A Second Chance in Paris

by Ziv Amit

  I’m not at all certain that he deserves to have me wrapped in this sexy outfit, especially after his disgusting words last night before the cabaret, but I promised myself I’d make it up to him for my behavior and I plan to keep that promise. I admit that when I planned the trip it seemed like an arousing idea, and now it’s looking more and more like a bad plan that I should maybe just give up on. “It was a good idea then and it’s a good idea now, he’ll love it,” I continue with my self-persuasion, “I think,” I add hesitantly, hoping real badly that Adam will be excited by my surprise.

  I can still change my mind, take this outfit off and bundle it up into a little ball, forgotten for eternity at the bottom of the suitcase. Or throw it into the trash can and have the hotel housekeeper pick it up and wear it tonight for her man. I can clean off the lipstick and go back to bed, cover myself with the uncomfortable blanket and sleep for the rest of the morning, I can still change my mind. “I won’t back out,” I answer myself, “I want to surprise him and I want to fix what I broke.” And as a last minute thing I add the high heels which are placed by the closet and I get under the blanket. Dressed in a shiny outfit, high heels and lipstick, my hands look to caress Adam’s body as he sleeps.

  His body is warm against my hands, which are cold after having been in the bathroom for so long, and he moves a little bit as I start to caress him. A sliver of this morning’s gray light penetrates through the dark curtain which I earlier moved in order to see the waking city, and I look at my fingers moving over his shoulder. His back is turned to me and I press myself against it, the shiny cloth of my outfit is separating us and my breasts press against him as my hands travel over his stomach and downwards. He slowly wakes up, sends his hand back and tries to grab hold of my waist, caress me. “This is blessed progress, the grumpy man is softening,” I whisper and press onto him tighter. The grumpy man is also starting to get hard from my fingers stroking him, and I smile to myself in the gray light enveloping us. My red lips press against him, kissing and licking his back and his shoulders. “You see,” I silently say to the skeptical woman from the mirror earlier, “I told you this has a good chance of succeeding.” His hand is stretched back to feel me while my fingers caress him and I feel him getting harder under my touch. He frees himself from my grip and turns to me so that we lie face to face. I feel his manhood pressing against my stomach, rubbing against the outfit on my body, silently telling me he’s enjoying the contact. Our legs wrap around each other’s as we press ourselves closer together, and his feet touch the high heels I had added for the occasion. I feel his hands enveloping me and holding me against him tightly, slowly running down my back. I try to twist myself closer to him but suddenly I feel him stopping.

  I get my body closer to him, looking to pull him closer to me, but his hands withdraw from me and it’s just his erection which remains hard and pressed against my stomach. He stops and freezes, as if he desired me and then changed his mind. I try to pull him closer to me and kiss him. “What is this?” he whispers to me, “what is this outfit?” “It’s for you, my tall man,” I whisper back as I kiss his motionless lips, “a surprise from me to you.”

  “That’s the surprise you had for me? A whore’s outfit? Is that what you saw at the cabaret last night and decided to get for me? Is that why you went there? I don’t want these sort of whore surprises from you.”

  I freeze, my hands freeze, my breath freezes, my high heels freeze and I slowly release my hands which have been wrapped around him, I disconnect my body from his, pull the blanket off me and walk over to the bathroom. I toss away my high heels on the way there, peel off the outfit and throw it into the bathroom trash can, maybe the housekeeper will want to wear it one day for her man. I get into the shower under the harsh stream of boiling hot water and start scrubbing myself with soap, scrubbing my lips from the remains of the lipstick, scrubbing my tears, scrubbing my injured pride, I sit on the shower floor, crying and scrubbing.

  Hotel, Dining Room, Later

  One croissant for breakfast, one piece of toast, a little bit of jam on the corner of the white plate, a latte from the coffee machine, one bag of sweetener and a piano placed at the corner of the dining room for decoration. The hostess asks for my room number and I gesture towards The Tall One with my head. He’s sitting at a table with his back to me, sipping his coffee in front of a painting on the wall depicting dancers with their legs up showing their garter belts and men in top hats at a cabaret club. “How ironic,” I think to myself as I look at the painting and slowly walk towards the table.

  He didn’t wait for me earlier. When I got out of the shower with the towel wrapped around my body the room was empty, just the way it was when I went in to shower, the blanket crumpled on the bed, the lights out, the closet door open exposing my hanging clothes and the high heels tossed on the floor. The curtain was drawn, letting in the light of the waking city. For a moment I wondered to myself whether he had packed up his things and left for good, but his trolley was still at the side of the closet, open and neat, waiting for someone to make use of it. I got dressed silently, trying to think clearly and not succeeding.

  “So, what’s next?” I mumble to myself as I get closer to him with my little breakfast plate, “here’s a dilemma for you.” One table and four chairs, I don’t want to sit in front of him so that I don’t have to look into his eyes and I don’t want to sit next to him so that I don’t accidently touch him. What I really want is for him to get up and leave and vanish, but I settle on sitting in front of him and concentrating on my croissant, taking small bites and staring at the little plate.

  We’re sitting in front of each other and eating in silence and I’m wondering if this is the end. I’m surprised by the fact that yesterday I thought that I’d eventually blow up at him and ruin the romantic holiday, and now it actually seems like the romance is ending with the sound of silence, without any unnecessary dramas. I have no strength left for trying to save anything, and the humiliation is too harsh for me. I wonder when the end would have arrived if I hadn’t booked this romantic holiday, if I hadn’t tried, if I hadn’t suspected him, if I hadn’t felt the need to make it up to him, why do I even feel the need to make it up to him?

  The Tall One is drinking his coffee in silence, not looking at me, concentrating on the shapes that the coffee is leaving along the sides of the cup. “Maybe he’s trying to figure out the future,” I think cynically, “I wonder if it’s the near future of a few minutes away, or the distant future of what used to be his and mine.” Around us the dining room is filled with quiet breakfast voices and sounds of porcelain plates, but the silence between us is weighing me down and I’m starting to get tired of it. The Tall One finishes his coffee or his fortune-telling which seem like the same thing to me, looks up at me and says, “You were wrong for surprising me like that.”

  “What?” I ask him, refusing to believe what I just heard.

  “You shouldn’t have surprised me like that with that outfit and that morning sex, that was wrong of you,” he repeats himself like a broken record.

  “Wrong of me?” I’m trying to keep my cool and refrain from throwing the breakfast table at him, though I think it would only do him good.

  “Yes wrong of you, I’m not OK with that, suddenly you decide I’m not right for you so you up and leave for a few days, then you decide I am actually right for you, so you come back, then you decide to book a vacation without asking me, then you decide to walk around all day without me, then you decide to go to the cabaret show alone, but then that doesn’t suit you either so you come back to the hotel and get into bed with me, everything goes according to what you decide and what suits you.”

  I’m stunned, I don’t know what to say to him.

  For a moment he’s quiet and withdrawn, staring at his coffee silently, and then he continues to talk while staring intensely at the coffee cup he’s holding, not looking me in the eyes. “You leave you come back, wha
tever suits you, leave again, come back again, it may suit you, but it doesn’t suit me, you don’t suit me, I don’t want to live like this.”

  “What did you say?” I ask in order to buy some time, digest what he just said, give him time to apologize.

  “It doesn’t suit me, you don’t suit me, I don’t want to live like this,” he repeats himself, making it clear to me that he doesn’t want me.

  I wait for a moment, digesting what was just said. I gently place my coffee cup at the center of the little white saucer, look at him and say, “I’ll see you in three days on the flight back.” I grab my bag which was placed on the chair beside me, rise from my seat and leave the hotel, giving a little smile on the way to the hostess standing at the entrance to the dining room. What’s left at the table is a quiet Tall One, croissant crumbs and half a cup of coffee.

  Hotel, Dining Room, Earlier

  Adam

  This coffee is too bitter for me, maybe I should go and add another spoon of sugar. I’ve been sitting here alone at breakfast for half an hour already, with a painting stuck in front of my face, waiting for her to finish her shower and come down here.

  What exactly did she think was going to happen? That she would go out without me in the evening, come back in the middle of the night, and then we’d have sex in the morning and that’s it? Everything would go back to the way it was before?

  It doesn’t suit her to be with me at the hotel so she ups and leaves? She’s behaving the same way now as she did then. Suddenly she decided that I was cheating on her, excuse me, that she suspected me of cheating on her, so she up and left, just like that, up and left. After a few days she decided it’s alright, so she came back, and now it’s the same thing, what does she think, that I’m some doll she can play with?

  Suddenly she’s into surprises? A surprise romantic vacation, surprisingly ups and leaves, surprise sex. She wants to surprise me? Maybe she should ask me if I even want to be surprised, she definitely surprised me with that outfit earlier. Majorly surprised.

  She only thinks about herself, she doesn’t really care about my feelings and my needs, or about whether I was hurt and maybe in need of some time to come back to her. She came back, so everything’s OK. What does she think, that I’m some toy that she can emotionally manipulate? Turn on and off on a whim because now it suits her? “OK, I apologized, that’s it, case closed.” It’s not closed for me, totally not closed, and I’m going to tell her that, if she’ll be so kind as to finally come down for breakfast. Her games don’t suit me at all. I won’t have it like this anymore.

  I wonder if Kate’s planning on coming down here at all or if she’ll continue showering till the evening and finish the entire supply of hot water at the hotel just like she does at home, I’ve had enough of waiting for her.

  The Right Bank, Le Marais, Café

  Kate

  “Are you waiting for someone?”

  “No, I’m on my own,” I’m finding it hard to say those words.

  I’m at a small café that I happened across, a single table to myself, two chairs, facing each other.

  Other tables spread around, large open windows revealing the busy street.

  I hang my bag on the armrest, place the smartphone on the table so that it faces me, I sit down and look at it.

  I look up, I don’t feel like I belong here. I look down at the floor, black-and-white checkered tiles all the way to the outside noise of the street, a few youngsters sitting at the tables outside the café talking with loud voices which penetrate indoors but I don’t understand what they’re talking about, a young couple next to me, busy with each other.

  I look at my blood-red nails, imbed them hard into my palm until it too turns red, I push them in harder, feeling the pain, I look at my hand getting more and more red and I don’t let go.

  “What would the lady like to order?”

  “Coffee, espresso please.”

  The smartphone is so black and quiet, I lift it up, play with it, turn it and place it back on the table, lift it up again and place it down again.

  I feel a tear rolling from my eye followed by another one and another one, rolling down my cheek, to my neck. I’m thinking that they’re probably messing up the makeup I put on this morning in front of the bathroom mirror, before I went downstairs to the dining room. Want to stop them but can’t.

  “There you go,” the waiter carefully places the coffee down.

  “Thank you.” I look at the waiter for a moment and then return to look at the table, he has a look of embarrassment, he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself and he stays standing there for a few seconds, as if deliberating whether to say something to cheer me up, or to go on with his work as if nothing happened, or to maybe go call someone for help.

  “Miss?”

  I look up at him, seeing him hazily through the tears. I wipe my eyes with my hand and try to smile at him, he smiles at me embarrassedly and runs off back to his work.

  “What could he do with a crying woman?” I pity myself.

  I get my little black mirror and a tissue out of my bag, wipe my face and look at my swollen teary eyes, the makeup is runny and ruined. I wipe my face hard, get a light colored lipstick out and apply it on my lips through the little mirror, but the tears keep rolling and interrupt my sight.

  A waitress or a supervisor walks up to me, places a little plate with two smiley-faced cookies in front of me on the table, one cookie is dark and the other is cream colored. Then she places a caressing hand on the back of my neck, leans over to me and whispers words of comfort in a language that I don’t understand but with softness and warmth which I do understand.

  The smartphone remains black and quiet in front of me, no apologetic message from him, cutting my heart like a knife.

  I pay and go out to the street.

  Street, Pharmacy

  Kate

  I’ve been walking the streets for hours, I think I may have lost track of time and may have lost my sanity too, crossing street after street at a fast pace. I think that soon I may reach the edge of this city and I might just keep walking, maybe I should start walking back, check where I am. “It was very impressive, the way you got up and left him at the hotel this morning.” I praise myself for having kept cool, but that was hours ago and right now I’m mainly focusing on trying to stop the tears from occasionally bursting out.

  “It was wrong of me to surprise him?” That’s all he had to say? That it was wrong? That it was wrong of me to surprise him with a romantic vacation? That it was wrong of me to surprise him with a sexy outfit? I think it was wrong of me to marry him altogether, why did I marry him? “The defendant is found guilty of stupidity.” Stupidity and naivety at the hope that he could ever change anything about himself, and trying too hard, the defendant is also guilty of trying too hard. I always try to fix and to improve, I’m guilty of that too, oh, and also guilty of wearing a whore’s outfit, because obviously I’m a whore who wants to seduce other people, like my husband for example, I’m going to turn here and look for something to eat.

  I really am guilty of trying to seduce my husband. That woman from his office who sent him an affectionate selfie with a cleavage down to her knees, thanking him profusely for the book he got her and telling him how excited she was when she discovered what he had left for her inside it, she’s not a whore, she’s OK, there was a false accusation there. But you, the one who accidently discovered the message, you’re the whore, because you wore a fishnet outfit with holes, you’re the seductive over-trying idiot whore. The one who always tries to make sure everything’s OK and make everything pleasant for him and where is there something to eat around here?

  For all I care he can call that whore from his work, or message her saying, “My wife is acting up, come and comfort me, oh and I have loads of books to give you,” and then she can get what she wants, she can have him. She can even c
ome over and wear that fishnet outfit for him, the whore. He can take it out of the trash can and present it wrapped in cellophane to her when she rings his hotel room doorbell, that is if the housekeeper hasn’t already taken it. He’s probably been sitting in the room all day feeling sorry for himself, and the housekeeper probably hasn’t even been in. She’ll never get that outfit, the whore, I’ll shred it up into tiny little pieces. How did she allow herself to fall for him and come on to him like that?

  And why didn’t he tell me that she was coming on to him? I would have personally taken care of her. Pull her cleavage up to her forehead. My feet are killing me, these shoes are meant to be comfortable, but I think their time is up. I would have messaged her saying, “Hello whore, this is his wife, please don’t mess with The Tall One’s life, he’s already taken and we’ll work on our issues by ourselves, no need for any assistance from whores.” I need a pharmacy so I can get insoles for my aching feet, it’s all because of last night’s boots, though they really are terrific boots. Where is there a pharmacy around here? We would have tried to work out our issues together. And why is he trying to justify the one with the cleavage? How dare she arrive at work with cleavage like that? Is that her goal in life? To seduce my husband? Well now he’s all hers. He can transfer all of his anger over to her, as well as his righteousness. She’ll get a tall angry man who’s always right and I’ll get my freedom, excellent deal, I win. Where do they keep the Band-Aids around here? They always hide them in far away corners. Will these insoles fit? I’ll take two types, the gel ones and the plain ones, and I’ll take the Band-Aids with the drawings on them.