Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [61]
It felt bizarre to waken in Anne’s canopied bed. Light barely filtered through the heavy silk draperies, which, Michael saw that morning, were deep green. He felt swamped by the heat, the closeness. It was the first time he had spent an entire night there. Anne lay beside him, already alert, smiling.
“Tu as dormi bien?” she asked, one hand lazily mussing her own hair.
“C’était un peu trop chaud,” Michael said, rolling onto his back.
“It’s hot, yes,” she said. She laughed at her double meaning. “And we’d better make love now, because I don’t know when I’ll have this chance again, to have you in my bed in the morning.”
He had not told her that he was living in a hotel. That was something between himself and Lydie; he wanted time to consider the state of his marriage. Telling Anne would proclaim something to the world, to himself, which he wasn’t ready for. Yet here he was in bed with Anne; he felt he had spent half the night with an erection. He had called to invite her to dinner after Lydie had gone home from the embassy. As soon as Anne accepted, Michael had known how the night would go.
She lay on her back, pulling him close, directing his fingers to her doudounes, her zizi. She wanted him to call their genitals by name, something Lydie had hated. Saying the words in French made it at once easier and more forbidden.
“Je suis bien obsédé de ta verge,” she said, regarding his erect penis as if she were, in fact, obsessed with it. She produced a condom, part of their ritual, and rolled it on. She treated his penis a little strangely, as though it had its own life, separate from Michael. Lying back, watching her pay attention to it, Michael figured she considered it a third party. When she left it to kiss his lips, she was giving him equal time, ignoring it, but surreptitiously reaching down every so often to stroke it, to reassure it. Just a little secret between her and it.
He could not be sure, but last night he thought she had whispered “Louis” at the moment of orgasm. He knew she had fantasies of herself as Madame de Sévigné; perhaps, making love in this antique bed, she could pretend Michael was the Sun King. She did research the way other women conducted friendships, love affairs: with passion and intimacy. This was obvious to Michael when he watched her at the Louvre. She blocked out everything but herself and the person she was studying. Her fantasy world carried into real life, and that was strange. Now, entering her, he wondered whether she was making love to him, Michael McBride, or to his penis. Or to Louis XIV. But the thought was brief and faded soon enough.
An hour later, sipping coffee in her living room, all was proper, even demure. She wore a yellow dress with matching yellow sandals. Her hair, lighter than ever, looked curly and full. He had watched her after their shower, stiffening her wet hair with white foam, blowing it dry until it looked the way she wanted. The process was ritualistic, so feminine. He had never seen a woman pay that sort of attention to her appearance. In his mother’s case it was unfortunate, because she hadn’t much natural beauty to start with. Lydie looked beautiful, in spite of what she did not do; she washed her hair with shampoo thriftily bought by the gallon, then let it air-dry. He had never seen her wear lipstick or nail polish. She disliked any perfume except something called “Water of Struan” that smelled like hay. Thinking of Lydie, he had to look away from Anne.
“There’s the doctor,” he said, gazing across the street. A tall, stooped old man deposited a dripping tea bag in the garbage can on his balcony. A mangy German shepherd stood at his heels.
“What a pig,”