The Unforgiving Minute (5 page)

sat there, incredulous. I could tell by the look on her face

that she thought I was a little crazy, running away from what

seemed like paradise to her.

I offered her the use of my gigantic bath tub and the use

of my room while I was there. It didn’t really surprise me when

she accepted instantly, without a trace of coyness. I felt a

momentary surge of guilt for seducing a desperate woman, when I

realized that no sexual favors had been discussed at any time.

In fact, she gave no indication that she was flirting or that she

had any interest in me physically.

When I walked through the lobby of the George Cinq with

her I felt as if everyone were staring at us with derision. She

was rather unkempt-looking in this setting. When we reached my

room she stood there for a moment, amazed. She took one look at

the bathtub and grinned from ear to ear. She literally dove for

it, securing the stopper and running the water. When it was

full, she shyly closed the door with a weak little abashed look

on her face. I could hear her splashing in the bath gleefully.

I lay down on the bed, still dressed in my blazer, and instantly

drifted off to sleep. It had been an exhausting day with all the

walking around Paris. When I awakened I could hear the hair

dryer droning away in the bathroom. I remember thinking to

myself that it would take hours to dry her long hair. I drifted

off again, the sound of the dryer almost hypnotic and comforting.

When I opened my eyes again I saw her in a terrycloth

robe, which was part of the hotel amenities. She was standing by

the window. When she turned around, the sun shone through what

was now magnificent, shining blonde hair which hung freely to her

waist. She was without her glasses and, even with no makeup, I

could see that she was exceptionally pretty. She turned to me

awkwardly and spoke.

“I used your toothbrush,” she said sheepishly, with a look

of guilt that broke my heart. I walked over to her, took her

face in my hands and kissed her gently on the mouth. Her lips

were hard and unresponsive. I could see tears welling in her

eyes as she said, “I guess it’s payback time, huh?” as her hands

started to undo the belt of the robe.

I quickly pressed the palm of my hand against her middle

and stared at her angrily.

“It may surprise you to find out that I don’t need to use

these methods to get a woman. I felt sorry for you and thought I

would try to help. You’re free to go at any time. There are no

strings attached!” I felt a genuine anger boiling in me. Sex

with this girl was hardly on my mind. I had only admired her

physically for a few seconds before the conversation. I walked

out of the room, leaving her there alone. She could have looted

the room, but I didn’t care. I walked through the lobby onto the

Avenue George Cinq and headed for the Champs.

I must have walked around for twenty minutes. I was

looking at shop windows but not really seeing what I was looking

at. I was less than a week on my journey and was starting to

wonder what the hell it and I were all about. I decided to

return to the room and do some reading. I had brought a pile of

books with me that I had always meant to read but hadn’t. I

opened the door to my room fully expecting to find it empty.

Instead, I saw her under the covers sound asleep in my bed. Her

hair cascaded over the pillow and one breast was partially

exposed. I took Flaubert’s Madame Bovary from my belongings and

sat down in a wing chair where the sunlight would illuminate its

pages. I wanted to read the books of different authors in their

own country to get a certain flavor. I read for about three

quarters of an hour and felt her eyes on me. When I looked up

she was smiling at me, sleepy-eyed. “Come here with me,” she

said.

“Forget it,” I said. “I told you it’s not necessary.”

“Please,” she said. “I haven’t been with a man for a long

time and I find you very attractive … and very nice.”

I sat there for a few seconds, just staring at her. At

that point she got out of the bed and walked towards me, naked.

The late afternoon sun was pouring through the windows and

spotlighted her body. She was a little too thin and her hip

bones protruded just a little too much but there was something

incredibly appealing about her overall looks. She was very pale

and her blonde hair and blue eyes gave her a look that was a bit

Nordic. Her legs were long and had retained a marvelous muscle

tone. She knelt beside me, one hand on my thigh and the other on

my back and gently lay her head on my other leg. The effect was

very erotic. “You make a strong case,” I said and stood up.

With that she began to undress me, piece by piece. As parts of

my body became exposed, she kissed them gently and proceeded to

undress me until we both stood nude and walked to the bed wrapped

in each other’s arms.

We spent the entire night alternately making love and

chatting. She was totally lacking in inhibitions and was a

superb lover.

I don’t think we slept very much, if at all, and when we

finally drifted off the morning light had begun to appear through

the window. At about eleven we arose and sat together in the

tub, scrubbing each other and, re-aroused, making love. We

breakfasted on croissants, jam and caf´e au lait sent up by room

service, she in the robe, me in a bath towel. Finally, I said to

her, “Okay, time to swing into action. First, I’m going to get

you some decent clothes and then you’re going to the beauty

parlor.”

“Oh, Bob,” she said, “you really don’t have to do this.

I’m so embarrassed.”

I told her in no uncertain terms that I didn’t want to

hear another word of protest. She slipped on her old clothes for

the last time and we left the hotel, both of us thrilled over the

transformation that was about to take place. I giggled on the

elevator on the way down and she asked what I was laughing about.

I said, “It came to my mind that I was playing Henry Higgins and

I suddenly imagined myself as Rex Harrison.”

She smiled and took my arm as we left the hotel and I knew

that even though I felt stupid walking through the lobby with

this hippie on my arm that I wasn’t going to feel stupid at all

on the way back. We started out at Givenchy which was in the

hotel building and took a cab to the Rue D’Honore St. Fabourge

where there were designer shops wall to wall. Her figure was a

model’s figure so she was able to buy most of the clothes off the

rack. We followed with pocketbooks and shoes. I was having fun.

I was writing checks on my Swiss bank like they were going

out of style. During the cab ride back to the hotel, it suddenly

came to me. To what end was I doing this? This certainly was

not going to be a permanent relationship. What was going to

happen? Was I going to discard her and send her back to her

empty building with a trunk full of designer clothes or was I

going to take her with me for the rest of my journey? I felt a

little depressed and decided to play it one day at a time. At

the hotel, I deposited her at the beauty shop with instructions

relating to haircut, facial, manicure and makeup. I felt like I

was creating my own woman. When she finally arrived back at the

room, she looked like the woman I would create if I had my

choice. Her hair was cut in a layered French bob and whoever had

applied makeup did an exquisite job. The rimless eyeglasses

seemed to go very well with everything else and didn’t deter from

her looks. I was about to suggest contact lenses but suddenly

felt like I was manipulating her every move and, instead, I just

gazed admiringly at her. She was wearing a black dress, cut low

and slightly pinched at the bodice, making her small but perfect

breasts look much larger. The skirt was short, accentuating her

good legs, and the black hose and plain but elegant shoes gave

her a look of perfection. She all but jumped me, put her arms

around my neck and bubbled, “It’s like a fairy tale. Prince

Charming appears in the Metro and rescues Cinderella. I’m still

pinching myself. I just can’t believe this is happening to me.”

I told her I was getting as big a kick out of it as she was.

We spent the afternoon strolling the right bank of the

Seine, holding hands and chatting incessantly. I was amazed at

her intelligence and general knowledge. I was enjoying this girl

immensely. I think that men like me, for some unknown

psychological reason, enjoy making a woman over into our own

image. My thoughts wandered again to my affair with Laura.

***

Laura came from pure blue-collar roots. When she married,

she married a man who also came from blue-collar roots. Her

upbringing and childhood were much different than mine were. Her

education was basically self-education, based on a curiosity

about things around her. Her diction was excellent, belying her

background. She was ashamed of her diction as a young working

girl and took great pains to speak properly. I enjoyed so much

taking her basic attributes and molding her into a lady. I had a

feeling all along, however, that she was very uncomfortable in my

world. I remembered vividly an episode that occurred about two

years into our relationship. Laura had her family over for

dinner on a Sunday afternoon and the guests included a second

cousin who was married to a very uneducated, unkempt man named

Frank, whom Laura liked very much as a person. We had our usual

Monday lunch, at which we caught up on the events of the weekend

apart from each other. I noted that she was preoccupied and kind

of staring off into space. When I asked her what the matter was,

she replied almost angrily, “you don’t belong in my world. I was

thinking of you yesterday while I was talking to Frank. You

would make fun of him. You would feel uncomfortable having

social contact with people like him. You would hate him.”

I understood what she was doing. She was projecting me

into her life and realizing that the two different worlds we came

from were never destined to come together. She was so right.

She had come from a world where promiscuity started with puberty,

where the kids hung around Seven-Eleven stores, and where the

really cool guys had motorcycles. I thought for a long time that

she was a mutant in that world, that somehow she had transcended

it. I knew that much of her was a product of what I had created,

both physically and in my mind. When I looked at Laura from my

present perspective I saw things so clearly. If nothing else,

this trip had taken the Laura monkey off my back forever. I was

so excited at this revelation that I couldn’t wait to call Ann

Marie and share it with her. I knew she would anxiously be

awaiting a call from me but now I had another problem. I had

acquired a roommate.

***

When we got back to the hotel, I made love to a woman so

different from the night before that it was mind-boggling. This

woman was made up with false eyelashes, eye shadow, lipstick,

makeup, and smelled from L’air du Temp. We bathed leisurely and

dressed for the evening. Jane wore a grey tweed skirt which was

as long as the afternoon dress was short, with a dark green

turtleneck sweater and dark brown high-heeled boots. I wore a

dark grey suit, blue-and-white-striped Hilditch and Key shirt

with a white spread collar and white cuffs and a solid burgundy

tie. When I observed our images in the mirror, I had to admit

that we were a handsome couple. She held my hand in the elevator

and it would be hard to believe that we hadn’t been a couple for

a long time. I thought to myself that I was doing it again. I

was creating something physically and in my mind that really did

not exist. I quickly threw all such thoughts out of my mind and

decided to take the moment and worry about everything else later.

We ate dinner in the excellent hotel restaurant. It’s

funny. When I travel in America I seldom eat in a hotel. With

notable exceptions such as the Stanford Court in San Francisco,

American hotel restaurants are not usually the best in town. In

Europe, however, I find that some of the finest restaurants I’ve

eaten in have been in hotels. I had decided that after dinner we

would take a short stroll down to the Seine to walk it off and

then double back to the Crazy Horse Saloon which is across from

the hotel, towards the Seine. In all of my trips to Paris, I had

never been there, mostly because Julie thought it was a waste of

an evening to go to a strip joint, albeit a famous strip joint.

As we strolled back toward the night club I remember

thinking that I had not been this content for a long time.

We arrived early and sat at a table very close to the

stage. We were very relaxed and sipped brandies, laughing and

holding hands while waiting for the show. When the girls came on

the stage we were mellow and receptive. There was something