Hotelles (10 page)

See you tomorrow.

 

I should have thrown my phone out the window. Or at least erased the two last messages from its memory. I was shaking, my head sweating and inflamed, and I didn't do a thing. I fought to contain my tears, which flowed uncontrollably from who knows what old painful memory.

That is how I met Louie Barlet.

9

June 6, 2009

T
hat morning, David did not greet me. Not in person. He had left his credit card and a little handwritten note on the bedside table for me to find, more proof of his innocence in the notebook affair. It made me smile and gave me energy for the day.

Don't you have an interview today?

Go make yourself beautiful—which you already are  . . .

I love you.

D.

He was so charming! He'd been doing things like this for the past three months. Unfortunately, I could not fully appreciate it. Something inside me was stuck. My emotion for him did not course through me like it should. Not like it had. I thought love was supposed to last at least three years. Not three months!

 

WHEN I'D ARRIVED HOME THE
night before, David had already gone to bed and was fast asleep. I tried to make myself as discreet as possible when I joined him under the feather-and-silk covers. But I couldn't help tossing and turning as I replayed the night's catastrophic events.

I couldn't find the right words to describe the situation: my future brother-in-law had hired me to be his luxury doll behind my fiancé's back. He had set a trap for me, and I did not as yet know why. One word from Louie to David and my future would instantly disappear like a speck of dust in the wind. My dream life: over. Maude's miracle treatment: gone. His disgusting and completely inexplicable ruse could destroy everything David and I had planted over the past few months. And the money, which I had counted over and over in the back of the taxi, and which he had deemed too dirty to touch, had already ruined the token I had wanted to give his brother as a symbol of my love: the watch. I could not buy it for David now. It would be a constant reminder of my shame, and of the secret between Louie and me.

I could hardly believe this man's hostility. Prior to that night, I had never met him. What had I done to him? Did he think I was just another trashy, brainless gold digger, after the family money like all the other leeches? The thought crossed my mind that David himself had asked Louie to test me, as I would imagine he tests all his new recruits in the business world. But no. I couldn't believe such a disgusting thought . . . Not after his beautiful marriage proposal on the boat. A man capable of that kind of romanticism could not be manipulative in matters of the heart. That's what set him apart from Louie, who obviously loved to scheme.

“Are you sleeping?” whispered a muffled voice.

It was so unexpected that I almost screamed.

As if he knew I needed comfort, he pressed his athletic torso against my back, folding my body into his and caressing my neck with his breath. “It would show off your neck better,” Louie had murmured not an hour earlier. “It's a shame to hide it.”

Remembering his words and the feeling of his touch against my skin as he'd reached for my bun's stray tendril, I felt an unexpected surge of heat. A ball of energy formed within me and shot from my neck down to my loins and into my backside and the fleshy folds of my sex, which quickly engorged with uncontrollable desire. Reflexively, I pressed my posterior against David's penis, instantly waking it from sleep.

“That's how the hospital makes you feel?” he asked quietly, his lips on my ear.

I shuddered in reply, showing uncharacteristic wantonness.

“I want you . . . Take me, now.”

“You don't want me to—”

“Take me!” I pleaded.

He did not need more coaxing. He freed his erection from its cotton prison and planted it into me. No foreplay, no liminal rubbing. We were spooning, which limited his depth of penetration and range of movement. Its only advantage, aside from the obvious one of comfort, was that it freed up my hands to wander to the base of my pubis. I spread my fingers into a V and rubbed the mound between my legs. My breath was jagged. As my pink button swelled in pleasure, I felt myself cry out softly. It wasn't an earthquake, but a quiet shudder rose through me. I wanted more, harder, longer. I didn't want it to stop. And the good news was that it was all up to me. To my touch. My hand joined David's and coaxed it over my erect nipple. He pinched it harder, sending an electric arc through my body. My back and thighs contracted. It almost hurt. I would have loved for the release to have lasted more than a few seconds. For me, it was too short.

 

I don't remember how I first learned the technique to make myself come. It must have been as a young girl in my bed, facing a Depeche Mode poster and snuggled between two stuffed animals.

It hasn't varied much since then: I start by touching my breasts. I haven't given it that much thought, but I've noticed that all my erectile parts are connected. When I graze a hand over my nipples, the little pink button below always stirs. But I do not rush to touch it. I continue exploring my upper body: breasts, neck, nape of the neck . . . Sometimes I run a hand through my hair, allowing light strands to tickle my face like tiny, taunting fingers. As my crotch begins to heat up, I let my hand wander over my belly button, the curve of my stomach, and down to my pubis. I play with it for a moment, curling the wild hair around my index or middle fingers. My other hand brushes over my lips. One or two fingers dart into my mouth, where my wet tongue rolls over them.

Downstairs, serious things start to happen: the index and middle fingers form a V, and I lower the natural fork over both sides. With each movement, the base of my makeshift tool hits the excited little mount. I feel it getting bigger. It is growing out of me at an accelerated pace like a magic bean. I don't stop. I keep rubbing. From time to time, I close my two fingers, pinching my clitoris, crushing it. I imagine it to be scarlet. And then again and again. When my pleasure seems imminent, my second hand comes to action. Sometimes I move my index finger in a circular motion over my flesh, directly on the little knob, which starts to radiate pleasure. Or sometimes I introduce my finger into my vagina, where I let it wander and knead my moist interior. In response to all this, a first wave surges from my clitoris. It's sharp and strong and crashes through my middle. A second, often followed by a number of small aftershocks, rumbles like a tsunami. Its epicenter lies deep in my loins, unfurling in opposite directions: down toward my toes and up over my chest, throwing my head back. “Oh, no, no . . . ,” I moan, before collapsing and curling up on my side, exhausted. Satisfied for want of real happiness.

 

Anonymous handwritten note, 6/6/2009—Except for the Depeche Mode poster, it's pretty accurate . . . How does he know?

 

ENCOURAGED BY WHAT HE BELIEVED
to be the product of his efforts, David quickened his cadence, and soon emptied himself into me, crying out in a way that almost sounded pained. His contractions inside me felt like a kind of reward. An encouragement.

If David had finished, that meant I had full access to my vulva and could introduce one finger then another inside my wet folds. Soon I began to feel it. Then a wave started to surge up from my belly button and crashed into the shore of my lower belly and legs. Just one wave this time.

“Nooooo . . .”

It wasn't the orgasm of the century, but it was an orgasm, the kind I could give myself, often quickly and discreetly. Sex with David was not that different from sex with Fred or sex when I was single. In the end, I always had to count on myself, and only myself.

I had hoped things would change with my true lover, but I could already hear light snoring at my side. David was sleeping. I was tired, too. Exhausted by an avalanche of contradictory emotions. I had a strange dream in which David Garchey, Louie's little prodigy, was wearing the same doll's clothing as his giant penis, and kept whispering with a half-smile: “Why don't you teach him how to make love to you? Hmm? What are you waiting for?”

 

I WAS AMAZED AT THE
powers of the unlimited platinum credit card! After brandishing David's that morning to half a dozen shop clerks, I felt much better. Each time I signed for him—an ultimate mark of his trust—Louie, David Garchey's teratological work, and all the pompous speechifying on sexual education receded bit by bit. I began to forget about the threat posed by my meeting with my brother-in-law. All I could hear was salesgirl babble, like the intoxicating chant of sirens.

“That will be four hundred fifty-eight euros, please, Mademoiselle.”

“Jacket, skirt, heels, small handbag . . . Eight hundred twenty-three euros and fifty cents, please.”

“Two hundred sixty-seven euros, please. Do you have our store card?”

“Oh my, you have a lot of bags. Would you like me to call a taxi?”

“Five hundred twenty-one euros, including the fifteen percent discount on purchases above five hundred, okay?”

“Have you seen our new collection? I think you'd love it!”

Floating on my magic carpet of easy money, I could barely hear them. In just a few hours, I had scoured the boutiques of better- and lesser-known designers in a very chic neighborhood in northern Paris, the Abbesses, a triangle of sophistication bordered by working-class streets: Rue Lepic, Rue des Martyrs, and Rue des Trois-Frères. The sun was radiant, and a gentle breeze chased away any residual thoughts about the Barlet brothers.

With David's card, clothing sellers did not see me as a shopper with money troubles at the end of the month. I was no longer that chubby girl, the size 10. I was curvaceous, like the new generation of models who embrace their bodies, and whose curves advertising now extols after decades of banishment.

All the positive encouragement made me less shy about formfitting dresses or puffy short skirts, both of which accentuated my voluptuous form. “Like a Boucher or a Poussin,” David, who appreciated classical art, was sometimes known to say.

 

PLACE PIGALLE IS ONLY A
few steps down from the Abbesses. I took Rue Houdon, eating a greasy, dripping falafel sandwich, just how I like them. I stopped in front of a shop on Boulevard de Clichy that was much flashier than the designer boutiques I'd just visited. Blinking pink and red neon lights formed a naked silhouette that beckoned those feeling lusty. Some men pretended not to notice; others stopped and entered into a mirrored lobby.

“Come in, Mademoiselle. Girls like it here, too,” heckled a smooth-headed bouncer in a thick North African accent. “Come in!”

“No . . . I just wanted to see a friend of mine who dances here. Soph—”

I stopped myself. Lord knows what name she went by here. I didn't want to compromise her anonymity.

“What does your friend look like?”

“Brunette, long, curly hair . . . with . . .” I flushed and did an exaggerated mime of her chest.

“Oh!” He guffawed, showing off his broken teeth. “But you know, my gazelle, they're all brunettes with big tatas!”

“How can I find her, then?” I inquired as soberly as possible.

He clapped a friendly but firm hand on my back, pushing me inside.

“Go ahead, go . . . after the mirrors, take the hall on the right. You'll see a door marked ‘Private,' and that's where all the girls are. Your friend is probably in one of the booths.”

I followed his directions, cursing Sophia for asking me to meet at her work. “You know, the kind of dancing that gets a man all excited before he goes home to screw his little wifey,” she had said, downplaying the job and making it sound like a female version of Chippendales.

In these hard times, she'd been forced to recalibrate her dreams. But thinking about what she did and seeing it with my own two eyes were different things. Totally different.

The dark hall was too narrow for me and my giant collection of designer shopping bags. I saw my friend through a tiny window on one of the doors. Her back was to me, and her thong was so minuscule that I didn't even see it until she briefly turned around, just for a second, enough time for me to notice she'd taken out her two belly button rings. Her lusty hip movements looked nothing like choreographed dance, her only goal in the disco party behind the door being to show off body parts: her breasts, mouth, and bottom. From time to time, she'd press one of these attributes against the glass. A man was no doubt masturbating on the other side.

Five minutes! She indicated to me with one hand. She
had
noticed me.

 

In another one of my sex dreams, I am lying on my bed, naked, touching myself. It must be summer because it feels hot, and there's a light mist of sweat pearling on my naked skin. I'm not wearing anything, and the fact that I'm giving in to my pleasure so freely must mean that I think the vacation house is empty.

My legs are spread, my sex wide open, and I'm using my unfailing technique: the upside-down V straddled over my aroused button, the middle finger of my other hand plunged inside, where it's already wet. Inside, I'm burning. Despite the distance, my light perfume floats up to my nose, and I grow more excited.

But when I feel the culminating moment drawing near, I hear someone's footsteps behind the door. The old parquet flooring creaks under the weight of someone who has suddenly stopped moving. I can almost hear the unknown person holding his breath, afraid to make a sound. Has he come upon me by accident? Has he been spying on me?

In other circumstances, I would have dressed quickly or hidden myself under the white sheet. But I am not in control. I carry on, deepening the circles with my fingers, looking for my hidden sensitive zones. I bite my lips. I won't be able to keep myself from screaming for much longer. My sensations have been heightened by the knowledge that a man is so near, so petrified by emotion that he shivers in desire. I am breathing loudly . . . and he, too. He must have taken out his sex. He is rubbing it now, at the same rhythm as I. He is being careful not to make a sound.