Crush (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

D
avid did not speak much of his childhood. The Orient oozed from the music of his phrasing, his untimely invocations of Allah, but he claimed to be French, unaware of the imperceptible condescension of the elegant Parisians whom he thought to be his friends. One day, recalling the city where he was raised, he suggested to Amélie:

—What if we left for Marrakech on Friday?

She began to plan at once the excuse she’d use to leave Paris for a weekend. She’d manage. She was good at lying without stammering or blushing, the aplomb of experience, no doubt . . . Deception had been part of her daily life for a long time, even before her meeting with David, before she ever had anything to hide.

She had never liked accounting for her schedule. In the evening, when she’d come home later than usual, she would say she had gone to the movies, when in actual fact she had
been at the beauty parlor. She would then tell the story of the film, praise the acting, express her reservations as to the scenario. Of course this meant she had to go to the movies often enough, to nourish her memory and fill out her previous comments. She went with pleasure when her husband was away, in the evening, or on weekends. When he returned he would inquire about what she had done, and she’d describe her walks through the Bagatelle gardens of the Bois de Boulogne, or her meandering through the showrooms of the auction house of Drouot. She had to keep a careful record of her fibs to avoid telling the same story twice.

She did not want to dupe or betray anyone; she simply marked with her secrets the borders of her private territory, as animals do by spraying it with their urine. The span of her imagination encompassed vast areas; to her, truth was elastic, as malleable as a toothpaste tube. She played with it by hiding it under layers of silence, modifying it to her taste. Sometimes she took the liberty of reinventing it.

Beauty parlors were a source of inspiration. She enjoyed their stealthy softness, which instigated confessions, and the sweet perfume of hair spray. She tried a number of them, singling out two. The first was a den of old ladies who kept on praising the use of corsets and stretch hose. Amélie introduced herself as a housewife who suspected her husband of infidelity. The hair stylist was a middle-aged woman in her forties, with unshaven armpits, and a thick, tightly laced waist. A wide belt pushed the folds of her flesh upward toward her breasts, and down in the direction of her hips. Thus encumbered, she was sparing of her movements, but bossed her clients around. “Come on, Mrs. Martin, are you going to complain until you’re blue in the face? Your grandson will come visit you. Mark my word.”

She dispensed clever advice. The old bags expressed their opinions. The beauty parlor came to life with memories, stratagems to keep the straying husband. Everyone agreed as to male fickleness. Amélie left the shop feeling comforted.

The following week she’d go to the other beauty parlor. There she posed as a secretary who lived in hope of her employer’s marriage proposal. The place, however, always startled her, suggesting a cushy bordello with its pink curtains, black-lacquered table-tops, and gilded brass wall sconces. Teetering on spike-heeled pumps, the young assistants, covered by see-through smocks, aped the icy, formal airs of the wellborn, while the older hair stylists exchanged mocking remarks with overdressed clients. The advice Amélie got was to be a bit less naive. She’d sail out of there, her hair teased and blown, looking for all the world like a soufflé.

Her affair with David, though fruitful in opportunities to exercise her special gifts, seemed to have dampened her imagination instead of stimulating it. No longer did she lie joyously. Hard-pressed, she made do with approximations that cut her to the quick. “You’re in a slump!” she’d say to herself, mourning the good old days when her fibs provided the safety valves required by her imagination. Reduced to the function of alibis, they had been stripped of their panache, not to mention their subversive charm. They were part and parcel of her conjugal duties, a proof of her good manners, like a bread-and-butter note. There was no fun in it any longer.

F
riday, 1
P.M.
David prevailed to have Amélie occupy a window seat, as though her introduction to Morocco was to begin on the Orly runway. “At last,”
he sighed with relief, getting into his seat. They were leaving Paris, where Amélie remained reserved, circumspect as soon as he broached the subject of the future. He couldn’t hold this against her. How could she possibly react any other way a few streets away from her children and husband?

Beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, everything could change. He would feel stronger, like a conquering hero. On his home ground he could convince her. The magic quality of the city, the lavish wedding feast to which he was taking her this very evening should prove irresistible.

The scent of cologne-saturated washcloths spread throughout the airplane. Amélie listening gleefully to the light clatter of the safety belt buckles being snapped shut, the slamming of the luggage racks overhead. Traveling delighted her, freeing her of the burden of time. Time became relative: fast at the ticket counter, drawn-out and slow in the lounge at the gate. During the flight it seemed regulated by a stopwatch, revealing its disconcerting reliance on convention by the jet lag following arrival.

The flight to Marrakech was nonstop. Too bad. She also liked ports of call. Thus discovered by pure chance, the world was made to order for her. Every bit of it was tamed: its waiting rooms, its runways. She deciphered the alphabet of the customs placards. With the universe shrinking she expanded.

Ensconced in her seat next to David, Amélie was babbling happily, like a child on a school holiday, celebrating the promising start of what her husband thought was “a professional symposium.”

David interrupted her chatter:

—When I see your lips moving, all I think of is how much I want you.

—Let’s check it out . . . , she said, gauging the lump rising in his jeans.

—Don’t touch me! he threatened, stressing each syllable.

Taking his virulence for a compliment, Amélie went on talking. Conscious of the sensuous motion of her lips, of the outline of her breasts under her blouse, her languid thighs upon the seat, she became an exhibitionist, for the sole pleasure of watching David engrossed by her least significant gestures. However, his stare was as disquieting as a clock that had suddenly stopped ticking, when he interrupted her again:

—I’d like to spread your legs, lick your cunt. I’d bare your clitoris with my tongue, roll it between my lips.

He was speaking in an almost inaudible voice. On purpose. Amélie had to lean forward in order to hear him, picking up the scent of his desire, feeling his breath upon her skin. He wanted her to discard her liveliness close to indifference, needed to hold her attention, to make her yield to his will. Amélie’s nostrils were palpitating; she had stopped smiling. He knew he had won.

—I’d like to feel you come in my mouth, hear you cry out, see your eyes roll back, and penetrate far into you, for a long, long time, until you come again. Would you like that?

Reassured at the thought of being desired with such intensity, Amélie allowed herself to experience the tumult of her senses. David’s raw desire aroused her. She cast a furtive look in the direction of the airline hostesses sitting at the back of the cabin, next to the facilities.

—Let’s go, she suggested.

—No, wait. I want to take a long time fucking you . . .

As soon as they landed, David started speaking Arabic. Amélie began to feel she did not know him. These eructating
and caressing inflections were like the lovemaking of a stranger. He had taken hold of both their passports, answering for her the customs officer’s questions, checking that nothing was missing from their luggage, and that the driver sent by his friends had arrived. She would have to get used to de pending on him.

The hotel was not far. She gazed at the Atlas mountains, taking in the scenery through the car windows. But what really worried her was the thought of running into an acquaintance in the hall of the newly renovated and fashion able hotel where he was taking her. Her hat and sunglasses could hardly ensure her anonymity. She was too well aware of the pleasure of gossip, the sense of power it gave those who detained a secret and passed it on. She had to be wary of a possible witness.

They walked up the steps of an ocher-colored building, framed by a white sugar-like glaze, entered the central hall where the reception desk could be observed by each and every one. The desk clerk suggested that Amélie sit down, probably judging the formalities to be too masculine or tiring for her, She spurned this suggestion, her eyes sweeping the vestibule as for a wide-angle shot.

David was enumerating the names of his illustrious Moroccan protectors, stressing his own prominence to a visibly impressed desk clerk. Amélie took in this scene with growing amazement, disillusioned by the tasteless lack of manners that prompted her lover to blow his own horn in front of an employee.

Embarrassed, Amélie would have liked to distance herself from her companion. Not to mention that the longer they lingered at the reception desk, the greater her risk of running
into an acquaintance. However, her next thought was one of self-criticism: Her reaction was snobbish, conventional, contemptible! David had a curious sense of panache. So what? Didn’t she have the guts to acknowledge who and what he was? Taking up the challenge, she snuggled up to him with partisan defiance, ready to shoot anyone who might judge him as mercilessly as she had just done.

Actually there was no guilty party, quite the opposite. David’s method was efficient, perfectly in keeping with his country’s code. The hotel’s director materialized instantly from his office, as though summoned by this client’s importance. He shook David’s hand obsequiously. He went so far as to accompany them to their floor.

The room overlooking the ramparts was large. The director left them bowing and scraping, after showing them the switch to the air conditioner, the minibar, and the hiding place of the wall safe. He drew the special attention of the floor personnel to the presence of this client who had just confirmed his quality by giving a large tip. While Amélie was reading the guide sheet to the services offered by the hotel, an uninterrupted ballet of valets began. They were carrying in mint tea, flowers, pastry, and bath salts. Allah’s name was ever present as servants greeted the master while he dispensed munificent tips.

Finally this hullabaloo died down, leaving silence in its wake. As for David, he was renewing his immemorial connections with the perfumes, words, habits of his childhood. His face glowed with joy. Awed, Amélie could not overcome a passivity she knew to be absurd. Guilty of having disavowed him, she awaited his forgiveness, and his initiative. She expected him to take her in his arms.

However, David drifted toward the bathroom. Regretfully, she watched him withdraw, heard water running from a faucet. Judging by the flow’s noisy power, she concluded it had to be that of the bathtub. Suddenly he was standing by her side. He led her away without a word. Seated on the tub’s edge, face-to-face with her, he looked at her harshly. Now she was certain of having hurt his feelings. He must have sensed her sudden coolness, and wondered why she had withdrawn her hand from his as they arrived at the hotel. She was about to apologize.

Slowly David unbuttoned her blouse, slipped it off without taking his eyes off her. He swiveled her around to unhook her bra. Then he turned off the faucets. He was breathing hard as his fingers skimmed over her skirt’s zipper, as though he wished to strip her without touching her skin. She was naked now, and he turned her so that once again she faced him. His eyes moved over her body, as though to imprint upon his retina the shadows and curves of her flesh. Delicately, like a minuet dancer, he took her by the hand to help her step into the warm tub. “Of course,” she said to herself, as David removed the soap from its wrapper. It was all so simple she didn’t even think it through: David meant nothing sexual. All he wanted was to bathe her.

He began with her hands, her arms; then her feet and legs. Methodically, he enclosed in his fist each of Amélie’s hands, ran his middle finger between her toes. Next he reached her neck, her shoulders, so intent on what he was doing, so close to Amélie’s skin, that their eyes never met.

Amélie knelt in the tub so he could soap her belly and breasts. She was relieved not to have to face his ill humor. Yet she was also disappointed. Could it be that David’s impenetrable
air held no mystery? Too bad! Might as well let herself grow numb in warm water, enjoying his chaste caresses.

She wondered at his intentions when he began to suck on her breasts, drawing back to contemplate the reddened, erect nipples with the satisfied smile of an artist coaxing a new aggressiveness from his work. Next his hands approached the contours of her cunt. He ordered:

—Turn around!

She offered him a submissive rump. Stimulated by the long wait, the unexpected, she held her breath. David’s fingers, gleaming with soap, insinuated themselves into the groove between her buttocks. He enclosed her pussy in the palm of his hand, penetrated it with his thumb, gently stroking the dilated walls of her sex. She bit her lips in order to keep from moaning: perhaps he was simply playing with her. He was capable of cutting things short at this point, were he certain of having achieved what he sought.

—Come with me, he said.

He helped her step out of the tub, and, having carefully dried her with a soft bath towel, laid her down on the living room sofa. Amélie wanted him so desperately, she felt an abyss opening up between her legs. Instead of taking her, David began to peel some fruit. She begged him to make love to her, but all he did was feed her small morsels, bird-style. He claimed he loved to watch her eat, filling her mouth with tangerine slices and sweets. Bewildered, Amélie kept quiet. She knew she had lost her bearings, not sure whether his little game was over, or had not even begun.