Safe Word

Excerpt

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Dream Date: memory and desire after a year’s separation

Avignon’s medieval walls still stand today . . . the city itself is heavily touristed, like much of Provence, and a bit pricey. And in the summer, the central Place d’Horloge is packed.

On this particular day in mid-March, however, it was sunny and lively without being oppressively crowded. An American man was sitting at one of the cafes that line the square, drinking coffee and frowning as he tried to read a French architectural journal. Trendy, he thought, trendy and pretentious. Not that he was sure of that assessment. His French wasn’t great, and his concentration, right then, quite minimal. He’d placed himself so that he could see down the rue Jean-Jaures, toward the train station, and he’d been glancing up eagerly whenever a slender young woman, especially one with close-cropped hair, came from that direction.

Lots of attractive people were strolling across the Place that day, lots of women he liked looking at, the Provençal sunlight shining through the plane trees on their little French breasts and big French educations. And since he was extraordinarily good-looking (his gray hair merely signaling an elegant way of approaching forty), none of this was going unnoticed. Once one of the young women he’d been watching turned back to him and smiled.

“Would,” she said, “that I were she.” It took him a moment to negotiate the French grammatical construction in his mind before he returned the smile, shrugging apologetically. He got up and went to a tabac. My first pack in six months, he thought, damn her anyway.

There were ten Gitanes stubbed into the ashtray when, early in the afternoon, a slender young woman, with very short brown hair, walked quickly into the Place. She was pale and pretty, and she wore a leather jacket, big white shirt and little black miniskirt, black stockings and cowboy boots, dark wire-rimmed glasses. She had a backpack made of soft red leather slung over her shoulder, and she carried one of those little notebooks they sell in papéteries, its satiny pages marked by faint purple grids.

Pas mal, thought the woman who’d smiled at him earlier. Not bad. Not so fantastic as he is, but a good body, anyway. And a bit of style — gamine in very expensive leather. The haircut is good — not quite shaved, but close enough. It makes her look poignant, vulnerable. And young — Jean Seberg selling the Herald Tribune on the Champs-Elysées. Oh, but she is that young, I can see that, now that she’s turned her head a little. She’s very young, isn’t she, twenty-three, twenty-four, perhaps? Tiens, Monsieur, not very original of you.

She sniffed disapprovingly, ready to pay her waiter and move on. But there was something about the tableau that held her attention. She watched the man straighten up in his chair, his nervousness rolling off him like beads of water, his face falling into confident, authoritative lines. And — almost in response — the girl slowed her pace as she approached him, still vulnerable, but increasingly knowing and deliberate in her movements. The woman felt her face grow warm, as though she’d been peeking through a keyhole.

Enough, she chided herself — enough of this pair and their slightly indecent game. And as she drifted out of the square, she muttered to herself (in English, for she admired the American cinema), Fasten your seatbelts. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

***

The man smiled appreciatively as the girl in boots slipped into the cane-backed chair next to him.

“Well,” he said.

She giggled a little. “Well.”

It seemed that neither of them had prepared any other opener. He stubbed out his cigarette while she took off her sunglasses — her gray eyes were mutable, surrounded by shadows — and put her notebook into her pack. They exchanged dazed, slightly ironic smiles — how do we get beyond this ridiculous moment? A waiter came by and she turned to him gratefully, ordering a kir in offhand, fluent French. A kir, and — yes, he nodded — another coffee for Monsieur.

“I’d forgotten,” Monsieur dutifully pitched her a second opening line, “how good your French is. You lived here when you were a kid, right?”

“Pretty close,” she nodded, “Montpellier. The year I was twelve. My whole family. I didn’t want to go home at the end of the year. I cried for a week and I moped for like a year afterwards. And I was determined not to forget a word of French. Funny thing is that I didn’t.”

“Well, it’s a very strong kind of energy, adolescence,” he said. “When I was in my teens, Kate’s family went to Venezuela for a year. Talk about energetic — I got straight A’s, was president of my class, captain of the soccer team. My parents were ecstatic. I built seventy-six balsa wood model airplanes. And the day before Kate came back, I burned them all. It was an impressive fire. And two days after that, I — we — well, it was our first time.”

Her eyes clouded over. Storm warnings. He watched her closely. She needs to get used to hearing that sort of thing, he thought, the pleasure of ritual sternness flooding his body like very strong coffee. She recoiled slightly, but surprised him by steadying herself a few ragged beats later, shrugging, and exhaling sharply, a rueful smile playing at the corner of her mouth. She pulled a cigarette from the pack on the table, fumbling with the plastic lighter.

“Here,” he said, doing something mysterious to the side of the lighter, “they’ve got those child-proofing switches on them now.”

“But you don’t smoke,” he added, a bit reproachfully, as she took a timid drag.

She stubbed it out, scattering ashes on the table.

“Sorry,” she managed a wobbly smile through weakly exhaled smoke. “I’m nervous.”

He was patient, affectionate. “We’re both nervous,” he smiled, nodding at the overflowing ashtray, while he scanned her expression carefully. Actually, she’s a lot more self-possessed than I imagined she’d be. Less readable, too. Less of a kid. And she’s taking my measure as carefully as I’ve been taking hers. Slow down, he told himself.

And to her, “Look, I’ve got lunch reservations. A nice place, we can just make it if we hurry.”

He’d chosen a dim, comfortable setting for telling her what he wanted from her — she has to want to do this. To understand. Fully. What she can expect. He’d imagined her, sitting very straight against an upholstered banquette, listening carefully to him as haughty waiters came and went with plates of legendary food. A formal venue for pulling off the big deal, the intricately leveraged buyout, at once hostile takeover and entente cordiale. He liked formality; he’d have hired the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles if it had been available.

But you need a certain timbre of concentration for deal-making, and the truth was, he wasn’t in the mood. He was — it took him a moment to frame it — curious about her. About certain specifics (though he knew he could demand that she answer those questions), but also about, well, he wasn’t sure what. But she had spent a year away, in demanding circumstances, and, at her age, people change . . .

Cool it, he told himself, willing himself to detachment, a flaneur‘s aestheticized attentiveness. He watched the shifting points of leafshadow on her pale cheek, almost the color (but greener than) the dark, delicate, skin below her eyes. He made no move to get up, lazily aware that they probably couldn’t get there on time now, even if they did hurry.

She shrugged again, warier now. “I’m not very hungry.”

“A walk, then,” he said. “Okay? And then maybe a picnic in that park up on the hill. Next to the Popes’ Palace. So I can keep looking at you in the sunlight, Carrie.” And scope you out a little.

He’d regained the advantage. Relax, Jonathan, he thought contentedly. There’s plenty of time for everything.

***

CARRIE:

It could be a photo spread. “Win a Dream Date in Provence,” with shots of him smiling as he leads me up the wide stone steps to this park, or frowning comically at the whimsical sculptures set among early roses. The packages — food, baguette, and wine bottle — tucked just so under his arm, for our pique-nique, as he’d confided to the lady back there in the charcuterie. Oh, and be sure to include a shot of her as well, beaming at him as she wipes her hands on her apron, insisting that he taste all the spécialités de la région before he chooses. As though paté were really what she wanted to give him a taste of.

People try to please him, everybody becoming a merchant or purveyor, obsequious, deferential. He hardly notices, smiling absentmindedly, choosing the best, drifting on. And I’ve only got myself to offer — sounding quite ridiculous, too, babbling idiotically about the view of the Rhone, the bridge, the neighboring walled city across the river. The grass always greener in the other medieval walled city.

Petrarch first saw Laura here in Avignon, at mass in the Church of St. Claire. The Sade family claimed that the girl who inspired the poet was Laure de Noves, wife of Hugues de Sade, who bequeathed two thousand gold florins for the bridge’s repair, in 1355.

That’s when the family coat of arms were added to the bridge, seven years after Laure had died of the plague. She’d had eleven children, and belonged to a court of learned ladies who wrote Provençal verse; both of these facts are more interesting to me than whether or not she truly was Petrarch’s blond, bloodless Laura. Of course the Sade family insisted passionately on the connection, but it’s never conclusively been proven.

You can’t see the coat of arms from here, though, and you can’t walk down any closer — there’s a locked gate blocking the path during off season. Pretty name, Laure. I read about her the morning before I first went to Jonathan’s house. Which is probably why I memorized all those dates and details of her life so obsessively — to distract me from what I knew he and I would be talking about that afternoon. The arrangements and negotiations. Ground rules, by-laws, and administrative details, simplified for the novice I was then. Three afternoons a week. Come to the side door, undress, kneel in an assigned spot, tethered and waiting. Ready — that’s the easy part, he’d joked — to do absolutely everything he commanded.

He told me to ask him whatever I thought I needed to know. And (except for the occasional time-out period, when he’d explain how he was making the rules tougher and more challenging, and did I have any questions?) after that I spoke only when spoken to. Yes, Jonathan, mostly. Or, through tears, I’m sorry, Jonathan, promising to do better next time, to respond more quickly, anticipate his desires. Sometimes there would be interrogations — I’d blush, stammer, distort my mouth to voice unspeakable responses to his impossible questions: How does that make you feel? Describe it for me. And later, when he’d taken to sharing me, packing me off to a friend or associate for an afternoon or a weekend, he’d demand that I render full, and entertaining, account of the interludes. Tell me a story, he’d say. Tell me everything.

I wonder if he’ll want to know about this last year away from him — the patient, painful succession of days under the hands, the whip, of a professional trainer. Though perhaps there’s more to show than to tell: I feel myself performing for him already, in little ways, just to give him a glimpse of what I’ve learned on my junior year abroad. Body language. New fluency, inflection, of sinew, bone and muscle. Nuanced — remarkable, given the decidedly non-nuanced manner it was drilled into me — controlled, even contrapuntal. I can hear my treble voice chattering about a learned lady of the fourteenth century, but it’s really the base voice that’s pulling out the stops: melodic line from hip to neck, play of unvoiced signifiers as perfect as my French R, but subtler, more elusive, like the way the tongue hits the teeth, the top of the mouth.

***

JONATHAN:

Oh yes, this is nice. Just watching her, that new quality she’s got — experience, I guess you’d have to say. I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, but it’s growing on me, confusing me a little, maybe, but hey. We should open the bottle of wine, I suppose, get a little more confused. Soon, soon.

It’s corny, coming up to this park, but it’s what I imagined when I wrote the note, remembering the night we met. We’d talked about the south of France — she was studying the poetry; I told her a little about the buildings and bridges.

It hadn’t been easy putting her at ease. Or listening to everything she had to say once I did. I suppose it’s how smart college students talk nowadays — a few solid insights floating in a sea of deconstructionist jargon. Except that she had lots of those insights — fleets, flotillas of them, whole armadas of ideas steaming into port. Oh well, I thought, I can always gag her. Or — even better — forbid her to speak. Because of course I’d have better uses for that mouth.

I liked watching her, though — all the neurons firing, a jittery lightshow pinball machine behind her big, scared eyes. It would be fun to have all that intensity beamed onto me. Talk? Only when I permit you to. Think? Try thinking about how to please me. To entertain me, anticipate what I’ll want next. What I’ll want you to be.

It had been a boring party, before I noticed her. Great ass, I’d thought absentmindedly. Pretty girl, I supposed, too, but not as interesting from the front. Still, I found myself keeping tabs on her, following her around from a distance. I’d chat with friends, while some third eye kept track of her whereabouts. She didn’t know anybody except a friend who didn’t want to be bothered with her. She was doing shy, bored things, fiddling with her beer, trying to keep out of her friend’s way. She was sweet and shaggy-looking, graceful and a little lost and dreamy, I think I remember thinking — to the extent I was thinking of anything at all, besides keeping her little black jeans within my line of sight.

I followed them into the library, where people were watching videos. Fuck — she sat down on the floor, hugging her knees. So much for that, I thought, this is stupid anyway, I’d be better off home with a book. But the room had crowded up, and I would have had to trip over people to get out. And then they started the bondage video. It was messy and amateurish, and people hooted, which bothered me a little. Because there was also passion on the screen — clumsy and graceless to be sure, but authentic and obsessive too. Which was probably why everybody in the room was so noisy and giddy, to avoid facing up to that. I cast my eyes idly over the laughing crowd, trying to imagine what they were thinking.

Well, I’ll be damned. The girl with the ass was gazing up at the screen as though it were telling her the meaning of life. Flushed face, parted mouth — quivering, guilty, enthralled, spectacular. Her face was the real porn show, and I could gladly have watched it all evening. I’d hear sounds from the TV speakers, a whip’s crack, a groan of pain, and I’d watch the show she was putting on, her troubled, clouded, smudgy eyes reflecting the flickering light of the screen. It was a voyeur’s dream. In the midst of a noisy, unconscious crowd, too — she was the only one in the room really seeing the movie and I was the only one really seeing her. She’ll look like that for me, I thought. She’ll do anything and everything I want.

She did, too. For a year and a half. She took everything I dished out, meekly and silently challenging me to raise the ante. And never letting me forget the critical consciousness beneath her compliance. I wondered about that consciousness. I found myself thinking about her, times when I would rather not have.

I needed a break.

Embarrassing to think about. Well, don’t think, then. Look at her instead, her neck in golden afternoon light — the year’s discipline outlining her gestures, like a narrow stroke of cobalt pigment. The skin over her spine’s top bump is paler than her cheek. She must have worn a collar all year, her neck looks startled by its freedom.

***

They’d drifted into silence, leaning against a stone railing overlooking the bridge. He opened his mouth to speak, at the same time as she began to say something. They both laughed nervously.

“You go ahead,” he said.

“You know,” she began, “when I got here this morning, I really had no idea what to expect from you. Well, I mean there was that letter you wrote, in “Passionate Shepherd” mode . . .”

He raised his eyebrows, searching for the reference. Passionate who? Oh right, as in “Come live with me and be my . . .” Terrific road map, poetry, for steering around the unsayable patches in a conversation.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “But, of course I could see right off that that wasn’t really what you wanted, so then I thought you’d go straight for the hard core. Read me my rights, you know. Oh, that was sort of a joke they had . . . you know, if you think you have any rights, you’re in the wrong place. . .”

She turned away from him. Valiant, he thought, the poetry, the sort of joke.

And yes, he had been planning to read her her rights, in that highly esteemed restaurant. It would have been just about now, too. A done deal, instead of . . . whatever freeform nonsense they’d gotten themselves into.

“Which scenario,” he asked carefully, “would you have preferred?”

“Well,” she lifted her eyes to him, “either one would have given us a clear script to follow.”

Fair enough, Jonathan thought. Neither of us ready to fold yet.

“You don’t like just hanging out with me?”

They both smiled at the hurt tone of his voice.

“It’s difficult,” she answered, “with all the open questions sort of hanging in the air between us. I mean, I get the sense that you still want me, but I don’t get at all what you’ve got in mind.”

“I want you profoundly,” he said quickly. “Complexly,” he added. “And quite against my better judgment.” He grinned. Elision through allusion. The movies as good as the Norton Anthology for a game of hide and seek.

But we could play this way forever.

He made a decision.

“And I do have something pretty, uh, structured in mind. But it’ll take some explaining, and arranging. If you agree to it, of course.”

She nodded. Almost submissively.

“But,” (oh don’t go away yet!), “I’ve been thinking that we need this unscripted time together, before all that comes down. Kind of a vacation. Time out, you know? I think we need to talk. Catch up.”

“Vacation . . . ” she repeated. “You mean, seriously with no rules, no punishments, no, uh, hardware for a while . . .”

“If you think you can handle it a little longer.”

He smiled at the look she threw him.

“Yeah,” she said, “I can handle it.”

end of excerpt