Curio Vignettes 04 Confession (6 page)
Read Curio Vignettes 04 Confession Online
Authors: Cara McKenna
“On a train, maybe? Are you okay with trains?”
“It’s been years. I’m not sure. I’m not very good with
bridges, certainly, but neither am I good at leaving Paris. Or these walls. I
don’t want to shape my life around what I’m good with, though.”
“Of course not.”
“Each day, I think, I should do something that frightens me.
I should get used to feeling the panic in my body. The way you build a
tolerance to alcohol. I’ll feel a little more of the fear each day, until my
threshold is so high, I can function like a normal person.”
“There are no normal people,” I tell him. “Only people who
are good at acting normal.”
“Perhaps.”
“But I think that’s an excellent plan.”
“Good. I will find a new source of income, maybe this fall,
and we’ll make plans for you to move in. Once you’re settled, we’ll take this
trip. Like a honeymoon.”
Such a strange tingle that word gives me. I’ve never once
imagined being married. I’ve had vague thoughts of a ring and a dress, but no
more significant than my fantasies about the evening gowns and jewelry I’d love
to wear to a fancy party or awards ceremony. It was always about the clothes,
the occasion incidental.
But the idea of a honeymoon. With Didier. Heat creeps up my
chest as I realize I’ll be introducing him as my boyfriend now. I’ll be
traveling with this handsome, charming man, arm-in-arm, and get to tell people,
“This is my boyfriend, Didier.”
Suddenly no dress or ring can compete. And just as suddenly,
I frown.
I crane my neck to meet his gaze. “Do you ever get annoyed
by how obsessed I am with…you know. How good-looking you are?”
He laughs softly. “No, I don’t. You know me. I like to feel
desired.”
I nod. His very name means “the desired one”, or so an
Internet search told me. “I love so much more than how you look, though.”
“I know that. You tell me all the time with words, but also
with how you treat me, how you touch me.”
“Okay. Just so you know you’re not some fancy accessory to
me or anything.”
“I think that idea bothers you far more than it does me.”
“Yeah, it does.” I blow out a long breath, chest tight with
that old anxiety. My affinity for out-of-my-league gorgeous men kept me lonely
and scared for ages, and I’d started worrying I was the female equivalent of
those dumpy, deluded guys who won’t settle for less than a
Maxim
cover
model as a girlfriend. I wanted in my heart to just fall in love with someone
ordinary and kind and deserving, but some force inside me wouldn’t let it
happen. A hamburger would’ve sufficed—I’m a hamburger, myself—but I was
hell-bent on the filet mignon. I even went so far as to worry, would I end up
falling for someone because of their looks and stay with them despite them
being a moron or an asshole or a cheater?
“You love me for my broken insides, as much as my polished
surface,” he says.
“I do.”
“I know you do. Because I know many women who love only the
latter. They give me checks and never make me go with them to a café.”
I smile. “I’d still love you if you got fat,” I tell him,
just being silly.
“Aren’t you sweet, offering to enable my physical decline?”
I turn again, shooting him a mock-horrified look. “You mean
you wouldn’t love me if I got fat? Because have you noticed what I eat?
Genetics can’t fight off the brie and truffles and alcohol forever. And my only
athletic talent is jogging to catch the subway.”
“I would only want you to be happy. So perhaps if you grow
fat in the fashion of Caligula, savoring ever drop of wine and bite of food
like an orgy, because it gave you so much joy…” He nods. “That might be quite
attractive. But if it gave you no pleasure, only numbed you as my clocks do me,
I would have to return the favor and nag you into taking control of yourself.”
I want to protest and say I don’t nag him, but I do. “Fair
enough. I guess that’s what couples do.”
“You’ve so far been a very flattering but fair-minded
mirror, held up to me. And I’m the strongest, mentally, that I’ve been in years
because of you.”
“Because of you, doing the work.”
“Because of you, being worth impressing.” Another kiss on
the back of my head, soft, warming my hair with a long breath. Then a yawn.
“Bedtime?”
“I think so. I must get my beauty sleep, lest I wake up
haggard and scare you off.”
I swat his hand. “Don’t joke about that.”
“Sorry. I don’t think you’re shallow. Honestly.”
“Well I do. And I don’t like that about myself.”
“It’s not shallow or selfish to want what you want. It would
be selfish to pretend you’re attracted to a man you aren’t, and saddle him with
a dissatisfied partner who merely goes through the motions.”
“I guess.”
A final kiss and he urges me from between his legs. I
arrange the pillows and slip under the blanket. It feels
comforting—unseasonably cool air drifting in from the open window, warm, dry
covers—though nowhere near as lovely as Didier’s arms.
He blows out the candles, all but the lowest-burning pillar.
That flame will fizzle soon enough, but maybe he, like me, enjoys a bit of
light as we’re drifting off. I like the way it dances across the drapes hung
from the bed’s canopy and the pattern of the old wallpaper, how it gives the
mahogany of the headboard extra layers and depth. And if I’m spooning Didier
and not the other way around, I love how it makes his skin look golden against
his dark hair.
But tonight he beats me to it. “Turn over.”
I get comfortable on my side as he climbs into bed, and his
strong, warm arm wraps around my waist, the other shoved under my pillow, his
legs nested with mine. He frees his hand to draw my hair behind my ear and
kisses my neck.
This is the first time in several visits we’ve bothered
getting under the covers. It makes me think of the coming fall, of walks that
might take us strolling beneath the changing leaves in a park or along a
boulevard. Of winter, and getting to choose a Christmas present for this man,
then a birthday gift come January. I stroke the hand holding my wrist,
imagining what Provence might be like in autumn. Cold nights with a bright
fire, soft blankets stuffed with down and black velvet above, punched through
with stars.
“I love you,” I whisper.
“And I love you.” He sounds wide awake, same as me. I wonder
what thoughts are running through that peculiar mind, staving off sleep. Not
anxious ones, I don’t think. His body’s too still and supple. Romantic ones,
perhaps. Hopeful ones.
I feel his breath behind my ear, so steady and deep and
easy, inside these walls. My rustic countryside fantasy tarnishes a bit. He and
me in the quaint cottage of my mind’s eye, but all the familiarity gone. Will
he tremble all night in such a strange place, upset by the journey there and
already anxious over the trip back? Will we return to Paris, his relief
arriving just as my guilt is piquing? Or maybe, just maybe, will I prove
familiarity and comfort enough for him?
Only time will tell. And time, somehow, miraculously, is our
luxury to savor.
I hear a sound I know well, a faint, singular snore, the
sound of Didier drifting off, just as the guttering candle goes dark. One fire
spent and cold, but not us, not our two bodies in this bed, not our romance,
wherever it might take us. I press my back tight to his chest.
This
, I think,
this has only just flickered into
life.
And this will burn through the night, perhaps through the autumn and
winter. Let the storms come and try to upset this flame. I’ll cup my hands around
it against the wind and rain. Because I waited too long for this to ever let it
go.
About Cara McKenna
Cara McKenna writes smart erotica: a little dark, a little
funny, definitely sexy and always emotional. She lives north of Boston with her
extremely good-natured and permissive husband. When she’s not trapped inside
her own head, Cara can usually be found in the kitchen, the coffee shop or the
nearest duck-filled pond.
Cara welcomes comments from readers. You can find her
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Confession
ISBN 9781419942969
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Confession Copyright © 2012 Cara McKenna
Edited by Kelli Collins
Cover design by Caitlin Fry
Photo: Yuri Acurs/Shutterstock.com
Electronic book publication November 2012
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