Reprise: A Story of Reincarnated Love

*** 10 May 2007 5:10 p.m. Napolean’s Tomb - Les Invalides ***

Upstairs, they lingered, admiring the rotunda and the magnificent dome overhead. Sean felt they might remain past closing, and so determined to move the venue now.

It seemed impossible now that she had agreed to go with him. Buying time to work out her ambivalence, she feigned a fascination with the tomb; though knowing that he owned an art gallery quelled any desire to engage him as to the frescoes and architecture, believing that anything she said would sound uneducated. Which of course, it would be. It was not hard to imagine he and LaRussa bantering back and forth though – and once she had that thought she blinked up at him, wondering that she should presume to know either man so well. But LaRussa’s almost too bright, friendly manner made it easy for her to imagine him teasing Monsieur LeBeque, who would return with laughter or a scowl and the insults that the French spar with as if it were a game

Dominique had never gotten good at that, and her attempts always came off with too much defensiveness and not enough disdain.

“So, Mlle. Vasser,” he said, “I know the perfect café but minutes from here. It is close on to 5:00, and we can find you a nice decent wine and a pâté or salade or sandwich. Shall we?”

She turned to him at the word ‘so’, mouth opening as if to tell him that she really should be going, but then went blank when she met his gaze. His irises were an icy blue but thickly rimmed in midnight, the darker color streaking into the almost silvery core. They would have made good wolf’s eyes, she thought; and yet he was looking down at her with such intense gentleness that for half a second she imagined walking into his arms, could even almost feel his fingers moving up her back and into her hair.

Later she would not know if she replied, just nodded, or merely turned to lead the way out into the sun drenched courtyard. A part of her desperately wished he would touch her back – or even hold her hand. Fortunately the shrinking rational part of her folded her arms beneath her breasts as if to make sure that that faithless little hand did not dart out to snare his.

They left the cathedral, walking side by side. Sean’s chest fluttered at times with rushing waves of warm prickles, an uncontrollable elation at even this most tentative, guarded contact. It was all he could do to keep from walking backwards in front of her so as to have her gorgeous face as the center of his world. He felt alternately giddy and childish, and then calm and adult. He knew the signs of this infatuation. He had had it before, countless times.

They strolled in the late afternoon’s long light down the broad lawn-lined avenue to his café – the Café de l’Oiseau Jaune – the Yellow Bird Café. It was a charming little spot with indoor and outdoor seating. Sean led the way to a large round table of fine inlaid tile and pulled back a chair for her, seating her as if he were the maitre’d. He sat opposite her, placed his elbows on the table, and cupped his chin with his hands, and looked at her with open anticipation of conversation.

How long had it been since a man had pulled out a chair for her? Domi thought that she had been twelve, though she was not sure that counted since it had been a part of a school play. After a brief awkward pause as if she were unsure how to go about this, she got herself in position and sank slowly into the chair so that as he moved it forward it touched the back of her knees just as her backside reached the seat.

He had clearly done this before.

Sean immediately felt the potential awkwardness of the seating ritual as he felt the seat resist, a hair of a second too early, with the hollow backs of her knees in tandem with the lighting of her derrière. He corrected by holding the chair perfectly still until she was, he hoped, comfortably installed upon it, and then swept to her side on the way to his seat and said, “Isn’t this a charming way station to evening, Mademoiselle?”

He took his seat, his eyes on her, self-conscious lest he appear overtly hungered by her presence, or far too aloof on the other hand, or childish in any event. He had been within sweet, intimate contact with… her chair! He laughed to relieve his tension, a casual, contented laugh that he assumed to her would simply emerge as something to chase his last sentence.

Though she had sat ramrod straight as he came around, some part of her was disappointed when he did not touch her – which was missish, she told herself. If he had touched her she would have flinched away as if she disapproved. And she SHOULD disapprove. He was a stranger, for crying out loud. But merciful heavens, he was beautiful… Disgusted to find herself staring at him again, she dropped her gaze.

Picking up the wine list, she naturally looked for wines she knew – and had almost decided on something she often drank when she chose to indulge. Wine often made her tired, which Labette assured her meant that she simply needed to drink more. But maybe dulling her senses was not a bad idea just now. Maybe then she would not so be so acutely aware of her companion.

‘You are setting yourself up for heartbreak, you know’ that cynical little voice reminded her. ‘Whatever his motivations in asking you to have a drink with him, this most assuredly is not a date. In fact, he is probably just fishing for dirt on his friend LaRussa. That made her frown, for she had not considered his motives, and she really should have. There were certainly prettier women in the world – especially the art-society world. Her gaze had settled on his hand again, unthinkingly admiring the long, darkly tanned fingers with their sparse dark brown hair and perfectly manicured nails. She fell into a daydream in which she was sucking on his middle finger with her eyes half closed, lightly nipping the pad as her thumbs bore into the palm of his hand.

She swallowed hard and looked away as florid color flooded her chest, neck, and cheeks. Was this what Labette’s life was like? Did she just fall into some wild fantasy every time some reasonably attractive male crossed her path? If so, Dominique felt a lot of sympathy for her friend. Slumping slightly, Dominique scoffed at herself. She was not sure she was going to last through coffee before she reached across the table and molested Sean LeBeque’s very sexy hand.

His hand!! Since when had she ever even noticed a man’s hands?!? And just when had she become so damned romantic? Kissing his fingers? Would he even like that? Her analytical nature pushed through once more. Wouldn’t it better to nip and suckle his lips instead?

God help her, but that thought drew her gaze to his mouth. Which was moving. She blinked and sat up straighter, suddenly all too aware that while her body had been dutifully sitting there with him, her mind had quite simply run amok.

“Uh, Mlle. Vasser,” Sean was inquiring gently. “Ah, Mlle Dominique … ah Vasser! Uhm, you ah, are you all right? You were distracted perhaps, I hope not, with a recurrence of that little malaise in the crypt?”

“Pardonez-moi,” she whispered with a start, and then gave a very small, low, self conscious laugh, thinking of how offended he would likely be if he had known her thoughts. Really, she should enjoy his company while she had it, she pragmatically told herself. She could daydream all she wanted later.

“Alors, what do you fancy then? A moderate round white to bid the Sun adieu? Or maybe a dry rose to match the colors kissing the sky?” The artist in him enthused to ‘paint’ for her with words. Absurd! However, he thought, this was not familiar territory. He risked the grand flub here – to come off sounding sophomorically dramatic at best, or literarily snobbish at worst.

“Oooh,” her own blue eyes blinked back down to the wine list, then to her companion before she shot the waiter a very quick glance, clearly unprepared.

“Ah, but, I think I know the perfect wine for the hour! A refined chardonnay – a Pouilly Fuse from the grapes the Loire Valley. I do vouch for it, should you not be familiar… I would be surprised if you found it not charming!” He smiled at her, and his eyes danced with enthusiasm.

With a grateful smile, Dominique nodded. “That would be lovely,” she breathed letting the waiter take the wine list from her. Sean LeBeque did actually look like the sort of man who would know about wines. That idea was intimidating too. It made her realize that she was not used to being around people that she knew were smarter and more sophisticated than herself. Not that she considered herself so high, but rather that the crowd at Gabby’s did not attract much competition. After all, her employer thought that being able to quote entire episodes of “The Black Adder” – and with a credible British accent no less – made him a candidate for dual citizenship.

“This is a wonderful vantage for the setting Sun, don’t you think?” he asked. “So gay and alive in contrast to the dark and chill of the tomb. Do you come here frequently? Do you know this café?”

“Veuillez me pardoner,” she offered with a smile, unconsciously imitating his posture. It put him dangerously in reach across the table. Realizing this, she brought her arms down and folded them across her lap, but remained leaning forward so that the bottom of her breasts just barely brushed the table. “I am afraid I am not privileged to come to this part of Paris often. Sometimes I think I forget it exists.” It was more than she had intended to tell him, and rather than give him a natural opening to ask where she lived, she quickly added, “It often seems as if the campus is the entire world.” That was a lie, but a white one, she hoped. Should she confess that she had been offered the bank internship? No… she needed to use this opportunity to learn about him. So she followed up with, “How did you discover this little place?”

“Ah,” he replied, distracted for an instant as her pert round bosom invited the table edge to nestle, “ah, uhm, a long story of a case of a short amour trouvee – lost love. Haaa! A theme oft played in me….” he hesitated. What was he saying? Any temporal amour trouvee in his life to date was nothing. Trifling liaisons, and fewer truly than would fill a hand. The l’amour trouvee of his existence – existences, sat opposite him as he spoke! Oooh! He must not give an impression of the libertine! He must not reveal too much...

“But, then, you see, Angelo and I seek those spots of special beauty or charm in this vast metropolitan city to commune – he with his artist’s muse, and I with myself away from my crowded business life! I, we, have adopted this as one of those places, and it seemed most fit to share it with you, seeing as we all three are somehow, uhm, connected you might say!”

Sean felt compelled to talk on out of necessity to engage her ear, lest her inner eye detect his longing. “My life, Mlle., really permits of no l’amours trouvees for some time! Haa!. Mind you, I love my work, with great passion! My time is filled with frequent travels throughout the Continent, sometimes to Asia; there are the openings and the showings; there are auctions and barter fairs; there are the charity events and patrons’ organizations…”

Dominique’s expression had become one of amused wonder, much like a child watching something exquisite. His mannerisms, his inflections, and the sparkle of his personality all seemed to converge to make him seem both larger than life and not at frightening.

However the content of his words… traveling to Asia for his work - and the work itself! - made him so inaccessible. She imagined that there were many beautiful women who sought his attention - not to mention artists of both sexes who sought his patronage at any price. Her gaze dropped to his hands as she realized that he would be a very experienced and passionate lover. Then she frowned at herself - for how could she possibly consider herself a judge of that?

Sean stopped talking as the waiter arrived with the Pouilly Fuse in a clear full wine bottle, uncorking it wedged against his hip with his elbow while deftly easing the long double bladed opener down along the sides of the already-exposed cork, drawing it out quickly with a dull popping sound. The waiter wrapped a stiff white linen around the bottle and, standing just to Sean’s right side, delicately decanted a scant couple of ounces of the pale green-gold Pouilly Fuse into Sean’s gleaming clean glass, rolling the bottle as the last drops fell.

Sean nodded to the waiter appreciatively, passing two fingers above the glass. “It will be exquisite, I know, Maurice,” he told the waiter who had served him often. To forego the stiff tasting-and-approval ritual seemed more than appropriate to the occasion.

Maurice filled both their glasses and withdrew. Sean lifted his glass and pushed it toward Dominique, calling silently for the ubiquitous clicking toast. Waiting for her to raise her glass, he said, “But, forget me! Let us speak of you, and your studies and plans!”

Watching the spectacle with a bit of wonder (she could just imagine if she served Gabby’s stock with such polish - though she had to wonder what a wine steward made at a café like this…) Dominique picked up her wine glass and said a silent toast to the last six years she had spent in school - two until she could pass the baccalauréat technologique and so could enter university; two more at L’Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, working until she thought her brain would explode from exhaustion to try and get into l'École Polytechnique.

Since she had heard about EP’s economics program that had been all she had wanted to do. Getting in had been hard. Her conversational French was almost so fluent that very few people ever guessed that she was not a native Parisian. But her studies had so many concepts and terms and a system of thought all their own, that so much of those first few months had been a race for her. She had practically lived with her nose in a book or three (as each new term seemed to open up a new line of necessary research). It had been hell, and she had been certain that she would fail - right up until this morning, in fact, she had been living with the constant sense of impending disaster.

However, in the end she had been saved by the fact that economics was at its core, a math. And numbers were the same in both languages. She was also very good at research and seemed to have a gift for the subtle play of value, growth, public opinion, and momentum that made economics as much an art as anything in M. LeBeque’s gallery.

She had been holding her glass aloft, though only halfway to his, for a few seconds before she offered somewhat cryptically, “To the fulfillment of one goal, and the beginning of the next,” before gently touching her glass to his, her eyes on his fingers as he cradled the delicate stemware. The wine was surprisingly dry - though she did not know why she was expecting it to be fruitier. Already she could feel the alcohol’s warmth spread from her belly up her spin where it seemed to make the top of her head warm and her neck muscles limp. If she drank the entire glass on an empty stomach, she’d have a hard time staying awake, and that would never do.

Her words danced into his head like a two-step – ‘two step’ hung on the edge of the now, and the yesterday, in his suddenly very crowded head. Her toast was an unintentional double entendre.

On the one hand, she must have been toasting the end of her classes, and her own bright future. On the other, she was, without the scarcest realization of it, toasting the fulfillment of his agonized travails in finding her, and the glorious new beginnings that now unfolded as a result of his success.

Sean looked through his glass at her. It still rang gently from the clicking of their toast. Her liquid eyes were as oceans rising to drown him in ecstasy. All the love locked in his heart for Felicia for more than a century, during an old life finished, and a new one less than half finished, welled up inside him. ‘Control’ a small voice told him. ‘Do not lose it now. Savor it. But temper it. She is no where near ready.’

The moment passed, but left him breathless, and he lowered his glass to conceal the tremors in his hand.

Since talking about herself was really out of the question, she answered him with a small, hazy smile. “I probably should make some plans, shouldn’t I? I fretted over making it this far and graduate school seems so very burdensome. Necessary, but I am so very glad to have this much done. Perhaps we can celebrate that without worrying about the future?”

Regaining his composure, Sean launched into the discussion. With a sweeping gesture of his broad hand in the air, he asked, “Oh, why, are you saying you now embark on graduate studies? Have you perhaps just now completed undergraduate work? Is that what you are about celebrating this evening? Please do tell! Of course, we can celebrate your accomplishments without dwelling on what comes next.” He dropped both of his hands between the two of them.

His hands were large, strong-looking, but not loutish. The backs were delicately honeycombed with smooth, outdoor-bronzed skin that described a near perfect geometry. The criss-crossing veins stood staunch and masculine without looking gnarled or grotesque. Very light, short blades of dark hair peppered his hands and digits, giving promise of perhaps a lightly haired torso and groin – not too much, not too little.

His fingers spread uniformly upon the table, comfortably issuing from the body of his hands. They were broad, but not fatty, and also conveyed a masculine strength and feel of purpose and drive. The joints were prominent without coarse wrinkling covering them. They were long, and flowed to the slightly tapered tips with a fluidity that suggested a wide and dexterous range – fingers capable of twisting off the most stubborn bottle cap with a single turn, but also sensitively attuned to accomplish the most delicate of tasks – whether to manipulate the fine movement of a broken watch, or to caress and arouse a woman’s most secret places. His fingernails were clear, with the faintest pearly pink peeking through from beneath, the cuticles a clean margin between nails and fingers, and the tips trimmed to smooth, perfect arcs.

Dominique nodded, “Just so. I am almost an officially licensed economist!” There was just a hint of self-scorn, after all, a license would not get her very far in the field and to this man it had to seem a very pitiful accomplishment.

“Ah, splendid! Then, this is a most special occasion, and I am honored to help you celebrate it, Feli…..uh, Mlle ….uh … Dominique,” he said her name slowly, softly but with a degree of impassioned ardor, “… may I call you … Dominique, Mademoiselle?”

Something in his tone made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, even as she frowned at him for nearly getting her name wrong. Lowering her gaze, she nodded in reply. Her name sounded like a prayer on his lips, and yet his mistake made her realize that any woman’s would. Did he bring women here often? Perhaps he simply had a thing for college students, and LaRussa was in on it?

She had taken another liberal sip of the wine and then set it on the table as her good posture melted away along with the urge to impress him. But since he was toying with her, perhaps she would toy back. She could enjoy his wine and perhaps even a late lunch at his expense, but give him nothing in return. With her shoulder blades and head against the ornate wrought iron chair, she let her wrists dangle from the ends of looped arms and just watched him with languid interest. “You have a very beautiful voice, monsieur,” she smiled in embarrassment as she realized she had said that aloud. “And you have been very kind to me. Could I ask a further favor of you?” It occurred to her that it would be very awkward if he said no.

“Why, of course you may! But, first – we must have something to wash down with this fine wine! It is too late for tea sweets, which would not favor the wine in any event, and too early for supper. I believe the time of day calls for la fruit, le frommage, et le pain – fruit, cheese, and bread. Maurice! he summoned the waiter over.

Maurice arrived, and Sean ordered. “Please, can you bring us some assorted fruit – strawberries and cherries for certain – your creamiest brie, sliced Havarti with dill, and assorted flat breads?” Maurice hurried off.

“Now, please, what is your request?”

Out of nerves - she really was not used to this game! - she reached for her wine glass and held it between the fingers of both hands. “Talk to me…” that whispered demand seemed so inappropriate; despite the fact that she had the feeling he longed to talk to her, so she amended, “It does not matter about what. Tell me of your brokerage, or of M. LaRussa and how you met, or of where you went to school, or tell me whatever you wish, whatever pleases you to say.” She just wanted to hear him talk; she wanted to watch his hands and lips while he talked.

“Why, that is an easy request to fill!” Silently, he pondered her appeal. She was reluctant to speak of herself, but anxious to hear about him. Or, was it a desire to simply … experience him? Perhaps more the latter. Both, however, were quite positive. Something in her must be tapped by this re-union. He would be an errant fool to deny her this request, or to seek to modify it. He would comply.

Maurice returned with a large tray heaped with breads, the cheeses, fruit, and two bone white café plates. Maurice began to dispense the plates, but Sean stopped him. “Non non, mon ami, I should enjoy serving us. Merci. Merci, Maurice.”

Maurice withdrew. Sean picked up a plate with his strong fingers and passed it over to Dominique’s empty table area. He lowered it before her with his palm turned upward, thumb secured to the plate edge, his wrist bending downward smoothly as he planted it on the tiled surface. He worked now like an artist, placing the breadbasket between them, arranging the cheeses and fruits around the basket, both his hands sailing across the table slowly, carefully, and expressively. He was caressing his Felicia’s eyes with the quiet symphony of his hands in service to her.

“Please, try the brie,” he suggested, leaning forward with this hands enfolded together under his chin. His biceps contracted under the tight-banded shirtsleeve. Looking at Dominique with grace on his lips and enthusiasm in his eyes, he asked, “Now, where would you like me to begin?”

The arrival of the food forced her to sit upright in her chair both out of politeness and interest. Now that she had decided he was a player looking for easy prey, she found that she could ignore his handsome hands and smooth, deep voice. Rather like fine cognac, that voice - deceptively smooth for something so potent. She would bet he had had dozens of lovers this year alone!

Well, he was sadly mistaken if he thought she could be bought with a bottle of wine and a few morsels of food. Even that first year in Paris, when she had been so desperately alone and poor, she had not sold her body. Later, being Labette’s roommate had given her plenty of opportunities as well - they had even had several offers of men who were willing to pay to watch the two women together. She and Labette had fought over that - Labette feeling judged because Dominique wanted nothing to do with having sex for money - until they had by mutual agreement decided not to discuss it ever again. Labette had then started telling those men that asked horrible stories about how Dominique had been badly abused as a girl, even telling one that she had been mutilated so that she could not enjoy sex at all. Of course he had told his friends, and now half of the regulars at Gabby’s thought she was complete closed, like the African women in Life Magazine.

Dominique had scoffed at this but did nothing to turn the tide of pity and avoidance that was heaped on her. Better that most of them think she was not quite female than have them sniffing after her skirts. That it seemed to make some of them fearful of her – as if she hated men so much she might take it out on them – only made her safer.

With her napkin draped across her lap, Dominique sought M. LeBeque’s eyes a second and shrugged, “Whatever pleases you to tell a stranger; though I am curious of M. LaRussa. Is he a friend of your family?” There, she had opened both topics for him to run with in any way he wished.

“Ah haa haa! Yes, Angelo is a fount of things to talk about!” Sean exclaimed. “But, now, Dominique,” he continued, lowering his voice, leaning forward conspiratorially, and locking his eyes on hers, “there is one condition, if I may. This is a very special day for you, you have honored me by accepting to join me here, and I will speak as you wish because of that!” His voice was smooth and commanding. “But, price always follows pleasure. So, you will have to ANOTHER TIME reciprocate, and grace my ears with tales about yourself …?” He inflected an interrogatory lift at the end, but his tone suggested more than a request – rather an expectation. He felt pleased at having sown the seeds for “another time” between them in her head. There was no way this was to be a one-shot encounter.

Her crystal blue eyes turned down on a moue that bunched her lips together and made her shoulders fall slightly, though after a moment’s consideration she realized she could cobble together enough stories that would be safe enough. Everything was presentation, after all. So, after a second she looked at him from beneath her lashes, nodded on a little sigh, and took another drink of the heady white wine simply so that he would go on. When he did not, she added, “Fair enough.”

Sean was transfixed momentarily by the sight of her full, beautiful, wine-moistened lips, slightly pursed after she finished speaking. They were the lips he had known, Felicia’s tender lips, and those of the many others who had preceded her. Aghhhhhhhhhh!!! His passions boiled over just long enough to cause the feel of flush in his cheeks, cheeks too tanned to belie his thoughts to her. He stared at that slightly bulged central ridge of her upper lip – the so-called “philtrum” in art anatomy studies. The ancient Greeks declared it the most erogenous spot on the human body, where two major cranial nerves course close to the surface.

Sean could attest to the veracity of the Greeks in this. He felt that if he leaned across the table and rubbed that spot of hers tenderly with his wine-soaked lips, and then enfolded it between his and lipped and licked at it, as he and Felicia had done with each other so often, she would not ask to hear him speak. She would be his. Would she remember the past if he did that?

He broke his gaze and nodded his head to end the spell.

“No, Angelo does not know my family, Dominique,” he began. “Although I have known him since my 20s. We met at the Acadame des Artes Francaise where I had decided to study some performing art after completing a couple of art history and arts assessment degrees at the Sorbonne. Haaa! Le Professeur LaRussa! He was a figure and anatomical arts professeur at the Acadame, and I studied under him three courses. We quite simply became close companions, despite the nearly quarter century difference in our ages.
“He finally quit academe, fed up with faculty politics and, as he put it, his “loss of liberte – freedom – as an employee.” We simply began having dinners and late nights together, talking, listening to music, sketching side by side.

“Part of it is quite strange, Dominique. Sometimes, it feels like I am compelled to be his friend… by some past that I cannot remember. It is like the déjà vu earlier today. Do you ever feel that … about anyone?”

Brows knit slightly together; she slowly nodded and then gave an artless little shrug. She understood the feeling of being connected to people or a place more than others. It was what brought her to Paris – some sort of lifelong idea that she could be safe and happy here. But she could not easily credit his idea of joint pasts. It simply was not scientific.

“Anyhow, my business was thriving when he finally decided to break free. I helped him locate and secure a lease on a small gallery-studio just across the Pont Neuf, walking distance from my gallery. He works there when not out on the street sketching. He also does framing there. He is extremely skilled as a framer and earns sufficiently at it to be without want of any kind.

“He knew Picasso before his death, you know! Angelo is an abstractionist, and borrows heavily from the cubists and Picasso in his nudes and portraits. Haaa! He and Picasso womanized together! Mon Dieu! I believe he has finally slowed down, but the man was such a womanizer in his time!

“I could never fathom being as he was! I have, for reasons I cannot explain, sheltered myself my whole life from intimacy. I have always felt … somehow incomplete, and thus unable to embrace others with any permanence, or even brevity --- except Angelo. Why, Dominique, my ONE HAND ” …. he held a hand up, fingers spread wide, mounded, lined palm facing her …. “more than counts the number of intimacies I have had with women my entire life….”

Angelo LaRussa was a womanizer? Surprise melted like ice beneath a blowtorch and she suddenly knew it to be true. He had seemed rather paternal to her, but then perhaps that was just an age thing. That he was an abstractionist actually seemed the bigger surprise, and she was suddenly very glad she had not agreed to model for him. Who wanted a picture of themselves with exaggerated features all jumbled up?

He stopped suddenly, choking back a surprised cry! “Oh, oh chere Dominique, pardones-moi!” Even as he said this, addressing her as “dear – chere,” and using the familiar second person verb form of “pardonez – to pardon,” he realized that he had crossed a threshold to familiarity that he hoped she would overlook. And, he had revealed, inappropriately, facts about his sex life, no matter how scant.

“Please forgive me,” he said. “I fear that was more information than appropriate or necessary for you to hear! I am embarrassed to have mentioned such a personal thing to you. Will you forgive, please?”

Having given him leave to call her by her Christian name, Dominique had not given the matter any thought at all. But then her world was much less formal than she imagined his to be. Who worried about politeness with a barmaid? And many of her fellow students could not even be bothered to pronounce her entire name. So his apology struck her as charming, though later she would wonder if it had been calculated to draw her in. Either way, the man was good…

Or very bad: she thought of the five lovers. A part of her was jealous of this handful of faceless women, the rest of her peeved at herself for caring. Of course, he had said intimacies with women - that did not mean that he did not have a passel of male lovers as well. He really was too chillingly beautiful to be straight and unmarried.

“It is no consequence,” she told them both with a little flip of her hand as if brushing away his imagined lovers and his fear of being overly familiar with a woman he had just met. It was only in hearing the old accent creeping back into her tone that she realized that half the glass of wine was gone and her bread and cheese barely touched. She had been picking at the fat seedless grapes instead, relishing in the way the juices exploded between the crush of her molars.

Sean’s eye’s beamed with the sparkle reminiscent of a naughty school child forgiven and spared the sting of the ruler wrapping the knuckles. He smiled broadly, and reached to her, just brushing the back of her hand for an instant. “Your generosity, Mademoiselle, is perhaps surpassed only by my willingness to accept it.”

“Well, uh, so, anyway, Angelo and I are somehow spiritually connected at the hip.

“About me. Alors. it is so self-centered to speak of oneself. Well, my family. My parents are in their late 60s and now live in Castile, in Spain. They have a grand villa there. Father decided to repair to Spain after becoming disillusioned with the dilution of his influence in government matters back in the early 1990s. Old school influence peddling and power plays are simply passé in much of politics, everywhere, these days. He, and Mother, had become anachronisms in their own homeland, and have taken self-imposed exile to the less genteel Spanish state. Their estates and properties here are still theirs. They have a gaggle of agents and handlers who manage things for them. But---I get ahead of myself. Let us back up!

“The DeBeques date back to the various King Louis I am told, many generations of them. One of our ancestors was a chamberlain to some King Louis whatever number. Needless to say, Dominique, I am a ‘silver spoon’ child by birth, but not by spirit. Oh, yes, I had all the finest of everything as a child, and growing up. But, I felt so alienated from the world, people. It is a wonder I climbed up out of it.

“But, one day, my eye fell on a painting in our big opulent house. It was a Bruegel, original, very busy and lively. I could not have been older than four. But, from that time, art became my core.

Domi blinked at that, her head turning ever so slightly at the charming image of a pretty little boy falling in love with a painting. She wondered if he had had soft curls then. Probably – and his lips looked so soft now surrounded by that bur of facial hair and tanned skin – or perhaps he was naturally olive-toned. How adorable he must have been as a child of four: soft skinned, large blue topaz eyes framed by long lashes, pink lips and cheeks, and all this passion! He would have looked like an angel.

Really, he still did. Though when she mentally pinned the angel wings on his back she also put a fiery sword in his right hand, instinctively thinking that he would make a fierce opponent once riled to battle. It made her bare shoulders quiver slightly as if she had taken a chill.

“If there is old money, we were ancient money! Pre-historic! And I hated it. Well, I am not overly proud of it, but I advantaged myself on this wealth all through childhood and college and university. Father never worked. He rubbed shoulders with French politicians and bankers, bought and sold influence. I despised it. My brother—I have a brother four years younger—he is a banker, stockbroker, something. I am sadly estranged from my family, Dominique. I have only myself, Angelo, really, and some vague memories – dreams – of some cloud of yesterday I cannot understand.”

She suddenly realized that he must be the black sheep of his family – as odd as that sounded considering his obvious success: An artistic first-born son in an old family. With a frown she realized that she was being sucked in, avenging angels and cherubic little boys swimming around in her head as if he were some romantic hero in a book instead of flesh and blood art broker who chased co-eds through the city just to get them drunk off of expensive wine and was friends with an unrepentant rake.

Still, how could she not be moved? She understood the pain of being separated from one’s family. Today of all days she wished they could see her now; wished she could rub her minor success in their faces. Her only consolation was that they did not matter anymore. They could not hurt her.

“It is a shame about your family,” she offered on a forlorn sigh, pushing the wine glass away. “It must cause you pain to know that they are out there, but not...” she wanted to say that they did not love him, but that might not be true in his case. “Not talk to them,” she finished, unable to meet his gaze as she nursed her own similar wound.

He stopped and looked at Dominique. He felt like he had motor-mouthed her under water. “Oh, I am sorry to have lain all my angst at your feet here. Fortunately, I have risen quite above it all! When I graduated from the Sorbonne, I eschewed my family and all their wealth. I simply have a different calling, somewhere. And, I think, a past that is also my present. Everything I have accomplished since then, all that I have, I have done on my own! I have not touched their money since the Sorbonne.

“Oh, but now, the time has so passed! Let me stop. I do have a question for you.” He grasped the Pouilly wine bottle and refreshed her glass, then his. “I have heard an occasional Anglican undertone, accent, when you speak, I think. Are you …. possibly American by origin? Dominique, oh, pardones-moi, es-tu American?” He again realized he had asked her a question in familiar second person voice. He looked at her, quizzically, waiting...

The wine had betrayed her – evil fermented fruit. Color stained her pale cheeks and she shook her head to try and clear it rather than to answer his question. Her first reaction was to duck the question, but that really was ridiculous. Lots of people knew she was not French by birth. “I spent a lot of my childhood in the States, yes,” she replied. Dominique Vasser had been born in Tours, but died in the hospital a few weeks after her parents were killed in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. “I returned after my parents…” her voice always seemed to thicken to say this, “were killed.” It was the cover story she had been telling everyone for eight years: a French girl returning home after losing her parents to the blight that was the United States.

“Oh, oh, I am so sorry,” he said with somber sincerity. “To lose a parent – well, even I do not relish the thought of Mother and Father dying. It must have been … so … difficult for you. Hopefully, not too, uh, too scarring for you.” It was a shameless ruse to glean more details from her, and he regretted having said it immediately. But, she spared him, unbelievably…

It was important not to allow deep questioning of her story, for maintaining the fiction required that she not elaborate on it too much. Giving him her best brave little smile from beneath her lashes, she shrugged, “It was long ago.” For most people that ended the discussion, as their curiosity was cut short by her show of pain, though that part of her story had the benefit of being true. Her parents’ deaths had been the catalyst that had eventually landed her at Charles de Gaul with some other girl’s papers and everything she owned stuffed into a suitcase that she could barely manage.

“Ah, yes, yes. And in the past,” he said to close the topic.

“So, I can tell you about the galerie and my work briefly,” he said. “But, my now, you’ve not touched much here. Alors, I must give you some brie to go with the wine!”

He again launched into un ballet des mains – a ballet of the hands. He took from the basket a stout round of dark flat bread. He held it in front of himself, his elbow resting on the table, strong contoured forearm pointing skyward, palm of hand upturned with fingers rising from it like the spires of a king’s crown. He held the bread flat, facing upwards, firmly but delicately within his cupping fingers. “Brie …. I consider the Cadillac of the treple-crème aged soft cream cheeses,” he told her. The texture is so smooth and creamy with no hint of stickiness. It neither clings to the palate nor slathers the tongue, but swallows down so gently, like fine satin down the throat. And that wonderful full, yet subtle, burst of flavor!”

With his other hand, he secured the small cheese knife-spreader, and pressing his long, strong forefinger high up on the hilt, behind the blade, pressed slowly down through the brown-stained crusty shell of the brie and into the honey-soft interior of the fine cheese. He deftly twisted the knife deep inside the brie and drew it up and away. A fine elastic strand of the viscous creamy stuff languished between knife and cheese as he drew away. The strand broke free from the island of brie, and he stroked the knife across the surface of the waiting bread like an artisan mason smoothing out his mortar across the face of a walk way. He stroked with the knife in a tight circle to even the brie on top of the bread, and handed it across to her. “Just taste that, Dominique.”

The shivers were back as she watched him, hardly remembering to breathe as she succumbed to the nagging sensation that she had seen this before - had sat and watched as someone spread cheese on a piece of crusty bread and then handed it to her. Her father perhaps? Or perhaps a grandparent? Even once she dropped her gaze she could not bring to mind who might have buttered - yes, it had been butter, not cheese! - bread for her.

Blinking back to the present at the sound of his voice, she took the bread with both hands like a child, brought nearly to her mouth, and gave him a look of questioning wonder as if she might not have understood his instructions and wished for confirmation. At finding him looking expectant, she took a bite - the crust shattering into a thousand crumbs so that she automatically closed her eyes as she leaned over her plate, then set to brushing them away as she distractedly chewed the bread and cheese, the magic evaporated by messy reality.

“Well, my story is simple. After the Sorbonne, I wrote for a while as an art critic in Le Monde and the Paris Times, and essentially broke into the circle of Parisian brokers and patrons who move and shake much of Europe ’s art world. I earned a goodly salary, acquired a few choice pieces, re-sold them for healthy profit, and parlayed the spoils into further acquisitions. Before long, I registered with the various requisite regulatory bureaus and exchanges and became a licensed art broker and trader. I stumbled onto this elegant but friendly gallery in the Rue Ste Croix la Bretonnerie – on a stroll with Angelo, in fact! – and I purchased it outright! I have a fine clientele now, love my travels to and fro … I just returned from a quick trip to Spain two days ago!” The wrenching memory of the trip and his vision off the road again snatched him away for a moment---then left him. “I love my work, Dominique.

“I dabble myself in sketching, and the occasional watercolor; but, for me, it is the appreciation of the other artist’s work that is both my work, and my pleasure.”

He made making money sound so easy! As if one could just ‘parlay’ a writing job into art pieces and then easily sell them for a profit just anywhere. It was not that she doubted him, but that she was curious and a bit jealous. Perhaps the secret was time? He did not look that old, but he would have to be in his mid thirties at least…

“I insist that you come see for yourself what I do! You have time during your hiatus from studies. I am there most every day---you could ring first. Perhaps you would wish to commission me to acquire something for you. Here, here, my card….”

He pulled a card from the wallet in his back pocket and placed it in her now-empty hand, the brie long swallowed. “You promise you will come soon, oui?”

The card itself was a work of art, seeming to be made of semi-transparent plastic with layered veins of pale color overlapping. His particulars were etched into the surface, the inside edges embossed with silver so that even the tiny letters and email address seemed to glitter if the card was at any sort of angle - straight on one saw the outline of a woman’s face in half-profile, half down turned as if in prayer, her lashes on her cheeks. The effect was such that when Dominique turned it slightly the face was gone, the colors converging into a bird, perhaps, or a lily.

It was a sly optical illusion, and she thought it very clever, practically glowing at him like a child with a new toy.

“But, now, Dominique! I’ve not heard you promise to drop by the galerie,” he mock scolded her. “I do think you’d enjoy seeing what goes on there! Will you visit sometime?”

Knowing perfectly well that she would likely never get up the courage to do such a thing – after all, it was a brokerage, not the Louvre, where they would just let anyone in – she gave him a game little smile that Gabby would have known to be a sign of quiet desperation. She did not want to make a promise that she was not sure she would keep, but she did not want to be rude either. “If you are very sure it will not be a bother,” she started very quietly, the wheels in her head visibly turning, as her gaze slipped down his body to the floor.

They chatted idly for a while afterward, picking scantily at the food and sipping wine. It was then time to part. They both felt that. Much had transpired within each during their few hours together. For Sean, it had been a bursting dawn.

“May I please call you a cab, Dominique? Permit me to pre-pay him. We can hail a Metro Distrique car which is flat rate to whatever district you specify. And, I shall pre-pay for you. Today is completely a moi – on me! What do you say?”

But of course she could not accept; it seemed indecent somehow and it was a perfectly fine day for walking. Besides, she reasoned, she could be on the train before the car could even arrive, and it was not far to the metro station. So they walked halfway there together, until they came across a taxi from which half a dozen teenagers were unfolding themselves and slapping notes about to pay the obviously harried driver.

“Please take this one…” Dominique encouraged, pulling up short once they had gotten around the kids and waving at the man to get him to stay for a moment. “You have been too generous with me already and I know the way,” her eyes were a bit glassy from the wine as she stood too close, half turned into his chest. She was feeling very pleasant: somewhat sleepy but not tired, as if she could spend hours looking at the clouds. Perhaps she would even see shapes in them while in this state.

But her gaze never made it past his cerulean eyes, and she had this wild feeling of falling backwards into them, knowing without question that he would fall with her and land above her without hurting her, his arms cradling her head and shoulders before his mouth descended on hers...

… Sean’s eyes met with hers, and for a fleeting eternity, he was holding her, melting into her, feeling her melt into him, the ice age of his incarceration by impassioned guilt and loss crumbling and liquefying in the heat of the reprise of their desire, his face caressed by the fine wisps of her hair dancing upon it as they fell together to their sides, bodies fused, the kiss just a breath away…

And then she blinked, and found herself standing on an impossibly noisy street beside an impatient taxi driver as a pair of rollerbladers went speeding past, arms swinging wide with each movement.

“Haaa! Oh, Dominique! And, here you cater to my transportation needs! Such a fine reversal, and I accept your assistance,” Sean fairly gushed. “Whoa!” he swayed from the path of a straggling rollerblader. “The walkways are more perilous than the streets during peak traffic,” he joked.

“Well, belle mademoiselle, this has been such a delightful pleasure and an ‘awesome’, as they say in the States, way to spend half the day! Half the day! It scarce seems like a couple of hours.”

He reached with both hands to her left hand, and without invitation or gesture, sandwiched it between his two hands and drew it to within a hair of his chest. Her hand felt so smooth, delicate, yet labor-seasoned from the kinds of work that young students must need to undertake for income, and warm. Felicia’s hand. The same feel, the same energy. He smiled at her, and, nodding to her gently, said, “Thank you for suffering my ramblings, Dominique. Be diligent now in your graduate studies! I will enjoy hearing from you of your progress as time goes on!” He squeezed her hand gently and watched her mouth as she spoke.

“The pleasure was mine, Monsieur LeBeque…” his hand felt so warm and protective that she wished she could push the rest of herself into it. Yet somehow, her voice sounded surprisingly cool and professional, like she really was saying goodbye to gentleman she barely knew and would likely never see again. “Thank you for the wine and cheese and for your stimulating company.” She had not really meant to say that last part out loud, but it was too late to take it back, so she quickly added teasingly, “And when you see M. LaRussa, please tell him that if I ever find that he has drawn me with my ear sticking out of my shoulder or my eyes melting down my back, I will have to beat him with a rolled up directory.” She managed to hold the stern look for a second before grinning and squeezing his hand before drawing away. She had not offered an opinion on abstractionism before, but hoped that M. LeBeque would not take offense.

“Haaaaa! You are such a wit dear Fah-leesh … ehhrr … dear Mademoiselle!” he caught himself for the second time that day. “What a scathingly accurate critique of abstractionism! You should be an art critic! While I appreciate greatly what that genre has to offer, I do sometimes find it uncomfortable in its distorted, even grotesque, depiction of reality. I tend to much prefer realism in landscape painting, and impressionism in everything else. Ah---but---we can discuss all this at my galerie some time, non?”

The driver actually honked his horn, startling Dominique into action. Sean blew her a kiss with his fingers, waved to her, and gathered himself into the cab. With a quick wave as she drew away, she spun and hurried off, telling herself not to look back and not to run. Just… be normal – though this entire afternoon had to be the most surreal thing that had ever happened to her.

On the long ride home she clung to the bar with one hand and stared at Sean LeBeque’s business card cradled in her other. Already she had begun to rationalize the oddness of the encounter – it had been a unique day to begin with, her last as an undergrad. At least she did not have to remember him with embarrassment now, for he seemed not at all put off by her very candid appraisal last Saturday. She really did not think she would go see his gallery though. She would not even know what to wear to such a place – and if she called him, what would she say? No, it was best if it were left just as it was – a very delightfully dreamy afternoon spent in the company of a man who could sweep any woman off her feet with little more than a smile and the warm touch of his beautifully graceful hands.

With a secret smile as she started up the rickety, peeling stairs of her apartment building, Dominique mused that it really was not hard to imagine him descended from a long line of courtiers at all, draped in silk hose and a velvet waistcoat embroidered with gold thread and pearls. He seemed a creation of whimsy; and it seemed increasingly like most of her memories of the day must have been a result of the wine and not any factual event. Still, she found that she did not mind. He was a most beautiful delusion.