Hotelles (9 page)

“For once, Rebecca does not disappoint.”

His compliment, his way of making it clear he was a regular, annoyed me. It was vulgar. Usually our clients at Belles de Nuit tried to lighten the situation by pretending everything was normal, as though we hadn't needed an intermediary to set up our meeting. Not he. And his unusual frankness irritated me. It was as if he were trying to tarnish his first impression.

“And yet we manage it every time . . . keeping our promises,” I replied brusquely.

“You have all night to convince me . . . Elle.”

I hated the way he detached my first name from the rest of the sentence, playing with it like a cat with its prey.

I had been hoping that on my last mission I would get someone gentle and clumsy, someone who would simply be proud to show me off. But an escort doesn't get to decide these things.

“I don't even know your name,” I snapped. “You are Monsieur . . . ?”

“Patience . . . You have all night to find out.”

With every passing second, the man seemed less and less charming. I, for one, was having a hard time staying composed. I wanted to leave, and had to keep reminding myself of the watch in the window at Antiquités Nativelle to motivate myself to stay. Without this eccentric man and his money—Rebecca had told me he was willing to pay double for
me
—I might as well kiss the watch good-bye. But how long did I have to endure this?

As though sensing my panic, the limping dandy shifted tones, making himself more affable and even a little playful. He asked questions to be polite: Was I a student? Was I from Paris or the provinces? Did I like contemporary art or not really?

He had at last stepped down from his pedestal.

“Admit it, you're not really that into galleries . . . ?” he said, breaking into an open and almost charming smile.

“No . . . Not really.”

“In that case, will you allow me to be your guide?”

“My guide?”

“Yes, here, tonight. You know, David Garchey is an up-and-coming artist. He's already very popular in New York and London.”

David. So that was the artist's name. I smiled to myself, pleased by the irony and coincidence. David Barlet. David Garchey. The similarity was troubling.

“Okay, that would be nice,” I said, relaxing.

He offered me his firm but slim arm, which was tense and gave off a kind of nervous energy. As he guided me to such and such piece, to such and such corner of the gallery, he allowed himself to behave with me as with an intimate. His fingers ran through a stray tendril, brushing over the nape of my neck and sending an electric current through my body.

“You see,” he pontificated in a calm, deep voice, “David isn't just another spoiled child from a good family who feels guilty about his background.”

“If you say so . . .”

If I was going to cut this tedious night short, then I'd have to let him do the talking. The less you contradict someone like him, the more quickly he'll grow bored of his own opinions. I figured he was like those university professors who go after naive students. I had been approached by some when I was in college—only to disappoint them.

I could smell his cologne, its notes of vanilla and lavender accentuated by a persistent charcoal that seemed to follow him everywhere.

“I'm sure of it. The social meaning of his work goes well beyond his background.”

As he said this, he pointed to a giant statue of Sophie the Giraffe with huge breast implants and a silver lamé string bikini riding up her backside.

The sleeves of his jacket and shirt were slightly bunched and revealed a tattoo of a miniature
a
and the tip of a feather pen on his left forearm. The rest of the word was hidden from view.

“Sorry, but I don't follow. I don't see the interest in making fun of children's toys by turning them into grotesque sexual objects . . . How exactly does that diverge from the petulant bourgeois youth biting the hand that feeds it?”

I hadn't been able to hold myself back. He had awakened my critical mind, which had reacted before my better judgment could kick in.

I expected him to dismiss me for the night—and without pay—or at least shoot me a death look. Instead, his eyes shone with renewed interest, searching mine. He was smiling both in surprise and excitement.

“Notice the choice of characters, Elle: David could have chosen to use toys that are already known for their oversexualized attributes, like Barbies. Instead, he transformed objects synonymous with childhood and innocence into symbols of sexual emancipation . . .”

“Okay, if you say so. And so what?”

“What he's trying to express is how fast children today transition from a state of innocence into sexualized beings. And how violent that is. To the point where the child and the sexual predator coexist in the same person, becoming at once the hunted
and
the hunter.”

The moral undertones of his speech made me uneasy. Above all, I was surprised to hear this sort of conversation from a man I barely knew. But he did not seem very hampered by strict principles.

“Do you know the average age at which a person sees a pornographic film for the first time?” he asked in a serious tone.

“No . . . I don't know . . . Fourteen?”

“Eleven. By the age of eleven, most preteens, girls included, know all there is to know about fellatio, sodomy, double penetration, and even more extreme practices.”

“Right, clearly, it's a prob—”

“No!” he erupted. “They don't really know anything! That's the whole point! The fact that sex has become so banal has created the
illusion
that everyone is properly informed on the subject. All the porno-chic advertisements, all the suggestive clothing, all the sexualized television programs kids binge on these days . . . none of it actually teaches them anything about sexuality. It's just one big, incredibly lucrative marketplace. But you could hardly call it a sexual education. Everything about it is fake, deformed, ridiculous, and even violent . . . It's everything but erotic. Anything but true!”

“So if I understand you correctly, then the problem isn't simply that sexual content exists, but that children are exposed to it before they've reached any kind of
natural
sexual maturity?”

“Yes.” He nodded passionately. “
That's
what David's work is expressing: all this ambient sex is nothing but a trompe l'oeil. And a real education in sexuality has simply vanished. None of these children bombarded with sex at a very young age are capable of understanding sexualized images. Any semblance of truth has been occulted. And somebody is making a fortune off this shit. That's the tragedy! That's the scandal!”

“So then according to you,” I inquired, “what would be the right age at which to learn about sex? And who would teach it?”

I immediately thought of my notebook and its mysterious notes. Wasn't the person writing to me trying to educate me, albeit in a way that was brutal, intrusive, bordering on rape?

“It's different for everyone. There is not
one
age at which the libido blossoms, contrary to what some lawmakers and statisticians argue. Each person has his or her own schedule. Some are ready much earlier than others. Sexual education should not follow a one-size-fits-all curriculum.”

The man was the Rousseau of sex. His philosophy was that each person's natural sexuality should be allowed to express itself, and that people needed to be protected from society's market-driven mentality. He had not answered my second question, though:
Who
could we entrust to teach it? He was right to criticize the current market-driven model of sexual education, but who would he have replace it?

Thinking about it, I didn't disagree with his assertions. But was this artwork really the best way of getting the message across? What about the teenagers from the nearby high school who walked by the gallery several times a day? Was exposing them to Sophie-Gomorrah monsters without any sort of explanation really all that helpful? Was it really any less toxic than the pornography they encountered online? Wasn't the artist (involuntarily?) complicit in the evil he was trying to condemn?

I kept my ethical concerns to myself. My companion was so passionate about what he was saying that I started thinking he
himself
was David Garchey, the artist and author of the abominations in question.

“Speak of the devil . . . and the scent of sulfur fills the air!”

He nodded furtively to someone behind me who noticed and navigated through the crowd of art show moochers to join us.

“Good evening,” said the young man timidly. He was practically a teenager. He wore a white shirt, his long brown hair hiding half his face.

“David, allow me to introduce Elle. Elle, this is the young man whose work I so admire, as you've probably guessed.”

That was an understatement.

I threw a polite smile in the direction of the artist, who looked about as confident as a coat hanger.

“Good evening . . . and congratulations on the show.”

“Thank you,” he replied shyly.

“I bet the media has taken interest.”

“Actually,” my date piped in, “we've had several nice articles. But that's not what counts. The important thing is that some of your fellow newspeople have seen beyond the most shocking features of David's work, which are only there to grab public attention, and grasped the social and educational thrust of his message.”

How did he know about my future profession? Wasn't Rebecca supposed to keep our personal information confidential?

I was about to ask him about this when a tall, ethnic-looking woman, in a sequined dress the size of a swimming suit, sauntered over and glued herself to him. She coiled her long body and perfect curves around my interlocutor. Unlike David,
my
David, he did not look like a famous actor. His feverish demeanor put him in a category with the likes of Willem Dafoe, Christian Bale, or Anthony Perkins—the dark and nervous types. He was not a beautiful statue, but still was rather incandescent.

“Shall we go, Loulou?”

“Yes, let's. Elle, I leave you with the future of contemporary art.”

The future in question was staring at his shoes.

“Wait . . . you're leaving?”

It was the first time a client had left me like that, and on the arm of a girl who was a hundred times prettier and more sophisticated than I. My tutu flounced in rage and indignation. I was so irritated I forgot that his early departure also meant I would not be getting the promised bonus. I was just so offended. I felt rejected.

“Don't fear. We'll see more of each other,” he promised as he put his arm around the tall and tan Vine, whose dark eyes were glaring at me. “Oh, and I forgot . . .”

What had he forgotten? The most basic forms of politeness? Or maybe to pay me? Typically clients paid me directly and sent the agency its commission separately. Some of the regulars settled everything with Rebecca, who would then give us our share. I didn't ask, but assumed that he must be in the latter, more exclusive category.

His tattooed arm reached toward my low bun, which had come undone over the course of the evening. I stiffened at his touch.

“What?”

“You should use hairpins instead of barrettes,” he advised, as though he could read my thoughts. “It would show off your neck better. It's a shame to hide it.”

“Oh, I don't know . . . ,” I stammered.

“Good night, Elle.”

The duo was just about to disappear into the crowd, the loud clap of the man's cane on waxed cement echoing behind them . . . when suddenly he turned and started back. Now what did he want from me?

“I forgot to introduce myself.”

“Right . . .” About time, I thought.

“I'm Louie . . .”

I was still curious. Louie who? I gestured for him to go on.

“Louie . . . ?”

“Barlet. I'm David Garchey's patron . . .”

Louie Barlet,
I repeated to myself, trying to grasp the meaning of the two names. Suddenly I felt sick.

“ . . . and David Barlet's brother.”

Again he took his leave, but stopped for a brief instant to smile and throw what felt like a grenade in my face:

“But I suppose you'd already guessed?”

So this was the brother David barely mentioned. I had never seen his picture, and David had clearly been avoiding a proper introduction. Now we had met. And in the worst circumstances imaginable.

He and his creature disappeared into the night, leaving me there, breathless.

 

“ELLE?”

Alban was like a jack-in-the-box; he popped up in front of me without warning and handed me a thick envelope.

“Here, Louie told me to give this to you.”

“Thanks, what is it . . . ?”

“You'd better get going. Your taxi is outside. Open it in the car.”

Without saying good-bye, I ran out the door and found a large sedan idling curbside. I hesitated a moment, unsure of how to address the chauffeur, then said:

“3 Rue de la Tour-des-Dames, please. In the 9th Arrondissement.”

He put the car in drive without saying a word. I settled comfortably into the back seat and opened the envelope Louie had left for me with his gallerist friend. It contained eight perfectly crisp one-hundred-euro bills that could have come directly from the Banque de France. Eight hundred euros. Or exactly double my usual rate for a date, including a night at the Hôtel des Charmes. It's what he'd promised. Louie Barlet had decided against possessing me while he was anonymous to me . . . but he'd still paid for me like any courtesan.

His generosity made me a vulgar whore. And he knew it. Just like he must have known I would soon be family.

I started texting David a message to tell him I was on my way home when my smartphone suddenly buzzed. There was no indication of the sender, but I knew right away who it was: