Crush (5 page)

Taken aback, David changed his tune. He regretted his bad-tempered attitude.

—It’s out of the question. I’ll come with you, of course, I’ll join you in the car after I’ve said goodbye.

Amélie rushed upstairs to remove her caftan and find her handbag. Now that her patient waiting had come to an end, she savored the haste that was part and parcel of her Parisian way of life. Her joy, her renewed flow of energy made her realize how much the evening had depressed her.

Her relief pinpointed the distress, eclipsed at times during the party by rancor and boredom. She had experienced this bewilderment much as one does happiness, without questioning
her state of mind. Its obviousness struck her at the very moment she no longer felt it. It had become as dim as a fading memory, leaving her full of doubts as to having ever endured it.

She left the palace as she had arrived, through the kitchens. The night was pleasantly cool, lit by torches, the street cluttered with limos and bodyguards. Stopping on the sidewalk, Amélie pondered where to go next. However, the driver recognized her, and, rushing over, helped her into his car.

—Monsieur will be out any moment, she declared, looking at her watch.

The well-trained chauffeur drove up to the portal. Amélie gathered her scattered feelings, focusing her attention on the walnut door, with the impatience of a lotto player staring at the numbers on the colorful balls.

The guests were leaving the reception. Trustful at first, she kept on the lookout for David, hoping with every surging silhouette that it was he. This time the wait sapped her optimism.

The scenario was repeating itself. Bursts of laughter; the slamming of car doors. David’s driver would start the car, parking it on the sidewalk to allow the guests determined to call it a night drive past him. Then, putting it in reverse, he’d place it at the tail end of the car line. Sorely afflicted by these deceptive departures, these about-face turns. Amélie no longer knew what was more unbearable, David’s disregard of her patient expectation, or the chauffeur’s discrediting her reckless announcement of David’s imminent arrival.

However, she gave up the idea of setting deadlines beyond which she’d have to take action. Better wait. Inside the car it was warm, and she could sleep.

David arrived fifty minutes later. He apologized. Leila had prevented him from leaving . . .

Back at the hotel, he couldn’t stop praising the magnificence of the décor, the quality of the orchestra, his pleasure in being with old friends:

—Did you see the buffet . . . and the crowd! The Home Secretary was there and so was the chief of protocol . . .

What a kid he is, thought Amélie, who had not shared his pleasure in rubbing shoulders with the kingdom’s crème de la crème.

—You must have seen me, on Khaled’s right during the procession! No wonder I was shown due respect. I’m his father’s friend and executor, after all!

Amélie had stopped listening: could David possibly mistake this monologue for conversation? He did not even try to make amends for his pitiful lack of talent as a storyteller.

“Me, me, me!” she muttered under her breath while removing her makeup in the bathroom.

“This man thinks only of himself, speaks only of himself! He could have wondered how I was spending the evening. Nothing doing!” There were two possibilities: throw a fit, but, having looked forward to these two days, she could hardly change them into a catastrophe; her other option was silence. She chose the latter.

David was stretched out over the mattress when she joined him in the room. Taken aback by his posture, Amélie stopped, embarrassed not to recall which side of the bed was his. Pretending to look for something so as to gain some time, she envisioned the topography of his Paris studio, comparing the orientation of his bed to this one. She climbed submissively
onto the left side, as though nothing were the matter and these computations unnecessary.

Half past three in the morning. Holding her in his arms David fell sound asleep. Lying on her side, her knee imprisoned between David’s legs, Amélie was unable to catch a wink. She tried to break free, loosen his grip in order to rest on her back.

However careful, her crawling movements annoyed the sleeping man who grunted some kind of ultimatum in response to her persistent struggle. His limbs, petrified by sleep, forced Amélie to assume the curve of his body by immobilizing her in a somnambulistic grip.

At six in the morning, David pulled open the curtains, then thrust the French windows wide open to step out on the balcony. Exhausted, stiff and aching, Amélie blinked in the dazzling sunlight. She tried to detect the joke in his maneuver, as a child reads something playful in a dog’s determination to bite him.

—What are you doing?

—I’m getting up, don’t you see, he answered calmly, walking toward the bathroom. I’m going to shower.

Amélie sat up in bed, her throat tight with the hate she felt for their first morning. All remnants of sleepiness had vanished. The abscess formed last night by disappointment and rancor had grown into a phlegm. Her instant, sharp, mechanical, irrepressible reaction was like the report of an automatic pistol. She grabbed her robe at the foot of the bed, and burst into the bathroom shouting:

—David, are you going to tell me why you brought me here if you made up your mind not to pay me the least bit of attention?

—What are you talking about? he answered, seemingly amazed.

—I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. Since our arrival you’ve been treating me like a disposable tissue. I was dreaming of spending this weekend with you. And all you do is hand me over to strangers at a party where I’m bored stiff. And not once have you given a thought about my feelings! You hardly said goodnight to me. And now that you’re no longer sleepy, you have the nerve to wake me up to take your shower!

—What do you mean? Was Leila unkind to you?

—That’s not the problem! You’re the problem. You treat me like a piece of shit! The only thing I want to do is to get out of here! Get it?

—But that’s impossible, Amélie! I love you.

—Well, what would it be like if you didn’t?

—No, wait. This is much too serious. Come, sit down. I want us to talk this over.

—But I am talking to you now, David! And believe me, for what I have to say, I don’t really need to sit down.

This brief fit of verve left Amélie with a heavy heart and a mind empty of the resounding, blazing, bedizened insults that might have dispelled her spite. With nothing more to add, she burst into tears. These forced-out tears were followed by others, which, in turn, propelled new fits. Soon this autonomous activity was beyond her control. Unable to repress her sobs, she let herself go, her nose red with weeping, her eyes swollen. David took her in his arms.

—Hush! Come with me.

He sat her down on the living-room sofa.

— Amélie, my love . . . Calm down. I’m sorry. I never realizad that you were frightened of going with Leila. I
thought you were kidding. It’s your fault, you know. You always look so sure of yourself.

—You’re joking, aren’t you?

—Not one bit, I swear. You look so beautiful, so independent . . . I thought you’d find a Moroccan wedding a fun thing to do, that you’d exercise your critical sense, make me laugh by telling me what you thought of it all . . .

He stopped pacing the floor, came toward her.

—You’re just a child, my love, and I didn’t realize it . . . I love you even more. Maybe you do need me, after all.

Listening to David, Amélie realized he had once again turned, the situation to his advantage. She had the definite impression of witnessing a conjurer’s act to which she could not fathom the trick. She held back, reluctant to lose her temper, as she breathed the foul air of specious arguments, bad faith, and stupidity creeping in between his words. Either David was shamelessly manipulative, or he actually believed what he was saying, which was even worse; but she did not wish to think about it, even less to discuss it.

He grew impatient:

—Do you really believe I never once looked your way? I saw nothing
but
you, thought of no one else the whole time! At dinner I even looked for you, but you had vanished . . .

His tone softened again:

—Sweetheart, I don’t want you to go; please stay, I need you.

Amélie was catching her breath, still impeded by her tears.

— Amélie, I didn’t give a damn about this wedding. I wanted to show you the place where I grew up, because I love
you. Had I known it would be like this I would never have taken you with me . . . I feel terrible. I should have known . . .

Now that her tears were dry, Amélie wished to put an end to this pitiful scene, which was becoming redundant. David’s display of remorse clearly signaled the only way to end their fight: to be merry, comfort him, reestablish his good mood.

—Let’s call a truce! Shall we stop now?

—I really hate myself, he said. What a bloody fool I’ve been!

—Stop! Let’s call it quits, David, shall we? She suggested with a smile: Let’s order breakfast. I’m hungry. I had nothing to eat last night.

She burst out laughing before he had a chance to bring up the subject of her abstinence.

—I take back what I just said . . . Let’s just say I’m hungry . . . Come, embrace me, show me how much you love me, kiss me.

David’s tread was heavy as he walked over and gave her a penitent kiss.

—Can’t you do better than that? she whispered in his ear.

She opened her negligee, setting about to drown David’s remorse in a kaleidoscope of sensations whose effectiveness she gauged by the stiffness of his cock, letting him make the next move.

David could feel his anxiety spreading to some moving, undefinable center, while Amélie’s eloquent body drove away the specter of a possible break-up. He was both relieved and tense, burdened still by the accumulation of energy summoned in the course of their fight.

His sharpened excitement was tinged with fury. So the moment had come to make amends, to erase the memory of his presumed lack of sensitivity, to eliminate it altogether by his gifted lovemaking. He’d outdo himself! Under the cover of civility he would prolong the gallant foreplay, making Amélie bemoan his excess of amorous technique, which filled her with desire as sharp as needles.

He drew her into the bedchamber, lay her down upon the bed, and leaned over her body. He brushed her skin lightly, caressing her with the back of his wrist, his warm breath between his lips. When she tried to touch him, he drew back. This form of punishment excited him. He took a firm hold of her wrists, signifying that she’d better behave, licked with his wet, rough tongue her neck, the furrow of her groin, the hollow of her elbows. Then he turned her over on her stomach, scratching his morning beard upon her thighs and buttocks.

Amélie panted, writhing and crushing between her fingers the tails of the bedsheets she pulled from under the mattress. David’s caresses aroused her, as did the role she was supposed to play. She thought at first that she could shake his resolve: pretending to struggle against him, she lifted up her ass, spread her legs, and let him see and covet her iridescent vulva. She imagined David’s eyes lighting up her cunt like a projector, heating it up, making it blush like a girl. She’d have given anything to check his look, gauge his prick.

Intractable, he did not take her. She played the game, emitted doleful sounds, threw imploring looks. Nothing doing! Then she capitulated, begged:

—Please, please, David, fuck me!

Amélie’s expectation made David white-hot. Her stratagems and surrender had driven him to the edge. He took her. The skillfully restrained thrusts of her loins finally uprooted his resentment. He climaxed inside her.

She woke up before him. She had slept in his tightly clinched embrace, without feeling the slightest tickle or teasing provocation of his body hair upon her skin. Nor had she tried to disengage their bodies from one another. She looked at him, smiled. Like a child sucking its thumb he was holding her cunt in the palm of his hand, a token of ownership.

—Is it late? he inquired, opening one eye.

—Twelve-fifteen.

—What should we do? Order breakfast, or go out to lunch? he suggested.

—Let’s go out. I haven’t seen anything of this city.

The air was dry, the sun shone gently on the front steps of the hotel. David turned down the porter’s suggestion of a large or small taxi. Taking Amélie by the hand, he helped her up into one of the numerous horse-drawn open calèches, and gave the directions to the driver.

Glutted with sleep and pleasure, Amélie was no longer concerned with keeping their affair secret. It was brazenly exposed in this outpost for all to see. David savored the ride wordlessly. They left the Gueliz, heading for the minaret of the mosque of Koutoubiya, the most beautiful monument of Marrakech, and the medina. Amélie was famished by the time they reached the great square, Djemaa-el-Fna, situated in the middle of the city. They settled down to lunch in the shade of a straw roof held up by poles. It was a typical greasy spoon, but they served delicious brochettes. Later they walked through
narrow alleys, protected by cloth roofs under the sun. The light fell in stripes over the vendors of
babouches
, exotic fabrics, and all manner of trimmings.

Night was falling on the square as they issued from the labyrinth of narrow streets. The snake charmers, monkey-trainers, musicians, and storytellers had arrived, adding a picturesque element to the din, the crowd’s restless commotion.

They returned arm in arm. Back at the hotel, no sooner was the question of getting dressed for dinner raised, than they glanced shyly away, embarrassed by the sudden glimpse of marital life opening up before their eyes. They chose solitary ablutions, each in turn locked up in the bathroom, as though they wished to keep the creation of their allure a secret.

David retired to the bathroom, while Amélie dressed in the bedroom. She unsealed the tissue-paper containing the silk stockings she had selected for their delicate, rustling sheen, just as she had chosen her black bikini panties for their revealing crotch, her garter belt for its corsetlike effect and her black push-up bra for the way it enhanced her cleavage. “Pretty good . . . ,” she rejoiced, preening herself in the closet’s full-length mirror.