by Ariel Lawhon
But there are guests to thank and we are the last to leave the grand ballroom, well after three in the morning.
“What now, love?” I ask as he guides me through the lobby.
“I take you to bed.”
But I am confused because he is leading me toward the front door and not the elevators.
I point at the ceiling. “The bed is that way.”
“Non, ma chère. I have one surprise left.” He winks. “And fear not, it has a very nice bed.”
* * *
Henri
He has thought of everything. Or at least he has tried to. During her long residence at the Hôtel du Louvre et Paix Nancy stayed in one of the luxurious junior suites. But he does not want to take her to bed for the first time in the same place she has slept for so many months. He wants something more…personal. So, he has prepared his own home for the occasion. It took a bit of time and a small crew of helpers but, as of this morning, he was pleased with the result.
For the last twelve years he has lived in a small, one-bedroom flat in the commercial district of Marseille. He chanced upon the space during a tour of a warehouse he was considering buying for the family business. The previous owner built a small apartment on the roof. It would never do for a family but was perfect for a single man who values privacy. Henri bought the building and has lived in the rooftop flat ever since—a mere fifty feet from his office.
Nancy does not ask questions as Henri leads her to a car and gives the address. She curls into his side and he drapes his arm around her. He buries his face in her hair. He lets himself fantasize about the rest of the night.
She is slightly more curious when they pull to the curb in the shipping district and he leads her into the square stone building with Fiocca Enterprises emblazoned above the door. There is a single light on at the end of the hall beside the elevator. From there it takes a special key to access the top floor. Henri pulls the key ring from his pocket and they begin the ascent. Neither of them speaks.
His bride watches all this with mute curiosity. And then she watches him, searching his face for clues.
Nancy gasps when he pushes the grate up and leads her into his home.
Henri’s flat is the only residence in all of Marseille that offers a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the city but—thanks to its location in the very center of the roof—is entirely hidden from view. There are floor-to-ceiling windows on every wall, but not a single curtain. He and Nancy are surrounded by soft, twinkling lights and a warm glow from the central fireplace. There are candles in the room, and lights on the harbor. Henri thought about music but decided against it, hoping to hear the music of her breath instead. The heavy drumbeat of her heart. That is the song he wants to hear tonight.
Nancy drifts from one small room to another. Living room. Kitchen. Bathroom. Bedroom. She stops, inches from the huge, soft bed, and runs her fingers along the coverlet. She turns to him. Her eyes are quizzical, and she tips her head to the side.
“You look nervous,” she says.
“I want you to like it.”
“I love it. How could I not?”
Henri shakes his head. That’s not what he meant. “I want you to like…me.”
So, yes, he is nervous. Henri has never lacked company, and his company has always been more than willing to offer their bodies for a night in the hopes of securing more. He is no saint. And he feels guilt about this. He does not want to be the sort of man who uses women for his own pleasure and then discards them. Perhaps it would have been different if he had ever felt as though the women who have passed through his life weren’t using him as well. Pursuing his fortune instead of him.
Henri Fiocca has in fact never courted a woman before Nancy. And at first, he did not seduce her because he kept getting her drunk. Then he realized there was something exquisitely erotic about the anticipation. It’s not that he hasn’t wanted her. He has ached from it. But this longing and need have created two things he has never experienced before: intimacy and trust.
Nancy meets his brazen gaze. “I would like you a great deal more if you weren’t wearing any clothes.”
Henri tries not to smile but cannot help himself. There is a starved look in her eyes and he is the only meal in sight.
Nancy takes a step toward him and rises onto the balls of her feet. She brushes her lips against his. She runs her tongue in the space between them. Slides her warm hands beneath the lapels of his coat, across his chest, and up toward his tie. Nancy loosens the knot with nimble, sure fingers.
“Aren’t I supposed to be the one undressing you?” he asks, brushing his lips lightly back and forth against hers.
“Is that a rule?”
He laughs and pulls away in order to see her face. “So I’ve heard.”
She dispatches his tie efficiently. “I hate rules.”
“How about we take turns? An item for an item?”
“No.”
Nancy moves her fingers to his shoulders. She is entirely uninterested in his coat and pushes it off and then down so it drops to the floor at his feet. She moves her fingers to the first button at his throat. Then the next. And the next until his shirt hangs open.
“I hate cuff links,” she mutters, fumbling with them.
He pulls them out and decides that he will never wear them again.
Shirt gone.
Undershirt gone.
And there it is, the first hint of music to Henri’s ears. Nancy makes a small sound of pleasure at the sight of his bare chest. She sets her palm against his heart, moves her fingers through the light hair, and then she walks around him in a circle—never lowering that hand—and he feels the heat of her skin touching his. Chest. Biceps. Back. She pauses here to explore the dip that runs from shoulder blades to hips. Runs one finger up and down, up and down. He shudders at the featherlight touch. Henri Edmond Fiocca stands in the middle of his bedroom, eyes closed, breath caught in his throat as his wife of twelve hours presses her lips between his shoulder blades. She opens her mouth, running the tip of her tongue all the way to the hollow of his back. He could explode. He could die. He could spin her around and consume her.
He doesn’t.
Because this, this, is the kind of seduction he has always longed for.
Once her circle is complete, Nancy asks, “What are you thinking?”
“Mn…gdmeg…hrmpt.” He doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say. How would he even explain what is going on inside his mind? His body? Well, that’s evident enough, and she has figured it out on her own now that’s she’s undoing his belt. The button at his trousers. His zipper. Henri had not expected that the groaning would come from him first.
Nancy drops to her knees and lifts one of his feet, then the other, dispatching his shoes and socks efficiently. Given her view from that angle, his feet are the least interesting thing about him. She is grinning, and he is helpless.
Back on her feet, she hooks her thumbs into his waistband and yanks. His trousers fall away easily. His underwear less so, but she is undeterred. After a moment he steps out of them and finds himself completely naked before the only woman he has ever loved.
How vulnerable it is to be disrobed first. To be seen first. To be touched first. To have your body’s reactions seen and recorded and enjoyed first. He cannot take this any longer.
“Please.” Henri is desperate now. His need raw and urgent.
“Lie down,” Nancy tells him. She places that warm palm against his chest and walks him backward, toward the bed. When he bumps up against it, she shoves him lightly. He falls to his back and scoots into position until he’s resting on his elbows.
“What are you doing?”
“Ssshhh. Just watch.”
One by one she takes the pins from her hair until it falls to her shoulders in waves. S
he combs her fingers through it. Shakes her head. Lets a section fall across her eyes. She takes out one earring, then another, and tosses them to the carpet. This dress is the most revealing thing Henri has ever seen her in. Like the dress she wore the night they first danced the tango, it is open in the back, all the way to her waist. She commanded the room tonight and he could not even be upset that every man present appreciated the view. Because he knew it belongs to him alone. How he ever earned that right is a mystery he will puzzle over until his dying day.
Henri’s entire body is throbbing. His lips burn from where she last kissed him. His ears are ringing as Nancy slides her hand around to the button at the small of her back.
One button.
One three-inch zipper.
Nancy shifts one shoulder, then another, and the black silk flutters to the floor. She steps out of her dress as though dropping a towel.
“Gahrrmmhhh.” Henri has always considered himself well-spoken and articulate until now.
She wears nothing underneath her gown and is so beautiful he could weep.
“You could help with the shoes,” she says with a wink, “since you were so eager to undress me.”
Henri Edmond Fiocca slides off the bed and kneels before his wife. He unbuckles each of her shoes. He bends his forehead to her knees, cradles each calf in his palm, and lifts her feet, sliding the shoes carefully off. Then he drags his nose upward, gratified that it is her turn to breathe heavily.
Ah, music to his ears.
Her arms hang limp at her sides, head thrown back, eyes closed. So he scoops her into his arms, lifts her off the floor, and carries her three steps to his bed. Henri sets her as gently as possible on top of the coverlet. And then he surveys his bride. All the wondrous curves. The rises. The dips and hollows. Smooth skin and pink cheeks. He crawls onto the bed and curls himself against her side. He drops one hand to the indentation of her waist and slides the other beneath her head.
“I love you,” Henri whispers. “More than my own life. More than anything at all.”
And then he kisses her. It is his turn to be in charge. To explore with his tongue.
But it is her turn to beg. “Please.”
“Non,” he refuses, playing her own game and mastering it on the first try.
Oh, the places he could take that hand. Up? Down? Around? He spins his fingertips in tiny circles, deciding, relishing the goose bumps that rise to greet the pads of his fingers.
Up.
Across her waist, fingers splayed, covering as much skin as possible. Playing with the small gaps between ribs. Listening to her breath come in little gasps as she waits. He stops, just below the swell of her breast, allowing his middle finger to brush the soft skin beneath.
“Henri.”
“Yes?”
“Henri.”
“Yes?”
She pulls away from his kiss. “Please touch me.”
He does.
And then he does a great, great deal more. Until they are both sweating and limp and cursing and entirely plundered of emotion and pleasure. Until they curl into each other, arms and legs woven, lips swollen, breath mingling, hearts slowing, as sleep consumes them whole.
* * *
MARSEILLE
January 1940
We honeymooned in Cannes. The day after our wedding, Henri checked us into the Hôtel Martinez and we did not leave for two full weeks. Much of our time was spent in bed, but during the day we also made it to the beach or the marina, and in the evenings to the casinos. We took day trips to Saint-Tropez and Monte Carlo. Sometimes we left the hotel for dinner, but often we ordered room service and ate it in our robes, on the balcony, as Picon and Grenadine scurried around our feet, nipping up the crumbs. We had a corner room that faced the sea and the port, with mountains in the distance. We could see everything happening on the Croisette and we watched the sleek yachts sailing in and out of the bay for hours at a time. It was perfect—fourteen days suspended in time—but, like all things, it had to end. And now we are at home in Marseille, trying to prepare for the inevitable.
“It doesn’t feel as though we are actually at war,” I say, setting a platter of what used to be pork loin on the table. Henri looks at my pitiful attempt at cooking but doesn’t comment. His skeptical glance does not go unnoticed by me, however. “Have I never mentioned that I cannot cook?”
He tries not to laugh. “I don’t believe it ever came up.”
“It’s your fault, really. All that wining and dining. I never had the opportunity to experiment on you.”
Henri pokes the charred roast with his fork. “It certainly looks like kitchen chemistry.”
“I did try.” I push the platter to the edge of the table. “Shall we have cheese and wine instead?”
“Please.”
I take the platter to the kitchen and then dig around in one of the cabinet drawers for a pen and notepad.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Making a note to schedule cooking lessons.”
“That’s not necessary. You don’t have to cook if you don’t want to.”
“I know. And I wouldn’t. But…”
“What?”
“It’s a basic skill and I’ll need to have it if we’re to make it through what’s coming. I can’t go around burning our food all the time. It won’t be long before there are food shortages throughout the entire country.”
“Is that why you’ve been stockpiling?”
Other society wives in Marseille spend their days making the rounds of dressmakers, hairdressers, and tea salons. They meet for lunch and aperitifs, acting as though if they ignore the thing, it will go away. I’ve never been good at pretending, however, so I spend my time making friends with the butchers and bakers along the Canebière. I buy more sugar than we need. More coffee. More tea. I buy foodstuffs by the sackful and pack them into every cupboard and closet in our home. I buy cheese by the wheel. I buy canned goods and enough cigarettes to stock a tobacconist’s shop. Rice. Beans. Flour. I have turned our spare bedroom into a cellar and it is bursting with every imaginable aperitif and liquor as well as hundreds of bottles of wine. I buy them by the case. Each time I go into the city, I visit a shop and strip a shelf bare, carrying what I can and then having the rest delivered to our new flat. I try not to think what it will cost us each month, but the view—overlooking all of Marseille and the harbor—comes with a high price tag. Henri does not comment on the rent, my acquisitions, or the bills I have sent to his office. But I did catch him standing before a packed wardrobe shaking his head one afternoon as he went to put away his jacket and found the entire thing crammed to the edges with sacks of coffee.
Henri joins me in the kitchen and we compile a rudimentary charcuterie board, which we consume standing up as we lean against the counter and sip our wine, a nice, savory Sangiovese that Antoine recently imported from Italy. I take a moment to savor the wine. It tastes like clove and cherries with a hint of dark chocolate.
I sigh, then open my eyes. “They’ve been calling this the Phony War.”
“Who has?”
“The other women in the building.”
His lip twitches. “Your friends don’t believe a real war is coming?”
I pluck a piece of cheese out of his fingers and eat it myself. “They are not my friends. They are bored old women with more money than sense. But there isn’t much happening. It’s easy for them to forget.”
“Plenty is happening. It’s just not happening here,” Henri says. “The Germans have invaded the Czech lands. They have bombed half of Poland. No point wishing that on us.”
“You have forgotten something.”
“What?”
“Men are being called up all over the country.”
“Yes. They are.”
>
“It’s only a matter of time before you’ll be called up as well.”
The thing about marriage, I am learning, even this early on, is that so much is said without words. The gift of emotional intimacy is that you can read each other’s face from a distance. My throat goes dry at the look on his now.
“That time has already passed,” Henri says. He offers a half shrug but fails in making it look nonchalant.
“You’ve gotten your papers?”
He nods, once, sadly. “Yes.”
“When?”
“In November. A week before our wedding.”
Henri pulls me to his chest and wraps his arms around me, tight, to muffle the insults I am hurling at him. I pound his arms with my fists. The tears that soak into his chest are ones of anger, not fear. The person I trust most has lied to me. As far as betrayals go, it is minor—a mere paper cut. I know this. But still, it stings.
“I should have told you. I know that,” he says. “But it would change nothing and I didn’t want you to worry.”
“You didn’t want me to change my mind about the wedding!”
He laughs. We both know nothing would have changed my mind. “No,” he says, “my deployment was deferred. I just wanted to give us a short time of normalcy, to be married, before this war changes everything.”
