
“Where you will no doubt get drunk.”
“Give it a break, Dev.”
“We have two daughters, and you’re abdicating—”
“Don’t fucking start!”
“Don’t worry. The situation is resolved. I will stay home with Bella and Mary. Go have fun in the catacombs and drink yourself retarded.”
Rob flicked the wooden spoon he was using to stir the pasta against the stove’s stainless steel backsplash. It bounced back at him and clattered to the floor. He kicked it into the next room.
“Very mature, Robert.”
“Fuck you, Dev.”
He made to leave the kitchen.
“I don’t know anymore,” Dev said.
He stopped, turned. “You don’t know?”
“Nothing,” she said quietly.
“You don’t know?” he repeated.
“Go, Robert.”
“Go fuck yourself, Dev.”
“Yes, maybe I will. Why not? I do everything else myself.”
He grabbed his jacket and backpack from the foyer, then left the flat, slamming the door behind him.
Shoving these memories aside, Rob lifted the beer to his lips again and took a long swallow.
Chapter 25
Danièle and I made our way back to the grotto hand in hand. Rob and Pascal were still gone, for which I was grateful. I was sure they would have heard Danièle, and I would rather be asleep, or at least lying on the gr
ound and pretending to be asleep, when they returned.
We set up her hammock, she climbed in it, then told me to join her.
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“You will be cold.”
“Better than getting an ice pick in my back when I’m sleeping.”
“If you change your mind…”
I chose a spot a respectable distance away from her, stretched out on the slab of stone, used my backpack as a pillow, and closed my eyes.
I was still ridiculously high. Colors and images and bizarre thoughts flashed behind my closed eyelids. I tossed and turned, listening for sounds of Rob and Pascal’s return. There was nothing but vacuum silence.
Gradually my mind shifted to Danièle, and how I felt about having sex with her for a second time. The answer: not as bad as I would have thought. That wasn’t very romantic. I could imagine how she would react had I voiced this. But it was true. Despite the bombshell Bridgette had dropped on me earlier this evening, I couldn’t simply shut off my feelings for her, and I’d assumed having sex with Danièle again would be nothing more than rebound sex, cheap and guilt-ridden with no emotional attachment. Yet that wasn’t the case. In fact, I felt strangely invigorated. This wasn’t solely because the sex was good—it was because I felt suddenly closer to Danièle than before. It was as if a mental curtain had been drawn back, and I was seeing her for the first time, only now realizing how special she was.
I didn’t think Danièle and I would ever get too serious—how could we if I was only in France for another two months—but we had the present, didn’t we?
I opened my eyes, saw Danièle watching me in the candlelight.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“You sure you do not want to join me?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled lazily, closed her eyes. I did the same.
I had no idea of the time. I considered checking my wristwatch, but didn’t. It didn’t matter. Time didn’t matter down here.
Still, it must have been late, and I must have been exhausted, because moments later I was asleep.