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4

Sémiramis did not live in the hotel that bore her name; at least not in the main building, but a few steps away, in a little house ringed with dense trees.

“These few metres are my protection. Without them, there would be a knock every time there was a reservation, a cancellation, or a leak. In my little house, I can read, as you can see,” she said, ushering her guest inside and turning on the lights to reveal walls lined with books.

“It’s not as small as all that, your little house.”

“There’s nothing more than what you can see. This is my library, upstairs is my bedroom, my bathroom, and a veranda.”

“Where you sunbathe in summer, wearing only a fig leaf …”

“When it comes to fantasies, I’ve gone one better. I had an electric service lift installed. Every morning, someone brings my breakfast and puts it in the dumbwaiter; I simply press a button and the tray appears on the veranda. It’s a pleasure I never tire of.”

There was a silence. They were still standing on the threshold; Adam’s hostess had not suggested that he take a seat. He glanced at his watch and took a step towards the door, which was still ajar.

“If you kiss me goodnight, I promise not to cry for help.”

He turned back. Sémiramis was standing with her eyes closed, her arms by her sides, her lips parted in a mischievous smile. He came back and planted a kiss on her right cheek, then her left and, after a moment of hesitation, a third more furtive kiss on her lips. Not a single part of her moved, not her arms, not her eyelids, not a single muscle in her face. Adam took a step back, prepared to leave, but seeing her still standing there motionless, he stepped towards her again, took her in his arms, and drew her gently towards him in a friendly hug. Still, she did not move. He hugged a little harder and she nestled, or allowed herself to be nestled, against him.

And there they stood, fused, body pressed against body, with no words, no apparent passion, each happy simply to inhale the other’s warmth and scent. Then Sémiramis pulled away and said innocuously:

“You’ll need to make sure that the door is properly closed.”

This said, she stooped, slipped off her shoes, picked them up and set off up the stairs to her room without a backward glance.

As he reached the door, Adam felt the same nagging doubt he had “last time.” Was he supposed to close the door from within or without? He felt confused and a little ashamed. But also amused to discover that, even at his age, he retained the same scruples, the same doubts he had as an adolescent. Would his friend be surprised to see him appear in her bedroom? Or, on the contrary, would she be disappointed and hurt if he did not appear?

Eventually, he closed the door, fastened the latch, pressed the light switch off, and headed towards the stairs, guided by the glow from above.

When he reached the boudoir of “the beautiful Sémi,” he could not stop himself announcing, in a faltering voice, “I didn’t leave …” All he could hear by way of reply was the pounding of the shower.

Three minutes later, his friend reappeared, wrapped in a large white towel.

“Don’t count on me to throw you out,” she said.

Their eyes met, and each saw in the other a glimmer of expectation.

“Have you got another towel like that?”

“A whole pile of them. I’ve even left you a little hot water.”

When Adam returned from the bathroom, the lights had been turned out, but the room was still bathed in a glow from outside. He unwrapped his towel and tossed it onto the shadowy form of a chair. Then he quickly slipped under the covers. Sémiramis shivered at the first contact with the cold skin of the “intruder”; but rather than move away, she pulled him to her breast so that he could share her warmth.

For a long time, they lay, pressed together, motionless, as though waiting for their bodies to be warm and dry, to become familiar with each other. Then, throwing back the covers, the man propped himself on his left elbow and slowly ran the palm of his right hand over the skin of the woman. First her shoulders, then her brow, her shoulders once again, then her hips, then her breasts, gently, patiently, painstakingly, as though carrying out a topographical survey.

As he applied himself to the task, he whispered in a low voice:

“Take the time to discover the landscape of your body. The hills, the plains, the thickets, the gorges …”

Sémiramis did not move. Eyes closed, she seemed to be focusing her full attention, her every sense, on her friend’s hand as it discovered her body, redrew it, paid homage to it.

Then Adam leaned over her and pressed his lips to the places his hands had just smoothed. Brow, shoulders, breasts, but also cheeks, lips, eyelids, with no insistence, no pressures, nothing that might give the impression that this was an erotic prelude. As though, once again, he was conducting a survey. Carefully, seriously, reverently, his breath accompanied by whispered words that his friend did not quite hear, yet understood.

Then it was she who sat up and he lay motionless. She precisely repeated his every gesture, as though her skin had memorized them. First with her palm, then with her lips.

After this, she twined her limbs around him, rolling him from side to side, finding herself above him, beneath him, until she lost all sense of space. The bed, now stripped of its covers and its pillows, was a bare, white expanse on which their bodies turned in every sense, like the hands of a clock out of time.

Neither of them wanted a fleeting encounter, quickly consummated, quickly concluded. On the contrary, they wanted their night of passion to draw out, to last, to avenge themselves on time past, as though the future was but an illusion, as though the two of them had just one night, just one, this night. It was up to them to see to it that the sun rose as late as possible. Up to them to find the perfect balance between ardour and endurance.

In the middle of the night, as he caressed his lover’s brow, her shoulders, the man could not help saying:

“When I kissed you, downstairs, you didn’t even put your arms around me. You were so stiff, so rigid, that I wondered if it might not be better if I left.”

“That’s exactly what I wanted.”

“You wanted me to leave?”

“No, stupid!” Sémiramis said. “But I wanted you to wonder, and I wanted you to make the decision.”

“At the risk of me leaving?”

“Yes, at the risk of you leaving. I would have hated you if you’d left, and I would have been angry with myself. But I had already gone too far …”

“Too far?”

“I had brought you to my house, in the middle of the night. I had told you that I wouldn’t cry for help. I was not about to take you by the hand and drag you to my bed. The ball was in your court; it was for you to decide whether you wanted to take me in your arms, to kiss me, to climb the few steps to my room. Or whether you wanted to run away, like last time.”

“Like last time,” he echoed, smiling, attempting to mimic his lover’s voice.

And they found themselves twined about each other again, animated by a new surge of passion.

By the time they finally dozed off, contented, exhausted, the sky was already beginning to brighten.

The night had been theirs and theirs alone, until the dawn.