Perfect Strangers

Estelle’s apartment is the love child of Buckingham Palace and a nineteenth-century Moroccan bordello.

A neoclassical breakfront displays commemorative bone china plates from the 80’s royal wedding of Charles and Diana. Tufted red velvet sofas are strewn with purple silk pillows. Gold tassels draw back burgundy brocade drapes from soaring windows, the master bathroom is a riot of inlaid indigo-and-green mosaics, and imposing gilt-framed oils of grim ancestors and hunting parties on horseback garnish the living room walls. The ceilings bristle with a hodgepodge of lighting fixtures varying from ornate crystal chandeliers to carved bronze lanterns inset with colored glass.

The decorator was clearly schizophrenic, but by some miracle all the clashing elements come together to make the place feel homey.

I’m not surprised that I like its eccentricity. The older I get, the more rational weirdness seems.

I’m yawning and stretching my legs under the Egyptian cotton sheets of Estelle’s massive four-poster bed when I hear the moan. It drifts in through the window, which is cracked open to the courtyard outside.

I freeze, listening.

The moan comes again, louder this time. I flip the sheets over my face and sigh deeply as the moans continue to increase in volume and length. A quick check of my watch confirms it’s not yet six a.m.

I can’t be human at this hour without half a pot of coffee and something to eat with enough sugar that could induce a diabetic coma, and those two across the way are going at it like rabbits. Who has that kind of energy?

“Gotta be drugs,” I say to the empty room as the blonde nears orgasm. Hopefully the leaded glass windows will survive her ear-piercing screams.

Abruptly, I’m angry. Who the hell do these people think they are, disturbing my first night’s sleep in what Estelle promised would be a “soothing” and “healing” space? That racket is definitely not soothing or healing, I’ll tell you what!

For me, anyway. By the sound of it, the blonde is being healed from the inside out by some pretty spectacular dick.

Flinging off the sheets, I glare at the ceiling. I’m contemplating whether to throw open the windows and shout obscenities at them or leave a strongly-worded letter taped to their door, when I realize that my brain is the only part of my body annoyed by my neighbor’s frisky antics.

The rest of me is aroused.

Within seconds, I’m engaged in a mental argument with myself and another voice that’s Kelly’s, because she knows all my darkest secrets and is always showing up unannounced in my head.

Go ahead, girl. Rub one out. You deserve it.

Please. I’m not going to masturbate to the sound of my neighbors getting it on.

Why the hell not? They’re sexy as all get-out!

Because it’s pervy, that’s why not. And they’re not sexy, they’re showoffs.

Uh-huh. That’s why your lady garden just burst into flames, because they’re not sexy.

“Lady garden?” What are you, ninety? And I can’t help it if my vagina has a mind of her own! That doesn’t mean I have to listen to her!

Right. You’re not listening. Then I wonder why your hand’s between your legs?

I groan, banishing the conversation from my head as I squeeze my thighs together and try very hard not to enjoy the sensation of my fingers rubbing back and forth over the damp seam of my pajama bottoms.

Try—and fail spectacularly.

Truth be told, I’m shocked to discover I still have any erotic feelings at all. It’s been years since the slightest flicker of heat has touched my loins, even more years before that that I tried to pleasure myself. I had what I consider a solid sex life with my husband, though we weren’t adventurous by any stretch of the imagination. And though in the last dying embers of our marriage the sex disappeared altogether, I never turned to self-pleasure because I never had the urge.

My libido died along with everything else that mattered.

Except for yesterday, when a stranger’s searing blue gaze lit me up like a Christmas tree and sent shockwaves of heat pulsing straight through my core.

“I’m James,” he said, with a tone like he was already thrusting inside me.

A series of masculine grunts from across the courtyard has my fingers slipping inside my cotton pajamas and past my panties. I’m already soaked. I bite my lip and squeeze my eyes shut like a guilty child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

A superheated, long neglected cookie jar, whose cookies are quickly crumbling to bits.

“James,” I whisper, picturing him on top of me.

He was a big man. Much bigger than my husband or the few lovers I had before him. I usually go for men with trim builds who look good in expensive suits. Your typical Wall Street type, a clean cut WASP with manicured nails who’d give himself a hernia if he tried to lift me.

James the rugged blue-eyed stallion could probably hoist me overhead with his pinky.

What would it be like to lie beneath a man that size? To feel all those muscles bunching as he flexed his hips, to feel the slide of his rough hands over my skin, to feel his hot breath in my ear as he grunted in animal pleasure the way the man across the courtyard is grunting?

Probably delicious.

My fingers move faster as my imagination takes the reins. I sketch a scene in shorthand with myself and James in starring roles.

Her thighs clamp around his strong hips. Her hair spreads out in dark waves over the pillow. She writhes beneath him, crying out as he fucks her with short, hard strokes, her breasts bouncing with every thrust. He’s braced above her, his arms corded, his skin slicked with sweat, dominant and focused, fully in control.

Suddenly, he rises to his knees. He flips her over. With one arm around her waist, he hikes her bottom in the air and drives into her from behind.

As pleasure obliterates every thought from her mind, she buries her face into the pillow and screams.

He fists a hand into her hair, slaps her ass, and makes a noise like the growl of a wolf.

I come violently with a sound that’s part gasp of shock and part yelp, my entire body stiffening, my back bowing up from the bed. My eyes fly open as contractions rack me, over and over, jerking my body and the whole bed, too.

Then I collapse against the mattress and dissolve into weak, disbelieving laughter.

I just brought myself to orgasm to the soundtrack of the exhibitionists getting it on.

I’m a pervert.

Kelly would be so proud.

As great as my impromptu little porno was, it did contain one glaring flaw: if a man ever slapped me on the ass, I’d whirl around and punch him in the face.

I mean, I think I would. I’m pretty sure. I’ve never had anyone attempt it, but ass slapping during sex strikes me as borderline abusive. Or just silly, I can’t decide which. In any case, I seriously doubt I’ll ever be forced to choose because my chances of a future sexual encounter with a man who’d be into that sort of thing can be classified as slim to none.

No alpha wolf ass slappers need apply, thank you very much.

Interesting that you’re fantasizing about it, then, notes the Kelly that lives inside my head while calmly filing her nails.

To which I answer, “Shut up,” and rise from bed, avoiding my reflection in the bathroom mirror as I head to the shower.

It’s too early in the morning to see what a voyeur with haunted eyes and conflicted feelings about rough sex looks like.

Later that afternoon, I’m sitting at the huge roll top desk in Estelle’s stuffed-with-first-edition-classics library staring at a lined yellow pad of paper, pen poised in hand, filled to the gills with every bit of the fear, conceit, and existential anguish every writer feels when faced with a blank page, when the doorbell rings.

“Thank God!” I shout, wilting with relief. I throw the pen down and heave a sigh.

It’s moments like these that affirm to me the existence and merciful nature of a supreme being. I’d been sitting in the same spot, staring at the same blank page, for going on an hour.

I was just about to crack open the bourbon again.

Springing from the chair as if launched, I hustle through the apartment to the front door, which I throw open with an overabundance of exuberance. It slams against the wall. To the small elderly man standing there, I boom with a theatrical flourish of my hands, “Hello! How may I help you?”

For a moment, he’s a deer in headlights, his eyes wide and unblinking. The black beret tilted at a rakish angle on his bald head seems to quiver in fear.

Poor man. I really shouldn’t be allowed to interact with the rest of the human race.

But then he recovers, straightening his bowtie and offering me a tentative smile. “Er…bonjour, mademoiselle.”

Mademoiselle, not madame. I am in love with him.

“Bonjour.” So grateful for the interruption and the polite flattery, I beam at him like a maniac. “Joues-tu au tennis?”

He blinks once, slowly. “No, mademoiselle. I do not play tennis.”

“Oh shit. Sorry. I don’t actually speak French. That’s all I remember from the one class I took in high school a hundred years ago. I thought I was saying, ‘Isn’t it a beautiful day?’”

“I give you points for the effort.” He pauses. “What would you have done if I’d answered back in French?”

I casually lift a shoulder. “Probably tried out some Italian on you. But hopefully you don’t speak it because all I know are the curses my grandmother used to shout at my brothers when they came home drunk.”Content rights by NôvelDr//ama.Org.

His smile deepens. “Ah yes. The Italians. Très passionnant. I once had an Italian mistress named Sophia who stabbed me six times in the neck with a fountain pen when she caught me looking at another woman.”

I arch my brows. “Seems like a bit of an overreaction.”

“The other woman was her sister.”

When I don’t say anything, he adds, “With whom I was also having an affair.”

I make a face at him. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way since we only just met, but now I’m thinking you deserved it.”

“Oh, indeed I did,” he says with zero remorse. “I also deserved it when my wife set my car on fire when she found out about Sophia and her sister.” He exhales a wistful sigh. “I really loved that car.”

Men.

Normally, I’d judge his character as sadly flawed based on this anecdote, but he’s just given me a wonderful idea for a plot for a novel, so instead I cut him some slack and smile. “It sounds like you’ve lived an interesting life, monsieur…”

“Edmond Chevalier. The building manager, at your service.” Sweeping off his beret, he bows. When he straightens, he’s smiling. The beret he claps back onto his bald head. “And oui, I have lived a very interesting life. Ah, the stories I could tell you, mademoiselle, they would curl your hair!”

I’m totally getting this talkative old geezer drunk and pilfering every plot idea I can.

Estelle’s been patient, but I’m afraid if I don’t come up with a new story by the end of the summer, she’ll give up on me altogether. Edmond here could be just the inspiration I need.

Trying not to wring my hands and cackle like some crazed comic book villain, I say, “I’d love to hear your stories. Won’t you come in?”

“Thank you for the kind invitation, but I’m on my way to lunch. I only stopped by to introduce myself and invite you to the cocktail party this evening in the grand salon. Estelle was most insistent that I make you feel welcome and introduce you to the other neighbors so you’d feel right at home. And I know they’re all very eager to meet you. A writer in our midst! How exciting!”

As my stomach sinks, he claps, hopping a little in glee.

It would be adorable except I’m too busy planning my imminent bout of infectious colitis to notice.

I don’t do parties. Especially parties where I’m trotted around like the prize hog. People tend to think authors are magical unicorn creatures who lead interesting and glamorous lives, when really we’re a bunch of awkward nail-biting introverts who’d rather have our eyes put out with hot pokers than be forced into conversations with total strangers, which for an introvert is about as fun as bathing a cat.

Then there’s the inevitable, “Have I read anything of yours?” to which I always pray God, let’s hope not.

I live in terror of the person who’s read my work and would like to offer a helpful critique.

“I’m so sorry, Edmond, but I don’t think I’ll be able to—”

“Seven o’clock sharp, my dear!” He waves a hand briskly back and forth, as if erasing my refusal from existence. “Don’t be late. You won’t want to miss the introduction from our artist-in-residence to his new collection, a few pieces of which will be on display. He’s incredibly talented, just incredibly talented. The party is in honor of him, in case I didn’t mention it.”

I can already tell Edmond will be banging on my door at 7:05 if I don’t show up.

I suppose I could hide in a closet and pretend to be out, but I don’t want it getting back to Estelle that I’m being rude and antisocial. Especially since she so generously offered me her apartment for free for months and is sincerely trying to help me get my shit together.

So I resign myself to enduring a hideous evening filled with painful silences as I struggle to make polite conversation with people who don’t have the kind of anxiety that compels them want to take a dive off the nearest tall building at the prospect of socializing.

But if anyone asks me if I’m married or have children, blood will be shed.

With the enthusiasm of a convict facing a firing squad, I say, “All right, Edmond. I’ll be there.”

“Excellent! And I’ll introduce you to James as soon as you arrive. I’m sure the two of you will have much to talk about, being creative types as you are.”

“James?”

“Yes. The artist.” Edmond chuckles. “Handsome devil. Popular with the ladies. He’s the most eligible bachelor in Paris. Reminds me of myself at his age.”

Edmond doffs his beret and bids me adieu, then goes on his way down the corridor, whistling. I stare after him with a strange feeling of foreboding forming in my gut.

It can’t be. It’s a coincidence. There must be a million handsome artists in Paris named James. It’s not the blue-eyed stallion from the café.

But when I walk into the grand salon that evening, I’m reminded again exactly how much fate loves to prove me wrong.