Christian: Can you hear me groaning all the way across the city?
Elise: No, but I suspect I’d like that sound. Where do you live? I want to picture you groaning.
Christian: So you can imagine me in my flat tonight? You dirty woman. I live in the sixth, just off rue de l’Ancienne Comédie.
Elise: That’s a fitting place for you.
Christian: Why?
Elise: That arrondissement is quite fun. And I believe fun was how you introduced yourself to me.
Christian: There’s so much more I want to introduce to you.
Elise: I suppose the same is true for me when it comes to you.
And on that note, I head inside, set down the gardening shears, and curl up on my couch. There’s something I need to see.
No, something I want to see.
I click on the photo album on my phone, searching the archives for a certain series of shots I captured a little more than a year ago. When I snapped the images from the boat, the naked handstander was merely an amusing—no, outrageous—sight on a tourist attraction. Like a photobomber, but for the canal tour. Now, I know a little of the man behind the nude acrobatics.
I like what I know.
Perhaps that’s why a tinge of heat splashes across my cheeks as I click open the first shot. I know who that upside-down flasher is. I know him, and I like him. And I suppose as I hold my phone at an angle, then as I slide my thumbs across the image to widen it, I feel a little like I’m perving on Christian.
Okay, a lot.
But that feeling doesn’t stop me.
No, it drives me on.
I trace my finger along his naked frame, wondering how everything looks when he’s right side up.
When he’s stripping for me.
When he’s stalking over to the bed, aroused and hard, his eyes blazing with desire.
When he’s pinning me, climbing over me, giving me what I imagined I’d have that night in Copenhagen.
And now, I truly am imagining him groaning.
Because I’m doing the same.
11ELISE
Sometimes, I miss New York City. The relentless pace fueled me. I learned how to jostle my way onto a subway, how to position myself on the platform to catch the right car at the right time. I could hail a cab and have it sliding to the curb, door opened for me, in five seconds flat. Hell, I could hail a taxi in the rain and barely get splashed on by the sky.
Sometimes, I miss the forty-yard-dash pace of the city where I was raised. The rat-a-tat-tat, go-go-go rhythm of the fastest place in the world, where we did everything in double time, especially lunch.
In Manhattan, we order, eat, and sign a deal before dessert arrives.
Not so in Paris with Dominic. He orders dessert, and we have yet to touch on the reason for this meeting as we close in on the two-hour mark for a meal.
It’s a typical lunch in the City of Lights, where the world slows to a meandering pace at most eateries, including at this restaurant a block off the famed rue de Rivoli. White linen tablecloths hang crisply from tables, and antique gilded mirrors line the walls. Dominic chose it when I invited him out to lunch to discuss a business proposal. Since I’m in need of his services, I agreed to his haute cuisine. He’s one of the most talented industry analysts I’ve ever worked with, and the highest paid too. I still lament letting him go last year when I had to tighten the belt.
“Would you like dessert?” the waiter asks.
I shake my head. “No, thank you. Just a coffee.”
After the waiter leaves, Dominic leans back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head. “Okay, I am ready to talk shop.”
I smile. “So glad to hear.”
When we arrived, he said, “Let’s eat, let’s catch up, and let’s discuss business only over dessert. I’m dying to know how you are.”
“Tell me all about your proposal.” He runs a hand over his mostly smooth skull. His bald patch has broadened in the last year, and his goatee has grown as well—his hairline is heading in opposite directions.
“I’m quite excited about this one. I think it’ll be a great chance to make deeper inroads into a new sector, and I’m keen on the possibility of working with you again.”
“You’re lucky I wanted to listen. After you let me go unceremoniously,” he says, huffing dramatically, as if it’s a joke, but I wonder if there’s a kernel of truth to it.
I smile softly, placing my hands together as if in prayer. “I know. Have you forgiven me?”
“We shall see.” He winks, and I know he’s hurt, but it seems he’s not going to nurse it forever.
“Look, you know the reason I had to let you go is I lost some accounts to the Thompson Group. I felt terrible about it at the time, but it was the only thing I could do. The good news is I hope to rectify that now with a great new opportunity.”
He stretches an arm across the table and pats my hand. “Yes, I know it was hard for you. I read your blog.”
