Hotelles (24 page)

“Take your clothes off, Elle.”

“You can't possibly think I am going to—”

“They're waiting,” he interrupted.

All around me, eyes blinked, as though confirming his statement.
Thou shalt abandon thyself to their unflinching gaze
—I was reminded of his commandment. So this was how he got off? From a distance? Without ever touching the woman he desired?

Perhaps it was all part of an agreement more or less secret, more or less tacit between the two brothers: one consummated what the other could not even touch. David was the imperfect and awkward actor, and Louie the eternal and pure spectator. He had his desires and ideals, a sublimated sexuality, in which flesh was more the stuff of dreams than carnal feasts. Had Aurora been a victim of such an arrangement? And as for me, could it be that David knew all about the game his brother was playing at my expense? Was David aware that he'd been torturing me with meetings and ultimatums?

True story: Weather permitting, Mom used to hang our clothes to dry on a line outside, on the terrace in front of the house. When I was about fifteen or sixteen, at that age when the female figure has first bloomed, my underthings, panties and bras, suddenly started to disappear from the line. At first, we blamed the “mischievous wind,” like the Georges Brassens song, for stealing the undies of a young girl and leaving behind the old intimates of a more mature woman. We chalked it up to chance. But after the fourth time, we kept a look out from the living room window. After a month, I was the one to solve the mystery: I saw our neighbor on the left, a retired, single man in his sixties, casting his fishing rod out the skylight in his bathroom and hooking my white cotton underclothes. They were so light he had no problem wresting them from their clothespins and reeling them in. I even saw him bury his nose, delighted, in the clean crotch. That day, I felt as dirty and ashamed as if the gross old man had put his face in my virgin
beaver
pussy. Yet in the months that followed, it was that same odious image that came to mind when I touched myself most feverishly. Afterward, I was always careful to
wipe
dab my moist sex with the small triangle of cotton, leaving a trace for him to notice of what he would never be able to smell again in the flesh. So young and yet already perverted  . . .

 

Handwritten note by me, 6/10/2009

 

THE ROOM UNDERWENT ANOTHER CHANGE,
coaxing me: under each spy hole, a door as narrow as it was high opened, with just enough room for a hand to pass through. All at once, several hands rushed in, reaching into the room, eager to grab hold of what they could not, for the moment, grasp: me.

“See how they want you! No man on earth could resist you.”

I think the song had started from the beginning again. It was playing in a throbbing loop, hammering home my distress. My body and mind were under siege. Louie was using any tool he could think of to weaken my defenses, to make me more pliable, to open me like ripe fruit and force me to admit my desires.

“You are so beautiful . . . Show us.”

I looked at their hungry fingers with horror and excitement, reeling from one end of the room to the other, eager to let them touch me. That's when Louie urged, with a conviction that smashed my inhibitions:

“Prove it to yourself!”

Like a marionette hanging from its threads, I slowly undressed. Each gesture weighed a ton. Each article of clothing was a lost struggle, falling to the ground, joining the others. When I had gotten rid of my panties and all I was wearing was the emerald-and-diamond necklace, his voice grew deeper, more enticing:

“Put the mask on.”

It was like a rerun of my first surrender, here, a few floors down, the time he'd wanted me naked for the camera.

“Don't be scared . . . They aren't dirty; they'll reveal you to yourself.”

I approached the anonymous hands. Every inch they touched felt different, taking on a completely new volume or texture. I had never known my backside to be so soft, my middle so round, my waist so narrow. Never had a palm thrilled the heavy contours of my breasts the way this nameless, story-less palm did now.

“If you could see how much they desire you!”

And you? What about you?
my vagina silently cried. But I was no longer in a state to reply. I closed my eyes, letting my body—a little ball of palpitating flesh—travel from one end of the room to another. I turned and turned, again and again, an unrelenting merry-go-round, piquing their desire only to frustrate them as I moved on.

After a few times around, some of the fingers grew more daring, darting between my buttocks, gripping the curls of my bush, or even quickly slipping into the folds of my vagina, which was so wet that fluid had begun to run down my thighs in thin lines.

“Continue . . . Continue like that . . .”

The more I ran through their fingers, under their eyes, the more it seemed my whole body was changing consistency. No longer was I simply Annabelle, the sum of my organs and members, the fruit of my lone consciousness. Now, their collective desire was weaving a new me, my new skin. I
was
because they wanted me. Louie could not have said it better himself . . .

Karmacoma, Jamaica' aroma

Yes, the scent of ecstasy, that smooth and familiar perfume of pleasure: that is the aroma that floated through the room. I could smell it through the thin walls.

Karmacoma . . .

Through the walls or rather . . .

What was happening? I was standing motionless in the center of the room. I opened my eyes and noticed that the holes in the walls were at waist-level. One by one, they filled with another organ. Each specimen was varied and unique. Some were flaccid, others fully erect. Some long, others short. Thin and thick, circumcised and not. Two dozen penises were pointing at me, thrusting into the unknown, in the hope that I would touch them as I had been touched.

I staggered toward one, then another, making my way around the room again. I ran the tips of my fingers over the erect members like stalks in a wheat field, for the sheer joy of feeling them bow and quiver with impatience, before resuming their proud position as soon as the gentle pressure of my touch let up. I wiped off drops of seminal liquid that had already begun to pearl on one or two of the members. They smelled so strong, so good  . . .

But what was I to do with all their desire? Who was I to think I could satisfy them all? I was just me. All I wanted was to please one man. Louie? David? Which?

The answer should have been obvious, what with my feelings and the coming marriage. And yet the more I perused the army of phalluses, the less I felt capable of giving one up for the other. Louie had succeeded in this: he had made me doubt, and without laying a finger on me.

Louie had not organized a clash of cocks but an immense field of erotic possibility, which I was about to forgo when I sealed my union with David. I would put it away like a good girl, as I had done with the riding crop, between two piles of clothing.

 

THE MUSIC STOPPED. THE MAN
in charge of this strange ceremony must have guessed my consternation, as he gently announced the end of our session:

“You can get dressed now, Elle.”

Like the times before, I heard the lock on the door click open. The anonymous penises must have also received an order: they disappeared from the peepholes, and one by one, the tiny doors closed. An envelope pushed through the last one just before it shut, floating to the floral carpet.

I was still half naked, my panties not quite covering my ass and cunt. I leaned to pick up the object, a white envelope containing a stack of hundred-euro bills. I almost screamed in shame . . . Then, when I saw the rest of its contents, I understood what they were for and calmed down: a card with a “List of Mandatory Reading” that featured several dozen, maybe thirty, books. A business card was paper-clipped to it:

      La Musardine

Paris's Erotic Bookstore

122 Rue du Chemin Vert, Paris, 11th Arrondissement

So he was giving me homework.

21

June 10, 2009

T
his time, I can't refuse . . . My old set only got two channels, and even they were fuzzy.”

Mom had just received her surprise delivery of the day: a state-of-the-art flat-screen, 3D television. It was so big it barely fit in her small living room.

“But tell him it's too much. We've never even met . . . and he's already given me
years'
worth of Christmas presents.”

“Well, Mom, that's David,” I said, feigning exasperation.

“I know I won't be around for very long . . .”

“Tsk, don't say that!” I chided softly.

“ . . . but that's no reason to try to make up for future lost time! Even if this boy has the means.”

Two delivery men had come by an hour earlier and fought hard to fit the technological beast into her pocket-size house. After plugging everything in, they had only just left, and she was still reeling: a bit incredulous, a bit happy, and wild with excitement over all our recent good fortune.

“Have you at least turned it on?”

“Yes, yes . . . I'm watching my soap. Before, I would have thought they were broadcasting it from Brazil. Now it feels like the actors are here in the house. It's really nice!”

After so many years of being frugal, years in which every extra cent went to me, she deserved such pleasures. And, to an extent, I was really happy about it. To an extent. Because I knew the source of all the extravagance.

But that day, something else caught my attention.

“Mom . . . did you say you received your new television this morning?”

“Yes, I told you: I just got it. Why do you ask?”

It was probably nothing. And yet  . . .

“And what was the present before this one?”

“Let me see . . . peonies and calissons. They were so good, by the way. I finished them all yesterday with that cow Laure Chappuis. You would never guess what she's complaining about now . . .”

She and the hilarious shenanigans of Madame Chappuis. I'd stopped listening. I needed to think. Peonies and calissons: the day after my night in the Marie Bonaparte room, the one with the vibrating egg.

I needed to be sure, so I asked:

“And do you remember when you got the rose-flavored macaroons?”

“I don't know. Two days ago. Maybe three.”

Two, I remembered, suddenly certain.

The macaroons had arrived the day after my first mysterious rendezvous at the Hôtel des Charmes.

“What's the matter, Elle? What's bothering you?”

“Nothing, Mom, it's nothing . . .”

Just another knot in the noose around my neck. Another thread he had woven to tie my life to his. There was no other possible explanation: after each of his invitations, and if I duly fulfilled my mission, he rewarded me the following day with a gift to Maude. I obeyed, and he had a sweet treat delivered, right where I was most vulnerable: 29 Rue Rigault, in Nanterre.

I felt the hundred-euro bills from the night before burning through the leather of my wallet. He wasn't remunerating my charms. It was much worse. Since he had the means, he was trying to buy my whole life. My past and cancerous mother included. What were we in his eyes but a struggling small business he could take over on a whim? His brother was perhaps the king of IPOs, but Louie was only interested in making a merger-and-acquisition of me.

I snapped out of it, pressing the phone into my ear to better quell the vertigo.

“By the way . . . I have an announcement.”

It was time. At last I would tell her the big news. The family ring that was being enlarged for me. And even the grand ceremony David and Armand had been secretly planning. My mother gasped in delight. I had to delve deep into my memory and recall my old dreams from when I was a little girl. It was the only way I could find the enthusiasm I did not presently feel. I spun a fairy tale for her, blending truth and fiction into a fairly convincing narrative: the proposal on the boat, the presents he'd been piling on me . . . I even pretended that I hadn't been informed of the perfectly chosen date, which was also very soon, until the night before. One final and divine surprise.

Once I had finished, she didn't say a word, but I could tell, even from the other end of the line, that tears were streaming down her face.

“Don't cry, Mom . . .”

“I know, I know . . . ,” she howled, sniffling. “You're right. It's completely stupid. But I'm so happy . . . so happy for you, my girl.”

“I know . . . So now do you understand why he's been spoiling you with presents?”

Okay. It's not nice to lie to your dying mother. But was I supposed to ruin her happiness, and tell her a strange, troubling story? A story where I gave myself to faceless desires? A tale in which I no longer knew what to believe, what to think, whom to love . . . nor whom to offer my body for the purposes of pleasure. What would she think of the dangerous game Louie Barlet was subjecting me to? Would she be able to accept it? It was a pretty far cry from fairies and magic wands. A pretty far cry from a mother's dream for her darling child.

The dream begins like this: I am the betrothed on the day of her wedding. I am in tears, locked in my nuptial suite. My bridesmaids try in vain to talk sense into me, but I won't let them in my room. The reason for all the drama? I am naked. My dress is ruined.
Anonymous hands tore it from me, and I
can't remember why.
Everything is wrecked. I don't want to go out there in a backup gown. One of my future husband's friends, however, finds the words to convince me. I open the door. He takes me in his arms and consoles me. Then he kisses me and lays me on the ground. I feel so hopeless that I could give myself to him. But he's hovering over me, masturbating. Soon, no doubt too soon for his taste, a flow of semen spurts from his penis, covering my whole body. I am cloaked in fluid. And when it dries against my skin, it forms a white dress. I am dressed in his seed. I am saved.

Handwritten note by me, 6/10/2009

 

DAVID AND I HAD NOT
spoken since his slap and bitter words from the night before. All of his usual habits—his early-morning departure for work, his chronic unavailability over the phone—lent themselves to shared sulking.

“Hello, David Barlet's office, how may I help you?”

“Hello? Chloe?”

She did not recognize my voice, which was perhaps less assured over the telephone than in person:

“Yes? May I ask who is speaking?”

“Chloe, it's Elle.”

“Elle . . .”

The zealous secretary was searching her memory. She had clearly forgotten my nickname.

“Annabelle. Elle Lorand, if you prefer.”

“Elle! Yes, sorry! I wasn't expecting you. Is there a problem?”

Nine twenty-three, the clock on her phone undoubtedly told her, or almost one hour after the time I was supposed to be in the office.

“No . . . I mean, I don't feel well.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

“I don't think so. Just a bad cold,” I fibbed. “Could you tell David, and Albane, that I won't be coming in today?”

My second day of work and already sick. If there was anyone left at the company who was still on my side, despite my nepotistic advantage, they would no doubt use this occasion to abandon my cause. My pathetic excuse wasn't going to fool anyone, not my future husband, not my new colleagues. Would Louie interpret my absence as a way of escaping him? The only way I'd found to extract myself from his net? I didn't care. I urgently needed to take some distance. To press pause on my chaotic and capricious relationship with the Barlet brothers. I needed to think outside their incomplete, elusive, and contradictory stories. I was beginning to wonder if their flagrant incoherence wasn't a strategy to confuse me, to lose me in a labyrinth of doubt and fear.

 

I STAYED HOME ALONE. ARMAND
was so busy with wedding preparations that I hardly saw him. I had plenty of time to rummage through the parts of the house that I had hitherto neglected. Since I had moved in, I had been lazy, confining myself to our bedroom, its adjoining bathroom, the living room, and, on rare occasions, the kitchen. As I strolled through my new home, I took stock of the size and grandeur of the place. It had originally been designed by the architect Constantin, the very same man who drew up the plans for New Athens.

The room that had once, I presumed, served as a boudoir, and was attached to Mademoiselle Duchesnois's bedroom—our bedroom—was now David's office. An office, as I had already discovered, that always remained locked.

A key . . . The word ricocheted through my head until it came across a recent memory. The large, antiquated, jagged key that Louie had included in his first package. What if it gave me access to his brother's secrets?

As I inserted the key into the lock, I paused. Was I sure I wanted to know about a past from which I would always necessarily be excluded? What would it bring me, in the end? Like everyone, like me with my absent father, didn't David have the right to forget? Didn't he deserve my unconditional love and faith in him? Didn't I owe it to him after all the amazing things he had done for me?

But the temptation was too strong. Coldly and without regret (or so I told myself), I thrust the rounded point into the dark cavity.

“I'm an idiot,” I whispered to myself.

. . . And, above all, naive to imagine that it would be so easy. The lock and key were as mismatched as they could be. Try as I might, the object would not go in, much less turn. There was nothing to be done.

I didn't come across any clues in the rest of the house either. In the few furnishings I could access—mostly magnificent Restoration pieces that fit perfectly with the rest of our decor—notably, in the living and dining rooms, all I found were stacks of paper and newspaper clippings of no real importance; they were mostly related to the Barlet Group's activities. Some were jumbled, others organized in random piles, others stuck between economic magazines, the vast majority of which featured David on the cover . . . They told the story of his ascension, year by year, decade by decade. It was like watching the opening credits of
The Persuaders!
, a television staple of my childhood.

Still, I took the time to flip through several large binders containing the most important articles. Feeling nostalgic, I reread the page in
Le Monde
that I had skimmed in the RER just three months before. I couldn't believe I was sharing my life with the man in the photograph . . .

 

I STRETCHED OUT ON THE
sofa in the living room, abandoning myself to my muddled and contradictory thoughts. Felicity crawled onto my stomach and I ran my hand over her tabby fur. It was soft and reassuring. I tried not to give in to black-and-white thinking, remembering another lesson from my mustachioed professor in the journalism department: even in times of war, never consider a subject in terms of sharply divided sides: “Only in the Bible and Hollywood movies will you ever find a pure, immaculate, untainted Good side on the one hand and a truly evil Bad side on the other. Real life is not made up of Cains and Abels, Luke Skywalkers and Darth Vaders. It's always infinitely more complicated than that. And your job is to untangle this impossible web. You have to tug on threads and show your findings to the public, but without blaming anyone for original sin. There is no such thing as a first cause. Only visible points in a long, long chain of causality. It's up to you to choose a point and explain why you've chosen it. And that's the angle of your paper, your subject.” To my great disappointment, Mr. Mustache was one hundred percent right.

Everything would have been so much simpler for me if Louie had been content to lie and play with me like a toy, and if he hadn't made me feel anything—neither desire nor pleasure. Everything would have been so much clearer if David had controlled his hand rather than his secrets.

I was trying to curb my emotions, but I was livid. My time off was misleading. I owed this moment of respite to my temporary withdrawal, and it couldn't last long.

I rummaged through my bag for the papers I'd received the night before in the Païva room. I took a moment to scan the list Louie had written. While some of the titles were vaguely familiar—my knowledge of erotica was extremely limited—I had to admit that I hadn't read any of these books. The ones that were most familiar to me had been adapted to the silver screen:

1.
Secret Women
, Ania Oz

2.
Lady Chatterley's Lover
, D. H. Lawrence

3.
The Eleven Thousand Rods
, Guillaume Apollinaire

4.
Sexus
, Henry Miller

5.
Story of O
, Pauline Réage

6.
Philosophy in the Bedroom
, Marquis de Sade

7.
Emmanuelle
, Emmanuelle Arsan

8.
Delta of Venus
, Anaïs Nin

9.
Fanny Hill
, John Cleland

10.
Portnoy's Complaint
, Philip Roth

11.
Irene's Cunt
, Louis Aragon

12.
Story of the Eye
, Georges Bataille

13.
The Butcher: And Other Erotica
, Alina Reyes

14.
The Lover
, Marguerite Duras

15.
The Mechanics of Women
, Louis Calaferte

16.
The Black Notebook
, Joë Bousquet

17.
The Ages of Lulu
, Almudena Grandes

18.
The Sexual Life of Catherine M.
, Catherine Millet

19.
Tales of Ordinary Madness
, Charles Bukowski

20.
My Secret Life
, Anonymous