Sud

Peeling off the kilometers down the Nationale Sept. He is playing Georges Delerue’s themes from the movie Le Mépris on the Renault’s CD player because I asked him to but he is not speaking to me. He is moody. I smoke a Marlboro Lite. The long black liquid reach of the road sizzles in the heat, the plane trees going shush-shush-shush through the open windows, the folded Michelin between us, and the midges pocking the windshield. I look at his eyes.

Fragrance

We are at Caron in the Faubourg St Honore because I want to smell the Tabac Blond. He was indulging me but he laughed at my French as I asked for the scent. In 1919 Ernest Daltroff created a perfume he wanted to resemble the smell of undried blond tobacco. I sniff the sample bottle. He looks at me supercilously as if he is a thoroughbred horse, his head held high. The Tabac Blond is somehow a blend of leather, tobacco leaf and vanilla. I spray the perfume on my bared wrist. He looks away. ‘Just humour me,’ I say in English. I smell myself. It is a dry fragrance. There is a heavy amber undertone. A smoky hint, almost like Lapsang Souchong tea, quickly appears and strengthens. I can sense his impatience. I sniff my wrist again. ‘Je l’achèterai,’ I say abruptly to the salesgirl, nodding my head firmly. He snorts with exasperation.

Strategies

‘I cannot seduce you,’ he said to me in the beginning. He has always been seduced. It is such a part of who he is that to change it would be to lose his essential being.

Brussels in the Rain

The aproned waiter brings us two Hoegaarden Grand Cru and places them on the thick card coasters. Outside on the rain-wet cobbles of the Grand Place the tourists move in bewildered groups. The large fire in the corner makes the room hot. He has taken off his scarf and it hangs over the wooden back of his chair. I have a rain-spotted copy of the Guardian. He has the menu. ‘I suppose you are just going to order frittes,’ he says darkly.

Star Guitar

Between Lille and Paris on the Eurostar, he is talking to Aimee, a seven year old Algerian girl who has been seated next to him. He is laughing. I am listening to Star Guitar by the Chemical Brothers on my Ipod. He is using his hands animatedly as he speaks. He is taller than I. He cannot stretch out comfortably in the seats. As he explains something to her, he jiggles his long thighs. Her mother watches them both with tolerant amusement. Aimee giggles shyly, her hand covering her mouth. I feel at my jacket pocket to check I have both our passports. He turns to me and says something but I have to take the ear-buds out to hear him.

Designer Stubble

He only shaves two or three times a week. ‘It is in my genetics,’ he says. He also claims that the water of Northern France is responsible for the quality of his skin. I like feeling his stubble with my underlip, at the corner of his mouth. When we are kissing I always pause to do this, the prickle of his slight stubble rasping against my lips and some sort of satisfied murmer always caught there in the air.