Monday, May 12, 2008
A memoir of an affair that will simmer in my soul forever.
Aug 21, 2003 | I arrived in the late afternoon on a Monday at the Richepanse and told the desk clerk to expect a female companion later that evening.
The room was on the third floor, opposite the two-person elevator and just under the roof. It was an ordinary room but clean: a double bed, a wardrobe, and a small bathroom with a shower. The view was of garment-cutting lofts across the noisy street.
Expectant, edgy, needing to stretch my legs after the flight, I went into the night to explore the city I hadn't seen for years. I was not certain that D would arrive that evening -- there was a chance she could not make the connections -- and after waiting until 7:00, I decided on a brisk walk in the cool air.
I was surprised that I had remembered the central city plan, the boulevards, bridges across the Seine, the plane trees; even obscure restaurants seemed as familiar to me as they had a decade or more ago. At Deux Magots, sipping café noir at a sidewalk table, I was riveted by a trio of handsome Germans -- two young women and a man -- dressed in evening garments in the Weimar style; boisterous, giddy, on display, knocking over a tiny table of drinks and Gauloise.
On the sidewalk, young street performers earnestly did their gigs: a hollow-eyed French fakir, his long beard matted in plaits, bowed with a grand flourish before he lay bare-chested on crushed wine bottle glass, his friends, all four, adding their weights to his body. Not far away, on St. Germain, a pickup Dixieland band played American standards with brio. I gave the tub-thumping washboard specialist two francs and requested "Sweet Sue" in order to hear a tuba solo, and the tuba player beamed with appreciation. He played so well I could have remained there the evening, but 9:30 was approaching and I missed D achingly.
She was in the foyer of the Richepanse, drinking Alsatian beer. Her face was drawn, her smile apologetic. She had arrived later than expected, and the clerk refused her access to the room because our surnames differed. We kissed, held hands and finished her beer together, and the clerk understood that we were lovers.
As she unpacked, D recounted her trip; she seemed ill at ease, anxious. We both were. In all the time I had known her, I had never seen her wear a nightgown to bed. For this trip she had bought a lovely beige gown, low cut and loosely fitted, as she had lost weight around her shoulders since I last saw her.
We kissed, long searching kisses, kisses that explored each other's mouths. Often we had remarked that younger lovers too quickly glossed over kissing for fucking. Kissing is an art, an exquisite overture that we mastered and relished and lingered over lovingly. I put my tongue into the corner of her eyes. Her gown was soon neatly folded near the wardrobe.
I took her breasts, each almost in its entirety, into my mouth. Her nipples were long and brown-to-purple. They swelled and flattened; she sighed but was not comfortable. I kissed her thighs and put my mouth and tongue in the center of her split. She, in turn, caressed my penis, kissed and took it in her mouth.
We fucked and I was so full of pleasure I ached. But she could not come, the novelty and tension of this meeting that we thought never possible working against our consummation. Though played out, I knew she had to come, and so I kissed her vagina, tasting, for the first time, my own sperm. She shuddered joyously, and we slept in each other's arms.
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