photographer friend of my love of the moment. My CEO must have had some information about our love affair and he had deliberately decided to make fun of me during our business review. He was nasty, as a feline guessing who's the one vulnerable around. People looked at me embarrassed in the confrontation room, as if all aware of my personal affair. At the same time the young adorable product manager I was keen on, resigned and sued me for the copyrights of the picture now that it was a worlwide launch. I was desperate, as always appealed by him. Remembering long days in our bed in prestigious hotels worlwide, extending our business trips, his skin, his smell of wood and vanilla, the way he spent time to caress me with his fingers. At the end, I had only communications with his lawyer, he erased me of his cell phone contact list. I lost my lover, it also stopped my career, as my big bosses were suspicious about my ethics and I never had more responsabilities after my being CMO Chief Marketing Officer. They created a job for me : Head of consumer surveys and trends. Perhaps to avoid firing me, which would have been disturbing for my team, I suppose they thought so.
It took me fifteen minutes to tell the whole story. At the end, my husband looked at his watch, and said the bus was about to come, which was not true.
We walked, leaving the cushions and the empty cup of teas to another princess in white uniform.
In a harsh voice he had difficulties to control, he just said to me : " Why do you say that now, what's the matter with you, what do you expect from me ? That I say, darling, it's a long time ago, no big deal. That I shout at you with jealousy and an angry behaviour. It's an empty story, it has lost its substance with all the years now."
I remained silent, relieved of the secret of my life.
I was looking forward to what would happen next. A change in our life. Perhaps he would leave me. Now that the children had left, everything was possible. We were free to live our life as before they were born.
We came back home to our bedroom in the oval building. He jumped out the bus and didn't look at the multicolored sculptures, nor the one of a man reading a news paper with a dog at his feet. There was a big spider in the middle of the road when we walked, he passed through, not bothered, or not having seen it. He put his hand on the button for the cable car, as if it was his property and house, cutting the sound of the Japanese voice saying "Please close the door", and the same when he opened the bedroom with the heavy keys, he played with during the trip.
As a whole, it took us two hours and a half to come back to our room. Time for me to watch the people in the boats, engaged in what they were accomplishing, smile back at the woman selling flowers to ikebana in the town street, be surprised by a little outside coffee and library in the village, showing books about San Francisco, and say "hello" to the rigid doorman in his grey uniform at the entree of the park.
When we entered the bedroom, my husband opened the curtains and the window as lacking of fresh air, and took his second shower of the day. To avoid being in the same place, I took a long hot bath. I like the fact that my breast floats on the water, like when I was young. While using the amber soap and caressing my skin, I was thinking about my insomny, reading the short stories about this African American woman describing how she got married to an unknown man, snoring at night and with a disgusting breath. At least I was lucky, I chose my husband. I felt calm. I was playing with the water in my hands, looking forward to sleep in the king size bed with smooth cushions after two nights at the monks monastery, sleeping directly on a tatami laid on a wet futon. My husband had liked it. Perhaps the public bath with other males that had exhacerbated his virility, or sleeping naked in a yucata.
I was pouring hot water again in the bathtube when my husband entered.
He gave me a towel, like in a rush to go out. I was still wet when he pushed me on the bed. He made love to me, putting me on my stomach and pushing my head on the cushion not to see my face. It was brutal, he hurt me.
Still I was exciting like a rebirth of our couple, as something was happening to us after dull and monotone days, months, and years.
After having sex, we took a third shower, one after the other, first me.
When we went to the terrace, the German were taking a glass of white wine with ice on theirs, starring at the sea. She suspiciously looked at me, as she could tell we had rough sex. My husband was still red on his face and making noise while breathing.
I realized that we still had one day. Yesterday all museums were closed. So we couldn't go and see the old houses projects. One of them project you in a dark room, you need to touch the wall to enter and finally find a sit. You're lost in the middle of nothing like being blind. And progressively, you see a little red light far away. And then you see like a wall, when you approach the wall and try to touch it, you don't feel anything, it's a fake wall, it's nothing except emptyness.
It must be an experience. Reality and virtuality. Truth and illusion. Full and empty. Light and dark.
Benesse House. Naoshima. October 2015
Bats
Blood. When they arrived in the small hotel in the town, she believed someone had spitted blood on the wall outside, and she mentioned it to Fabrice, as she was concerned about a contagion.
The woman in charge of the check in laughed and explained to them it was betel juice, and nothing to be afraid. The bikes would be available in the morning. She mentioned to be careful with the stairs, it was slippery because of the heavy rain of the late afternoon.
They took a shower in the small bedroom, with a soap smelling citrus which she didn't like, but she was happy to be in Myanmar in the beautiful area of Bagan with all the padodas, and to enjoy a few days with her new husband.
For the late diner, as their flight arrived in the evening, they took a Myanmar beer in a big bottle and chicken curry for her, and rice noodle with vegetables and chili for him. They took time as happy to use the chop sticks. When they came back to their room, Fabrice laid down and was fast to snore and talk in his dreams. She couldn't sleep.
They had done three trips together, including this one. The first one when they decided to purchase a flat together, perhaps to check that they could live together more than a night or a few hours in the week-ends. He organized everything, and she was mad at him because instead of booking the Udaipur Lake Palace, he was confused by another one, cheap and with no view except on the faraway Palace. She remembered walking a lot in New Delhi, visiting plenty of Rajastan Palaces, surrounded by the Indian crowd in Agra to see the beautiful and precious tomb, having a fake guide in one Marajah castle, droping false figures about the weapons and the measures, and being scared by the cows, the elephants and the big truck full of painted color on the road. Right or left it didn't matter. They saw plenty of accidents, and for landing, it was not unusual to do three of them because of dogs or cows on the path for the plane.
What she liked the most were the colorful outfit of the beautiful women. She came back thinking our home country was somewhere dull with only beige, grey and blue or dark colors, same for the food, coming from the fire works to basic savors.
She glaze at Fabrice, sleeping as a baby. She always envied him that ability.
They met at six teen, began their relationship at seventeen, and were seen as one of the couple of their year at University, in love with each other, she, energetic and smiling, and he, always interested by a new thesis about the future, or the creation of the world. She specialized in law, he specialized in finance.
The last year, they finally shared the same room outside of the campus, and they had the feeling to be an old couple when they purchased their furnitures and spent one afternoon arguing on the best way to build them.
For their honeymoon, their second trip as a couple, their friends offered to them to go to Bali. It was their first time in a prestigious hotel, and she remembered it took them two hours to fill the bathtube. They took picture of them in the bedroom, so proud to be there. Somewhere it was like the reward of their hardwork to enter their famous University and receive their degree.
She stopped the air conditioning because of the noise and feeling too cold. One hour later she had a war with a mosquito, and nervously scratched her left leg. She began thinking about their life. They had more money, but it was less fun. Even the parties, people drinking less alcohol, their friends obsessed by the shape of their body or they health, discussions about renovating houses, projects of having children, being promoted to the next level…It's like when life became more convenient and comfortable, they had lost the spontaneity and the intensity. She loved to received poems from Fabrice and to answer long letters of love (that were lost in one of their moves).
Fabrice continued to say "I love you" when they were having sex, but she wondered if it was as an habit or true. They were still mentionned as the perfect couple, getting along so well, never arguing, sharing tasks at home, so confident and supportive in each others projects…
Still, she wanted a baby, he thought they weren't ready, and they had arguments about it, but none of them ever mentioned it to any of their friends, thinking it would worsen the situation.
The other argument was about the Sunday brunch at her parents-in-law, she was just fed up with all that time
On the top of the world Page 24