This Foreign Affair

by Harper Bliss

  Once she’s done, I pull hers from the waistband of her jeans and try to unbutton it, but my fingers seem so much less graceful than hers, or perhaps it’s the brand of blouse she’s wearing which comes with annoying French buttons that are impossible for a lover to undo swiftly.

  Camille doesn’t say anything, just starts from the top while I work from the bottom and soon enough our hands meet somewhere in the middle and her blouse is a crumpled item of clothing on the bathroom floor as well.

  Once our torsos are almost naked, the rest of our clothing is removed with much more haste. As if seeing each other in bras and jeans has pushed some button in our mind and spurred us to action. No more time for words or hesitations or negotiations. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I want Camille’s hands all over me in that glitzy walk-in shower with its marble walls and dozen settings. When I look into her eyes, I do think I can speak for her as well, because I see my own desire reflected back at me. And the notion that what we felt for each other in Sydney might have just been the result of a holiday romance, a fleeting fling and nothing more serious, leaves my brain forever.

  Camille hops in first and turns on the tap. I follow her and soon we’re standing underneath a deliciously strong jet of hot water.

  Camille holds my hands and says, “I’ve missed you.” The cascading water drowns out the sound a bit, but I can still hear her clearly. “I’m so glad you’re here.” Then she pulls me close and our naked bodies meet and everything is immediately different than when we hugged at the airport or even in the hallway. Two months of not being able to touch each other are concentrated in that embrace and the entire expanse of my skin starts to tingle. And I know I won’t be able to wait until after this shower.

  “I want you,” I whisper in her ear.

  “You’ve got me,” she whispers back, and I know I do. I don’t just know with a certainty bordering on insanity that she’s about to make me come like I’ve never done before in my life, but I know I have her in many other ways as well. I have her love, her patience, her devotion only to me.

  I feel her hands do something behind my back, and when we break from our soaked hug, I see the soap in her cupped hands. She cracks a crooked smile, and says, “You have no idea how many times I dreamed of this moment.”

  I think I do. Of course, I do, but I don’t say anything. I just feel how she lathers my breasts with soap, her fingertips lingering on my nipples. She spends so much time on washing my chest, I’m compelled to remind her I do have other body parts, but it feels so divine to have her hands caress me like that, I never want her to stop.

  When her hands do finally travel down my belly, I’m not sure of how long I can remain standing on my legs. Her fingers are between my legs, not probing, just stroking—washing me—but when a finger inadvertently skates along my clit my knees buckle.

  “Please,” I murmur.

  “Not long now,” she says, puts her hands on my hips, and turns me around. I have my back to her and I put my hands against the wall for support. I feel her fingers stroke my shoulders and my back and glide all the way down to my ass, spending more than their fair share of time there.

  By the time she spins me back around, I’m ready to crash to the floor, lie on the cold marble, and have her do with me whatever she wants. I can’t remember a time when I felt so much like putty in another person’s hands. And here I stand, in a shower in a house in Neuilly, Paris’ fanciest suburb, trembling under the touch of a woman I didn’t even know six months ago, when I was too busy wallowing in post-break-up misery to even conjure up the thought of something like this ever being possible again.

  I look into Camille’s eyes. Her hair is glued to her scalp and, because it’s wet, comes to her shoulders. I look at her and spread my legs instinctively because my body knows this is the time. Camille inches closer, looks back at me, and brings her hand between my legs. Then she enters me. The pure bliss that engulfs me is much more than just a physical sensation. It’s a sense of coming home to a place I’ve never been before. Of reuniting with a woman who is in my bones. Who is in the fabric of my very being despite only having known her for a few months. It’s the knowledge that between us everything just feels so right and it did so from the get-go. Maybe not from the very first minute we met, but certainly not long after.

  Camille fucks me and even though it’s only her two fingers touching me, I feel it everywhere. Most of all, I feel it in my soul, or whatever part of me is being moved to tears by her fucking me with all her intention, with all that love on display in her eyes.

  She brings her other hand between my legs as well and positions her thumb right above my swollen clit. Every time her fingers thrust up high inside me, making my breath hitch in my throat—every time she makes me hers a little more—her thumb brushes against my clit and I lose myself a fraction more. The fractions add up and soon I am panting at her fingertips, wholly at her mercy, waiting for the exhilarating heat that’s building in my core to spread through my body, for my clenched-up muscles to release, for the climax that’s been building for months to rip through me and leave me spent in Camille’s arms.

  Camille doesn’t speed up the rhythm of her fingers inside of me, but she does amp up the intensity. I feel her more. It feels as though, in this shower, we’re sealing our fate. Six weeks of this, I think, as I crash underneath the wave of my orgasm. As I cry out her name, dig my nails into her flesh, ride out my climax on her magnificent fingers. Six weeks of heaven.

  “You’re so much more beautiful in real life,” she whispers when I come to, when words start making sense again. “Especially naked with my fingers inside of you.” Her voice is hoarse, shot through with raw desire.

  “I love you.” I bring my hands to her cheeks and pull her close, kiss her as deeply as I can, wanting her all over me all over again.

  When we break from our kiss, it’s my turn to put her against the wall. I kiss her from the lips down to her collar bone and breasts. Then I kneel in front of her, ignoring the hardness of the floor against my knees, and bring my lips between her legs. My hands dig into the soft flesh of her behind, I pull her to me and drink her in. I lick and suck and taste the fruit that has been denied to me for so long and as I do, I know, I already know for certain in that moment, that I will never spend this long apart from her again. I don’t know how or when, because details don’t matter when it comes to instinct and love at first sight.

  Chapter Twenty

  When I wake up the next day, after my first twenty-four hours in Paris have been filled with sex, hugs, and the pure joy of being together, I can hardly believe that I get to throw my arms around Camille as soon as I open my eyes. After she left Sydney, the mornings were always the hardest because they were the beginning of another day without her. A day I had to start with an empty spot in my bed. A day that didn’t take off with me wrapping myself around her, looking into her eyes and, just because of that, knowing it would be a good one.

  Camille is still sleeping but I have to touch her. I can’t be in this bed with her, fully awake, and not feel her skin against mine. Not after all the abstinence of touch we’ve had to endure. She doesn’t stir when I run a finger over her arm, or when my embrace grows more intense and I curl an arm around her waist, my fingers crawling to her sex—as though they can’t help themselves.

  Even though she’s still asleep, the intimacy of the moment floors me. I bury my nose in her hair and inhale her smell. How can it be? I ask myself. How can I be so smitten with this woman? At the end-of-season party for the show, to which I invited Jason, he gave me a book called The Brain in Love and said, “For on the plane.” I didn’t even bring it. It’s gathering dust in my house in Sydney, because I didn’t want to read the scientific explanation of what is happening to me—to my brain. Even though right now, I’d like to consult it to find out why it feels so much like the most exquisite insanity imaginable.

  Then Camille turns around in my embrace, her warm, naked body sliding against mine,
and I no longer care about the theories of falling in love. It’s all practicalities for me now that we’ve been reunited.

  “What time is it?” she asks, her accent so thick I can barely make out the words.

  “Time to kiss me good morning.” I peck her on the tip of the nose.

  “We should really discuss the jet lag protocol,” she mumbles. “You kept me up all night and my body is accustomed to this time zone. Don’t be so cruel just because you’re wide awake.” A small smile is already breaking on her face.

  I push myself up a little to see the alarm clock on her side of the bed. “It’s eight thirty, darling. Hardly the middle of the night.”

  “It’s Sunday,” she grumbles, then perks up for a split second. “It is Sunday, isn’t it?”

  “It is.” I can’t help but smile. “Relax.”

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do.” She scoots closer to me, puts her head on my chest, and exhales deeply.

  “What would you like me to do? What does the jet lag protocol dictate?”

  “Just lie here with me.” Camille lets herself sink into me a little deeper. She really isn’t a morning person. I knew from our weekend Skype calls where she would barely be awake at ten, but it’s endearing to witness it in the flesh.

  I wrap an arm around her and stroke her hair with the other and, as instructed, just lie there. I have nowhere to be. All my desires are fulfilled. There’s no need for me to move while she’s sleeping on my chest. I’m here. We’re together.

  Then I hear a meow outside the door. Iris was not happy that we closed it last night.

  “Ignore her,” Camille says.

  Iris starts scratching the door.

  “She’s very insistent.”

  “She’ll go away.” Camille does not appear ready to tend to her cat. “Just be quiet and she’ll think we’ve gone back to sleep.”

  I try to settle back into the soft sheets, but the thought of Iris sitting right outside the door, waiting to be fed and petted irks me so much, I need to get up. Perhaps it would be different if she wasn’t the most affectionate cat I’ve come across.

  “Mon dieu, she has adopted you already,” Camille said last night after dinner when Iris hopped into my lap as if it were the lap she’d been curling up in for years, and promptly started purring.

  I kiss Camille on the crown of her head and try to wriggle myself from underneath her without bothering her, which is impossible because she’s lying half on top of me.

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving me for my cat,” she says as she rolls onto her back. “You only just got here and she’s already got you wrapped around her paw. If you go out and feed her now, she’ll know she has successfully manipulated you and she’ll do it again and again.”

  “Go back to sleep. I’ll bring you some coffee later.” I sit on the edge of the bed, unable to drag myself away from Camille, it seems. I stroke her cheek with the back of my hand and a flood of images of all the things we did yesterday comes rushing back to me.

  “The cat food is below the sink,” Camille says. She’s the one who seems to be purring underneath my touch now.

  “Okay.” I kiss her cheek, find a robe hanging on the back of the door, and greet Iris outside the bedroom. She nearly makes me trip when she pushes herself against my shins as I make my way down to the kitchen.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Camille has taken Monday off work and through the magical powers of the French employment system, she’ll be able to take three more weeks off while I’m in Paris, even though she has already had two months off earlier this year for her sabbatical journey through Australia. One is reserved for when we go to her family’s house in Provence, another for my last week when we’ll want to spend every waking minute together, and the remaining five days to sprinkle throughout the weeks I’m here so she’ll never be at work for a full week.

  We have finally ventured into town and it’s a glorious summer day with a blue sky above us and the Eiffel Tower watching over us wherever we go. We’re having lunch on the terrace of a café called Les Etoiles in an area called Le Marais, a bottle of heavenly light rosé wine in a bucket next to us.

  “The first thing I missed about Australia when I came back to Paris was space,” Camille says, pointing at how closely crammed together the terrace tables are. “Everything is so vast and expansive. Except in Sydney. That Airbnb I stayed in was a lot like a typical Paris apartment, really.” She smiles at me.

  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t actually been inside a typical Paris apartment. Spending the weekend at your house might have given me the wrong idea.”

  “I’ll take you to Flo’s soon enough. You’ll know what I mean.” She leans back in her chair, eyes trained on the street. “While it’s true there are a lot of great museums in Paris and a lot of wonderful things to do, this is my very favorite activity and this is my preferred spot to do it from: people watching.” She puts a hand on my knee. “I’m elated to be able to do it with you.”

  I sip from my wine and gaze at the people walking by on the narrow sidewalk. I could easily sit here with Camille for hours, watching, talking, drinking.

  “This neighborhood has changed a lot over the decades I’ve been coming here. It has become much more touristy.” She points to the street to our right. “All those big brand name shops over there used to be little, independent stores. But times change. It still makes for interesting people watching though. Parisians are endlessly fascinating to observe, of course, but I love the mix of nationalities you get here. One of my favorite games is to guess which country someone is from.”

  We play Camille’s favorite game for a while, which soon spirals into making up wild stories about the passers-by. When the bottle of wine is finished, we walk to the Seine hand-in-hand, and I’m floored by the incredible beauty of this city once again. Everywhere I look, there’s something gorgeous to see. Be it the bridges across the river, the Haussmann buildings along the avenue, or the woman leading me through it all by her hand.

  “This city suits you,” she says. “You effortlessly look like you belong.”

  “That’s because I’m here with you.” We stop in the middle of a bridge and look out over the water. I remember when I came here with Rebecca all those years ago, we were both pleasantly surprised by the sheer number of drop-dead gorgeous women we saw in the span of five minutes, no matter which part of the city we were in.

  “Nonsense.” Camille stands close to me and kisses me on the lips.

  “What was it like to grow up here?”

  Camille shrugs. “You take it for granted. And you think every other place on earth is like this. I guess that’s why I never left. Once I really appreciated how special Paris is, I didn’t want to go anywhere else. Things are different these days, however. A lot of young people are leaving. There are no jobs. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ben went to explore the world more after he finishes university. I wouldn’t hold it against him either. There’s so much to see.”

  “I’ve traveled around a bit, but I’ve never seen a city so stunning. It’s just the scale of it that blows you away. It’s not just a pretty square here and a splendid cathedral over there, it’s everything together. That’s so very rare.”

  “We did some things right in the past. City planning, for instance.” She points to a building in the distance with a French flag perched on top. “That’s the Assemblée nationale over there. We can only hope its members won’t stand too much in Dominique’s way of trying to do right by our country.”

  “Look who gets to talk about the president by casually mentioning her first name.”

  Camille bumps her shoulder into mine and takes me by the hand again. “Come on. I want to take you somewhere else. I didn’t ask you to wear those shoes for nothing.”

  After Camille has guided me away from the river and the big boulevards, she takes me inside a narrow building and down a flight of stairs.

  “This is very old school,” she says as we descend.
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br />   The deeper we go into the building, the louder the music becomes. When she opens the door a French song bellows out to us.

  “You can’t really know a woman until you’ve danced with her,” she shouts into my ear.

  I look across the darkened room. About a dozen couples are on the small dance floor, engaged in what to my untrained eyes looks like a tango. Small round tables line the walls and there’s a bar at the back with an improvised DJ booth next to it. All of this would make more sense if it wasn’t the middle of the afternoon.

  “What is this place?” I look at Camille, unable to hide my bewilderment.

  “One of Paris’ best kept secrets.” She shoots me a wide grin. “It’s a thé dansant, an old-fashioned tea dance, except we don’t drink tea.” She grabs me by the hand. “Come on, let’s get a drink. Get you used to the vibe of the place. It can be a bit overwhelming.” At the bar, she puts a hand in the small of my back, and I feel a little less overwhelmed—I guess she could read it off my face.

  “Do you know anyone here?” I ask when we’ve found a table and she’s poured me a glass of wine from the bottle of white she bought.

  “I know most of these people.” She points at two men who are completely engrossed in their bout of tango together. “That’s Pierre and Yves, they run this place.” Then she nods at a woman who just twirled past us. “And that’s Jeanne, who introduced me to it. I’ve been coming here for years.”

  “They seem to take their dancing seriously.” I can’t get over the expression the dancers’ faces are drawn into. All poise and focus.

  “That’s because dancing is both fun and a serious business.” Camille stares at me. “Tell me, Zoya, what’s your favorite dance?” She says my name in that way that makes me go all soft on the inside.

  “I have some rhythm in me but I’ve never taken any lessons.” Something has changed in Camille’s eyes. Something that makes me want to press my body against hers on that dance floor.