Hotelles (15 page)

I unhooked my bra with a surprisingly hurried hand. It fell to the floor, freeing my heavy breasts. They demonstrated their pleasure at being uncorseted by palpitating and then hardening at the nipples. I brushed a flat hand over them to make sure they hadn't just been responding to a change in atmosphere. But they were warm, almost hot. The movement of my palm made them protrude a little more, darkening their pink color.

More than this

You know there's nothing . . .

Yes. There was one more thing.

My cotton panties with lacy details over my pelvis slid effortlessly down my thighs, joining the rest of my clothing on the floor. Now nothing came between his gaze and my private parts. I don't think I'd ever even shown myself to David like this, with such rawness and indecency. I didn't even have the reflex to hide my lower region, where the lips came together and drew a line under my dark curls.

 

It took me fifteen years to explore that part of myself that can only be seen with a little distance. I think it was also at that age that I actually started to really masturbate. Before that, I had limited myself to rubbing my crotch with either my teddy bear or a pillow.

I borrowed a mirror from my mom and locked myself in the bathroom. I put one foot on the edge of the bathtub and positioned the mirror vertically from my hole. There wasn't enough light to see. I remember I tried the experiment three or four times before finding the right method: I stood a flashlight on its base on the floor so it shined up at my crotch, balanced the mirror on the bathtub, and used my hands to open the two brown folds so I could at last catch a glimpse of the unknown. I was fascinated. I spent several minutes squeezing each part, especially those that were shining and wet. I was a little scared I would hurt myself. When I got to the pink button, I learned that I need not fear pain. I massaged the area, awkwardly at first, but with enough tenacity to make me sigh and then fall over into the enamel tub. I had discovered what I'd set out to know. And for some reason, I never felt the need to explore the area again.

 

Anonymous handwritten note, 6/7/2009—It happened in my bedroom, not the bathroom. As for the rest . . .

 

LOOKING AT MY BODY IN
the mirror, from all angles and depths, I had the sensation of discovering it for the first time. So this is what men desired when I undressed in front of them. This woman, as opposed to the one invented by my critical gaze, the one deformed by years of acquired body image issues. My imperfections hadn't disappeared. But seeing my list of faults together in one image, I couldn't deny how attractive they were, though I had trouble really believing it.

My one physical attribute that I didn't hate was my skin. I cared for it with monoi and almond oils as well as shea butter. I favored natural products over the cosmetic industry's expensive synthetics, convinced that my charms were above all located in my silky skin.

Instinctually, I closed my eyes. I swept my fingers over my middle, my neck, my collarbones, and my breasts, confirming that my epidermal care had not been in vain. My hand wandered pleasurably over my body, warming each region as it moved on to the next. At last it skimmed my love handles, buttocks, and the soft interior between my thighs.

The singer was no longer cooing from the speakers. The guitar plucked each elongated note of the melody. The song was coming to an end. Suddenly a screeching sound interjected, startling me.

It came from a two-shelf console, which I hadn't noticed before, behind the screen. A small printer was spitting out sheets of rigid paper. I grabbed the first one and turned it over.

Dazed. Flattered. Grateful?

Color photographs. Each shot showed me from a different angle, framed more or less tightly. The person playing this game of hide-and-seek with me had made a puzzle of my body. Strangely, it didn't bother me. Seeing myself so beautiful in the mirror made me feel calm and happy. Today I wasn't being celebrated for my obvious charms, that part of me that I still hadn't fully owned. This was something more: I felt at peace with myself. My body had been put back together. It was mine.

The automatic lock clicked, putting an end to my captivity. But this new feeling remained. Getting dressed felt like a long, slow caress. I savored every moment, every inch of my skin. I put the pictures in my bag and left the room feeling a little groggy. I wasn't surprised not to run into anyone on my way out. Not even Monsieur Jacques.

Robotically, and yet also with flowing movements, I walked down Rue Pigalle as though in a dream. At that hour, only a few late-night bars were still open. I barely noticed a group of drinkers whistling at me from an outside table.

Sometimes it occurs to me that I've had sex with men for money. Me, Annabelle, Elle. I can try until I'm blue in the face to tell myself that it doesn't make me one of those kept women who spread their legs in order to maintain their lifestyle, but it still disgusts me. Oddly, when I repeat the insulting phrase a few times in a row, “I am a whore,” it excites me.

 

Anonymous handwritten note, 6/8/2009—Once again, no comment.

 

QUIVERING, HUMID, AVAILABLE.

The stretch of cotton between my legs was moist, tickling my crotch. It pressed against my swollen lips, my excited clitoris, my vagina palpitating with desire. A sense of decency held me back, but I wanted desperately to put my hand in my panties and, right there in the middle of the street, touch myself.

My sex trembled; it was ready for anything, or just about . . . It was ravenous.

13

June 7, 2009

I
f someone were to ask about my whereabouts that night, what could I say? Alone, I got undressed of my own accord in a hotel room a few blocks from my new house, at a hotel I'd frequented in the past. What could the person who had beckoned me there really be charged with? Who would describe the night as anything but a slightly incongruous whim on my part?

Louie's absence that night at the Hôtel des Charmes may have come as a shock, but it was not a crime. Nor could he be blamed for my crotch's unrelenting dampness. I was still wet when I woke up, even though David had long since left the house. As usual, I spent the morning alone, this time after a night of torment.

One thing that could be held against the elder Barlet was this new note:

You can feel me, can't you, deep inside?

Like the others, it was waiting for me on the console in the entry when I got up. An impressive mound of sand had already formed on the bottom half of the hourglass. Only a few grains left before our wedding day  . . .

“Good morning, Elle.”

The tone of voice was playful, almost puckish. It interrupted my dark thoughts with disconcerting lightness. It took me a few seconds to recognize who it was:

“Louie!”

. . . the source of my troubles, recognizable by his heady cologne.

“It is I. Your future husband sent me.”

He bowed his head in exaggerated deference.

What was he talking about? How dare he show himself here? Wasn't my humiliation the night before enough? Did he have to harass me just as I got out of bed, too?

I held back an expression of exasperation.

“David?”

“Is there another?” he quipped cheerfully.

Was it possible to be such a manipulative monster at night and act so detached the next morning? Apparently. He smiled radiantly, playfully tossing his cane between his hands with the dexterity of an acrobat. Nothing in his comportment betrayed our “meeting” from the night before.

“No, of course not. But what—”

“David has asked me to help make you a ‘real Athenian woman.' ”

As he spoke, he grabbed my hand and bent down to kiss it. I snatched it back, readying myself to hit him.

“An Athenian woman . . . ,” I repeated mechanically, frozen in indignation.

“That's what he said. So here I am!”

Armand appeared without warning and smiled in candid approval. The interruption stopped me from expressing my feelings physically. With great pain, I contorted my mouth into a convincing smile.

“That's right, Mademoiselle,” Armand said. “David wants you to feel at home both here in the house and in the neighborhood generally. As you are now aware, this area is very important to the family.”

“Did you see what a beautiful day it is?!” Louie cried enthusiastically, without a hint of the arrogance he'd displayed on our first meeting. “Isn't it a perfect day for a walk?”

Refusing this outing was not going to be easy since the head of the family—and my future husband—had orchestrated it. What's more, there was a witness. I was going to have to find a good excuse, and fast.

Louie threw a sidelong glance at Felicity, who was trotting around a few paces away.

“It is . . . But unfortunately I don't feel very well,” I lied.

“A little fresh air will be just the thing to perk you up!” Armand insisted.

“Seriously, Elle, what else do you have to do today? You should take advantage of your freedom before your new job starts. You'll see. Once your schedule adapts to the station, there won't be any time for
recess
.”

I pursed my lips to keep from shouting at him in disgust. “
Recess
”? And how exactly would he describe last night? An innocent distraction?

“No, really . . . Thanks, but I just don't feel up to it . . . If I want to be presentable Monday, I'm going to have to get some rest.”

Why was David trusting his fiancée with someone who had been manipulating her for days? I clung to this explanation: he didn't know about his brother's schemes. And I had to keep myself from thinking: But what if he was in on it? No. Not David.

“Come on, live a little!”

Louie grabbed my hand again, and this time so strongly that I had to put up a fuss.

“Let go! You're hurting me!”

Armand shot him a reproachful look. Louie bowed his head like a kid being chastised and relaxed his grip.

“As you wish,” he stammered. “I just thought . . .”

I cut him off sharply. “What did you think?”

“That this walk would be a good time to tell you more.”

“More? About what?”

“About us . . . David and me. I know David. He's so secretive. I'm positive he hasn't told you anything about our childhood. Or this house, for that matter.”

Touché.

If he kept his promise, I wasn't opposed to the idea. Moreover, it would be a good time to probe him on some issues. Maybe I could even get him to take off the mask he put on whenever we met. Maybe I could gain the upper hand once and for all.

I also figured he wouldn't dare try anything in the middle of the day in a crowded street. An encouraging look from Armand quelled the anger I'd been feeling all morning.

“Okay . . . fine,” I said dryly. “Do I at least have time for a shower?”

“As many showers as you'd like. We have all day.”

Coming from him, that sounded less like an innocent promise of fun on a spring day and more like a threat of long hours of torture. I expected nothing less.

I crumpled the handwritten note in my fist—there was one that wouldn't make it in the silver notebook—and with knots in my stomach, I made a beeline for the shower. I reappeared less than fifteen minutes later wearing a simple floral dress that I'd spruced up with hand-sewn felt flourishes, nude flats, and a small bag containing only the essentials. Sufficiently dressed not to draw critique, sober enough not to send any messages. Though it would not be seen, I took the precaution of wearing the thickest and least revealing panties in my collection of lingerie. I tried to erase the image of the sticky pair I had taken off when I had gotten home the night before.

 

WE STEPPED OFF DUCHESNOIS HOUSE'S
antique porch and crossed the crescent-shaped courtyard. Standing curbside in front of 3 Rue de la Tour-des-Dames, we were bathed in the sun's warm light. I couldn't deny Louie's point: it was an ideal day for a stroll.

Louie was in such a good mood that it was difficult not to be infected. Still, every time he looked at me, I remembered the night before, the hotel room, and how I'd undressed for him, showing more of myself to him than I'd ever shown to any man.

“Elle . . . do you have any idea what David meant when he asked me to make you into an Athenian woman?”

The question didn't sound like a trap. It was asked without the slightest hint of acrimony or hidden meaning. It really seemed like he was just assessing his pupil's level. Waiting for a reply, he glued his eyes to mine.

“No,” I admitted. “Not really.”

“Okay, well, this neighborhood—between Rue des Martyrs to the east, Rue Pigalle to the west, and Rue Saint-Lazare to the south—is called New Athens. Some of the houses here saw the birth of French Romanticism.”

In spite of myself, my eyes widened with interest. I had been expecting biting commentary, maybe even a few salacious remarks, but not a history lesson. He was acting as though the scene in the Mata Hari room had never happened.

“How's that?”

“In the mid-1820s, the biggest names in the then-nascent artistic movement came to live here. Poets and writers like George Sand, Eugène Scribe, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Alexandre Dumas, and later the great Victor Hugo; there were also musicians like Liszt, Berlioz, Auber, Chopin, Wagner, and painters such as Delacroix, Vernet, Gavarni, and Ary Scheffer. But people tend to forget that the first artists to set up camp here . . .”

He paused his lecture and raised his eyes in childish wonder up toward the building we'd just left. It was unique in that its curved facade opened onto a small three-sided courtyard.

I noticed that since our last meeting, Louie had let his beard grow. The added hair did not fill out his cheeks; rather, it made his face look even more emaciated. On the surface, the beard seemed to express the feverishness inside the man.

“Yes?”

“The first artists were actors, Elle. Simple actors.”

“Like Mademoiselle Duchesnois?” I suggested.

“Exactly. But before her other great stars had taken up residence: Mademoiselle Mars next door at 1 Rue de la Tour-des-Dames.”

I remembered the hair comb in the window at Antiquités Nativelle, the one that had made my mouth water with desire only a few days earlier. Louie went on, passionate about his subject, clutching my forearm as a way of keeping my attention:

“The great Talma, Bonaparte's favorite actor, in house number nine. And Marie Dorval, Alfred de Vigny's mistress, a little lower, on Rue Saint-Lazare. In the early 1830s, the street where you live was the Champs-Élysées of the new artistic scene.”

As I listened to him, I almost forgot his perverted side, that he was the disloyal brother-in-law who asked for strange favors in exchange for silence and the madman who, page after page, detailed aspects of my sexuality in a book from hell.

He was so engrossed in what he had to say that his whole being appeared to be swallowed into the era he was trying to conjure.

“But why ‘New Athens'?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. “And why did they all congregate here?”

“According to the official story, the name was coined by Dureau de la Malle, an editorialist at the
Journal des Débats
, in 1823. But I think it's more complicated than that: Greece was really fashionable at the time, what with the Greek rebellion against the Ottomans in 1821. The neoclassical and neo-Raphaelite style of Constantin's buildings also played a role.”

“Neo-Raphaelite?” I asked, admitting ignorance.

While speaking, he slipped his arm through mine, in the most natural and chaste way in the world, and guided me toward Rue de la Rochefoucauld. We were retracing our steps from the night before. He was so casual about it that I completely let down my guard, and gave in to the soft and enveloping warmth of his embrace.

 

“The more you let him touch you, the more you prepare yourself to invite him other places in you.”

I think it was my inner arm, yes, that soft, sensitive skin in the hollow of elbow, that whispered the phrase in my ear. I wonder if such an innocuous erogenous zone could make me come?

 

Anonymous handwritten note, 6/7/2009

 

A SHIVER RAN UP MY
spine as I thought of the indecent, open version of myself he had shown me. Why was I following him so obediently?

“Yes, look at this building: Do you see the rounded niches above the supporting wall between the second and third floors? And on that one, do you see the three Palladian windows, and how the center pane has an exaggerated arch while the other two are narrower, and how they're supported by a simple lintel?”

His erudite observations did not bore me in the least; rather, they opened my eyes to a whole new world. He was uncovering new mysteries in a city I thought I knew by heart. He squeezed my shoulder and I didn't flinch.

“All of it,” he went on, “is characteristic of Italian Renaissance Mannerism.”

“Raphael?” I suggested.

“Yes, along with Palladio, Serlio, Sangallo . . . Percier and Fontaine, the Empire's official architects, drew inspiration from them. And their style influenced all the major private housing projects into the 1830s. In New Athens especially.”

This time, I was gripping his arm, and my left breast accidentally grazed his extremely taut bicep. I quickly unhooked myself from him, pretending nothing had happened. I did not want him to feel my naughty nipple, which had hardened at his touch. I did not want him to see my growing emotion.

“And then the concentration of beauty and intelligence in the neighborhood made it a first-rate cultural center whose reputation quickly spread. People came from all over Europe! Imagine: in 1850, more than a hundred artists lived on these few streets. Posterity hasn't remembered them all, but they did all help to create the neighborhood's spirit.”

There was a hint of nostalgia in his voice, as though he missed a time he could not have known but wished he had.

With all the excitement, he'd gotten hot. He took off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. For the first time, I caught a glimpse of his tattoo in its entirety. No matter how partially, the fact that he was now undressing in front of me was a little troubling. But I tried to focus my attention on the design he'd just unveiled. Why were the two unfurled wings and enlaced scepter so familiar?

He caught my insistent gaze and said with a faint, pinched smile:

“It's Hermes's caduceus.”

The caduceus, I remembered, was the symbol I often saw in front of medical offices.

A lowercase letter
a
near the wrist underscored the image. Its font recalled those made by old typewriters.

“And the letter . . . Why just an
a
?
A
like ‘artist'? Like ‘anarchy'?”

My childish guessing didn't make him laugh. Instead, a shadow crossed his brow, erasing his good mood.

“No, just the first letter of the alphabet,” he murmured.

His sudden shift inward should have dissuaded me from digging deeper, and yet:

“That's all?”

“Oh, don't worry, the others will follow.”

I grasped his meaning: he would have all the letters of the alphabet carved into his skin. He would become his own alphabet, his own box of tools. It was beautiful and stupid all at once. Touching and laughable. Juvenile, too. The kind of thing you imagine doing when you're a teenager, not an adult.