The Thursday Night Men

by Benacquista, Tonino

  It was Mia who got in touch. Philippe would never have dared take the initiative. The gentlemanly tradition whereby it was up to the man to call upon the woman did not apply in this case. If Mia had been the sort of woman you meet in everyday life, he would have taken the first step, and then all the others. But Mia’s image inhabited the streets and dreams of millions of men, her very name sounded like a luxury label, her radiance crossed borders. How on earth could Philippe Saint-Jean, who both questioned and shunned the values of a world sacrificed to appearance, show any interest in a universal object of desire? Just one phone call to the supermodel and he would have been guilty of allegiance. Conversely, it seemed natural to him that the futile, flashy world where Mia lived would be drawn to his own, a world where curiosity in other people remained intact, and answers were far less important than questions.

  She suggested they have dinner at a restaurant that was practically a secret, patronized by a handful of initiates in pursuit of anonymity. As was usual for him, Philippe arrived on time, and was instantly sorry—year in year out, his damned punctuality meant he had to wait for careless people. He was led over to a plush corner where red velvet vied with a trendy silver, and did he want still or sparkling, so he made do with sparkling in lieu of the beer he would really have preferred. To strike a pose, he hesitated between reading the menu and jotting down some not really necessary notes in his notebook. He saw some well-known faces at neighboring tables, though he wasn’t sure exactly who they were, men and women with perfect figures, as if designed for the setting. In his notebook Philippe wrote, renew subscription to Paris-Match. Finally he glanced at the menu, which immediately exasperated him. Philippe was not at all a foodie, and had no real interest in gastronomy, but what he despised more than anything was dietary terrorism, the ultimate hypocrisy of a handful of rich people prepared to pay top dollar for their fear of putting on one ounce. All it took was to read lightly steamed John Dory on its bed of watercress sprouts €45 for him to want to roast the chef on a spit with an apple in his mouth.

  Mia burst into the restaurant like a bullet, planted two quick kisses on Philippe’s cheeks, took off her baseball cap and dark glasses, dropped her cell phone on the table and gulped down the entire glass of cold tap water they had just served her.

  “So, what will it be, shall we say tu to each other?”

  “Whatever you like,” answered Philippe, still saying vous, in order to slow down the pace.

  Philippe used the brief moment while she was studying the menu to take a closer look: hardly any makeup, natural, but still watchful—Mia lived constantly with a third eye which kept her on stage. Whether one liked her type of looks or not, she did not go unnoticed. Such harmony between all the features of one human face—mouth, eyes, nose, skin—could not be the result of chance, and its sole purpose was to be admired. Her full lips, narrow at the corners, were not made to speak or eat or kiss, but to smile to men of goodwill. Those enormous eyes glinting with sapphire were not made for her to discover the world but to subjugate crowds, who were always in search of pagan idols. That skin of amber and copper, infinitely glowing, evoked every race in and of itself. Philippe believed in the determinism of nature, that it always tended toward a precise goal: to ensure the enjoyment of the greatest number.

  Right from the start they avoided the pitfalls of the previous dinner, which had opposed them on every level, and they risked, rather, going to the opposite extreme: emphatic self-criticism, constant approval of whatever the other one was experiencing. Mia was sorry her life was so constantly frenetic, and she was afraid she might be missing what was truly essential. Philippe emphasized his peace of mind but feared a certain inertia, for he was prisoner of an intellectual comfort that cut him off from contemporary turmoil. In order to find some common ground, they shared their mutual complaints. When Mia evoked the downside of fame, he dwelt on the inevitable risk that came with being exposed. When she confessed to a certain confusion between her professional life and her private life, Philippe regretted that his own mental processes never left him alone. When he, in turn, mentioned the handful of detractors who demolished even his most insignificant articles, she invoked the way the media hounded her shamelessly and relentlessly. In the course of the evening their chat reached a certain equilibrium; when one of them ventured a confession, the other would yield a bit more in return. They compared their solitude, fatal for her, necessary for him, trying for both of them. Oh, their dear solitude! Faithful companion, whether one is alone or surrounded. A solitude that returned ever stronger after one had cherished the illusion of being part of a twosome. But before they were to venture into that terrain, they needed to find a more intimate environment: she suggested they go to another one of her hideouts for a drink.

  They settled onto the back seat in beige leather of the chauffeur-driven Rover SUV which Mia’s agency put at her disposal. After a gray, laborious day, Philippe allowed himself to be drawn into a spiral of luxury without trying to justify it. Tomorrow there would be ample time to put the evening in perspective. No sooner had they arrived at the Carré Blanc than Mia threw herself around the owner’s neck as if they had saved each other’s lives, something Philippe viewed as some sort of indispensable worldly posturing, a code of recognition, an extreme indicator of notability. They were seated upstairs, in an opulent American bar where impeccable waiters in livery paced back and forth to a background of jazz. Mia ordered a stiff dry Martini, with Tanqueray gin and an olive. Philippe wondered where her panicky fear of calories had vanished to, with all its science of lite and diet. But maybe these calories were counted differently, because they offered much more than mere energy: calm, or dreams, and one could not do without either.

  “There’s a club in the basement. We’ve had some memorable parties there.”

  The minute she said it she was sorry: club, parties, so not the image she wanted to give this man. Even her we sounded dumb: what could it refer to other than a handful of decadent princes ruining their golden youth? And what’s more, it was at that club that she had met that bastard Ronnie, who’d dragged her through the mud the instant they broke up. Memorable parties, and at what a cost. Mia swore she’d spare the philosopher any further outbursts of frivolity.

  Back in the days when he was just a student of the humanities, Philippe might have viewed Mia as a fabulous subject for a thesis. Esthetics and Representativeness of the Contemporary Icon. Enough to assure himself of the jury’s congratulations. This evening, as she started on her second dry Martini, he began to view her differently, this famous specimen, situating her at last among her fellow creatures, complex beings as individualistic as they were gregarious, capable of the worst but often of the best as well.

  “In my profession, you retire at thirty,” she said. “I’m twenty-eight.”

  “In mine, I still have a ways to reach maturity. I’m forty-one.”

  Mia’s gaze was suddenly drawn to a discreet figure in the half-light, taking his seat at a table not far from theirs.

  “It looks like Bryan. What’s he doing in Paris?”

  “Who?”

  “Bryan Ferry. The crooner. You must have heard of him.”

  Philippe wondered if someone were playing a trick on him.

  “He must be here for a concert,” she continued, “but I haven’t seen any posters. Do you mind if I go over and say hi? I’ll only be a sec.”

  Was it really Bryan Ferry? The Bryan Ferry? The Bryan Ferry of his adolescence? When his entire generation was into electronic funk and New Age, Philippe constantly played records by Dylan, Sinatra, and Bryan Ferry, all three of whom were considered dated, borderline uncool. Tonight, in this all-night bar, just when he least expected it, as he gazed at a gentleman of sixty-five or so, with a very British elegance and a voice of pepper and honey, Philippe remembered what it was like to be young.

  “He and his wife came up to me to congratulate me after a show for Vivienne We
stwood in London, and we hit it off. He’s a charming guy, he’s got these old-fashioned manners, it’s really nice.”

  Nostalgic for his teenage years, Philippe ordered another cocktail, which he drank down without savoring it, like the adolescent he had become again. What was the point, here and now, in sticking to his theorist’s reserve and vigilance? He was drinking dry Martinis with one of the most beautiful women in the world, a few feet away from a personage who had inflamed his youth—why would he need to play the observer? Didn’t he have better things to do just now? Such as, for example, live in the present moment?

  Mia, all her freshness intact, kept the conversation on course and led Philippe into far less innocent territory. With the skill of a duelist, and without him noticing, she launched into a heated exchange that obliged him to reply:

  “In my case it’s not an issue: I live alone.”

  Half an hour later, in a side street off the Avenue George-V, Mia told Philippe her chauffeur could drop him off.

  “What about you?”

  “I have a room here,” she replied, pointing to the Hôtel Prince de Galles. “And I have a shoot early tomorrow morning. Some girls stay out all night and rely on their makeup people to work a miracle. I’d rather rely on nine hours’ sleep.”

  They hugged, then kissed, fervently.

  And said goodbye, pleased they’d performed not too badly, considering they’d been sizing each other up.

  That night Kris was wearing a long dress, a russet color with an elegant square neckline. Her hair was gathered up into a ponytail, which gave a touch of innocence to her look. Sitting on the sofa with her legs crossed, ready to offer the same services as the previous time, she sipped on her glass of Perrier, looking around for the banknotes on the table. Yves had learned his lesson, and this time he wanted more than a quickie, no matter what it cost him.

  “Do you ever stay the whole night?”

  “All night long?”

  “Yes, all night.”

  “You have to arrange it in advance.”

  “You have other appointments after me?”

  “I was planning on going home and sleeping until noon.”

  “I’m not asking you for fancy stuff until dawn. I get up at seven and leave for work at eight. Just tell me your rate.”

  Convinced that he would bargain with her, she tried €600. He disappeared into the kitchen for a while and took out twelve notes from a thin wad he had withdrawn that very morning at the bank. How much? the teller had asked. He would have liked to reply, Enough for a good eight-hour spree with a pro.

  “Since we’ve got some time ahead of us, can I get you another drink, a real one this time? Or maybe you’re hungry? I must have some stuff to munch on.”

  While he was preparing the tray, Yves amused himself by converting €600 into manpower. At the rate of four or five windows installed, he’d earn it in less than a week. Six hundred euros was a lot. With that much, he could go on vacation for a few days or set up a real little home cinema in his living room. He could also lend the money to a coworker who was going through a rough patch. Instead, he was going to treat himself to a woman’s body, a woman with all her most secret integrity, but also her kindness, her docility, and her knowledge of masculine pleasure, and he would make her the perfect object of his desire, an instrument of fantasy, a playground, a living toy, a laboratory for his imaginings. Six hundred euros wasn’t all that much.

  Since his divorce, his relationship with money had completely changed. Released from the obsession with saving, he now had a totally casual attitude toward material issues. What was more, he was not afraid of unemployment, because people would always need windows, and even with that, he felt perfectly capable of changing profession overnight. He had no family to look out for, no expensive tastes, no gold digger to support, no sports car to lavish care on, no modern art collection to keep up to date. So what was he going to do with his stash of €87,000? Keep it for a rainy day? This life insurance was his last relic from his married life: he and Pauline used to talk about it as an entity, “the eighty-seven thou,” their major capital, enough to make them creditworthy with the bank and guarantee themselves a housewarming party. With the €87,000, now he’d been able to experiment, find himself, surprise himself and maybe even, in the long run, learn something about who Yves Lehaleur had become. Women in general and sex in particular would play a central role in this quest for himself. What better investment could there be?

  The lovely autumn-colored dress eventually slid to the floor. Kris still wore only her stockings before stretching out on her side, her elbow on the pillow. Yves sniffed her from every angle, turned her every which way, explored her, uncovered her secret places, her entries. He suddenly needed to find his way into her, and in a position he’d been dreaming about for far too long, doggie-style. And yet he hesitated: he would never have suggested it to a stranger, it wasn’t done, there were women who had made that clear to him. So he resisted the irresistible, and lay on his back, and let her sit astride him. As he watched her come and go above him, he regretted his scruples: She’s a whore, you idiot, a girl who couldn’t care less how you take her. Kris stopped for a moment to pivot on herself then started up again, recreating, from a different angle, the position he had hoped for. Yves tried to resist this unexpected turnaround, but he ejaculated with a rare intensity. Kris knotted the condom and placed it in an ashtray which hadn’t been on the night table on her previous visit. Still wearing nothing but her flesh-colored stockings she went back to the coffee table to pour herself a glass of water, while Yves curled up in the sheets, his forehead pearling with sweat. She borrowed a kimono, asked permission to smoke, then leaned against the living room window, her cigarette between her lips. For a moment Yves hesitated to join her, but decided he would rather gaze at her from a distance—her curves draped in satin, her hair loose on her shoulders, the bluish curls of smoke rising in the night.

  Kris was wondering what race of man he belonged to. Obviously single, not too bad-looking, not a pervert, or anxious, or violent, or depressed, or condescending; he didn’t fit in any of the boxes where she filed her usual clients, and she didn’t like that. Men had ceased to surprise her long ago, she could see them coming a mile off and knew her roles off by heart, bitch, confidant or mother, whatever they wanted her to play.

  Ill at ease with his nudity, Yves wrapped himself in a sheet, toga-style, and poured himself a glass of bourbon, which he went on to sip in a Roman posture. Kris was the one who felt the need to break the silence.

  “What kind of work are you in? I like to find out how people make their living.”

  “I install windows and shutters. It suits me.”

  “Install windows?”

  “Increase luminosity, or create total darkness, insulate from noise. There are so many people who think they have insomnia because they screwed up their life, when in fact they just have shitty windows.”

  Kris was surprised to find herself examining the PVC embrasure of the window she was leaning against, then she turned to go and sit with her host. She picked up on the word “noise,” complained of being woken by the metal shutter of the bistro across the street from her place, then she rattled off a few stock phrases about urban cacophony. Yves interrupted her to ask her to remove her kimono; she complied, unsurprised. Watching her with her legs crossed and her stockings pulled up her thighs, as she estimated the number of decibels a small child can produce, Yves recalled a day when he had asked Pauline to take her clothes off while she was preparing an olive loaf: she had refused outright. He added a few details about the frequency of the human voice, all the while admiring his guest’s superb breasts, her hips, her pubes, the edge of her sex, which he wanted to sniff, and kiss again, so he knelt on the floor. Then he got up, his cock level with Kris’s mouth: she would have to pause in her conversation for a moment.

  Later that night, Kris’s wariness ha
d faded; she wasn’t dealing with a hidden sadist but with a guy who hadn’t made love in far too long. Counter to all professional ethics, she asked him why he had called a prostitute. Yves had no desire to go through all the various stages that had led to their being together in his bed, so he slanted his reply toward the future and not the past: he wanted to get to know all kinds of women. Tall and petite, voluptuous and slight, ladies and chambermaids, semi-virgins and old soldiers, of every origin, every skin color, not to mention all the categories he had yet to discover. How could a man like him, given his life expectancy, his salaried position, and the fact that he rarely traveled anywhere, expect to bring such a project to fruition without resorting to prostitutes?

  Kris paused to think then conceded he didn’t really have much choice.

  He glanced at his watch and decided to doze off at last. For the first time in so long he was going to have the pleasure of waking up next to a woman. Instinctively, he pulled her to him and put his arm around her waist the way he used to with Pauline. She misunderstood and thought she was being conscripted one last time: the client who wanted one for the road, to make sure he’d had his money’s worth. To make sure, she in turn had an instinctive gesture, slapping her hand onto his groin to check his erection.

  Stunned that his surge of tenderness was met with such a degrading examination, Yves was overcome with a wave of fury: he’d been reduced to a limp sex, to the level of an animal.

  He grabbed her by her armpits, lifted her up with all his rage, and thrust her so hard that she collapsed against the wall before sliding to the floor.

  Kris sat there on the floor, unmoving, dazed.

  In her life as a prostitute she had already been thrown out of bed, but never in quite this way.

  Yves slowly regained his composure. Went over to her, holding out his hand.

  She understood what had just happened: he had felt the humiliation that she herself had to endure when some lout indulged in the most odious kind of fondling. For once she was the one who’d committed an invasive gesture on someone else’s body.