And I should be angry. I am angry. I’d thought Faust was marginally different than the other men I’ve known, who’d fall intothe stereotypical Formula 1 athlete category. Handsy, egotistical, demanding. I’m constantly having to draw and re-draw boundaries with them. He’s crossed the line and he knows it.
So then why am I not angry?
My teeth find the inside of my cheek as I turn back to the show, each centimeter of my wrist acutely aware of his touch. I can tune this out. Antient puts on a wonderful show, and I can pay attention to the hauntingly beautiful woman wearing cascading layers of raffia, the straw-like fibers trailing around their muscular legs. Tune into the breathlessly glittery gladiator sandals they’re wearing and the probability that I might be able to one day afford them. Antient gladiators are one of my bucket-list splurges. Literally impractical, thousands of dollars for sandals that’d get ruined by tromping on sand or a splash of chlorinated water.
A thumb brushes up the back of my hand and my breathing trips, landing face-first on the shiny tile floor that is my rib cage.
Faust strokes my hand. Once, slowly. Like he’s just gotten really into the retro disco music and he’s forgotten he’s touching me. It’s an excusable touch, a remediable accident. One touch while the lights are dim is an accident. I’d know.
Twice, though?
With all the exaggerated slowness of a man who’s waiting for me to yell at him in a room full of journalists and millionaires, Faust drags his thumb back over my skin. Teasingly. He’steasingme. And if I look over, he wins. That is what he wants, isn’t it? To bother me back? Prove his point about me not liking Bernard? He doesn’twantto touch me. Or to get photographed touching me, which could be what’s happening right now, every pulsing second I don’t work out of his grip. Snapshots of Faust with his hand tight around a fashion influencer who’s working for his team—and another. And another.And fuck, fuck, fuck. I don’t want him to stop. I can’t remember ever wanting something less.
Another model appears at the top of the runway in a long silk coat that billows behind her. When she passes in front of us, Faust loosens his grip, swirls his fingers around my palm. A thousand tiny sparks flicker across my skin along the trail he makes, his fingertips tracing up to the top of my palm, then back, ghosting the bumps and dips of my hand. His touch is so light, so intimate, that I don’t notice his knee’s brushed mine at first.
What’s next? If I stay like this, will he put his hand there? Trail his rough fingertips over my knee, find the inside of my thigh, push me until—what? This isn’t going to end well for either of us. One grainy photograph of questionable proximity and my job is done. Both jobs, probably. Which Faust knows. I’m a puddle, liquid heat trained to his fingers, but now is when I’ll snatch my hand away.
And I will. Any second now.
I have to.
With a rough swallow, I slide my fingers away from his. I move quickly while the lights are still low, and Faust shifts, too, like he’s getting more comfortable in his seat. It’d be enough to make anyone doubt what they could’ve seen. He’s a large, broad athlete sitting on a thin plastic chair during a Paris Fashion Week show—he’s going to move around.
I, on the other hand, stay very still for the remainder of the show. Frozen, while my brain runs at a hundred miles per hour. He’d only been touching me like that to screw with me, I know, but I hate that Ifeelscrewed with, like he got the last laugh in after an endurance challenge. Hand-on-hand combat, and he’d won. His prize: I am extremely aware of him for the next ten minutes. How he breathes harder but quietly, next to me. How he isn’t touchingme at all despite how little he’s moved. My skin replays the sensation of his fingers on my palm, each loop worse than the last. Faust’s large hand spanning the width of my thigh, pulling my legs apart. Tendons dancing along the back of his hand as he works down the zipper of my tight black jeans. Touching me like how he treats me; incisive, serious, prying. Sex with Faust would not require any acting. He wouldn’t let me.
And that’s the worst thought yet. By the time the lights lift and Antient’s creative director walks out, my mind has fully turned itself inside out. The moment the designer vanishes again, I’m on my feet, sweaty, pulse pounding.
Faust stands, too. His dark eyes track mine, and a muscle in his cheek flexes dangerously, like he’s just about to speak. “Cat,” he says, very softly. Very earnestly. He doesn’t look like he’s about to gloat, or point out that, see, I don’t want Bernard. He caught me. Voila. Thanks for playing.
I don’t have to wait around for it, though. “I’ll meet you out front.” The words rush out so quickly that I feel sick. Then I walk to the warehouse exit, back to real life, with cloudy, cool Parisian air and taxis and people chain-smoking and my responsibilities.
I don’t want there to be a next time—there can’t be a next time—but if there is… if I’m ever pushed to that point with him again…
Next time, I wouldn’t move first.
Faust
Wednesday, March 19
What was that. Why did I do that. Why did she leave when
I know she doesn’t want him, but I’m worried that I hurt her.
Not that it
It does matter.
Fuck.
It matters.
OK. OK. I need to stop thinking about it. For now.
Mindfulness exercise #16: five things that I’m looking forward to
Driving in Japan—like the fan signs
the new SB training room—clean
