I started to laugh. “The family invited you to ski in Switzerland, and you fucked their daughter?”
“To be fair, she fucked me.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. He sat there, guarded, a cryptic smile on his perfect face. And all I could think about was sitting on it.
“Okay. Let’s go upstairs.”
I turned forty. And the world did not end. The firmament did not move. Gravity did not suddenly forsake me. My breasts, my ass, my eyelids were all pretty much where I’d left them the night before. As was my lover. In our big, big bed, his head on my pillow, his arm draped over my waist, clinging. As if maybe he were afraid to let me go.
It was indulgent, as birthdays go. There was pampering and lovemaking and foie gras and a two-hour stroll along the Seine and autumn in the air and Hayes. Adoring, attentive, kind Hayes.
In the early evening, while I prepped for our celebratory dinner, he watched me from his perch against the counter in the master bath. The room, like everything else in the penthouse suite, was luxurious. Exceptionally appointed, flawless marble, an infinity tub. Although Hayes would not give me an exact figure, I knew it was costing him thousands of dollars a night. Which was absurd, despite the fact that TAG Heuer was picking up half the tab.
He stood there in black dress pants and a white shirt stillunbuttoned, his hair blown dry and uncharacteristically neat. Gone were the boyish curls.
“What are you thinking over there?”
He shook his head, smiling. “I was thinking that you putting on makeup was somewhat redundant.”
I laughed, applying eye shadow. “It’s not a lot.”
“I like when I can see your skin. I like your skin.”
“My skin likes you.” This was not untrue. It may have been Paris, or the change in climate, but it seemed to me that I was glowing.
He smiled, absorbing the process. The liner, the curling, the mascara. “You’re unfolding the flower again.”
“Am I?”
He nodded. “Even though you’re covering yourself up… Watching you do it reveals more of you.”
I put the mascara wand down then, meeting his eyes in the mirror. Thankful that, despite all the reflective surfaces in this gleamingsalle de bains, the lighting design was particularly warm. It made my lingerie considerably more forgiving. Although I was not going to focus on that, because forty did not look terribly different than thirty-nine.
“Who are you, Hayes Campbell?”
He smiled, his hands burrowing in his pockets. “I’m your boyfriend.”
“My twenty-year-old boyfriend?”
“Your twenty-year-old boyfriend. Are you okay with that?”
I grinned. “Do I have a choice?”
“You always have a choice.” He’d appropriated my words, which I found amusing.
“Then, yes… I amveryokay with that.”
“Come here.”
I inched over to him. I had grown to love his “come here” and where it often led.
He took my wrists in his hands then, his thumbs on my pulse points. “No watch?”
I shook my head, holding his gaze.
“Just as well,” he said, leaning in to kiss me. And then I felt it, a slight pinching on my right wrist.
Eventually, he pulled away and I glanced down to discover an exquisite gold cuff bracelet adorning my arm. A one-inch band of delicate filigree work, Indian in design, intricately wrought and trimmed with pavé diamonds. Arguably the most singularly beautiful piece of jewelry I had ever seen.
