Paris, the early days of June 2010, in a hotel room in the middle of the afternoon . . .

I have never belonged to that category of women who see all hotel rooms as identical, all one and the same, each an anonymous space without any character or personality. A kind of cold tunnel with a uniform interior, offering standardized comfort for the night. Those women have probably only slept in them on exhausting layovers between trains or planes. To get a taste of a hotel room’s unique character, you have to experience it during the day, when the rest of the building is empty, or almost empty. You have to take the time to feel it, to let your senses come alive, one by one, if you want to uncover the stories of its former guests, their laughter and tears, love and ecstasy. These past months, I’ve learned that there is a direct link between what we give a hotel and what we get from it. If you let yourself sink into sleep, boredom, or melancholy, you will only receive a reflection of your own sadness and futility. And you will leave as you came, regrettably unchanged.

But if you take the time to listen to what a hotel room has to say, you will hear thousands of stories, anecdotes, and sighs. You will burn to add your own. The most curious among us sometimes find themselves possessed by previous guests and their motivations. A scent of perfume hanging to the curtains or above the bed. A small stain that has survived the cleaning crew. A residue on the mirror tracing a shadow or a silhouette. These details affect you, infuse you, invite you to live your own story.

That is exactly what I am trying to do now as I lie naked with my wrists tied to the headboard of this bed. To write new pages for a story that began long ago, well before my time. Like most rooms in the Hôtel des Charmes, the Josephine contains a gigantic ceiling mirror. So, while I wait for things to heat up, I have all the time in the world to look at myself, Annabelle Barlet, née Lorand, twenty-three years old, just married this year, and ready to give myself without restraint to the man I can hear getting ready in the adjoining bathroom. Who is he? I don’t know yet. The only thing that’s certain is that he’s not my husband. If it were him, would we even be here? Honestly, would this be happening?

They call me Elle. Since forever and in all circumstances. Probably because “Belle” would have been too much. But don’t be fooled, “Elle” is even worse. “Elle,” like the cover of a magazine, like I’m supposed to be a picture-perfect embodiment of woman in all her grace. A crystallization of desire. A melting pot for fantasies, the raw metal of which men are made.

 

WHEN AT LAST I HEAR the bathroom door creak open, I yelp in surprise. Perhaps too sharply. Part of me must have thought he was only a dream. The stranger freezes, hesitating as to whether or not to come to my side. I imagine his hand tense on the door handle, his breath suspended.

“Madame? Madame Barlet, is everything as you wish?”

The voice I hear is not his. It comes from the hall. They worry for me behind the scenes. They want me to be satisfied. Madame is a regular. Madame is important here. My man gave them his instructions. He is the kind of person people listen to around here, the kind of person whom others obey.

“Yes, Monsieur Jacques . . . Don’t worry, everything is fine.”

The first time I stayed in this room, last year, they were not nearly so attentive. Nor was I so sure of myself back then. The large mirrors reflected a very different image. My shape was already a burden, my curves already a promise. But I was not yet aware of their power, and still less of their function. I did not know the joys of another, and even less so of being myself.

What makes you come, Elle? Yeah, what does make me come? Do I really know? What exactly is it that makes me melt, deep down inside? That makes me wet without being touched, just at the thought of it? A man’s naked body? His smell? The sight of an anonymous cock erect for me? Against me? In me . . .

Handwritten note by me, 6/5/2010

 

NO, A YEAR AGO I did not know that every room is a breeding ground for love, where every woman incubates and eventually learns to become herself. I was not tied up like I am right now, and yet I was more imprisoned than I shall ever be again. Don’t be fooled, today I am the mistress, and not just to the man trembling behind the door. I have abandoned myself entirely, but I have never had this much control.

 

A YEAR AGO I WAS just me, Elle. Every woman minus herself. A whole woman was waiting to be born  . . .