Hotelles (42 page)

Before I had come up with my plan, I had considered a thousand different ways to tackle this situation. Tell him off. Send him to a purgatory of his delusional libido and twisted fantasies. Neither would really do. I suddenly found myself ill-equipped and incapable of uttering a sound. Luckily, I had thought of a plan B.

He took a step in my direction, looked me up and down, from head to toe. He seemed more troubled than happy to see me here, dutifully present. He angled the end of his walking stick toward me in an effort to lift the hem of my coat, from my knees to the midpoint of my thighs. Slowly. Excruciatingly. Sliding his knob under the rough canvas, watching the fabric rise. I waited until the cold metal was high enough between my legs; then I seized it and pulled it hard.

Reflexively, he tightened his grip on the other end of the stick, causing him to lose his balance and fall forward toward the bed.

I know: it's not nice to take advantage of your adversary's handicap.

He crashed into the gilded wood frame, his knees digging into the ground, the wind knocked out of him. Then at last he turned his head toward me.

Only then did I untie my belt and open my trench: naked breasts and torso—all I was wearing were the black cotton boxers he had sent.

 

ARTICLE EIGHT: ESTABLISH THE RULES
for the division of power.

He picked himself up and sat on the edge of the bed. He was not wearing the arrogant smile from our first encounter at the gallery. Nor was he the suffering being, the man crushed by his past, who had taken me to the Tuileries Garden and Malmaison. He was more awestruck than annoyed, and more delighted than surprised. He looked happy, relieved even, that I was at last taking some initiative, and that he no longer needed to set the rules of our games.

I took advantage of all the confusion to slip out of my trench, letting the rigid canvas fall from my body to the ground. Then, gingerly, I stepped out of my heels.

I kneeled between his knees, pulled down his pants, and thrust my hand into his boxers for his penis. It came to attention. A growing plant whose length made up for its small girth. His foreskin retracted without my having to touch it. And the pointed shape of his tip extended from his shaft in perfect harmony. Semen had already begun to pearl on the tip's opening, and was on the verge of dripping over his gland and moistening the whole purpled rod.

I pressed my hands firmly into his thighs to prevent him from moving. Then, under his flabbergasted and powerless gaze, I dived in head first, my tongue shooting toward the base of his head. Lapping like a kitten, I licked up the drop of thick fluid and began sucking the circumference of his tip, which glistened with saliva and shone with desire. Then, without warning, I swallowed him whole.

“No . . . Not like that . . . ,” he moaned. But his words directly contradicted his member, which was now comfortably lodged in my throat.

As my mouth encircled him, his hips thrust forward, begging for more, harder, faster. But with each pitch of his pelvis, I withdrew, abandoning his sex for a second. I wanted to draw out his suffering and heighten his desire. I let the interludes grow longer and longer until I could fit in a few words:

“What do you consider forbidden?”

Thrusting him all the way into my mouth. Surprised how pleasurable it was for me.

“Possessing your brother's wife?”

Rolling my tongue over his swollen gland. It was on the verge of exploding, on the verge of unleashing its white tide, of invading me. The odor of my sex emerging now.

“Lying to her? . . . Making her come? Is that part of your plan for vengeance?”

Inserting the tip of my tongue in his meatus, feeling him withdraw in surprise by my intrusion into such a sensitive area. Resisting the urge to insert a finger inside myself. Feeling the sensitivity of my uterus, which I could tell was growing increasingly impatient.

“Isn't that enough?”

Accelerating the back-and-forth movement. Making smacking sounds—I had a lover once who swore they added to his excitement and pleasure.

“I've already told David everything.”

Pushing his torso against the bed. Denying my victim any possibility of escape.

“What?” he growled.

Devoting myself once more to his ravished penis, which was now victim of my caprice. Losing him between my gleaming lips, my mouth wide open for a moment, before my cheeks contracted around him again.

I thrust him in me to the point of suffocation. He, too, became breathless. Speechless.

“But
he
loves me, you see.”

He tried to break free. But his flesh quivered in my mouth, and I pressed my forehead into his lower abdomen to prevent mutiny. I was in charge now, and I intended to remain so.

“He forgave me for everything.”

A last thrust, followed by a spasm: we were nearing the end.

“Stop!” he yelled. “I said, stop!”

He slapped me without warning. Not very hard, but with enough force to extract his penis from my lips. We both straightened, surprised by his brutal action. It was a daring move: out of reflex, I easily could have clamped my jaw like a guillotine and torn into his member with my teeth, cutting him in half.

“You don't understand,” he said, his hard member still sticking out of his zipper.

“What don't I understand? That you're trying to make him pay for Aurora's death? That you've been using my activity at Belles de Nuit, an agency David created to find me, to blackmail me?”

He suddenly looked as I'd seen him at Malmaison: sunken-cheeked, heavyhearted.

“That's not it . . . ,” he muttered. He was more vulnerable than I had ever seen him.

“What, then?” I practically screamed. “What are we doing here . . . but betraying David?”

His tell. The fleshy dimple that appears when he isn't lying.

“We're executing his plan.”

“Excuse me?”

“His plan . . . ,” he repeated, blank-faced.

“He isn't doing all this to hurt David,” Rebecca had said. “He's doing it for you.”

For me or for his brother?

Suddenly the fog lifted over the devastated landscape. A field of ruins. All this time, I had thought they were rivals when really they were accomplices.

“You want me to believe that David asked you to bring me here, to these rooms?”

He nodded.

“Everything, the packages, the commandments . . . It was his idea?”

“Yes,” he said sadly. “The idea, I mean. He let me improvise when it came to the details.”

My head was spinning. I reached for the nearest piece of furniture for support, a writing table with a million little drawers.

It was worse than I ever could have imagined. I had not abandoned myself to this debauchery for as noble a cause as resentment or rancor. I was just the erotic accessory of two madmen. Two brothers who were crazy enough to share their fantasies, as well as their toys.

“But it's not what you think,” he quickly added.

“Really? Because there can be a good reason behind this . . .”

I swept my arm over the room, indicating the hotel and all of our rendezvous. As I searched for the right word, I replayed every scene, one by one. They had gotten spicier, rawer, more ferocious and anonymous, giving way to the birth of my avid sex.

“ . . . behind this shit!”

“Yes . . . ,” he said, lowering his eyes.

“Go ahead! Tell me!”

His eyes showed a tenderness I had never seen in him. He took a deep breath before starting in on what seemed like a confession.

“He didn't want you to be like her.”

Aurora. The alpha and omega of femininity according to the Barlet brothers. The standard against which they measured me, despite almost two decades of searching and incommensurable efforts to find me.

Oh, I understood what he meant. I saw what they had considered to be her sin, and what they had hoped to correct in me this time around: her sexuality. I, her replacement, would not be a doll that suffered and could not feel pleasure. To meet David's desire for perfection, they would refashion me, awaken my senses, titillate my desires, stimulate every part of my body and mind. The Elle doll would be a pleasure machine.

“He wanted you to be . . .”

He was looking for the right term, a word that, like everything that came out of his mouth, could be composed from the letters written into his own flesh. His words, body, and desire were one.

“He wanted me to be what? Your thing? Is that it? A woman you can humiliate in hotels and backrooms?”

“No. He wanted you to be complete.”

I could almost see the quotation marks flying around me. Me, the incomplete woman.

I was as devastated as a defeated boxer. But I didn't wait around for the bell or the next round. I drew my hand to my hair and tugged out my comb. Before he knew what was happening, I was standing in front of him, pressing the silver object into his throat, threatening to draw blood. He tried to grab my wrist, but I held firm, gathering strength from some hitherto untapped source.

“You and David are right about one thing . . .”

“Put that thing down,” he begged.

“I'll never be an Aurora. I'll never let either one of you crush me.”

I pressed the metallic point harder into his skin. I could have stabbed him with it right then, leaving him for dead amid that overdone decor. A victim of his own plot, killed by his main character. I could have given in to my base instinct, the imperious need to finish him, which was more powerful than any of my most visceral desires.

“Elle, drop the comb . . . Now.”

I softened my tone, but the threat was still there, the silver tooth still flush against his neck.

“I'll drop it. But first, I want you to hear one thing, Louie: this game you've been playing with me, it's over.”

“Yes, I know . . . ,” he moaned, a far cry from his usual arrogant tone.

“Now, I give myself whenever and to whomever I please. I
give
, do you understand? I'm not for sale. I'm not hawking myself. And no one is in charge of my body but me.”

“Elle . . . Listen to me.”

“No!” I gnashed. I didn't want to let him talk for one second. “You listen to me. Tomorrow I'm marrying David, whether you like it or not. If he's been manipulating me like you say . . . or if this is just another one of your ruses. I don't care. And I'm not going to bed with anyone but him. All I want is my husband.”

“Please, Elle . . . there's something else.”

I was deaf. Hard. Strong. There was nothing he could say that would make me change my mind.

“Go ahead, fuck every girl in Belles de Nuit's catalogue. I don't care.”

Three knocks on the door drew me out of my trance.

“Elle? Elle, hon, are you okay in there?”

Sophia was getting worried. She must have heard the commotion and dampened sounds of our fight.

I dropped the comb on the parquet, where it bounced and clattered. Before he could get up, his pants crumpled around his ankles, I grabbed my coat from the floor and headed for the door. Still naked. At last I had shed the role those two had been making me play.

At the exact same moment, echoing the tintinnabulation of my hair accessory, the giant hourglass in Duchesnois House broke. I discovered it when I got home an hour later.

Thousands of shattered pieces scattered over the entry floor. Thousands of shards.

The timekeeper had been a few hours early, and had already finished its countdown. The fate it had been anticipating was now frozen in the little pile of sand in the middle of the debris: I would marry David Barlet. I would not escape my destiny, even if it was written by another. I would be his wife, his mistress, and more than that if he asked me; I would be attentive to his needs, though without ignoring my own, without losing myself in his past pain. Under no circumstance would I be an Aurora.

No. I would be me.

37

June 18, 2009

N
ine o'clock and it was sparkling. The sun, eager to begin its day, was already bathing our bedroom in generous rays. David's contact at the Weather Channel had kept his promise: it was a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky. That was my first thought, the morning of our wedding day.

I awoke much too late for such an event. Sleeping Beauty lost in eternal slumber (it had taken me a long while to find sleep after I had gotten home from the Hôtel des Charmes), I was waiting for the kiss of redemption from my sweet prince.

“Good morning, Mrs. my wife!” David beamed when at last I opened my eyes.

Seated at the edge of the bed, he was wearing khakis and a light-yellow polo. I could already hear the busy chatter of people bustling around the house, courtyard and garden included.

“In three hours, dear sir,” I echoed his playful tone, pointing to the shorter of the two steel clock hands. “Not before. For the moment, I am Miss your fiancée.”

“Whatever the missus wishes. Still, the mister would like to remind Miss his fiancée that she has just barely enough time to get ready.”

As he spoke, I noticed that the silk armband had changed color. It was usually pearly white, but now it was a light gray. The change was so subtle that, depending on the light and angle, it could easily be confused with the other version. I presumed, however, that this one matched David's gray suit of the day better.

“You're not dressed?” I asked.

“No. There are still a ton of things to do, and since it's supposed to be hot, I don't want to get armpit stains on my suit.”

There we were. Smiling, beautiful, happy. I spoke without artifice, trying to be as carefree and casual as possible. And yet I also had to remain extremely concentrated so as not to betray the fact that I had recently learned a lot of things about him. David the manipulator. The pervert. A man who was crazy or sad enough—the same thing, really—to devote seventeen years of his life to bag an ordinary girl like me. And then twist her mind and body to make her conform to his painful memories. One woman for another, but this time she fit his expectations so well that no sickness or accident could tarnish his prefabricated happiness.

“Okay. You'd better get going! I'm sure Armand has lots for you to do.” I tried not to force my smile.

“Oh, yeah. It isn't work that's lacking!” he cried as he left.

 

BEFORE DONNING MY CEREMONIAL GARB,
and after being primped by the hairdresser and makeup girl, I threw on some gray sweats and went downstairs. The beehive of activity was impressive, exhilarating, even: each person seemed to be following an invisible thread tied tautly between the starting point and finish line. All the relevant trades were hard at work: hostesses, cloakroom attendants, laborers, gardeners, cooks, sommeliers, waiters and busboys, florists, laundrywomen, pyrotechnists, roadies and sound techs, and all manner of extras for particular guests and other functions; I had trouble identifying everyone.

“Hello, Armand,” I called to the majordomo.

“Hello, Elle. Best wishes for this magnificent day!”

“Thanks.”

His awkward formality made me uneasy, so much so that I hastened to change the subject.

“What are those people doing in the garden?”

I nodded discreetly in the direction of two elderly women, both wearing white cotton outfits, their hair wrapped in bright scarves. They were crisscrossing the space where the tables were set up. One held a clock, while the other raised a finger in the air.

“Oh, those are the feng shui ladies.”

“Feng shui?” I asked, surprised.

“Yes. I wasn't supposed to say anything, but it's a present from Louie: he hired some specialists to survey the reception space to ensure that your wedding unfolds under the best possible conditions.”

 

Question: Is there such thing as erotic feng shui? Can we influence the nature and quality of our encounters by arranging the space in which they take place? Would my clitoris be more sensitive depending on furniture placement and wall color?
My anus more susceptible to dilate for
those interested in exploring?
Would my lover's erection be harder?

My advice: Choose orange for multiple orgasms!

 

Handwritten note by me, 6/18/2009

 

FROM ANYONE ELSE, THE GIFT
would have been surprising, but I recognized my future brother-in-law—a man devoted to places and their memories—in it. I wondered if he would take the same precautions with his new residence, Mademoiselle Mars's old house. Probably . . . That reminded me of another question: When would he be moving in? When would the man who had subjected me to so much humiliation and distress over the past few weeks, the man who had also exposed me to such exciting intensity—when would he be our neighbor?

I left the old servant to his emergencies and continued my rounds. There was not a nook or cranny that had not been touched by the industrious army. Avoiding coatracks and platters, chairs and desks, zigzagging between tables and decorated trolleys, was a sport unto itself. I refrained from tallying the unbelievable quantity of provisions, all wrapped with incredible care. Some food items disappeared under silver domes or aluminum foil; others I barely had time to see. Amid this mountain of delicacies, I was reminded of the queen of foodies who could no longer enjoy sugared treasures, not even a crumb.

I had not been away from my phone since I'd been awake but had been delaying a call to the nurse on duty. She concisely informed me that my mother had regained consciousness but that she was still very weak. My mother's words, like her days, were numbered. From now on, she would speak parsimoniously, stripping every sentence down to the bare essentials. Listening to others also seemed to exhaust her. “I think she's kind of saving herself for you,” the nurse said, making me feel guilty. At least she spared me the fateful question, the one I dreaded most:
When are you coming to see her?

When it would be too late? When it would no longer be a question of days or hours but minutes? When she wouldn't be able to recognize me anymore?

My wandering had at least one virtue: to clear my head. I floated through the different rooms and people, careful not to get in the way. When I got to the main tent, which the workers had finished setting up the night before, I approached a young man wearing a white shirt and black vest. He was laying out name cards on immaculate porcelain plates. He seemed very young, his guest list and seating chart in one hand, his eyebrows furrowing. His level of concentration made me smile.

“Hello. How is everything going?”

“Hello . . . ,” he replied, barely raising his eyes.

“I am . . . I'm the bride,” I said, feeling like I should introduce myself.

My clothing contradicted this assertion, so I pointed to my well-coiffed hair, twirling a finger around the high bun.

He interrupted what he was doing and straightened at once to face me, as though I had caught him doing something he shouldn't:

“Oh, sorry! Hello, Madame! I mean, Mademoiselle. Congratulations.”

I almost burst out laughing, but instead offered a playful and what I hoped was a reassuring smile.

“Thanks. But I don't want to keep you from your work.”

Then I noticed the tented rectangular card he had just set on the immaculate tablecloth, from which wafted the heady scent of freshly cut flowers.
luc
doré
, it said. To the surprise of the young man, I quickly reached for it. But it wasn't the name of the guest that made my chest tighten.

Luc Doré

No, it was the peculiar script. The very same handwriting as in my Ten-Times-a-Day.

“Excuse me,” I disturbed the young man again. “Do you know who wrote the names on these cards?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle. It was Monsieur Armand.”

“Are you sure?”

He puffed himself up a little, delighted to be asked about something more noble than where to place name tags, though he remained polite.

“Absolutely. I saw him do it earlier. The ink isn't even dry on all of them.”

I shivered at this thought: Armand, ever Louie's accomplice, taking dictation, writing out all the scandalous things I had read over the past weeks. What had Louie offered him in exchange that would have gotten him to accept such a disgusting and thankless task? A few extra bottles? A blind eye to his pilfering from the family wine cellar?

Or was Armand as perverse as the man who had been commissioning his services? Never trust seemingly innocent old men. You never know what kind of desires are crawling in their corduroy pants, or what kind of life lies anything but dormant under their cable-stitched vests.

 

I wonder if Louie also kept a journal of our encounters. Did he keep a record somewhere of what he'd felt at each of our meetings?
Does he also
have a Ten-Times-a-Day that's even more hard-core?

He who holds his writing so dear, who wishes he could live off his pen. What words might he have found to express my turmoil, my body that hungered for him, my sex being penetrated by all those objects he had given me as a substitute for himself?

 

Handwritten note by me, 6/18/2009

 

OF COURSE, THE GUILTY MAN
was nowhere to be found. Wherever I asked, I was sent to another part of the building. Ultimately, I didn't care. I knew enough already.

The door rang incessantly, its perky chime announcing a parade of suppliers and deliveries: food, flowers, bottles, various dishes and fabrics, sound or pyrotechnic equipment, etc.

I was greeted by a different kind of package when I walked through the entry on my way to the bedroom:

“It's me!”

Sophia, draped in the most scandalous dress I had ever seen, was standing there, her arms raised in a triumphant V, her hips swayed to one side in an alluring fashion.

“That's right, hon. Jaw-dropping.”

She kept her pose, no doubt waiting for me to circle her a couple of times in rapture! The scrap of fabric was not only extremely close-fitting but also transparent in parts. It was shorter than any other miniskirt you could find in normal stores. Surprisingly, maybe because of its color—off-white—it wasn't vulgar.

“Holy cow! Are you looking for a man?”

“A man, I don't know . . . But I think I've found
it
!”

She didn't need to specify. I knew her well enough—her and her obsessions—to know what she meant: her ideal outfit, the one that would make her irresistible to men. The perfect mantrap.

I nodded and made an exaggerated face in approval.

“It looks like it. Short of melting fabric to your skin, I don't see how it could get any tighter. Where did you find this marvel?”

“While Peggy and I were sorting through her old clothes. Can you believe it? She was going to throw it away!”

“But isn't Peggy two sizes smaller than you?”

“Exactly! You think you're going to turn heads by wearing clothing your size?” she argued cheekily.

“Well, when you put it like that . . .”

She smiled brightly, erasing the memory of the troubling events from the night before.

“Well, anyway. Don't you have another dress to show me?”

On the way to my bedroom, she stopped in front of every half-open door to marvel at the sumptuous decor.

“When you told me about this place, I never imagined it was so luxurious!”

I shrugged, as if to apologize and signal that, like her, I was just a guest. In no way was I responsible for this abundance of refinement. Sophia looked like she was really going to faint when at last I took out the Schiaparelli from its impressive garment bag and carefully laid it on the bed.

When she got over the shock, Sophia said in a humorous tone, her love for me far greater than any sense of bitterness or jealousy:

“Remind me to marry a billionaire in my next life. Okay?”

“No problem.” I laughed. “I'll remind you.”

“Will you put it on now?” she asked eagerly.

I stared at her for a second, as an idea, one worthy of our college days, dawned on me and a smile spread across my face.

“Just a second . . . I have an idea.”

Then I headed into the closet, where I found bobbins of thread, a pouch filled with needles, and several scraps of colored felt.

“Wait . . . You're kidding, right?” Sophia said as I came back out.

She saw where I was going with this. She knew how much I loved to sew.

“Does it look like it?” I challenged as I threaded a needle.

“Crap, Elle, you can't customize your wedding dress! Seriously!”

“Hmm . . . You're right. It's a little too
serious
for my taste.”

She was practically choking with indignation, her hand reaching toward mine to stop me from committing such blasphemy.

“No, seriously, do you know how much a dress like that costs?”

To be honest, I don't know what had gotten into me. The simplest answer that came to mind was: I wanted to be myself.

“Yes, exactly . . . ,” I agreed. “That is exactly the problem: I know the price.”

And I wasn't one hundred percent sure that I wanted to pay it, either today or any day. So then, why not make this silken burden more agreeable? Why not add a little color,
my
colors? Hopefully, then I could forget the woman for whom this dress had been a shroud.

 

Intuition: Our fantasies are like the scraps of fabric I use to spice up my dresses. You add them here or there, livening your real-life with color, breaking out of the monotony. You can use them to customize your sexuality.