by Alix Nichols
“It won’t hurt next time, chaton,” he’d said. “And the more we do this, the more you’ll enjoy it.”
He hadn’t lied.
We made love again the following night, and every night since then, for over a week now. When he enters me, no matter how hard or deep, I feel no more stinging, no more soreness. Only pleasure. I’ve lost count of the orgasms and the quirky endearments I’ve been treated to throughout the week. Ma choupette—my little female cabbage—tops the wackiness chart at this point.
But he’s been careful not to call me his amour again.
Just as I’ve been careful not to call him mine.
What a shame that avoiding those words can’t help me keep in check the unwieldy thing growing in my heart!
Actually, that thing is done growing.
Sometime over the past week, it reached adult size and filled every part of my body, mind, and soul.
I love Zach.
Back in high school when my friends and I were into hoarding words of wisdom on our social media accounts, someone shared a quote that stayed with me. “There are three kinds of attraction a man and a woman can feel for each other. The attraction of souls forms friendship. The attraction of minds forms respect. The attraction of bodies forms passion. Those three attractions together form love.”
Whether we owe that insight to an ancient Hindu philosopher or to a drug-fueled hippie from California, I do not know, and frankly, I do not care.
My experience has just proven it true.
I feel the deepest respect and true friendship for Noah.
But my body has never hungered for him.
The other day, I asked him to come by for a chat. What a relief it was for both of us to admit we weren’t in love with each other! It turned out he’d never told his mom he loved me, just as I’d never told her I loved him. Marguerite had been stretching the truth all this time, no doubt convinced that all we needed was a nudge in the right direction.
Noah told me he was in love with Sophie, but I couldn’t confess to him my feelings for Zach. Maybe because I don’t think our relationship is going anywhere.
If we can call it a relationship.
“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,” Obi-Wan Kenobi says to Luke Skywalker.
Sam turns to Zach. “What’s a ‘wretched hive of scum and villainy’?”
In the middle of Zach’s explanation, the doorbell rings.
I look at Zach. “Are you expecting someone?”
He shakes his head and heads downstairs.
Two minutes later, he returns to the family room with Colette.
“Hi there,” she says, taking in our cozy setup.
I wave hello.
“Hi, Colette,” Sam says without taking his eyes off the screen.
She turns to Zach. “He’s watching Star Wars.”
“Yes.”
She gives him a hard stare and shrugs as if to say, I disapprove, but it’s your call. “May I join in the fun?”
“Of course.” Zach points to the finger foods on the coffee table. “Hungry?”
“A bit.”
“I’ll get you a plate and a glass.”
While he’s in the kitchen, Colette takes his place on the couch. My eyes are trained on my needle, but my peripheral vision registers that she’s studying me, her expression stern.
Shouldn’t she be looking at Sam instead?
“Psst!” She arches an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be out having fun with young people your own age?”
I hold up my frame. “Must finish this by December or I won’t get my certificate.”
“It’s still October—you have plenty of time,” she says.
Zach comes in with a tray for her. “Haute couture embroidery is very time-consuming. It may take hundreds of hours of work to complete a project.”
Colette gives him a surprised glance. “You’re well informed.”
He smiles.
She loads her plate with snacks. “Well, what you said explains why that designer gown you bought me in Venice was so darned expensive.”
Zach plonks himself into an armchair without offering a comment.
All I can think about until the credits roll is “Venice.” Had Colette and Zach traveled there before Sam was born? Or was it a more recent trip the two of them had made before I arrived? What if it was more recent still, a one-day trip he could’ve made last month when he played in Milan?
I’ve spent a good deal of time wondering if he ever accepted Colette’s dinner invitation. In the end, I chose to believe he hadn’t. But what if he had? What if he went further, taking her out after that so they could discuss her reentry into Sam’s life?
Into Sam and Zach’s life.
No way.
He wouldn’t do that, not while he’s sleeping with me.
Then again, why would sleeping with the au pair prevent him from envisaging a rapprochement with his child’s mother?
By the time Colette leaves, I’m a wreck.
Zach and I clean up, and I head to my room while he puts Sam to bed.
He knocks on my door around nine-thirty. “I need a couple of hours to go through my mail and handle a tricky issue.”
“OK,” I say, my nose in a book.
I hear him step inside. “Don’t wait up for me, if you’re tired. When I’m done, I’ll just sneak into your bed.”
“Do you mind…” I look up at him. “Do you mind if we sleep each in our own rooms tonight?”
He frowns. “I’m off to Australia tomorrow, remember? We won’t see each other for a whole week.”
“I know… But I…”
I’m too weak and down to be around you now.
Thing is, I don’t trust myself not to ask Zach all those questions about him and Colette, and maybe even about him and me. They might put him off. He might decide I’m too needy. He might—
“I’m on my period,” I blurt.
“So what?” He shrugs. “If you don’t want to have sex, we won’t have sex. We’ll just cuddle and sleep.”
I wrinkle my nose in a silent plea.
He gives me a tight smile. “Whatever the lady desires.”
And then he exits my room, pulling the door closed behind him.
Setting the book aside, I drop my head in my hands.
You’re done for, Uma. And here’s why.
Zach may crave my body. I may be crazy about him. I may adore his little boy, and Sam may genuinely care for me.
But none of it can alter the truth of who I am in this home.
And of who I am not.
FIFTEEN
Zach
We’re losing.
The guys are doing all they can but with both Noah and me clearly not in top form, Azur de Nice—one of the best clubs in France—has an edge.
I should’ve taken a sleeping pill on the plane from Sydney. Now, I only have my blurry mind and eight minutes of the last quarter to try and push my body beyond its limits.
Problem is, the opponent’s entire team is focused on not giving me a chance to shoot.
Right now, there are just too many of them shoving, hitting, pulling, and hanging on me to handle. Valentin, who’s helping me fend them off is bleeding from his nose and his right temple. He must’ve taken a punch or five for me.
I try to do my high-velocity spin to shake Nice’s defenders off me so I can shoot, but it doesn’t work. OK, plan B. I turn my back to the goal cage and swim toward the ball that Denis has set up for me on the surface of the water. As I grab it, I push back into the chest of the player who’s right behind me. Valentin has cleared my left flank. Spinning around as fast as I can, I slam the ball into the goal. It flies past the goalie and hits the net.
Good.
Our supporters roar, but there’s no time to savor the shot. Nice still leads by one goal, and for the next three minutes, I simply can’t get in a throw. Two minutes left to go and the ref calls me for an aggressive foul.
Shit.
&n
bsp; The squad will have to play man-down for the next twenty seconds.
As I swim to the ejection corner and get out of the pool, I can’t even bring myself to look at Lucas. Nice capitalizes on their advantage, and on Noah’s uncharacteristic lack of focus, and scores.
Shit, shit, shit.
I reenter the pool, take a shot off a dry pass by Denis and net the ball within thirty seconds. But it’s too little, too late. A minute later, the end of game horn sounds.
We lost.
Thankfully, our rating means the club still has a chance to make it to the finals of the Championnat de France, provided Noah and I can get our act together, which is the main topic of the debriefing that follows the match.
“What’s the issue here?” Lucas asks, staring me in the eye. “Is playing for both the club and the national team more than you can handle in one season? Or is there something else?”
I hold his gaze. “There’s no issue. It’s just the jet lag, what with flying in from Sydney yesterday.”
Which was a dumb thing to say, come to think of it.
It only proves Lucas’s point. The reason I went to Sydney was to play a world championship game as part of the national squad. I’m the only Nageurs de Paris player that was selected for the national team this season. It’s a great honor, even if it does make me travel more often and for longer periods of time than before. My current trip is the longest I’ve been away from home since Sam was born.
Funny how my mind flashes an image of him together with Uma when I think of home…
Anyway, if the club wins the Pro A championship or the LEN Cup, I bet more of our players will be invited to join the national team. Noah, for sure. Julien, quite likely. Hopefully, Lucas as coach, too, since the current one, Daniel, has announced his impending retirement.
But for all of that to happen, we must win.
A few more performances like the one I delivered today, and my teammates and coach can forget about wearing gold medals.
“This won’t happen again.” I give Lucas an earnest stare to show I mean it.
I truly do mean it.
The question is if I can find enough willpower not to think about Uma all the time. Can I stop craving sex with her? Can I stop replaying in my mind the night Uma gave herself to me? It had been beyond sweet, and she’d turned out to be everything I’d ever dreamed of and more. Her beauty, her passion, the pleasure she gave me, the pleasure she took, our connection…
Yet, I woke up the next morning with my heart heavy with regret, wishing I’d never crossed that line and knowing I’d do it again. Now that I’ve had a taste of her, I can’t not do it again.
The other thing I fret about is the conversation I need to have with Noah. How will I tell him that the woman he might be in love with has let another man seduce her? And that I am that man.
Correction—I am that shithead.
What will that confession do to our friendship? What impact will it have on the squad’s ability to play as a team?
As if all of that wasn’t enough, I also worry about the future and about the implications my sleeping with Uma might have on Sam. Now that Colette is trying to be there for him, would a relationship with Uma crush the sprouts of her maternal love?
Do Uma and I have a relationship?
This mess has stolen hours of sleep from me every night since I left for Australia. It’s weakened me both physically and mentally, and it won’t be easy to untangle.
But I must.
And I’m going to start with Noah.
When I ask him to join me at the hotel’s bar for a chat, he gives me a strange look and nods, like he’s been expecting it.
“I’ve been seeing someone,” he says as soon as we’ve ordered the drinks.
Holding my breath, I wait for him to continue.
“It’s Sophie.” He searches my face. “Are you mad at me?”
The relief that floods me is so powerful, I need a few long moments to regroup and figure out why Noah expects me to be angry with him.
“Of course not,” I say. “Why would I be? Nothing ever happened between Sophie and me. The whole thing was off before it had a chance to start.”
“So you don’t mind that we…?”
I shake my head. “I wish you two the best of luck.”
“It may be too late for that,” Noah says with a bitter smirk. “I screwed up pretty bad, and she left me.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
He looks away.
I take a fortifying breath. “I have a confession of my own.”
“Shoot.”
“It’s about Uma.” I take my beer from the server and train my eyes on it.
“Something wrong?”
“I…”
Jeez, it’s hard to say I’m sleeping with her.
“I knew it!” He shakes his head in disapproval. “You hit on her, didn’t you? The way you were looking at her when we all went to that bar after we won over Aix-en-Provence… It was too fishy.”
I study my glass scrambling for a polite way to break to Noah that I’ve done more than “hitting.”
“Is she still at your place?” he asks. “Poor thing. I’ll call her and tell her she can come stay with me if she wants to.”
“She isn’t… upset with me,” I finally manage.
There’s a long silence before Noah says, “Don’t hurt her, Zach.”
“I would never hurt her,” I say before adding, “not intentionally, at any rate.”
“It’s the unintentional hurting I’m worried about.”
For a moment, we just stare at each other.
Then Noah leans in. “I’m asking you not to take advantage of her.”
My mouth goes dry. “I already have.”
“Jesus.” Noah closes his eyes and runs his hands over his face. “Since when?”
“Two weeks now.”
Silence.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” he finally says, a vein pulsing on his neck. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” He glares at me. “She won’t be able to marry her Brahmin suitor when she goes back to Nepal.”
I force myself to look into his eyes. “She said she wasn’t interested in marrying anyone. She wants to focus on her craft and start a business.”
“How very like her to make it easy for others at her own expense,” he says with a smirk.
“What do you mean? Did she lie about what she wants?”
“No, she definitely does want to become a top-notch embroiderer and gain financial independence. I know that for a fact. But I also know how much she dreams about having a family.”
“And she won’t be able to have one because of what happened?”
He nods. “Unfortunately, that’s how things work where she’s from. In her culture, a young woman must be chaste to enjoy the regard of her community and find a husband. Especially, a woman in her situation.”
“What do you mean?”
“Uma is a Dalit. That’s the lowest caste in Hindu society. They have nothing. Uma’s virginity—her honor, as they see it—is her main asset. Trust me, her high school diploma and her pretty face are useless without it.”
I clasp my head with both hands, feeling crushed.
Noah sighs. “She’ll never tell you this, but she’s no longer marriageable, at least not to anyone remotely worthy of her.”
In all those hours I spent worrying about how my sleeping with Uma would affect Sam, Colette and me, it didn’t occur to me to consider what it would do to Uma’s marriage prospects. To her life back in Nepal where she still seems to be keen on returning because that stupid workshop she attended convinced her she can’t make it in France.
My selfishness has jeopardized her future.
I’ve turned her into spoiled goods.
SIXTEEN
Uma
“This Venus would’ve stood eight feet tall before she lost her upper half.” Our smiley guide points to the frag
ment of a female statue from the waist down.
Unlike the other chubby prehistoric statues of Venus I’d seen in Parisian museums over the summer, this one isn’t naked. She wears a pleated skirt. Considering how much of her ample thighs are revealed by the garment, I conclude it wasn’t the beatniks of the sixties that invented the mini. The revolutionary style was pioneered by the mysterious civilization that built Stonehenge-like temples in Malta several millennia BC.
As evidenced in by the Venus in front of me.
The guide steps aside to let us take photos of the Stone Age fashionista.
“I wanted to show you the Hypogeum,” Zach says after I snap a pic with my phone. “It’s an incredible underground burial complex not far from here. Lucas had arranged for the team to visit it when we played in Malta last year. But it’s closed for maintenance now.”
I pat his arm. “Don’t worry. I have more than enough to gawk at, even without the Hypogeum.”
“The Tarxien Venus represents the Earth Mother or the Great Goddess,” our guide says. “She’s also a symbol of fertility.”
“What happened to the civilization that built this temple?” a tourist in our group asks.
“My favorite theory is that it disappeared following the planetary cataclysm that sank Atlantis,” the guide says before waving for us to follow him out of the temple.
I squint in the bright sunlight as Zach and I trek back to Valletta—the small capital of this tiny European country. It’s hard to believe how warm and summerlike this place is compared to the incessant rains and cold winds that have taken hold of Paris. The only way to know it’s already December is by the occasional Christmas carol that streams from a shop or a loudspeaker on the street.
OK, more than occasional.
The Maltese must love their Christmas carols.
Zach came home from Nice last week and announced he was taking me on a weekend trip to Malta. As Colette was unavailable to look after Sam on such short notice, Zach took him to Arles to stay with Grandma and Grandpa. I had suggested we take Sam along, but Zach said he wanted us to be alone to discuss something.
