Hotelles (32 page)

 

MY EYES WERE STILL BLISSFULLY
closed when I heard the door shut. The Vine had left the room without saying good-bye. I was alone, my body exhausted by pleasure, abandoned on the soft bed, with the keys of a piano—playing the mazurka?—running over me, making me shiver.

I could not believe I was being left to my own devices. Unsatisfied and longing for more. Nothing could sate my need but him. I wanted Louie. I wanted him for me, and only me. Now, even if it meant just this once, one more Hotelle in his cap. If only he could possess me once, just one time, maybe I could get his intoxicating scent out of my system; maybe I could forget his dark looks and that dimple on his lower right cheek; above all, maybe I could rid myself of the no doubt false idea that if I were his, all these disparate women would be united in me and I would become the center of a perfect, unified pleasure. No longer would I live off my fantasies alone. He would be a lover unlike all others.

Yes, if only he could penetrate me one time, with a penis I imagined to be as long and hard as the fan's handle, as adept at satisfying me  . . .

When I was a teenager, before I had known any boys, I was so impatient to experience penetration that I improvised my own sex toy. I procured an individually wrapped condom from a dispenser outside our neighborhood pharmacy—I had waited until it was late, so no one would see me; I took it out of its package and awkwardly stretched it over a small green banana I had pinched from the kitchen. Alas, I only managed to introduce the tip of my makeshift dildo between my lips—not far enough to deflower me. The pressure against my taut hymen dissuaded me from going deeper. Short of breath and terrified I would do something stupid and Mom would find out, but also incredibly excited, I gave up on the banana and rubbed my clitoris, which was more engorged and hungry for caresses than ever.

 

Handwritten note by me, 6/13/2009

 

BUT THE MORE HE MADE
me wait, the more he delayed the moment, drawing out our desire ad infinitum, fraying our nerves with his absences and furtive appearances, the more Louie haunted me. He was my master because he knew how to make me long for him: by circling around me, touching and surrounding me with as much subtlety as the sweet piano piece that was now playing.

I could have called out to him, cried his name, banged the door, and roused the whole hotel. I knew it would be in vain. I knew he would choose the hour. Had he already decided when it would be? Was it already written somewhere, in an agenda or on a notebook's perforated paper?

As the minutes passed, it became clear that no one else would be joining me. And that I would have to set myself free. For want of inspiration, I let my gaze wander through the room. A lamp on the bedside table with a pyramid-shaped shade; a mahogany writing table with such slender legs it was hard to believe they managed to support it; a frosted molten glass vase with a bouquet of white lilies  . . .

My hand wandered over the sheets, where they found the fan. I was momentarily surprised it had not been taken, when suddenly I remembered the day's commandment:
Thou shalt master thy pleasure.

So that is what was expected of me. And so long as I had not fulfilled the command, I would remain prisoner of this room.

Nevertheless, I did not rush. I took my time considering the object more attentively. On closer inspection, the handle was not a crude sketch of a bulging gland. The black lacquered protrusion contained subtle details of realism: the fold of skin at its base, the thin strip of the frenulum, and even the protruding veins on the shaft, which I remembered had felt very pleasant inside me. I wondered if the fan's handle had been modeled after someone. Could it be  . . .

I didn't expect an answer. I only wanted one thing, to thrust the handle between my pink, wet lips. It was my turn to produce the pleasure he refused to give me, through my own talents. I was tentative at first, progressively accelerating my cadence, until the object was deep inside me, violently assailing the whole of my lower body. I fell heavily to the bed's surface, gasping. The orgasm jolted through me in spasms, relentlessly crashing through my groin. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. I was the land under the hail, a little piece of earth in a storm. Suddenly, my hand froze, the object trapped deep inside me like I was its sheath. It stayed there, stuck, until the muscles surrounding it relaxed, freeing me.

I offered him so much, and Louie gave me so little  . . .

Or was it the other way around?

27

June 13, 2009

A few years ago, back when we both had trouble making ends meet, Sophia convinced me to do this thing she'd recently learned about. That is how, in exchange for thirty euros, I gave her a pair of used cotton panties, which she then sold on a specialized website. After I pocketed the money, I tried not to think about whatever became of my underthings. I was kind of grossed out by the whole idea and refused to do it again.

But today, years later, I sometimes wonder what happened to that barely moistened panty. Did it still smell like me? Did the man who bought it still sniff it while
jacking
off
masturbating? Had he tossed it in with all the others, making it anonymous? Or had he thrown it out after one use?

 

Handwritten note by me, 6/13/2009

 

“
AURORA DELBARD
”
—THE SEARCH ENGINE ONLY
came back with two results. Only two, and both wrong. Come to think of it, Aurora had died at a time when our private lives weren't available for all to see on the Web and social networks.

Still, it was surprising not to find her anywhere. No class photo, no scholastic or university affiliation, no genealogical tree, nothing. Had her family or even David himself contacted one of those businesses that can erase your online existence? In any case, the result was the same: Aurora Delbard had left no virtual trace of herself or her time on earth.

This idea crossed my mind in a flash, a brief instant of exhilaration and panic, and then it was gone: What if Aurora wasn't real? What if she was the fruit of a sick imagination? It was unthinkable. What would be their interest in inventing this woman? Why dupe me like that?

That morning, as I slipped the ring back on my finger, I had the sensation of entering into a ghost's life, an ectoplasm with no past or shape. Worse, a purely fictional being.

The surest way of sending the ghost back to the other side, of getting it out of my life, was with my pen. When I signed the contract Armand had left for me, David's prenup, I would be giving our union and our present life much more consistency than any memory—real or invented. But I couldn't. Ten times that morning I had hovered the point of my pen over the places where I was to initial. Ten times I had withdrawn my hand, impeded by an invisible force whose name I knew all too well. Louie had a hold on me.

     
See you at the station, beautiful.

I believe in you.

I love you.

D.

 

I found David's note on the breakfast table. It didn't lift my severely low spirits. Today was the big day, however. My first television appearance. Something I had wanted for a long time, and which any girl in my place would have seen as a blessing. Yes, everything should have receded—my evenings at the Hôtel des Charmes should have vanished overnight, Louie's voice and scent evaporated—in the face of this important and imminent event. I should have been quaking in fear, hopping with impatience, squealing with excitement. But instead, I felt switched off, my attention drawn elsewhere, far, far away from these happenings and my ambition, which was beginning to seem pathetic and vain.

 

I DRAGGED MY FEET, TAKING
all the time in the world to meet the team that I knew awaited me on set. Moreover, I allowed myself the luxury of a detour, surprising even myself when I exited the metro at the Père Lachaise station, a business card in hand.

Avenue de la République, a wide and affluent street, stretched out from across the famous Parisian cemetery. A little road to its left, Rue du Chemin Vert, was markedly narrower and more working-class. I followed its gentle decline, the scent of kebab wafting over the sidewalk, even at this early hour, and trash cans overflowing at every step. The smell of grilled meat and garbage was nauseating. Happily, there was a light breeze.

Sandwiched between a Pakistani bazaar and a wholesale craft store, the bookstore's bordeaux-colored facade was visible from a distance. The signage was discreet, however, and made no mention of the kind of books it sold: La Musardine. But a quick glance inside left no doubt.

 

I PUSHED OPEN THE DOOR
and stepped inside the hushed space. It had red carpeting and well-appointed display cases, where a few customers were browsing. I had expected to find perverts in raincoats, sleazy old men, Amazons in skimpy outfits. But despite the fact that they were mostly men, the patrons seemed rather banal. The two or three couples present weren't even acting overtly intimate, or hardly. There was a man whispering into a blushing woman's ear, and another who let his hand wander over his girlfriend's ample posterior. Were they planning on making love after their errand? Would they find what they needed to fulfill their fantasies here?

The thematic organization was clear: erotic literature to the left and by the entry; photography and art books to the right and near the register; in the back right, graphic novels and comics; and in the back left, essays, guides, and a few related gadgets.

My list in hand, I had no difficulty finding the first recommended books and piling them one by one into a teetering heap. Since I was in a hurry—a few lingering glances on my curves were making me uneasy—I started toward the bookseller, a charmless brunette with short hair who was slumping behind the counter. But several covers caught my attention on my way: a series called
Pink Pussy
. Inside, young, smiling women spread their vulvas wide open. They seemed delighted to show themselves. True to the title, their pussies were as bright and pink as possible, somewhere between an exotic flower and a fleshy butterfly.

Was I still under the influence of the night before? Had Louie and the Vine really gotten so far under my skin? I couldn't stop turning the pages, fascinated by such openness. I wondered if I could pose like that, too, and what pleasure I would derive if ever confronted with one of these perfect, open, and humid clefts. Would I arm myself with a hard and oblong toy to insert inside?

The pyramid of books in my arms tumbled, drawing me out of my daydream. Two dozen eyes stared at me, reproaching, mocking. I mumbled an apology and stooped to pick everything up without letting my skirt ride up my heinie. I hurried to pay for my purchases, red with shame, my cheeks and voice flustered like the little girl I thought I had outgrown.

 

BACK ON THE METRO, I
felt calm again. Still, I did not dare open the dark plastic bag printed with golden drops. One humiliation was enough for the moment, especially since the evening's challenge probably had more in store for me.

“You're late, but it's no big deal . . .”

David had charged into my office without so much as a hello.

“For now, all I care is that you are at your best. Did you have breakfast, at least?”

Hearing him speak and feeling his eyes sizing me up, I felt like a yearling on the morning of its first race. All that was missing was a tap on the muzzle and knead of the rump to evaluate my chances of winning or losing. Is that what he had seen in me when we'd first met, at that formal dinner: his station's next gem, a diamond in the rough that he could fashion as he pleased and whom he would make into his jewel?

“Yes, yes, I'm fine . . . I ate.”

“Dried fruit? Did you have some dried fruit?”

He was circling me, sizing me up, clearly concerned about how his filly would perform. He was as nervous as a cyclist's dope-pushing trainer before a race.

“No, but I'll be fine. I promise.”

I did not want to imagine what would happen if I disappointed him.

“Right . . . I know you're going to
tear it up
!”

The youngster expression fit him like a kilt on an undertaker. But he didn't care. He was high on his own adrenaline; he was all revved up, before the racing flag was even waved.

And if I proved as lackluster as I suspected I would onscreen, there was no doubt I could expect a fate similar to Aurora's. Would he push me to the same extremes? Would my name also disappear into a digital hell, never to be seen again?

He kissed my neck with tenderness, sweeping away all my dark thoughts. He buried his nose into my hair, his hand stroking my half-bare shoulder. So long as he did not speak of the prenup, so long as he continued to see me as his new goddess, I could abandon myself to his muddled caresses.

“I want you,” he whispered into my ear.

I bent my neck to escape his kisses, which were becoming more and more insistent.

“Not here . . .”

“Why? Are you afraid the boss will walk in on us?”

He chuckled at his own joke, self-satisfied, as usual. Everything he touched supposedly turned to gold. And it always had. He won at everything. Except with Aurora  . . .

“Oh, sorry . . .”

Fred's blue eyes were at the door, staring at us in surprise. A familiar look of anger crossed his brow. But he contained himself, unlike David:

“What do you want? What are you doing here?”

I realized that the two men had never met. And while Fred had to know what his employer, the big boss at BTV, looked like, the same did not go for David, for whom this unshaven young man in jeans and a T-shirt could only belong to the ranks of the hoi polloi in his company. The expendable masses, for him, and he treated them as such.

“I . . .”

Was I supposed to introduce them? And if so, which parts of our respective histories was I to discuss? I figured Fred was afraid I would tell David about how he had started at the station; that would explain his silence.

“ ‘
I
' what? Leave us alone!”

“Darling . . . ,” I intervened, “this is Fred Morino. He's the sound guy for the show. I suppose everyone is waiting for me on set?”

I shot Fred a meaningful look.

“That's right.” He nodded, suppressing his rage.

“Oh . . . Very good.”

David never lost face, never, no matter his interlocutor. So he straightened, more annoyed than angry, and scolded Fred in a paternalistic tone:

“But next time knock—I don't care if it's an emergency.”

He pointed to the door of my office, which had been wide open when Fred first appeared. His gesture was so obvious that it could not be confused.

And to think I had added my ex to the guest list for our wedding. Would the master of the house kick him out of the reception before he got the chance to show his invitation?

“I have to go,” I said lightly, following the technician.

It was now or never to sway my hips, bat my eyelashes, pucker my lips into a heart. In other words, play up my feminine charms as though I were in a Z-list movie. Perhaps it would help mitigate David's reaction after the evening's imminent disaster.

“I'll be thinking about what you
said
earlier,” I purred  . . .

 

I FOUND FRED IN THE
corridor, and we hurried to slip away. I was as embarrassed as he. The incongruity of the situation had not only been torture; it also had lifted the curtain on a vitiated part of my relationship with David. God knows I had wanted it all, the perfect man, a life of power and comfort, privileges to make daily life invulnerable. But I could not forget who I was. I could not leave the girl from Nanterre or those who had grown up with her outside an open door . . . I could not be inside and out at the same time.

I refrained from sharing my nerves with Fred, the involuntary cause and collateral victim of this maelstrom.

“Nobody told you to come and get me, did they?”

“No,” he admitted. “But I found something interesting while messing with Louie's phone line.”

“What is it?”

“A list of all of his calls over the past three months.”

“And?” I said impatiently. “He orders a call girl every day at six o'clock?”

“Not really, no.” He suppressed a smile.

“Who does he call, then?”

“I know you're not going to believe me, but there is no doubt about the number. I recognized it immediately.”

“Shit, Fred! Tell me!” I growled, teeth gnashing.

“He calls your mom. Maude. It's your house number.”

My gaze wandered over the office landscape, in which an army of journalists was preparing for the news update at noon. Then it rested on him again, stunned.

“My mom? Are you sure?”

 

HE RATTLED OFF HER HOME
phone number without hesitating.

“This week alone, he's called her three times,” he read off a sticky note in his hand.

I remembered all the presents he had given her, those outrageous rewards for my horizontal services.

“And do they speak for a long time?”

“Kind of, yeah. Monday, twenty-two minutes. Wednesday, only eleven minutes. And yesterday, eighteen, with a little thirty-second interruption—he must have put her on hold.”

That was much longer than a courtesy call or a basic verification—verification of what, by the way? They were real conversations.

“She couldn't have answered and then put the phone down without saying anything?”

It was not necessarily an absurd idea. Not more than my real-fake lover, real-fake brother-in-law, calling my mother to chat like two old friends.

“No, I don't think so. Phones that sophisticated automatically time-out so the line won't be busy for no reason. If no one is talking, it will cut out after one or two minutes. Not twenty.”

The one thing Fred's technical expertise could not tell me was the nature of their conversations. And the identity Louie was disguising himself under to get to my mother. Was he pretending to be his brother? Or maybe Armand, under the pretext of needing information for the wedding preparations?

“When did you say he started calling her?”