“Ma belle,” he says, in between breaths. “I’ve missed you.”
I don’t know what to make of it. His words. The image of us. Me, both a part of it and witness to it.
“Is this real?” I hear myself say. “Us? Now?”
For a second, he stills. His lips at my throat. And then, “Does it feel real?”
It resonates like a test. Like if I say the wrong thing the spell will break, and I will be alone across the room watching him with someone else. But if I don’t, the other me, the one who observes and critiques and analyzes, will quietly disappear. She will exit the suite, leaving me alone with my husband.
“Does it feel real?” he repeats. His body against mine. His breath in my ear. His dick. And in that moment, I know that I am back in my body. The sensation of him is so clear, it can’t be anything but.
I awaken to find him asleep on his side, facing the wall of windows. His back to me. And without speaking, I curl myself around him. My mouth at his neck, the subtle hints of bergamot, citrus, and cedar. My hand reaching into his pajama pants. He stirs almost immediately. And I am grateful for the three years I have on him. The fact that it perhaps buys us some time. His body responds like a twentysomething’s.
He is not quite fully awake when I climb atop him, his hands finding my hips. His lids at half-mast. I watch as he slowly registers, speechless. Relishing the moment. Falling into my rhythm. Innate, familiar. His hands make their way up over my sides, my torso, my breasts. Lifting off my silk camisole. His breath slowly quickening, audible.
I like this position. The illusion of being in control. The feel of him, deep and deliberate. His solidness firmly beneath me. Capable, warm. His face from this vantage point, his voyeuristic thrill. His elegant nose and even brow and mercurial eyes. And I am reminded of all the times it was good. All the times it wasgreat. His sixth-floor walk-up in Montmartre, and my shoebox apartment near Jardin duLuxembourg, and our first shared space in the eleventh, and our place on the Avenue Trudaine. The ways we crisscrossed Paris, making love and art and babies, until it all came to a crashing halt.
But I am determined to move beyond that.
His breathing intensifies as I fold myself over him, taking his lower lip between my teeth, the taste of mint and alcohol, my hands in his curls. His dick, deep. He groans, and I slow, knowing he is close, not wanting him to get ahead of me. I pull away, just slightly, holding his gaze, drinking him in. His hunger, his beauty. All of him. This dance we do, seeking that seemingly elusive moment, until we are right on the edge. Until we spill over, together.
For a minute, neither of us speaks. The room filled with the sounds of our respective breaths, the pool filter, the frogs, the night. The moment delicate. His torso beneath mine, rising and falling, slick with sweat. The hairs on his chest tickling my skin. His arms embracing me, his hands in my hair.
“You came back,” he says, eventually. His voice scratchy. One too many Clase Azul Reposados.
I don’t know how to respond.
There has been sex since the reveal of the affair. Occasionally, decent. But never sex I initiated. Always, it was him. And I would go along with it. Because I’d convinced myself it was a way to move forward, to move through. Willing myself to respond. Trying to trick myself into believing that I was with anyone but him, because the thought of him was far too painful.
But there, in his arms, feeling his warmth and inhaling his scent, even as he is slipping out of me, I realize that moving through was the only true way to get to the other side.
I came back, I think. But it is a thought I keep to myself.
Two days later, Fran goes to Europe for press junkets and premieres in London, Paris, and Rome. And for the first time in a long while, I do not worry about what he will or will not do. I do not doubt his commitment to me or to our family. I do not wonder if he’ll come back.
XLV.PORTRAIT OF A MAN.
LOS ANGELES.
JANUARY. 2017.
In the second week of January, when François is in New York for meetings, I have lunch with my ex-boyfriend. He’d texted in the days following the Hammer opening, but I’d pushed it off until after the premiere and the holidays. Stalling more, I thought, would feel like an obvious avoidance, and I did not want to give him the impression that I was so damaged from our breakup twenty years prior that I couldn’t handle a casual lunch date. Although, clearly, that was the case.
He chooses a Cuban-Mexican restaurant in Malibu, unassuming, informal, slightly out of the way. His choice, like everything else about him now, is unexpected and unknowable. In so many ways, he is a stranger to me.
I arrive to find him already seated on the terrace, in the dappled shade of bougainvillea and palms. Dignified profile, perfect yogi posture. My heart all but flips out of my chest. Decades after the fact, and just the sight of him still has that effect. He sees me, smiles, and stands awkwardly to make the greeting. It’s a brief hug, but I’m close enough to inhale him. His stubble rough and warm against my skin. That familiar Lorry scent of sun and soil. And just like that, every minute of our relationship comes flooding back. All the pain, all the anguish, all the rush, all the sex.
The sex.
“Hi,” he says, and even that feels loaded. As if he can sense that I am feeling all these things. As if he is feeling them, too. And I catch myself wondering if this is indeed just lunch.
“I’m just amazed that you’re here,” he continues. “I never imagined you’d come back to the States. And to California, of all places.”
“It’s only temporary.”
“Have you liked it here?”
“It’s… different.”
