Allan Stein (14 page)

Louise was not a very interesting traveler. She peered in windows but rarely went inside to shop. She stopped randomly (I suppose it was usually warm sunshine that stopped her), and stood like a homeless woman for long moments doing nothing. If I lost her, which was often, it was usually in the metro, where I couldn't risk sitting in the same car and had to lean out at the stops to watch the platform, hoping I would spot her when she got off. I visited a great deal of Paris getting off at the wrong stop and following some other brown head through a crowd, surging along the narrow tunnels and out into the street. Stalingrad, Place de Clichy, Gare de l'Est, Mou-ton Duvernet, and on one morning of endless mistaken tailings through three train changes, the Porte de Bagnolet, where I was too exhausted to return home and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in a sandwich shop reading a British sport newspaper. Having lost her, my usual strategy was to return to the Place Saint-Michel and sit in that same Formica café with a soda until I saw her come back to the hotel.

In a way I
was
beginning an adventure, as I now believe Louise had hoped; my new habit of surveillance was tremendously exciting to me, making my face flush with nervous energy, my heart race, and my body become electric with that blood rush of Eros that seems to drift so haphazardly over the hodgepodge days of adolescence— petty dinner-table arguments raising fat erections; orgasms poked, midafternoon, into television-room couch cushions, the cat or dog licking in a backyard hollow, licking just an arm, but nevertheless— and now this top-secret trailing through the streets of Paris, my
erection pressed flat against my jeans, until later each afternoon in my room when I beat off. I never thought of Louise, but of trailing her. In fact I thought mostly of myself, and, while I worked my fist up and down in the dim gauze light of the hotel room, what I imagined was me on the subway train, unzipping and doing it there, Louise in the next car clueless while I performed gloriously, naked for all the men and women and children in the bright enamel subway compartment to admire.

Before I could allow myself this pleasure I sat, sometimes for hours, in the café, hoping to catch her return. The man or men I thought she must be chasing never materialized, with the notable exception of one extremely handsome thirty- or fourty-year-old Frenchman who had befriended both of us in the first days of our stay. His name was Frank (which sounded lovely in French with the soft "a"), and it was obvious to me he wanted to have sex with Louise. What gave him away—beyond the touch, the attention, the body language, the great and constant amplitude of joy and strained humor, the wine, always, which he brought to our table asking could he join us—was him palling it up with me, as if we could be great buddies. He would show me all of Paris, everything a boy should see. In short, he employed the trick of most men I'd seen showing interest in Louise: buddy up to the son to get Mom. We enjoyed him as we would a fireworks display, dazzled and amused but also very distant. He joined us for dinner three or four times and at the end of each evening, when at last Frank had withdrawn, Louise and I would just look at each other and laugh, not derisively but in amazement.

Frank had appeared twice at cafés where my mother sat but nothing ever happened. "Appeared" is unfair; in fact, Louise told me on both mornings that she was going to meet Frank, who had called, and wouldn't I like to come too? "Frank asked specifically for you to come; really, he'll be very disappointed to see it's just this
old woman, and I don't know that I'll enjoy it much without an escort, oh please!" But no, Mother, I absolutely cannot, I have the whole Buttes Chaumont to see today, not to mention the zoo of the Bois de Vincennes, which
Le Guide Bleu
insists should not be missed, so that both times Louise did go alone and I followed with extra vigilance, hoping something would at last happen. Nothing ever did. Frank seemed bored, distracted in a way quite unknown at our dinners together, and they drank their coffees, chatted for less than an hour, kissed cheek-cheek, and I returned to the hotel to jerk off.

On the seventh day, at last, something happened. I had lost her one morning in the metro going north from Saint-Michel and returned to the tacky café, where I found an American newspaper and parked myself in the best spot, facing a mirrored wall that caught the hotel entrance in its greasy panorama. I could read and watch at the same time from there. I was only mildly bored, halfway through a canned Gini, when I spotted Frank standing by the hotel door looking at his watch. So, it had come to this: clandestine rendezvous while the boy hiked the Canal de l'Ourq. All the dreary hours spent in this bright orange café, scraping the flimsy feet of my plastic chair across the tiles, all of my week in Paris spent day after day in this ugly hole waiting, suddenly became worthwhile, like hot bread in the hands of a starving man. I dropped the paper and tore ravenously out the clattering glass door, Gini in hand, to intercept this desirous paramour before he could have his way with my mother.

"Hey!" I called, feigning enthusiasm, rushing up to Frank.

"Oh, hello." From him a flash of distress, with a smile propped up quickly in its wake. "What a great surprise."

"Waiting for someone?" I managed to say, not coy at all, as I sipped the Gini.

"I'm not sure. I mean, I have no appointment with anyone, if that's what you ask. I'm awfully glad to see you."

Uh-huh. "Yeah, what a coincidence."

"Not so much of one, really, I know this is your hotel." Horribly, I thought he might try to confide their rendezvous to me, the man-to-man ploy, demanding my confederacy, and I forestalled him with a quick invitation.

"Come up to my room, Frank. I mean, you haven't seen it yet, have you?" If I could get him there for long enough, Louise wouldn't find him and would leave.

"If you want to," he answered ambiguously. I was silent, petulant, and impatient to get us out of there.

"Whatever," I said, hurrying into the lobby, drawing him along with my sheer momentum. "Come on." Frank looked around anxiously, a last scan for dear late Louise; then he followed me inside.

The charm came back on. Frank smiled now, positively aglow once we got in the elevator. He really could turn it on, and I supposed he was revving the engines to get this whole distraction up and running quick enough to catch his date, but as it turned out that wasn't the case at all. Frank put his hand on my shoulder as I jiggled the key, and when we pushed through the door he slammed it closed behind us and pinned me to the wall of the tiny room. He pulled the buttons of my shirt undone one by one while kissing me flat on the mouth. His tongue found my lips, parted in complete surprise, before pushing past them. My mind fled while my body went straight toward Frank. I pressed myself against him and my erection pushed at the metal buttons of my jeans. Frank pried them undone and pulled my pants down my legs while pushing me onto the bed. Was I beautiful? What boy is not beautiful? He dragged my underpants off, a dirty frayed pair, grabbing and tugging so I got burns along my hips, and then he fell on me. I felt the day come rushing down through the top of my head, raging along my spine, and then, after
a span in which he bit me and pinched my nipples until they were sore and raw, it all burst out my middle and into his mouth. And then I slapped him, hard across the face, which amazed and delighted me. I don't know if or when Louise returned, I don't think she did until after dinner, but Frank and I had sex every day for the next three days, and then I left Paris. Sex was terrific, but Frank never acted very affectionate before or after it, and that was fine. It meant I didn't fall in love at all. After we left I hardly thought about him, except when I jerked off and would replay the scene in the hotel room. I still do. It's one of my favorite scenes.

A
s I say, the Thirteenth District was nothing like that gaudy area of Paris where so much had happened to me, and as I walked through it to the Butte aux Cailles I saw only locals, Arabs, and Asians among the European French, shopping and drifting through their day-to-day pleasures and chores. It was spring, really and finally, I thought, with mild air and so much fragrance from the trees and turned dirt, the car exhaust faded for whole blocks behind the day's fresh breeze. The street rose toward the Place Verlaine. A flock of screaming back-satcheled kids flooded the sidewalk in their haste past me, and beyond them a steamy-glassed brick building held the
piscine.
No artesian well or
buvettes
in sight, just the clank and suck of metal drains, pleasant repetition of laps, wavelets splashing, minor adjustments of steamed goggles, the hothouse air. I felt like a great and weeping orchid going in and a flat drained field coming back out again. I swam until exhausted, showered, dressed, then drifted home along the boulevards. A paper schedule, gratis from the pinched concierge, told me that evening at the pool would be an
ouverture spéciale
featuring reduced admission for teens and sporting play with hoops and balls. V
oilà
! The boy and I could return for a night of wet fun together. I praised this kind universe that turned its wheels so. And oh, the air felt lovely as the clocks tolled
four above the great city. I unlocked the garden door and hurried in to be sure I had not missed the boy's arrival.

No one home. Sweet birdsong from the garden and courtyard, starlings. The mail had arrived and with it a postcard from California: two hideously oversized artichokes whose color was off.
Dear Herbert!
(What a coincidence.)
Thinking of you gallivanting all over gai Paris. Jimmy and I are exhausted: the sun, the hills, the pool. No sign of Tristan, alas. Looking forward to seeing you here, you bon vivant!

Where was that boy? We'd have to stop at the GoSport! for a proper
cache-sexe
(the sort required by the Minister of Bathing, or whomever). Perhaps we'd get a bite along the way. (Why bother Serge with early meal plans?) Arriving for the 8 P.M. pool playtime seemed easy enough, and, prone athwart the cushions, I anticipated the fun. God, he would be so interesting; that is, interested in the sight of me. Clatter, slam! It was the boy,
click-click-click-clicking
his bicycle along the hall, and I rose from bed, eager to announce my grand plan before his usual exodus to basketball. The telephone rang, loud and final as a school bell. I ignored it, but the boy did not, and in a flash he yelled my name, singsong, down the landing: "Herbert," all
air
and
baihhrr
, with that soft guttural ending I loved so much.

"Got it." I picked up. "Hello?"

"A
llô
, Herbert?" French.

"
Oui, c 'est
Herbert."

"Ah, it is Denis, I am happy to hear you again after our wonderful night." The boy could be heard, scuttling his drawers.

"Yes, Denis, a marvelous evening."

"I have done so much today, chasing the Steins for you, I have wanted—"

"I'm sorry Denis, just a second." The house had gone silent, like an empty fridge, so I listened more closely, trolling the air for
any clues to his movement. "Water boiling. I just had to take it off the burner."

"Of course, it is your teatime."

"More like cocktails."

"Yes, I am thinking exactly this, if you please. You will be interested with the action on the Steins I have taken today." Probably the boy was in his bathroom, having a quick scrub before setting off to sport. Nothing was very clear anymore, and an annoying car horn honking outside made it worse. These rhythmic tuneless blats echoed in the telephone, all doubled up and tinny. "Excuse me, Herbert, I am just saying hello."

"Yes, Denis, and I am saying hello back." A shout sounded from the upstairs window, the boy, disturbed by the car horn, no doubt.

"No, no, to someone else. I would enjoy this cocktail with you now."

"That's thrilling, Denis, we must make a plan for sometime soon." The phone was wired on a three-foot cord to the wall by the bed, so that I was like a watery-eyed mole trapped inside its cave, pressed into a corner, blind and listening: a soft rumble, like a boy's heavy tread on the stair steps, sounded, and then the telltale
click-click
, severed from its familiar series by Denis's voice.

"A very good time is right now, if you are free."

"I—ouch."

"Are you hurt, Herbert?"

"I'm sorry, Denis, this cord; it's the boy, you see."

"He is startling, isn't he? In two years a Casanova, you will see."

"Yes, of course, but I mean that right now I am supposed to be seeing him off to his sports."

"Yes, yes, I am saying good-bye to him right now." Outside, the awful car honks again, sporty and shrill. "
Bonne chance
, Stéphane,
bon courage!
" This rather forced bit of humor was shouted away from the receiver.

"That's very nice, Denis, but he is here, you see, and I must— uh, see to him, before he goes off to sport."

"Off he goes, and so strong for a boy who is yet so
maigre et souple. Vraiment beau.
"

"In addition to which I will be obliged to be home when he returns, so that this instant when he goes is my only free time, and I know you couldn't possibly get here from the carnival, Carnavalet, but if you have tomorrow free?"

"But Herbert, I am now here, right now as I say."

"Here in the house?"

"I am outside in the car. The boy, I see him, very fast on the bicycle—oh, now disappeared at the corner."

"Have you been honking?"

"What is'honking'?"

"The boy is gone?"

"Not far, but I no longer see him because of the road turning. I will drive us to catch him and then we have cocktails."

"
Eh bien
."

Denis, grinning, scarf aflutter in the wind, piloted his little Golf like a jet ski through a crowded summer wading pool. He cleared our path with serial blasts from the awful horn, swept around the bend, and gained rapidly on the racing boy, who tried increasing his speed for the sport of it when he saw us.