Antoine and his wife Dominique arrived then, from the first-floor apartment. Antoine’s shirt was missing a button: it gaped open, the soft flesh pushing through. Dominique, however, had made what could be described as an effort. She wore a dress made of a knit so fine that it clung to every ripe curve of her body. Mon Dieu, you could see her nipples. There was something Bardot-like about her: the sullen moue of her mouth, those dark, bovine eyes. I found myself thinking all that ripeness would fade, run to fat (just look at Bardot, poor cow), anathema to so many French men. Fat in this country is seen as a sign of weakness, even of stupidity. The thought gave me a nasty sort of pleasure.
I watched her look at Ben. Look up and down and all over him. I suppose she thought she was subtle; to me she resembled a cheap whore, touting for a fare. I saw him gaze back. Two attractive people noticing one another. That frisson. She turned back to Antoine. I watched her mouth curve into a smile while she talked to him. But the smile was not for her husband. It was for Ben. A carefully calculated display.
Antoine was drinking too much. He drained his glass and held it out for a refill. His breath, even from a couple of feet away, smelled sour. He was embarrassing himself.
“Does anyone smoke?” Ben asked. “I’m going to go for a cigarette. Terrible habit, I know. I wondered if I might use the roof terrace?”
“It’s that way,” I told him. “Past the bookcase there and to the left, out of the doorway: you’ll see the steps.”
“Thanks.” He smiled at me, that charming smile.
I waited for the sensor lights to come on, which would be the sign that he had found his way to the roof terrace. They did not. It should have only taken him a minute or so to climb the steps.
As the others talked I got up to investigate. There was no sign of him out on the terrace, or in the other half of the room beyond the bookcase. I had that cold, creeping feeling again. The sense that a fox had entered the henhouse. I walked along the shadowed corridor that leads to the other rooms in the apartment.
I found him in Jacques’ study, the lights off. He was looking at something.
“What are you doing in here?” My skin was prickling with outrage. Fear, too.
He turned in the dark space. “Sorry,” he said. “I must have got confused with the directions.”
“They were quite clear.” It was difficult to remain civil, to suppress the urge to simply tell him to get out. “It was left,” I said. “Out of the doorway. The opposite direction.”
He pulled a face. “My mistake. Perhaps I’ve had too much of that delicious wine. But tell me, while we’re here—this photograph. It fascinates me.” I knew instantly which one he was looking at. A large black and white, a nude, hung opposite my husband’s desk. The woman’s face turned sideways, her profile dissolving into the shadows, her breasts bared, the dark triangle of her pubic hair between white thighs. I had asked Jacques to get rid of it. It was so inappropriate. So seedy.
“It belongs to my husband,” I said, curtly. “This is his study.”
“So this is where the great man works,” he said. “And do you work, yourself?”
“No,” I said. He must know that, surely. Women in my position do not work.
“But you must have done something before you met your husband?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry,” he said, after the pause had grown so long it felt like a physical presence in the air between us. “It’s the journalist in me. I’m just . . . curious about people.” He shrugged. “It’s incurable, I’m afraid. Please, forgive me.”
I had thought it that first time I met him: that he wielded his charm like a weapon. But now I was sure of it. Our new neighbor was dangerous. I thought of the notes. My mystery blackmailer. Could it be a coincidence that they had arrived almost at the same time—this man, with his air of knowing—and the demand for money, threatening to reveal my secrets? If so, I would not allow it. I would not let this random stranger dismantle everything I had built.
I managed to find my voice. “I’ll show you to the roof terrace,” I told him. Followed him until he walked through the right door. He turned around and gave me a grin, a brief nod. I did not smile back.
I went back and joined the others. A few moments later Dominique stood up, announced that she, too, was going for a cigarette. Perhaps she was embarrassed by her husband drinking himself into a stupor on the sofa. Or—I thought of the way she looked at Ben when she arrived—she was simply shameless.
Antoine’s arm shot out; his hand gripped her wrist, hard. The wine glass in her hand jerked, a crimson splash landed on the pale knit of her dress. “Non,” he said. “Tu ne feras rien de la sorte.”
You’ll do no such thing.
Dominique glanced at me, then. Her eyes wide. Woman to woman. See how he treats me? I looked away. You have made your choices, chérie, just as I have made mine. I knew what sort of man my husband was when I married him; I’m sure it was the same for you. If not—well, you’re even more of a foolish little tart than I thought.
I watched as she wrenched her hand away from her husband’s grip and stalked off in the direction of the roof terrace. I imagined the two of them up there, could see the scene play out. The rooftops of Paris laid out before them, the illuminated streets like strings of fairy lights. Her bending forward as she lit her cigarette from his. Her lips brushing his hand.
They came back down a short while later. When he spotted them Antoine rose from the seat where he had been slumped. He lumbered over to Dominique. “We’re going.”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to.”
He leaned in very close and hissed, loud enough for all of us to hear: “We’re going, you little slut.” Petite salope. And then he turned to Ben. “Stay away from my wife, you English bastard. Comprends-tu? Understand?” Like a final piece of punctuation he gestured with his full wine glass, and I could not tell if it was because he was drunk or if it was on purpose that it flew from his hand. An explosion of glass. Wine smattered up the wall.
Everything went very still and quiet.
Ben turned to Jacques: “I’m very sorry, Monsieur Meunier, I—”
“Please,” Jacques stood. “Do not apologize.” He stalked over to Antoine. “No one behaves like that in my apartment. You are not welcome here. Get out.” His voice was cold, heavy with menace.
Antoine’s mouth opened. I saw his teeth, stained by the wine. For a moment I thought he was about to say something unforgivable. Then he turned and looked at Ben. A long look that said more than any words could.
The silence that followed their exit rang like a tuning fork.
Later, while Jacques took a phone call, I went and took a shower in my bathroom. I found myself almost idly directing the shower head between my legs. The image that came to my mind was of the two of them: Dominique and Ben, up in the roof garden. Of all the things that might have occurred between them while the rest of us made small talk downstairs. And as my husband barked instructions—just audible through the wall—I had a silent orgasm, my head pressed against the cool tiles. The little death, it’s called. La petite mort. And perhaps that was only appropriate. A small part of me had died that evening. Another part had come alive.
Jess