by Martin, M.
As I looked around the house, I saw the living room lit in a candle path that led to the dining room table. Two chairs sat side by side, and plates were set on the table. My knees seemed to stop the flow of blood to my feet.
“Matt, this is beautiful,” I said, despite collapsing inside.
He took my hand, pulled me through the room, and seated me at the table in front of a white plate with a hefty portion of pasta. Two glasses of red wine were at each serving, his only half full.
“I put Billy to bed early, and now it’s just you and me.” He lifted his chair and placed it awkwardly close to my own. He then lifted the wine glass to my mouth. There was no escape.
There were glimpses of the man I used to know, even if just fleeting. When we met, he was a freelance production assistant with burly biceps that were always showing themselves under his plaid lumberjack shirts on photo shoots. I thought I only wanted to sleep with him, but he made me laugh and feel comfortable in my own skin. He saved me, like the last exit before I became one of those obsessed women who work their entire lives only to discover at thirty-five she passed up love and family.
He makes the best pasta I’ve ever tasted, adapted with wheat noodles and pine nuts and sweet raisins to make up for the fact we both gave up meat a long time ago, or at least he thinks I did.
“It’s delicious,” I say, hesitating to eat the entire portion after having lost a fair amount of weight doing my version of the Paleo diet since Brazil.
“You’ve barely touched it.” He takes my fork and drops it on the plate.
He caresses my hand with his soft, thick fingers roughened by years of work, but now has just the lingering scent of baby oil. I know where this is going and it feels so wrong. My heart holds onto the memory of David, the memory of his touch and his kiss that will seem so much farther away once I am with Matt again. There is no resisting without making an even larger issue. I resign myself to get through this, and I hope to come out feeling the way I once did in this relationship.
He stands up at the table, and I can see his erection compressing his khakis, already a bit tight from weeks of no morning runs or jaunts to the gym. We haven’t had sex in weeks, and I know this must happen regardless of how I feel. He takes my hand, places it on his dick, and pushes away the plates of food and drinks as if they’re token collateral for what is to come. As long as I don’t let him inside me, I know everything will be okay.
He stands in front of me and drops his pants around his knees. I imagine David in front of me, his translucent skin soft with a salty sea kiss and those muscular legs wrapped around me. I imagine what he would taste like, how he would control this situation and fill me.
“I’ve missed you, baby,” Matt whispers, as his dick stands almost throbbing in front of me with a dew of pre-cum already emanating from the tip.
I imagine David as I grab him from the shaft and edge closer without actually taking him inside my mouth. Matt drops to his knees. Our lips meet in a deep kiss, not the married kind or the lover kind, but the awkward first-time kind, where our tongues intertwine, and my fully conscious mind can taste the treachery of my adulterous desire.
One of my hands grabs his back, already damp, as the other pulls on the hairs of his upper chest. I imagine my gentler lover, smelling the way he does, as he drops to his knees and devours me in full daylight as my mind casts judgment on this dimly lit apartment and this rushed sex that could be anywhere with anybody.
Matt tends to be quick to ejaculate, but I notice he lasts longer than usual before trying to enter me. He inevitably does, thrusting himself inside me along the brim of our bentwood dining chairs where I sit arched with his fully erect dick that goes in painfully deep the first time. He grabs the back of the chair in a somewhat awkward position, my hand falls into the plate of uneaten pasta, and he rattles me back and forth and back again.
I pull his hair and hold him back like the extended legs of an unwilling rider. The intensity edges on pain as he thankfully nears climax. I feel as though I’ve left my body and hover above the room in judgment as I moan louder and louder hopeful this will end. Then with a forceful push away, he erupts just outside of me and along the brim of the chair. His brow now fully sweaty, he leans in to kiss me with all his masculine, labored breath. I soften with a sense of relief that this much-needed moment has happened. Afterward, Matt retreats to our bed, and I into our bathroom where I cocoon myself in the noise of running water to finish myself off with recollections of David’s touch and as many memories as I could recall of his voice, his smell, and his stare that will soon slip away from me.
The following day in the office, I felt as though my train had been realigned on the rails, even if not in fluid motion again. Perhaps I had quelled this Greek tragedy in the making. There are always distractions in a marriage, but ultimately you return to your husband and realize the reason you committed to a life with him in the first place. This, I hoped, would be my moment where David faded from my mind and Matt returned to my heart.
The office proved to be as trying as my marriage upon returning from Rio. I returned to the office to discover the actress we booked for the June cover wasn’t available to shoot in New York, which meant I’d have to source existing images or go with an entirely different person, which was nearly impossible, given the magazine was scheduled to print in less than a week.
These are some problems with a B-list magazine. Neither celebrities nor their publicists ever take their scheduled photo shoots or interview times seriously. When I started at Rouge, we were one of the few magazines still to have covers with the occasional non-celebrity model in various sexy-with-a-wink poses and gloomy articles on “Life after Divorce” and “Sex in Your Widow Years.” I was one of the drivers of change at the magazine, insisting we stick to a twenty-eight through forty-five demographic and a celeb-only cover, even if it meant not always shooting ourselves.
As the magazine started to improve in sales, I stayed loyal to my editor instead of following everyone else to better titles like InStyle, ELLE, and Marie Claire. Now here I am, almost seven years later at Rogue, in the same position with a better title, more money, and a nicer office doing the same daily penance in an economy where it isn’t nearly as easy to jump ship.
After a few pushy e-mails and publicist calls, the magazine’s unenthused cover star alas surfaced as I tried to figure out the various details of a rushed interview that she would inevitably cancel or want to do over the phone on the day before we’re supposed to go to press. The compulsion to spy on my would-be lover was fully suppressed until an hour after lunch. When the morning’s work seemed able to be put off until the following day, I found myself hovering over his latest Twitter update, “Wheels-up to CDG, some work, and hopefully a little play.”
With little more than his fifty-character status update, I allowed the axis of my reason, my life, and my relationship to tilt on its side once more. I will do the interview in Paris. Typical to my character, the dominoes were set in motion at warp speed from idea to end plan. I aggressively suggested to the publicist that the interview take place in Paris as soon as possible. Surprisingly, it was an easy sell to her as well as to my nervous editor, frantic to wrap up this issue. Matt, still comforted by our night together, appeared caught off guard by the last-minute trip, and to a playful Billy, I promised a very hip French toy on my return home.
That’s how I end up here, in my flying 777 sanctuary, even if in economy class. I awaken on the plane somewhere above the Atlantic bound for Paris and knowing full well my mistake in motion. I awake in an Ambien haze to that scurry just before landing when half-eaten trays of breakfast are collected and coffee cups clink as flight attendants pace the aisle looking for those still reclined in their business-class chairs. I wasn’t really expecting to sleep on the flight, taut with anxiety about my decision to do this and leave my husband and son yet again.
“Can I get you to lift your sh
ade, ma’am?” asks a flight attendant hovering above with a mom-like French accent. I lift the flap in an instant.
“How long till landing?” I ask the slender and distinguished flight attendant, whose hair was pulled tightly back behind her face.
“Captain says it’s about forty-five minutes,” she says in her fabulous French accent.
“So I have time to do a quick change once the bathroom frees up?”
“Yes, we’ll announce the final call for landing, but you can have a few minutes after that if you want. I won’t tell.” Her authoritative but considerate manner makes me feel more relaxed as I get up with my makeup bag and line up for the restroom. Through the window, Paris comes into view through the small window in the bulky exit door with its plastic covering.
In February, thick clouds always blanket Europe, the weather rarely letting itself known until that one dip that takes you just below the cloud cover to reveal the sprawling city of Haussmann rooflines and urban perfection where even the outlying suburbs offer some sort of romantic charm. The city seduces my thoughts as much as the possibility of seeing David as I mentally plan my outfits under either a heavy cashmere coat or a Rick Owens trench that justified my checked bag surcharge.
Charles de Gaulle Airport never disappoints with its customs line of exquisitely dressed travelers and epic hallways that feel like a catwalk for my new Giambattista Valli boots. The automatic doors that open to the outside world reveal a platoon of drivers with more signs than I could have ever imagined. Virtually every hotel is represented with a clearly written all-cap nameplate. I spot my name almost immediately. I approach my Parisian driver who has a super-cute pencil mustache and a slender silhouette that makes him look forty and not his youthful twenty-something that almost feels of another time.
“Are you Ms. Catherine Klein?” the driver stutters through a mere sentence of English with secondary syllables that linger an extra beat on his boyish pink lips.
“Yes, indeed. Thank you for being so prompt.” I smile as he grabs my bags without attempting another word and quickly walking a few feet ahead.
His suit shows the sign of a long day, or perhaps a few wearings since last pressed—wrinkled in the rear of the pants, at the knees, and just below where his butt should be on his slight torso.
As we get into the car, the scent of cigarette smoke fills the air despite a well-positioned No Smoking sign. The boyish driver enters the car and makes eye contact with me sitting patiently in the backseat, and then again. His thick black hair seems almost stitched to his head like a doll without a bit of flesh or scalp exposed. His pitch-black eyes are deep set with black circles that look like bronze coins but still sexy and mysterious.
He navigates the immaculately paved freeway with the zeal of a boy captivated with driving a car he can’t afford, passing and changing lanes with full blinker and right-yielding European vibrato before exiting into the thick sprawl of Paris. And there is that perfect urban landscape that seems planned by Aphrodite herself, from quixotic buildings clad in balconies built for two to cinematic cafés where couples linger over shared lunches and coffee always served with a proper cup and saucer. Bridges are capped in a frosting of gold paint flanked by iron art nouveau lampposts that herald a time when kings paraded with cavalry and princesses traveled by gilded horse-drawn carriages.
It’s difficult not to stray into deep fantasy when lost in the shade of the meandering rues and the interconnecting arrondissements of central Paris. I wasn’t quite sure where to stay, either, as it was high season and rooms would be tight virtually any place you’d want to stay and even in some you wouldn’t. Then there was the question of where David might be staying, and how close I could get without being too close.
With the Plaza Athenee and Le Meurice fully occupied, my choice was between the super-cute but sort of removed Hotel Tremoille or the Ritz in all its aristocratic glamour. Plus, the fact that it was soon closing for renovation made me want to see it one more time in all its fabulousness, especially on someone else’s dime. I also figured its close proximity to the Costes, Bristol, and InterContinental increased the chances that I would bump into David.
The driver takes the grand approach to the Ritz from Rue Saint-Honoré before turning into Place Vendôme, which brings a jolt of wheels over cobblestone pavers as the plaza’s column comes into view. Built by Napoleon from bronze derived from his enemy’s canons, yet it was years before I ever really knew what it was despite seeing it all the time.
It’s hard to imagine Place Vendôme being anything but a fashionable square, but under its glittery commercial facade lays a history of almost constant friction and a centuries-old struggle between those who have and those who don’t. How unlikely that a working-class girl like me would be staying at its most fabulous hotel just a few centuries later.
Paris is a city truly unafraid to tear down monumental things, whether a landmark to Louis XIV that once stood at the center of this square, or the former Tuileries Palace that burned nearby during the Paris Commune, which I can still hear my college history professor describe in detail. Even this column was a replacement for another destroyed by an angry mob, only to be rebuilt a short time later by Napoléon with a statue of himself secured back on top.
A flurry of activity outside the Ritz has us sitting idle. My eyes are transfixed on its fairy-tale facade with its white canopy awnings and windows that seem to each tell a different story of the guests within, despite their almost identical, symmetrical architecture. By the end of the ride, I’m a bit more charmed by the driver as well—the kind of guy who would take you to an edgy Paris party or nightclub for a long night you would never forget—even though no more than three words and a few more glances have been exchanged between us.
“So if you need anything while you are in Paris, please do not hesitate to call me to be here,” he says in his boyish tone, looking through the mirror and into my eyes at the end of the sentence.
I take the card and notice his long fingers that taper between thick knuckles and come to a head at a rounded, well-trimmed nail.
“What hours do you work? I may need a driver for an afternoon or evening depending on my work schedule.”
“I work all day and night; you just call and I come.”
He looks away as the traffic clears in front of him, and a dapper bellman whistles his attention as the car moves forward. In my mind, this kind of man is who you have an affair with, the type who is attractive and sexy-wild, yet also the type you’re eager to leave as soon as you’re finished and not linger in a romantic sugar coma that consumes everything that you are.
Staying at the Ritz is a benefit of the journalism world that makes up for years of low wages and long hours. The valet lacks the sexy brutes that line the front of the Costes or the quaff haircuts of the Athenee; these courteous kinsmen have been at the Ritz for more than a generation with eyes that can assess your breeding and social credit score without uttering a single word. Their uniforms have the fit of being worn over years with slight shoulders and stuttered movement that make you hesitate to hand them your heaving luggage.
The driver readies the credit slip as the men rush the car, his left hand gripping the pen in an almost boyish apprehension about the paper of someone who spends very little time writing much of anything.
“Please add twenty percent if possible,” I say.
“Thank you very much.”
He responds immediately, looking up to gaze through those midnight eyes that have yet to see very much of the world outside this city. However, I guess if you’re going to be untraveled, there are worse places than Paris is.
With a pull of the door, the Ritz comes alive as my black Valli boot extends out the car door and struggles just a bit on the cobblestone landing. I look up, staring in the eyes of architectural greatness, the aged masonry details of the square enveloping my soul and washing away any trepidation I had about the trip.
The scent of wet Paris asphalt from a morning rain mixed with auto exhaust fills the air. I make my way under a buttoned trench to the plush red carpet and through the revolving Ritz doors that seem to connect to a different era.
I sometimes wonder if Saudi princesses who call the hotel home or better fashion editors are ever as humbled as I am walking through the entrance, each pacing footstep meeting the royal blue Oriental rugs as endless candelabras, scones, and statuary glisten in perfect gold. Ornate Louis XIV furnishings are everywhere, beckoning another time when women would sit for daily tea and businessmen would gather near the largest lighting fixture that was among the first in Paris to be electrified.
You don’t stay at the Ritz because you like the endless gold decor that would look garish in almost any other setting, or the crystal chandeliers polished almost daily to give them that impossible luster. You stay because of the people. Since the beginning, scenes have included the likes of Marcel Proust pursuing handsome waiters at grand dinners in the hotel dining room. And Coco Chanel living out the war years in her apartment while taking a Nazi lover. Or modern-day fashion alum like Valentino or Karl Lagerfeld opting for the terrace at lunch or evenings at the lobby bar in lieu of their usual creative isolation.
When it comes to rooms at the Ritz, I’ve learned it’s a bit of a mixed bag given the hotel’s history as a one-time private residence turned hotel in the late nineteenth century. Opened in time for the 1900 World’s Fair, it was the first hotel in the world to have a private bathroom in every guest room, and you could bring your household staff, which many people did during the rationing war years, storing them away on the hotel’s top floor made almost entirely for maids. These days, an ideal room would be on the lower floors. Ideally, the second or third floors are home to the best rooms like the Imperial Suite that Dodi and Princess Diana were living in at the time of their accident, or the Windsor Suite, where Wallis the duchess of Windsor would take many of her arranged interviews while her former king languished over his memoirs.
