The rest of the day unfolded into a succession of light and playful moments, in the sweet presence of rosebushes and under the shade of linden trees. The floral scents reminded me of my mother, and a wave of guilt passed through me as I considered how little time I had been spending with her recently.
Happily, the modest park at Malmaison was delightful: it was a no-frill affair, without elaborate water displays or other such things, but it offered an immense space for strolling that was cut off from both the city and time. As in Paris, Louie labored to be the perfect guide, providing spicy and even sulfurous anecdotes that transformed history into a veritable encyclopedia of dissolute mores. And he went into more detail than was necessary on the annex that Napoleon had built to receive his mistresses without having to disturb the woman of the house.
We ate a late lunch in a nearby brasserie, and the afternoon was already at its end by the time the limousine dropped me off outside Duchesnois House.
“See you soon?” Louie asked, with a hopeful and humble smile.
I had not noticed it until then: a little dimple at the bottom of his right cheek that only seemed to appear when he was being sincere. I instantly dubbed it his dimple of truth, and remembered that I’d seen it on the few occasions when he’d been open with me. In the garden at the Museum of Romantic Life. And also, earlier that same day, in the car, when he had told me the complete story of Aurora’s death.
“Perhaps,” I replied. “In any case, we will definitely have a chance to see each other at one of BTV’s exciting meetings!”
He appreciated the irony and rubbed my hand with his fingertips.
The door on my side suddenly opened, before I even had the chance to grasp the handle. Richard the Chauffeur, who had spent the entire day behind the wheel without showing himself, appeared on the other side.
“Mademoiselle,” mumbled the giant as he moved aside to let me out.
Surprisingly thoughtful, after so much discretion.
But once I had stepped outside into the light, I instantly recognized the bald head, the jaw, and, above all, the surly expression . . . “curiouser and curiouser.” The rude neighbor who had found Felicity and handed her to me like a turd. It was him!
I gaped. He got back into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. The motor purred. I was wondering about this strange mystery when the car ambled to the other side of the street. A modern pumpkin, loud and fast.
AS WAS OFTEN THE CASE at that time of day, and even more now that Armand had so much to do for the wedding, the house was empty. As for the three hairy rascals, they were probably in the garden, enjoying the sun on the south side of Duchesnois House.
Beside the silver envelope—could I really call it a surprise anymore?—I noticed a handwritten message from David, proof he had stopped by at some point during the day.
Another work dinner with the Koreans.
Considering how they do things, well lubricated,
I probably won’t be home until late. Don’t wait up.
I love you.
D.
I took my time opening the silver message, which seemed slimmer than the others. Sure enough, its sole contents were the usual magnetic key from the Hôtel des Charmes and two cards.
The absence of a note was a kind of test: by now, I was supposed to know the place and hour of our rendezvous. The Hôtel des Charmes, at ten p.m.
I turned over the two rectangles of rigid paper and was surprised to discover that each one contained a different commandment. Louie didn’t need the first one to convince me to go. He knew I would show up, and that now he could pull out the stops. Step it up a notch:
4—Thou shalt submit to thy master.
Then, perhaps more menacing, though in all appearances indulgent, this second order:
5—Thou shalt listen to thy desires.
What did I really know about my desires? Louie’s strategy had awoken in me wants that time and botched experiences had erased—he called himself a revealer—but was I so sure I wanted to abandon myself to him? What were these moments of pleasure, their sharp and inherently ephemeral delight, really worth? Especially compared to the immense landscape of peaceful happiness with David Barlet.
For the time being, I decided to respect David’s deceitful silence. If his older brother’s story was true, then David was not really a despicable liar. He was at once the first victim of Aurora’s madness as well as her torturer. And I could only imagine the shame and infamy he had borne over the years. Time could not erase the sharp pain of these events. It was powerless to lighten the burden of his errors. For him, I was virgin territory, an enterprise at which he could succeed this time, and such an aim justified a few secrets, as weighty and disloyal as they may seem at first.
I locked myself in the bedroom and dug out the treasures Louie had given me over the past few days: mysterious key; riding crop; egg, which made part of me contract when I saw it; Païva necklace; and precious comb, which David may have paid for but which Louie had chosen. I turned the objects over in my hands, noting the softness of one or the rich ornamentation of another. Hard and refined, smooth and rigid, penetrating and impenetrable, they made for a strange mosaic, a collection of odds and ends that reflected their sender’s contradictions. Subtle and equivocal. However, all these erotic objects would mean nothing if I decided not to give them power. Louie’s lessons only had one aim: to make me an agent of my own pleasure, and the inanimate objects my living partners.
Why, then, had I not received an object for today’s meeting? Would another surprise be waiting for me there? Or was I to expect something more incarnate?
YES, I HAD CHANGED, I could see it in the bedroom mirror. No doubt definitively. I wasn’t a Hotelle anymore. Nor was I a malleable thing that David could fashion as he pleased. And what if I continued acquiescing to the luxuries he offered—this house, that dress, the first-class wedding—and had carefully adjusted to me, what part of me would remain? Was it still me in this gilded life? Had the little girl from Nanterre survived in me? As for the new Elle, the one who was blossoming with each secret rendezvous, what did she want? Did she even know? In which room would she soon find herself?
I HAD NO MATERIAL CLUES this time when I arrived in front of the Hôtel des Charmes a few minutes before the usual hour. Ten o’clock minus a few ticks.
I entered the lobby with neither a glance nor a word in Monsieur Jacques’s direction. He was busy writing something. After our recent dispute, I did not want to ask for his help and instead made a beeline for the elevators.
“Good evening, Mademoiselle!”
I was happy to see Ysiam’s smile. His long lashes blinked a little faster, a sign that he, too, was glad to see me. He may have been Louie’s submissive servant, but I still saw an innocence in him that made me like him, in spite of everything.
“Good evening, Ysiam. Will you please take me to the right room?”
“Of course. Which one?”
His lips spread wide. He was playing.
“Well . . . You know, don’t you?”
“Me, yes. But you have to tell me!”
Well, if that was how it was going to be . . .
“Okay. Let’s see, what do I still have: a key, an old key that might open any door . . .”
“Any door,” he confirmed, thrilled to continue the game. “So no door.”
“Hmm, I’ve used the necklace and the egg . . . I have a silver comb.”
“Are you sure that’s one of your tools?”
“No . . . You’re right. In that case, the only thing I still have left is . . . a riding crop!”
He winked, delighted.
“Yes! That’s a tool!”
“A riding crop . . . ,” I repeated, thinking.
Which legendary courtesan could have used such a toy? I tried to remember all the room names I knew, but nothing came to mind. When suddenly, a few paces behind Ysiam, I noticed a retro poster . . .
Ysiam caught the direction of my gaze. He turned around. The framed poster was a recent replica of a period advertisement featuring a Spanish dancer holding a fan in one hand and, as if to highlight her martial attitude, a switch in the other. Now all I had to do was read the name of this dark beauty: Lola Montez.
“Lola Montez?” I asked, accentuating the final z. “It isn’t spelled ‘Montès’?”
“Lola Montès is the movie that Max Ophuls made of her life. But her real name was Montez.”
After this little lesson—the source of which I didn’t doubt for a second—he led me to the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor.
The decor was striking. Where the other hallways in the hotel were known for their bright colors, the third floor was dressed in black—walls, doors, and carpet included. The lamps let off an intense light that barely pierced through the obscurity. And afraid we might fall, we had to proceed carefully, almost on tiptoes, to the room.
THE ROOM, WHICH WAS PLUNGED in thick darkness, was hardly any gayer. The gilded baseboards and ceiling glowed under the iridescent light of one or two small lamps. This sepulcher to the memory of the most mythical darling of the Romantic era inspired more reverence than excitement. But the click of the lock on the door suddenly reminded me why I was here, like a first lash of the switch at my senses.
“Come nearer . . .”
Like the last time, the irruption of these faceless words in the closed space drew me out of my stupor. The sudden sound almost made me scream in fright. But this time, it did not come from a set of speakers. The metallic timbre, which was distorted by some electronic artifice, did not come from above but from the other side of the room, whose tenebrosity made it impossible to see anything, bodies and decorative features alike.
Nevertheless, I did perceive a hurried movement within the opacity. I could have sworn: someone was approaching me. And I took a step back. My movements grew slower, from a mix of fear and desire—old friends in our most odious nightmares. I was frozen, half expecting to wake up.
“Do not be afraid. If you are here, it is because you are no longer afraid.”
The sound was terrifying, but something about the inflection told me he was trying to be reassuring. At last, with these words, he half appeared. He was still anonymous, though. He wore black latex over his head and slight body, right down to his toenails. This surprising costume resuscitated random images from my childhood—a wrestler and a circus Hercules—as well as more adult fantasies—Catwoman, the submissive in an S-M role-playing game, and I don’t know what else.
A bulge in the elastic material, a shard protruding under his lower abdomen, told me that he was already erect.
“Right?” he insisted.
Out of prudence, I agreed:
“No, I am not scared . . .”
From behind his back, he withdrew a long, thin object that I could not immediately identify.
“Come here. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
A riding crop! Like the one Louie had sent me, and which I had remembered a few minutes earlier with Ysiam.
Suddenly I noticed something: despite the darkness, it was clear that the man in front of me was not holding anything that resembled a cane, nor did he seem to need any support.
“You aren’t going to . . . ,” I choked.
“Whip you? No. Not unless I have to. Not if you’re good.”
I tried to control my voice and slow my racing thoughts.
“Okay, okay . . . This is going a little too far for me.”
“Tsss . . . ,” he whistled as he came toward me. “We haven’t done anything yet and you’re already retreating!”
“I do not want to be beaten.”
“Who said that you would? You know, there are a thousand other things we can do with this.”
To illustrate his point, he started caressing my body with the soft tip of leather, through the minimal shielding of my clothes. It was electrifying, as if it were his tongue.
In other circumstances, as a simple spectator, I probably would have found the gesture grotesque. But now, it released a sweet and venomous elixir in me. Being the center of his attention toppled my reason, a fragile screen between my desires and myself. My defenses fell one by one, and I felt the pressing need to let myself give in to his injunctions.
“Close your eyes . . . Concentrate on what you’re feeling.”
I did not need to open them to know that he had drawn nearer—almost in direct contact, judging from the breath that swept across my face and neck at regular intervals. What confused me, however, was the flagrant absence of body odor. Nothing emanated from him, not even a hint of cologne. Nothing but the overwhelming, artificial, and acrid scent of latex.
He took my hand and, with the utmost delicacy, led me to a bed dressed in black sheets. Then he slowly bent me back onto the silken bier.
Odd occurrence: When I fell onto the bed, it set off a musical piece, which swelled throughout the room and fell upon us like drizzle that grew stronger and stronger.
I did not recognize the piece, but I had to admit that it fit the situation perfectly. A bewitching chant with just one musical layer, in a language I was incapable of naming. It sounded like a Gregorian chant by a new religious group, in which women were high priestesses. The words mattered little. I let the high-pitched voices carry me away, up to their peak.
One by one, the man took off my clothes—I had dressed soberly and simply that night—and continued to tease my naked body with languid strokes of the leather whip. The precision of his movements hinted at a developed but lithe musculature.
“This piece is called ‘Forever Without End’ . . . ,” he murmured.
That’s what I wanted from his riding crop, which seemed to know in painful detail my most sensitive erogenous zones. It only targeted the best, lingering over the ones that sent the sweetest, longest, and most visible shivers through me. The base of my neck trembled approvingly. The tops of my shoulders responded with an irrepressible tremor, a blend of pain and pleasure. Even the nameless triangle between my ear and nape of the neck expressed contented pleasure. And my breasts, my middle, my ecstatic inner thighs, which opened wider with every stroke. They quivered in anticipation of what might come next.
An avid, impatient tension ran through my whole body. It wanted to learn and, more than anything, feel more. Harder?
“I love this . . .” I sighed, without knowing if I meant his touch or the music.
I twittered at the sudden intrusion of the leather rod between my labia. He rubbed my cleft several times, with just enough pressure to torture me. My back arched, projecting my pubis as far as possible in his direction.
“Ow!”
He’d given no warning before the switch smacked my middle. It was light but biting.
“You’re not supposed to beat me!”
I sat up, furious. He pushed me back onto the bed with one hand. I could not escape his weight.
“Whipping is not beating.”
“Really? Well, you explain the difference to my skin!”
“Don’t get caught up on words . . . Feel it.”
My anger had actually amplified the sensations in my body. With each lash of the whip, I wanted more, was suspended in anticipation, wondering how hard the next one would be and which part of my body it would touch. He striped my breasts in turn, then my thighs, the sides of my buttocks. He was careful to avoid my face, which twisted in pain and desire.
Still, I felt a wave of panic when he straddled me and pinned his knees to my arms. Crushed under his weight, they could not make the slightest movement. I knew what he would do next: the icy feel of metal on my wrist, the pinch of the cuff as it closed, then the same thing on the other side.
Handcuffed.
I opened my eyes to see what he had in store for me, his willing martyr, and discovered that everything had disappeared: the night-lights had been dimmed, and the room was pitch-black. Now, the only way I could situate him in the room was by listening to his breath or feeling the subtle heat of his latex-sheathed body.
He must have read this last thought because I heard the squeak of latex and understood that he was at last undressing. This freed not only his body but also his oh-so-familiar fragrance, which the latex suit had been holding prisoner.
Vanilla. Lavender. In a word: Louie. Or a man wearing his cologne?
My doubts evaporated when I heard his voice, now in its natural state:
“No darkness could hide you.”
Was he talking about . . . my beauty?
The riding crop was not the only replica he had with him that night.
“Oh, no!”
The metallic egg he had just plunged into my sex with authority was identical to the one he had already used to transport me.
“Oh, yes,” he confirmed.
I did not know what to expect next. I heard his feet rubbing across the carpet, then the door click twice as it opened and closed.
Had he really left?
I did not have time to think of another hypothesis. The little seed of pleasure he’d planted in me was sprouting. The egg had spontaneously come to life, moved by what I imagined was a distant order. My hands were bound. I had no control over its strength, its movement inside me, the duration of its vibrations. Nothing.
The first orgasm hit my innermost depths like an implosion. It wasn’t like being broken into a million pieces; rather, it was as though I had been collected into a ball of fire and pleasure. I was as compact as a modern sculpture, from which only the sex and a stunned vulva emerged.
“Not that . . . You . . . ,” I wept, ecstatic and frustrated.
I wanted it to be over. Or, rather, I wanted to begin. I was done with these games and this mechanized pleasure. I wanted him. In me. Posthaste. Only the time it took for us to make each other come.
And just as he was crossing the threshold, I added, desperately and plaintively, with gratitude and abandon:
“Come . . .”
Without saying a word, he melted over me and withdrew the egg from my vagina. Fluid trickled between my legs, sending a wave of relief through me, even up into my chest. I felt submerged. Sucked into the whirlwind of my orgasm. Drowned, and happy to be.
“Take me . . . Take me,” I begged.
He ignored my request. Instead, he kneeled between my legs, brusquely pulling my backside to the edge of the bed. He started licking my soaking sex like a man who has just left the desert.
The contrast with David’s method was striking. Where my future husband excelled at metronomic regularity, Louie licked haphazardly, with plenty of interruptions and changes in rhythm. He did not have to introduce himself inside me to mine my depths. And what should have delayed my pleasure—don’t they say that cunnilingus only works if it is long-lasting and ardent?—aroused my desire, engorged my nymphae and lips, made my clitoris stand more erect than ever before.
I don’t remember what Sophia and I could have said that would have made one of our professors in college think it was appropriate to provide an example of an erotic book of photography: Born from the Wave, by Lucien Clergue. After our conversation, I was curious to see the photographs and did an Internet search. I found the pictures of nude beauties both fascinating and unsettling. Most of them were headless, surrounded by waves and foam.
Seeing them reminded me of an aspect of my vagina that I had always found off-putting, though it was the very same thing that drove me wild in men: the scent of my pussy my sex. It would have been easy to tuck my obsession away in a secret corner and chalk it up to one of my complexes, except that, in spite of my perfume, I smelled it delicately emanating from me several times a day. At my desk in high school, then in college, at the movies or on the metro. Anytime life put me in contact with strangers, I was convinced they could catch a whiff of the odorous, musky fragrance of my pussy my crotch. Like my vagina, the pages of Lucien Clergue’s book also seemed to smell of the sea.
Handwritten note by me, 6/11/2009
HE SLIPPED HIS TONGUE UNDER the folds of my vagina and played for a long moment with my button, erasing this final barrier and my remaining scruples. For a second it was almost painful, but then lightning shot through the room and struck the tiny organ of happiness, ripping open my middle, burning my innards with a shower of flames. I was blinded, deprived of my senses.
“Oh, yessssss!”
I was devastated. Scorched. I was no longer a woman who screamed no, but yes.
This time, I did not hear him leave. I moved my arms and realized he had unbound my hands.
But even without the cuffs, even though I had been freed, I knew one thing for certain: I belonged to him now. I could marry whomever I pleased. Including his brother. I could make a comfortable life for myself.
From here on out, I only had one master. And that was Louie.
He was the one.