She found the last glasses on the empty stage. She set down the tray, then stepped out into the middle of the stage. The song she had played to the sea rose inside her—the song about the son of the moon. She began to hum the tune, and imagined that she was wearing a red dress, and that, at the end of the song, flushed, laughing faces turned to her and applause broke out. She opened her eyes, embarrassed: it was an unattainable dream.
Yann stepped out of Ar Mor’s doorway, from where he had been observing her, took her by the hand and helped her down from the stage. With the strength she found so delightful in him, he pulled her close. Very close. His body was radiating a warmth that worked its way under her skin. Then he gently took her face in his hands. His mouth moved nearer. She didn’t want to evade it, and even if she had, he wouldn’t have allowed it. He kissed her.
Marianne shut her eyes, opened them, closed them again and let him kiss her, kissing him back, drowning in desire. She immediately succumbed to this rapture. Only when it grew cold did they stop embracing and seeking each other’s lips, again and again. It was good beyond compare, and when she searched Yann’s eyes for something that might prove the contrary, she found only desire.
Yann carried her tray into the kitchen.
When Marianne looked in the mirror behind the counter, she caught a fleeting glimpse of the young girl she had once been. Her lips were red from kissing.
“I have to paint you,” whispered Yann, stepping up behind her. Insistent yet apologetic, as if alarmed by his own urges. “I have to.”
Yann and Marianne didn’t say a word as they made their way, closely entwined, up the stairs to the Shell Room.
The July day had left its warmth under the eaves. Yann lit the seven candles that Marianne had placed on the windowsill.
“I see you,” he whispered.
“It’s too dark for you to see me properly,” replied Marianne. Her mind was empty. She wanted—oh how she wanted!—to sleep with this man, and yet she was scared.
Lothar’s face appeared. She drove it away, locked it into an empty room and swallowed the key. Tonight would divorce her from everything associated with her former life.
“I see you with my heart,” said Yann, and took off his glasses before picking up his drawing pad and a piece of charcoal. “Please.”
She sat down on the floor by the window and leaned against the wall. Yann’s charcoal chirruped on the paper. He didn’t see her, and yet still he saw her. He drew her face. He moved closer. She closed her eyes, imagining that he would kiss her, his lips melding themselves to hers, and she would devour him.
Yann used up twenty sheets. Everything about her was unique, deep and authentic. He drew Marianne as he felt her.
She blew out the candles. Now she was on the island—her personal Avalon. Nothing mattered anymore: not time, not space, not place. She undid the top buttons of her blouse. Yann leaned forward to switch on the small art nouveau lamp on the bedside table. Marianne held her blouse together. Slowly he took her fingers in his and pushed them to one side. His hands were warm on her skin as they eased open her top. He breathed in, gazing steadfastly into her eyes. She was so scared.
“Mon amour,” he whispered, moving even closer, and his hungry fingers helped her to open the remaining buttons. As their hands met, a tempest struck her island, sweeping her fears away. She was gripped with uncontainable impatience.
“Maintenant,” she moaned. “Now!”
There was more tearing than undressing, more clumsiness than gradual exploration, and Marianne looked and kissed and touched as everything offered itself up for her to experience and savor at once. Looking at Yann, watching Yann, kissing Yann, pulling Yann to her, running her fingers through his hair, over his face, pressing his hands to her body, smelling him. It was clear that he wanted her naked. That he wanted her. As she lay on the bed before him, solemnity and serenity returned to her island.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, laying his hand on her birthmark. “That’s your soul: fire, love and strength. You are a woman born of fire.”
This time he traced her with his fingers and his mouth. He sculpted her body with his desire, and to her it seemed as if her body became more feminine, more beautiful, more erotic under his caresses.
Marianne bit the pillow with lust. She laughed and she moaned, she called Yann’s name into the night, and still he didn’t enter her. He touched her with great concentration, her passion and well-being his only concern.
She lost interest in herself, and felt as if she were jumping from a bridge a second time. She ran her hands over his skin, which was soft and supple, taut over firm muscles and less firm ones. She sensed that Yann too was fearful about showing himself to her. That reassured her.
They laughed and embraced, clinging to each other and kissing without end. They were filled with joyous abandon, affection and desire.
When, after a time, he entered her, infinitely slowly, Yann looked at her and whispered her name in that harmonious voice of his. Marianne. Marianne? Marianne!
And then he was so deep inside her, she panted, “At last!” Her cry delighted him.
At last. At last. At last.
She felt every emotion at once—rejoicing and stunned horror that she had gone without this for so long.
“Je t’aime,” whispered Yann.
Marianne had abandoned herself to him and didn’t recognize her own body as it felt, moved, demanded, tempted and pressed against Yann. She wanted more, more, everything. Now, right now! She never wanted to forgo such pleasure again!
She loved his moans, his abandon, his movements. It was as if his every slow, pleasurable thrust were meant to convey to her how desperately he had waited for this moment, and how he never wanted to stop. They gazed into each other’s eyes, and Yann smiled as he made love to her.
Without warning, Marianne experienced an orgasm that seemed to originate all over her—deep inside her, inside her mouth, underneath her belly button. She felt as though someone were sucking her into a deep well. She lay completely still and allowed the waves to break over her. She moaned. It was lust and grief, relief and torment. It was heavenly.
Yann stared unwaveringly at her and he didn’t stop. He didn’t stop.
When the waves ebbed away, she began to laugh, quietly at first, then with increasing freedom. Yann looked at her, reined back his movements, smiled and asked, “What?” She didn’t know how to tell him in French that she realized this: that having orgasms gave a woman a sense of freedom and ease.
She laughed, stroked Yann’s intelligent face and said in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own, “Encore.” Again. I want everything, Yann. Know my body. Know my soul. Start right away.
—
Marianne got up and opened the window. The silky, cool night air felt freshly rinsed and it hit her flushed skin like a soft flurry of feathery snowflakes. She took a long, deep breath.
When Yann had come…Mon Dieu, she hadn’t known that men could come like that. It was incredible. It was a drug to see him in the throes of passion, to feel him discharge his energy and try to bury himself deeper in her, to dissolve and melt within her, followed by the moment he arrived, sought peace and found it. The way he had looked at her and gasped her name.