Lovers (53 page)

“I’m not saying good-bye! Not after finding you sitting sleeping in the sun between two old ladies. I almost ran away before I got up the courage to speak to you. I stood there for ten minutes, just shaking in my boots and gawking. Look, can’t we just talk, just sit somewhere and have a drink? I know who you really are—I even know who I really am, a miserable moron who didn’t believe in himself enough to trust you. Can’t we at least have a drink together, for old times’ sake? Please, Billy, just let me look at you for a little longer, that’s all I ask.”

“First it was a minute, now it’s a drink.”

She’d been rash, Billy thought. She’d stayed too long on this shady, sun-dappled path, she’d looked too long at Sam’s fine-grained skin and his beautiful, nearsighted gray eyes under his heavy reddish eyebrows, she’d let her eyes linger on the hollows below his cheekbones where she had loved to lay her lips, and the long mouth she’d kissed so often, she’d let him stand too close to her and touch her, and had discovered that she remembered how good he smelled.

Still, what had she to lose? Why shouldn’t they have a drink? She had time, he had time, and it was the hour for having a drink. Not only that, but it was getting chilly, and
soon the gates to the park would be locked. Old friends, even old lovers, aren’t to be dismissed forever because of a misunderstanding, no matter how serious, not when they have apologized so handsomely, were they?

And she was tired of reading her paperback.

Her answer was in her silence, Sam thought with a flash of realization.

“Which way is your way?” he asked quickly.

“Back there, on the other side of the boat basin.”

“We’re not far from St.-Germain-des-Prés,” Sam said. “Do you want to head to the Flore or the Deux Magots? Or would they be full of tourists this time of year?”

“By now you must know Paris as well as I do. You said you’d never left—this is my first trip back.”

“I really don’t know it well at all,” Sam confessed. “Before we met, I’d seen enough of the major tourist attractions to satisfy me. After you disappeared, I finally learned French, and when I started to believe I had real money, I moved to a bigger apartment, right around the corner. I still work in the old studio—I stick pretty close to home unless I have to travel to another country whenever my dealer’s arranged a show. And even then I grumble.”

“You sound like an old-fashioned Parisian,” Billy laughed. “Many of them lived and died in their neighborhoods without ever having the curiosity to cross the Seine and see the other bank.”

“I plead guilty … the Left Bank isn’t my scene. Finding you here today was a wild fluke … if it hadn’t been for that framer … well, it wasn’t in the cards that you’d have paid me a visit in my studio.”

“Not bloody likely, as they say in the movies. Still, never rule out coincidence. In Hollywood, screenwriters are allowed two coincidences per screenplay—after that they’re in trouble.”

“We’d better hurry,” Sam warned her, “or we’ll be in real trouble. I can hear that policeman telling people that they’re about to lock the gates.”

“There’s nothing so annoying as the way they lock all
the parks at the first sign of sunset,” Billy replied. “It makes perfect sense, but I wish they wouldn’t do it.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the things about the French, they have this reputation as romantics, but they stop well short.”

“The truth is, they’re the most sensible people in Europe.”

“Except the Swiss.”

“Except the Swiss,” Billy agreed. “I’ll bet you had an exhibition in Geneva.”

“Zurich,” he grinned.

“Sold them all?”

“All.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“Thanks—where are we going? I’m lost.”

“Oh, let’s walk in this direction,” Billy said carelessly. “There’s bound to be a café.”

She knew perfectly well where they were headed. She had to show Sam her house. Her experience with him wouldn’t have come full circle until he’d seen the house she’d planned on their living in together, the stable block she had converted into a dream studio for him. Then he would know, in a way in which words alone couldn’t explain, just how deeply he’d misjudged her.

“What’s this?” Sam asked as Billy opened the high, grilled gates set into the ivy-covered wall on the Rue Vaneau.

“My folly. Good evening, Madame Marie-Jeanne.”

“Good evening, Madame, good evening, Monsieur.”

“Good evening, Madame,” Sam said.

“Madame Marie-Jeanne, would you have the kindness to lend me a bottle of red wine and two glasses?”

“Of course, Madame. I will bring them directly.”

“Thank you, Madame Marie-Jeanne.”

“It is nothing, Madame.”

“If you could just leave them in the winter garden, Madame Marie-Jeanne?”

“Of course, Madame. Immediately, Madame.”

Billy and Sam walked across the courtyard, shaking with soundless laughter at the ritual of ordinary French politeness.

“You’re just lucky I didn’t introduce you,” Billy sputtered. “That would have made another round of ‘Madames’ and ‘Monsieurs’ and probably some obligatory mention of the weather.”

“Who
was
she?”

“The gatekeeper’s wife. Wait, before we go into the house, I want to show you something else.” Billy led the way to one of the long stone wings, higher by a few feet taller than the first floor of the house, selected another key, and opened the padlock on a set of wooden doors above which a splendid horse was prancing in an arched bas-relief. Lanterns, on graceful standards, stood on either side of the doors.

“Once these were the stables,” she explained as she turned on the lights she had ordered installed overhead, great banks of halogen lights that brilliantly illuminated every foot of the interior, all the way from one end to another.

“It looks like a giant warehouse,” Sam said, blinking.

“There are two dozen horse stalls, each one full of furniture waiting to be unpacked,”

“When do you think it was built?”

“Sometime in the 1720s or 1730s.”

“It’s … amazing,” Sam murmured, looking up at the distant ceiling.

“I think so,” Billy said, deciding to not yet tell him why she had had such powerful lights put up at a cost, her architect had informed her, of illuminating the operating room of a hospital. “Let’s go find that wine.”

Billy and Sam sat on the built-in seat of the winter garden, and opened the second bottle of wine that Madame Marie-Jeanne had deposited on a tray on the floor, the Bordeaux she kept for special occasions, a 1971 Beychevelles.

“I could never have imagined the interior of a house
like this,” Sam said. “Unless you’ve been in one, even without any furniture, you don’t expect such charm. I understand why you wanted to own it.”

“Nobody else did, at the time, but then I didn’t ask any advice.”

No, he thought, you wouldn’t have asked advice, would you, you glorious girl I thought was insanely generous when you wanted to give me a tiny bottle from the flea market? You, you wild and hidden beauty, so shy that I thought you lacked any ability to demand what you wanted, until you asked me to show you my work and it turned out that you wanted my cock inside you just as badly as I wanted to put it there; you who threatened to make me hard again in that pizzeria, when I desperately needed to eat so I could fuck you for the third time in as many hours … and you could have done it too, just with your voice, your words, if I hadn’t stopped you … no, you wouldn’t have asked for advice on anything so unimportant as buying a mansion.

“Do you see that pine tree outside in the garden, the tallest one?” Billy asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“That’s where I thought we’d hang the Christmas tree lights. Christmas of 1981.”

“Oh.”

Jesus, why are you doing this to me, Honey? Don’t tell me to call you Billy, he thought rebelliously. Isn’t it enough to have brought me here, to this empty house, to be sitting here with me drinking wine, to be lying back against this window seat, far enough from me to keep a proper distance, but not so far that I can’t see the shape of your nipples under your sweater and remember what your breasts looked like when you got on top and hung over me so that I could try to take them both in my mouth at the same time, those deep pink nipples that I could never manage to suck at once because your breasts were too big and too firm, too full to be pressed together? But remember how I used to try, Honey? How I loved to be under you, on
my stomach, with you inventing new tortures, like the time you licked me from the soles of my feet to the backs of my calves, up and down, never going any higher, licking and sucking while I got so hard that I was afraid that I’d go crazy, come all over the mattress, but you never said a word, just kept sucking on that soft place behind my knee until, just in time, you whispered, “turn over,” and stuck my cock in you with your hand and I came even before I was in you, Honey, before I shoved all the way … do you remember that?

“The trees in the garden are all evergreens,” Billy informed him. “It was my one gesture toward California, to have a green garden all year long.”

“Good thinking.”

Oh, Honey, he cried to himself, what do I care about trees when all I can think about are those nights in my studio when we’d be sleeping in my bed and I’d wake up slowly, ever so slowly, discovering I had a hard-on and you’d have your hand on my cock, except that you’d be pretending to be asleep, and you’d be lying on your side, with your back toward me, with your legs gently scissored apart so that I could slide my cock into you from behind ever so slowly, as if I were afraid to wake you up, and I’d pretend that I didn’t hear you breathing harder, and I’d move as gently as I possibly could, only pushing it in an inch at a time, until I was all the way up, with my balls pressed against your incredible flamboyant ass and then I knew that it was safe to reach around your hip and somehow happen to put my fingers between your thighs as if I didn’t know what I was doing, and then … Honey … then I’d go straight for that fat swollen waiting bud, like a ripe berry, between your legs and, still pretending, I’d press my fingers up into your wet pussy, just to be sure you were filled with me, and then I’d keep them there, two or three at a time, and use my thumb on your bud and push into you from behind, faster and faster but never too fast, drawing it out as much as I could until I felt you come in my hand and around my fingers … oh, Christ, it was so
good … and neither of us would ever say a word … not a word, not even the next day. We’d pretend it hadn’t happened. That’s what you’re doing to me now, aren’t you, Honey, pretending that you can’t see that I’m sitting here as hard as I’ve ever been in my life, just waiting for you to make a move? That’s what you’re doing … I know you too well, Honey, not to know that.

“Billy, did you ever get married?” Sam asked roughly.

“Yes.”

“Happily?”

“I thought so,” she said briefly.

“You thought so? What does that mean?”

“I’m … not sure.”

That’s as lame an answer as I’ve ever given, she thought, that’s almost an invitation. Not sure? If you’re not sure, you shouldn’t be here with this man you once loved, should you? You should be out in some decent little bistro, eating a good dinner and reading your tame little mystery story at the same time, one act canceling out the other, just as you’ve done all week, waiting for illumination to strike, waiting to see into the future, but you certainly shouldn’t be here in this half-light with Sam Jamison. What would Spider think if he could see me now? What would Spider do if he knew I was here in this house whose existence I may … or may not … have mentioned to him years ago, this house that could be anywhere in the world, for all he knows about it? And what would he do if I had decided to take Sam up and show him the second floor? But I didn’t, did I? If Sam ever realized that I’d brought him back to a house with only one bed … my bed … he’d … who’s kidding who here? I could go on my knees to have him this minute, I could fling myself on him and open his fly and take out that stiff jutting prick of his, that big cock I know as well as my own hand, and plunge it into … oh, Christ, I want his mouth on mine, I want his cock in me, I must have been insane to let myself be here alone with him, I could rip off my clothes and spread my legs, right here on the window seat, right this minute, and
let him touch me and suck me and open me up the way he used to, let him put it into me … he wants to so badly … does he think I can’t see it? He’s got to know there’s enough light for me to see how swollen he is, how ready, how crazy eager, but he won’t move unless I let him, unless I give him a sign, just the smallest signal would be enough and then the future would be known, the die would be cast, I’d be out of my misery and I’d never look back. Never ever! Oh, this man still loves me, even without his telling me, over and over, I saw it in his blush, hours ago, and in his eyes, I know him too well to doubt it …

“Is that why you’re here, in Paris, all alone?” Sam asked her. “Because you don’t know?”

“Yes.”

“Have you come to any conclusions?”

“Not yet. In fact I can’t even think about it. Not sensibly.”

“Why did you bring me here?”

“To prove to you that what I said in my letter was true, that I
had
been planning to tell you who I was as soon as the exhibition opened, that I’d been getting this house ready for us. I wanted to show you that the reason I refused to marry you was never that I didn’t trust you.”

“And the stables?”

“I thought they’d be your studio.”

“But there aren’t any skylights.”

“The Beaux Arts doesn’t allow any major structural changes in a building, even a private house, once they’ve classified it as a historical monument, like this one. That’s why I had it so well lit.”

“I see. And if I asked you to come home with me now and spend the night with me, what would you say?”

“I couldn’t, Sam.”

“Why not?
Why the hell not?
Christ, Billy, I love you, I’ve never stopped. Why can’t you give me a chance? I want you … and don’t try to tell me you don’t want me, because I’d never believe you.”

“I do want you … but I can’t.”