by Allie Hayden
I began to dial the number; oddly, I was not angry, nor indignant. I was not relieved either, though. His casual way of dropping a bombshell like that was strangely calculated. This sort of thing did not just happen out of the blue.
I thought of all those nights I’d gone to bed alone; all those nights I heard him in his study vociferously not doing taxes, and I realized, as the penny dropped, just what was going on all those nights. Cybersex…or was it?
Suddenly, the thought of cybersexing with Gert Moll, the widow down the road, was nauseating me. Well, not nauseating; it was more...pathetic. Bill had never struck me as pathetic until now.
And it may have been that I found myself a man that was so perfectly suited that any comparison to the widow Moll was simply ludicrous. On the other hand, I thought, this may have been the reason why Bill did not want to renew our relationship by coming to France with me.
In fairness, he had never been a traveler and the idea of going anywhere farther than Wisconsin had always been anathema to him. But it was suspicious regardless, and if I were being honest, this was the greatest thing that could possibly happen. I decided to phone him and confront the situation with as open a mind as I possibly could.
“Bill? This is Cecilia.”
“Hello. I guess you got my message?” He sounded so apologetic that I decided to let him go first and let say what he needed to say.
“I did.” At that moment, I wanted to say so many things to him that I almost couldn’t hold myself back. But I knew the best course of action was to let him have his say first.
There was a pause. The time went by in awkward silence. Then he began to speak. “I feel just awful about this, Cecilia. I didn’t mean to ruin your vacation. I just thought I had to nip this in the bud. You know?”
Truthfully, I didn’t understand. I didn’t like this conversation and thought he was a world-class shit for dropping this bomb right now. But as fortune would have it, things were not as dire as I had thought.
“So, this is what I was thinking: maybe you and I can remain on good terms and move forward…but I think we both know this relationship is over. I mean, it isn’t possible to do this anymore. I don’t know about you, but I have felt things drifting apart for a while, and it wouldn’t be fair to you to continue any longer. We just grew apart: you and your brilliant music and me and…well, I’m a simple man, and I don’t need all that travel and excitement. And Gert wants that too. So, here is my proposal.”
It was like he was negotiating a life insurance policy. It was ridiculous.
“I’ll pay you three thousand a month for the rest of your life. That should take care of most of the things you need. And we’ll sell the house. Gert says I can move in with her. So, if you want the house, I’ll give it to you. Or, I’ll sell it and give you everything. Does that sound fair?”
“Uh. Well. Do I get any say in this?” I could hear him breathing hard on the other end of the phone. I didn’t want to cause him any unnecessary pain, but I was also intent on getting a decent deal out of the years I’d sacrificed living with him. And, I reminded myself, that I had been in love with him until very recently, and he had been a good man, despite his dullness and his cheating. “Also, before you answer that, tell me this: how long has this thing with Gert been going on?”
Once again, there was a long pause. He was agonizing about this. He felt bad, and I wanted more than anything to ease his pain.
“About a year,” he finally said while exhaling. “I’m so sorry. It’s just that she was so lonely with Horst gone, and I remember offering her help at the funeral. Honestly, though, Cess, I never meant this kind of help. I just thought I could mow her lawn or shovel her drive. But things got pretty…well, pretty…you know.”
Yea, I knew. I knew perfectly well. And I didn’t want details.
“Bill, it’s fine. I don’t need you to feel bad about it. Maybe things have gotten strange over the last year, and maybe you overstepped with Gert, but emotions are emotions, and I can’t stop your feelings.
“So let’s just agree to separate. I have a few things I want to do here, and to be honest, I don’t particularly want to return to that house knowing what has been going on behind my back. So let’s agree that you can pay me what you said, and I will stay here for a little longer, and when the house is sold, I’ll come back to settle my things. I appreciate the gesture of giving me the house, but I would prefer to have the money. Is that alright?”
Again, a pause. Then, “Yes, that is fair Cecilia. Again, I’m so sorry.” He paused for another minute. “Thank you for being so honest and understanding. I really appreciate it. Sorry I let you down.”
“You know something, Bill? I think it is better, to be honest. So, thank you for that. I’ll talk to you soon. Enjoy your freedom.”
He laughed a gallows humor laugh. “I’ll send the first six months’ payment now. Over and out.”
He always said “over and out” when he talked on the phone, and it had been kind of charming, but in this context, it was frankly grotesque. I put the phone down and let this sudden change sink in.
There was a strong urge to see Darius. He would not have known any of this, and I didn’t know for sure how he would take it. My love for him was so overpowering that my feelings about things were almost totally opaque to him.
I could not read his inscrutable face, and yet all I wanted was to be his completely. I could almost not believe it. I leaped out of bed and headed to his cottage. I was halfway down the stairs before I realized I was undressed, and it was three-thirty in the morning. I laughed at my foolishness and returned to bed.
Chapter 19
(Cecilia)
Darius awoke with the strongest sense of goodwill he had felt in years. Without even knowing it, he had stumbled upon the woman who would complete him, and this was something he could never have predicted in all the years he had spent away from the limelight.
Suddenly, he felt a strong need to return to the world. He had neglected so many parts that he didn’t even know where to start. He began by emailing his creative writing teacher, the woman who had encouraged him more than any other, Nina Simons, a woman who possessed a teaching ability like nobody he had ever met.
He had read her writing, and it was not what he hoped it would be, but it could not be denied that she had an ability to create writers from her students. Two of her former students had become published and decorated writers, and he wished beyond hope that she would remember him.
“Dear Nina: I hope this email finds you well. I have been out of the loop for years now, but I want you to know that during this time, I have been woodshedding, as the musicians say. I have a novel that I wrote that I think is great, and I would be so grateful if you could give it a quick read. I can offer you two thousand dollars for your time. It is a little time-sensitive because I have a publisher—Knopf, if you can believe it!—and I want to make sure I don’t make a fool of myself. Greetings from Provence, your former student Darius Wilde.”
He pushed send and waited. A gentle knock was heard at this door.
“Entrez,” he said, expecting Guillaumette with his breakfast. It was, instead, me. Darius was taken aback. “Good morning, my love,” he said, looking as though he expected some terrible news.
I smiled at him. “You will never believe me,” I started.
Darius looked confused. “About what?”
“Bill wants a divorce.” It hung in the air for a moment. The sound was ambrosia to him, and all I wanted was to know how he felt. I didn’t have to wait long.
“That is wonderful news, Cecilia.” He beamed. “I wanted so badly to propose to you last night, but the irony of proposing to a married woman struck me as unseemly.”
“Indeed,” I replied. “And anyway, I have no particular desire to re-enter the holy bonds for a little while. But rest assured, mon amour, I am yours.”
He exhaled, and I realized then that he had been holding his breath for as long as I had been speaking. Hearing
the air escaping from him was feeling of great joy. Things were falling into place exactly as I’d been hoping.
I could not believe, until that moment, that I could possibly feel such powerful and overwhelming emotions for someone I knew for less than a week. It was bizarre. Bizarre and wonderful.
There were no words, and so I fell into his arms, hugging him more tightly than I ever had before. Darius was my soulmate, and it was as obvious to me I seemed to be his. “Will you join me for breakfast in the bastide?” I asked.
He smiled. “Of course,” he said.
Over the next few weeks, things moved quickly. Nina wrote back and read Darius’ manuscript; she had made a few minor revision notes, and he incorporated them into the book. Amanda Hamilton, my friend at Knopf, read and loved the manuscript and wrote back to thank me. Then she made an offer to Darius, something he accepted and thanked her for.
Darius and I traveled around the area for weeks, discovering things about this magical place that I never knew and never would have dreamed were possible. The centuries of magnificent wonder seemed to feed my joy at having Darius to myself, especially in public. It was a few days of bliss. Together, we traveled around in his small Peugeot, discovering parts of the area even he had never known, and enjoying the beautiful weather that was quickly getting better every day. Until the mistral arrived.
Chapter 20
(Cecilia)
The morning of the first mistral was strange and foreboding. It was the beginning of May, and I had been here for a little over a month, enjoying the perfect weather and getting to know my newfound lover.
I had been staying in the master bedroom with Darius, enjoying the sweet pleasure of requited love, and I awoke as I had begun to do, opening the shutters to admit the scalding sun into the bedroom. But this day was gray and cloudy; it was overcast, and it was strange. I looked back at the bed, tangled sheets holding my beautiful lover hostage.
“Darius, something is not right!”
He leaped from the bed and ran to me. “What is it?” he said in a panic.
“Look outside. The weather turned.” And indeed, the landscape had become ominous; a wind had started to turn the leaves and ripple the fields. It was cold, and it felt heavy in the way it felt in Kansas before a twister. The eerie calm was frightening. The mistral had descended.
“It’s nothing to be afraid of, Cecilia, my love,” said Darius. “It is just the mistral. Feel the barometric pressure dip; the westerly wind blows for a day and then returns to the pure and beautiful climate of Provence. It is nothing to be afraid of; in fact, we can thank it for the beautiful weather the rest of the year.”
“I’ve heard of this,” I said, turning to him and closing the shutters again. “Are we in any danger?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve seen many of these, and they always blow the dirt away and clean the air. It is one of nature’s amazing miracles: the wind that blows away dullness, the wind that renews, and the wind that gives new hope. It has done that to us, my love.”
Together, we went to the grand drawing room and Darius built a massive fire. The flames were magnificent, and the wind drew the smoke up the chimney as we watched the storm batter the trees outside the window. It went on all day as we sat together, drinking chocolat chaud served by the unflinching Guillaumette.
I felt the weather in my soul and was moved closer and closer to Darius. At one point, he turned to me, took my hand, and led me into the bedroom. The servants had been invisible for a long time, and love beckoned.
Darius stood in the door of the bedroom and kissed me tenderly on the lips. I kissed him back hungrily. He unbuttoned my blouse and ran his hands up my body from waist to my many curves. I had a strong desire to do the same to him, but for some reason, shyness overtook me, and I kept my hands to my side.
He continued outlining my beauty, a smile playing on his lips. He kissed the nape of my neck and down my body as the clothing fell around us. As he met my mound of Venus, his tongue parted my legs slightly, and I could feel a warm and inviting strength take over our bodies.
I laid back on the bed as he entered me with his masterful tongue. Although I wanted him inside me, he was well-versed in the art of seduction and pulled out to gently tickle the hood of my clitoris again, knowing that this would arouse me more than anything else at this moment.
Like many women in the world, I had plenty of personal erogenous zones, unknown to any man before, and yet his tender tongue took time to slide along my entire body, gently nudging and sensing the weaknesses that would result in my letting go.
Resisting for only a moment, I placed my hands on his head, guiding him to the place where I wanted him to fill me. I gasped as he reacted perfectly, and I spread my legs wider to allow him access.
And just as suddenly as I had tried to withstand his assault, my wanting increased for him. He deserved solace too, I supposed. So, I pulled him up to me so that his lips could meet mine. I grabbed him with force by his bottom, which was powerfully muscled from the years of wood chopping and hiking through the woods. He was excited at the prospect of being with me entirely, and I could feel his cock as it strained against me to find the home it so desired.
I decided to help him by parting my legs and guiding him homeward. The feeling was strange but whole. It made me feel like all the lovemaking I’d experienced before in life was undertaken by octopuses or some other slimy and awkward invertebrates. This man knew me; that meant more than anything to me. I knew him too—but I was not in a place to admit it yet.
But suddenly he thrust into me in a way that defied all known logic for lovemaking. It went in so smoothly that I felt my body open like a flower and breathe with a kind of happiness that I had not known until then.
My soul opened, and something rushed in to fill my empty spots. Little versions of Darius. I looked into his eyes and could almost see our unborn children there. What I knew for sure was that I was looking into the face of pure love, and it was directed towards me. I returned his love with all my heart.
My physical manifestation of this was a massive thrust, in which I began to lose consciousness, or almost. And I could feel his finger gingerly circling my clitoris with little electric shocks rebounding through my body. I was having an orgasm, and he was perfectly in control. This was something new, and some magic I could never have predicted.
He, too, was nearing the end, and his breath came in gasps as he pushed deeper into me. The feeling of my juices spraying my insides was something I had not felt in a long time. And despite the welcome I’d given to Bill, Darius got me wet like no other man could.
Bill was so adamant that we could not have children that he pulled out as he came, thereby denying me the joy of this feeling of total oneness.
I was on birth control for years, and yet this was the first time anyone ever stormed the gates, and the feelings released in me were calamitous. I screamed, and he roared, and we both collapsed on the bed, breathless.
“Dear God, Darius, where on earth did you learn that?”
“In your eyes,” he replied. At that moment, I knew that life was good, that I had gone through these strange and sudden changes for some reason, and that reason was somehow contained in Darius.
The two of us laid in bed, breathless, smiling foolishly, utterly in love. Suddenly, a shudder went through my body, returning me to reality.
“Did you know that things are almost exactly as I once dreamed them when I was a sixteen-year-old girl? Lying breathless on a bed in the south of France with a beautiful man, totally in love?”
“I didn’t know that, but I can tell you that I am rapidly approaching the dream I had as a young man. So that should tell us something.”
“I have a confession to make, Darius,” I said. “I did something that might make you angry or annoyed. I reached out to your father because I thought it might be best for a stranger to do it. I want you to have some reconciliation with him, and I overstepped.”
Darius sat up
on the bed and looked at me with incredulity. “You reached out to old man Wilde?” he said, a smile playing on his face.
I wasn’t expecting that reaction. “Yes,” I said tentatively. “He wrote back actually and was quite civil. I told him about the publication and the place here, and about you and me, and he was kind and sweet. I thought it was time you and he made amends.”
“Believe me, Cecilia, nothing would please me more than reconciling with him, but it comes with strings attached. You see, he does not value the creative muse; he wants me to take over his business, and I will never, and I can never be Bill.”
I was hurt, shocked, and confused by what he had said. “I left Bill because I want you; and when I say I want you, I mean I want all of you: all the creative, and impractical parts of you. I have no desire to change you or rearrange you or make you do things you do not want, but I think it is imperative to return to the world. Do you not agree with me?”
“I do, and love, there is nothing I would like better than to return to the world, but I need to do it as I am, and not as he wants.”
“Is it possible that you misunderstand him? Is it possible that you heard something once and kept it as an immutable truth without thinking that he—like you—could change?”
Darius smiled. He knew when he was licked. “It hadn’t occurred to me, but it has now. I think I owe you that at least,” he said. “I’ll call him today.”
“He is actually in Cannes at the moment, you know,” I said.
Darius laughed again. “You amaze me,” he said. “So you planned all this knowing I would change my mind?”
“Oh no! I just know he invested in a film that was being premiered there,” I replied. “I would never do something so Machiavellian.”
