June 2014
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“You won’t get up to any hanky-panky, I hope,” Madame muttered when Sylvie went to ask her permission. “We’re still responsible for Guy, you know. Even if it’s just for another week. If something happens to him, we’re the ones who pay.”
“Relax, mum,” Sylvie grinned. “I take full responsibility.”
Madame made a face. “I know all about your responsibility, Sylvie, and frankly, I’m not impressed.” She twirled her coffee glass, watched the dark liquid slosh around inside it. “Alright. Do what you want, I don’t care. But you have to come home at three o’clock. Not a minute later, or I’ll call the Organization.”
“Thanks, mum.”
Sylvie went to spray her hair into a ball of black candy floss and touch up her mascara, but I didn’t even change my clothes.
“So Guy. What should I wear?”
Like I’d know what a woman should wear. But maybe I had to play my little gay charade so that I had some kind of reason for living. So I followed her back out to the caravan and hmmed and wowed in all the right places while she twirled in front of a mirror and grimaced at herself. Patricia mimicked her mother, pulling her dress this way and that and shooting me poisonous darts whenever Sylvie had her head inside the wardrobe.
“That’s what you’re wearing?” she taunted, and I just gave a curt nod, in no mood to discuss my jeans and t-shirt with an eight-year-old. Besides, it didn’t matter what I wore. There wasn’t an ensemble in the world that could persuade a judo teacher to throw his life overboard and follow me into the sunset.
“So how does it feel now that you’re leaving us forever?” Sylvie asked as we were ensconced in her little car, hurtling through the night on a ribbon of grey. Grey, grey, grey, like a conveyor belt for humans.
“Feel?” I repeated.
Sylvie’s teeth flashed in the darkness. “I understand if you’re homesick.”
“Huh.”
The car ploughed through dark intersections on its way into town. The dashboard shone green in the blackness, like a poisonous compass directing us straight into the heart of danger.
“Well,” Sylvie sighed, “I just hope you’re not too disgusted with us.”
I wished, perhaps for the first time, that I could say, “No, I’m not.” But the race was run, I was panting at the end of my leash, and there was nothing left to do but take a bow.
But Sylvie... Sylvie was different. She was the only one who stood out from the rest of the cardboard cut-outs. Maybe we could have been friends. Hell, maybe we even had been, and I’d been too numb to realize.
“Last chance to try a Frenchman tonight, then.” She would have nudged me if she hadn’t been driving. “I mean, you’re going home. There won’t be any consequences. You can do what you like and never see him again.”
I shook my head. Sylvie... so carefree, so uncomplicated. Like the world wasn’t just her oyster, but a seafood buffet with garlic mayo and sparkly wine.
“God, no,” I said, much too late to be convincing. “Just... no. That’s not what I want.”
A disapproving pause. Then: “Seriously, Guy. You’re passing up a chance to get laid? Have a little fun before you go home.” She made it sound like wine tasting. Swirl it round your tongue and then spit it out. Easy as that. “You don’t want to leave France still a virgin, do you?”
My throat closed, and a rush of blood made my eyes water. I studied the road, determined not to let it show, and miraculously, Sylvie didn’t notice. I attempted to lean my head against the window, but the glass shook and knocked against my skull, and I straightened up again.
“Great to get away for a while, though, huh?”
I nodded, because she was right: it was great. It was fucking unbelievable. I still couldn’t understand why Madame kept giving her permission for these Saturday night outings. Maybe she was relieved to get us out of the house? If she could, maybe she would have hoisted little Grégory on us as well. Anything for a moment’s peace.
“Hey... Are you okay, Guy?”
I looked up. I’d been gnawing on my thumbnail without noticing. “Yup.” I hid my hands between my thighs.
Sylvie looked at me a little too long. I considered telling her to watch the road, but before I could decide, she said, “You don’t eat much nowadays.”
I blinked. “It’s a Swedish thing.”
She made a soft snort. “Swedes starve themselves?”
“We don’t gorge ourselves just before bedtime,” I snapped.
Sylvie breathed in as if to sigh, but if she did, I couldn’t hear it. She’d already drunk a few glasses of wine, and possibly smoked a joint, so she could get off her high horse. Of course, I was an idiot to get into a car with someone who was plastered, but that was the full extent of my Happy Exchange Student routine. If the price for a moment’s freedom was me ending up in a wheelchair, it was worth it.
“When I came to live here at Christmas, you didn’t starve yourself,” Sylvie insisted.
“I’m not starving myself. I eat a lot at lunch.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d even say you binged back then.”
My breath snagged on something in my throat. I wondered if I should throw myself out of the car. Just release the seat belt, open the door and lunge into the night. Hold your head in, I heard Bruno’s voice in my mind, an echo from the judo. And slap the ground with your hands to take the edge off your fall.
“I’m not trying to be a jerk,” Sylvie said. “I’m just worried that you’ll waste away, you know?”
I considered telling her that she could use some wasting away in her life, but the words stuck on the same thing as my breath. Sylvie was overweight, sure, but I wouldn’t want her any other way. It suited her. It added to her charm.
Whereas I just looked like a pig.
Saved by our arrival at the nightclub, I kept my thoughts to myself. Sylvie parked the car and put a packet of Camels in her pocket. Outside the window, the sacred black cube of La Lune was outlined against a starry sky, waiting for us. Flashing me a conciliatory grin, Sylvie stepped out. I finally released my seat belt, too late to throw myself into oblivion.
My hands were shaking. Why were they shaking? Because I hadn’t thought anyone would notice. Because I’d thought I could push on with my crazy diet forever and no one would know or care. But if Sylvie saw, that meant I’d lost weight, didn’t it? That was a good thing, surely? It shouldn’t make me scared to have my efforts acknowledged, it should make me happy.
Swallowing drily, I got out of the car. My heart was pounding against my ribs like the music was pounding through the walls of La Lune.
“Come on, let’s be friends.” Sylvie patted my back, and I wondered if she felt the silhouette of my shoulder blades. “I’m sorry I said anything.”
I answered with a smile, but my pulse wouldn’t calm down. The damage was done. Someone had seen. It was all I wanted, to get thin and show it off, but now that I had... what was this feeling of free-fall?
Balling my hands into fists, I breathed in – Camel smoke and panic-sweat – and followed Sylvie to the entrance of the club. An under-stimulated guard lounged in the doorway, looking lazily pissed-off. “Good evening,” Sylvie greeted him and paid for us both.
The guard sighed. “Keep the ticket, you’ll get a free drink.”
As if we didn’t know by now.
Inside, the bar gleamed in the darkness. To the left were a bunch of half-filled tables and chairs, and at the far end, the empty dance floor blinked in time to Alors on danse.
“What do you want to drink?” Sylvie asked.
“Oh... I shouldn’t. The Organization–”
“Oh, fuck the Organization! You don’t think I’ll tell, do you?”
“Well...”
Of course, the rules of the Organization didn’t really matter anymore, since I was leaving. But I’d only eaten a sandwich for breakfast and nothing more, and I wasn’t sure of my limits. All I knew was that three glasses of champagne after an evening of judo could be a bit much.
There was a stab of pain in my gut. I grabbed the edge of the bar and concentrated on breathing.
“You okay?”
I nodded, eyes closed to ride it out. “It’s nothing.”
“You look like you’re dying,” Sylvie chuckled, but I just shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about it. She would only get curious, would only start telling me I should see a doctor.
Slowly straightening up – careful not to trigger another knife-stab – I mustered a smile. “You go ahead and order something.”
Sylvie nodded. “I’ll get a Bailey’s. It’s delicious, I promise.” She winked at me and strode off to the bar. I looked at her go, a frown forming on my forehead. ‘Delicious’? As in ‘sweet’? Was she trying to sneak calories into me when she thought I wasn’t looking?
Then again, what was one glass?
Sitting down at a table by the dance floor, I tried to look busy. Just behind me, the speakers blared the intro to a song I didn’t recognize. I’d been here almost ten months and still didn’t know the music.
A tall glass, half filled with a whitish fluid, soon appeared in front of me on the table. Drawn by the promise of sweetness, I sipped at it, and a shock of sugar spread on my tongue.
“Told ya,” Sylvie grinned.
I took another sip, and felt myself mellow, become golden. A few carbs and yeah, I was on board. If I panicked later, I could always dance it off.
I remembered a silly old test in a magazine: Are you an addictive personality? I’d forgotten my results, but I’d probably got ridiculously many points. I knew too much about the harmful effects of alcohol to be in danger, though. If I ever became addicted, it would be to something I hadn’t already steeled myself against, something I hadn’t been informed about in primary school. Something that looked harmless.
I took another sip. The Bailey’s bloomed in my throat, seeped into my veins and painted flowers all over the inside of my skull. Not because it was alcohol, but because it was sweet. Honey sweet to break your heart. Neon sweet like the sex I would only ever have with myself. Sweet like a lover that would never forsake me.
Squaring my shoulders, I looked out over the jumbled tables...
And did a double take. There he was. Freshly shaved, leather jacket casually slung over his shoulders, nursing a beer.
Philippe.
Seeing me, he had a moment of panic. I could see it in the way he went into cardiac arrest. Then he smiled and waved. As though nothing was amiss.
Sylvie gave me a mischievous look, and I was about to explain it away, when Philippe suddenly took his glass and started walking towards us. Short-circuited by a pang of longing, I tried to compose my features. But before he could reach us, someone stopped him – a woman, I noted. She moved in front of him and started yapping, and I glared at her back, at her graceful, stupid hands that seemed to be flawlessly painted. Philippe looked like a little boy when he laughed. A disco light flickered over his face and made his eyes glitter.
Then, after a thousand years, he managed to extricate himself and approached us. “Hi.” He greeted me with a too-formal handshake. “Fancy seeing you here. How are you?”
My ribs ached. “I’m f-fine,” I managed to stutter, even though I was right in the line of fire of those dark blue eyes. Blood sizzling through my veins, I stood up to give him a kiss on each cheek. Unusual among men, but not unheard of. Philippe’s breath hitched, and his soft-rough skin smelled so intensely of cologne that I swayed on my feet.
When I drew away, Philippe grinned widely and turned to Sylvie. “At the judo, we’re all brothers,” he said by way of explanation.
Oh. So that’s how you want to play it.
He looked back at me, and something like anger glinted in his irises. What? He thought I was overstepping a line? Well, that makes fucking two of us, ‘brother’.
I sat down, making sure I didn’t touch Philippe anywhere. He might blow a fuse. We didn’t look at each other, just sat there, staring, as the loud music buffeted against us, making the air tremble. A velvet pulse throbbed from the floor, vibrated through my bones and made my heart shudder. Darkness devoured the year that was now behind me, wrapped it in honeyed harmonies and bubble wrap.
Why couldn’t it wrap Philippe with the rest?
“It’s a good night,” he yelled suddenly. “Lots of people.”
I turned to look at him. “Yeah,” I muttered, thinking, I only need you. Throw them all out, they’re just extras.
Philippe drank from his beer, apparently out of things to chat about. I tried to conjure something from the judo club, but my head was filled to bursting with the perfect, god-awful-perfect line of his jaw, with the rounded bliss of his lips. He looked like something out of the Louvre, all pouty eighteenth century youth with a cleft chin and glittery eyes.
Or perhaps what someone like that would look like, played by a Hollywood star.
“So... you want anything to drink?”
He gestured at the empty glass in front of me. When had I finished it? I glanced at his beer and considered asking for a taste, but it felt too intimate. The time for exchanging bodily fluids was over. “I think Sylvie is on the case.”
It came out too soft. Broken. I saw him digest it – saw him wince at my raw disappointment.
A moment passed.
Then I felt something on my arm: his hand. Heart hesitating in my chest, I made myself meet his eyes. Waiting. Wanting. My breathing on pause for a few seconds. I should recoil, laugh it off like he’d laughed off my kisses, but I’d lost all control over my body. It was his now, and it refused to move. I was a moth, lethally drawn to the only light that existed in the whole of France.
My lips parted, and I felt myself mouth something. His name?
Philippe cocked his head slightly. He really thought I had something to say? Something that wasn’t completely idiotic? Don’t be a fool, I told myself, but the words evaporated in the malnourished vacuum where my brain used to be. I knew it was hopeless, laughably so, but my tongue didn’t care. Instead it gathered everything it knew about the French language in one trembling phrase and launched it into the space between us. “Je veux sortir avec toi.”
There was a twitch in Philippe’s cheek. He didn’t think he’d heard it right. “I’m sorry?”
“I want to... be with you.”
Philippe’s face stiffened. I felt my throat tie itself into a familiar knot of tears. Idiot. You knew it was the wrong thing to say. But I couldn’t go home without trying on that particular combination of words. It was the reason for my stay, after all: to learn the French fucking tongue.
Philippe’s shoulders heaved, but the sound was lost in the sudden chatter of people making for the exit. “I’m taken, Guy.”
‘Guy’. The English pronunciation. He was the only one who knew who I really was.
“I know,” I said. “So why did you–”
“And you’re going home.”
I closed my eyes. The longed-for date a sudden millstone around my neck. A panicked feeling of being torn into pieces: all my wishes in opposition to each other. I wanted to dissipate like my wits, to vanish into another dimension where dreams were allowed and there were no boyfriends or geography.
“I just...” Stopping to swallow, I felt my youth rise up within me. My stupid naivety, my childish poor-me whineyness. It was going to trip me up, throw me to the ground. I would hit the dojo, and it would be too late to hold my head in. My brains, the brains I still had left, would be dashed to pieces. “Can’t you... come with me?”
There. The most idiotic thing I’d ever said, and it was out there. Impossible to take back. Like a guillotine to my dreams.
Philippe gave me a look I couldn’t decipher. Then he looked away, out towards the bustling by the door. “I want to.” He paused – just long enough to make wretched hope rear its stupid head. “But I have a boyfriend, and you’re leaving the country. In other circumstances... Look, I don’t want to hurt you, but...”
He faltered. We both knew his excuses were worthless. An image of the judo house surfaced in my mind. My body still ached where he’d tortured it, but I’d let it happen. When you stepped into that realm, you knew what you were in for. And if you couldn’t stand the heat...
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled too low for me to hear, but my eyes were so fixed on his lips that I understood anyway. “We both know that you have to forget me.”
“But... please!” I burst out, forsaking all semblance of dignity. My hand reached out, fumbling for something that wasn’t there. Stopping mid-air, it just hung there, alone, unbearably alone. After a too-long moment, Philippe wrapped it in his. I looked at our joined palms, at his fingers that curled around mine, the same fingers that had once taken care of my bleeding feet. Now they wanted to heal a torn-open chest, but nothing could stop the deadly flow.
“I like you. You know that already.”
“I do?”
“You should.”
I tried to reply, but my throat had turned into a noose.
“I’m sorry if I’ve led you on.”
A ragged chuckle ripped past my larynx. “Oh, no, no, not at all.”
Philippe’s jaw tensed. “I know. I should have behaved more maturely, but... sometimes it’s hard to do what we know is right, you know? I didn’t think I could be interested in anyone other than my boyfriend, but...”
He left the main part unsaid. The part I could have taken home to Sweden and made love to, he shrugged away like it meant nothing.
And then he abruptly drew away. My hand was left hanging, cold air erasing Philippe’s touch by the second.
“Are you coming, Guy?” Sylvie called, and I jumped. She was holding my jacket, eager to get back to her stupid caravan and a wind-down joint. I manufactured a quick smile, because that was still my forte. Around me, life was still pulsating. By the door, some wanker was stumbling around, trampling feet and dripping sweat on everyone, and I realized that I hated him. I hated them all, the entire bunch of morons who jostled and shoved each other to get out, because there was no getting out. I hated France, I hated the world, I hated life itself that kept playing its practical jokes on me.
And most of all I hated myself, because I was the one who allowed it. Because like vampires, neither love nor hate stepped over a threshold without being invited.