Monday Morning Fiction

I’ve been working on an old piece of fiction I started back in 2006. The story, though fictitious, was organic. It was based on a reality I was living at the time, and flowed pretty much along parallel lines to my life. Here is a brief excerpt, since I have recently pulled it out of mothballs in order to write the ending. I’d like you to meet Zora and Henri.

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Henri had a temper. Not that he ever raised his hand to Zora or anyone else, but he was a man accustomed to getting his own way, and when he didn’t, he could throw a tantrum worthy of an eight year old. Never at the bank, of course. Henri knew that he could never risk shaming himself in front of his meal ticket. But at home with Mireille and the kids, or out with his friends, or with Zora, his temper was notorious. Bad service in a restaurant? Heads down, everyone, Henri has called the manager over. Bad game of golf? He once threw his driver into the pond and promptly took the rest of his clubs to the dump. It was the talk of the office for months, though never in front of him. He wouldn’t brook that kind of humiliation, even if he brought it on himself. It was said, sotto voce, that he sent Mireille for them the next day.

Zora learned of his temper one afternoon when she wasn’t feeling particularly well. He dropped her an email to ask if she wanted to catch a drink that evening before he returned home. He was still away in London, but would be arriving around six. They could stay out late if she could find an excuse, because Mireille was at the farm with the kids. Zora had received a rejection letter that morning from a small Canadian political magazine, and coupled with the fight she’d had with Stephen about her spending habits, she wasn’t feeling her best. She tried to always bring her A-game when she was with Henri – she never wanted to ruin the fairy tale by bringing real life troubles into their little world – and she simply didn’t feel up to it that humid summer evening.

She wrote back, “Not tonight, darling. Let’s get together some other time, ok? Soon.” Those are the words she wrote. But when he read them, they sounded more like, back off pal, I’m not interested. Take a hike.

And so he replied, “Perhaps we should just end this now. Goodbye.”

By the time Zora read his cold reply, he was already on his flight back to Paris. It would be more than an hour before he would land. How could she respond to him? Why did he want to end it? They had had a wonderful six months so far, seeing each other as often as they could. Sure, they didn’t have as much chance to talk by phone as they did in the winter, because Zora was out more and Stephen’s hours at the bank were shorter, but they still had a relationship. Didn’t they? Sure, he had his mood swings, where he would go days without making contact, and he knew she hated it, but she tried not to complain. She tried to be obedient; not knowing how much room her position as married mistress afforded her. So she overlooked his silences and made light of them. And she tried to give him the space he needed to be a family man and be with his wife and children. Were it up to her she would see him every day, every night, but she knew it was impossible for both of them, and did her best to make their situation easier. And now it was over. Zora felt like she had been sucker-punched. Her mind wasn’t processing the words she was reading, and she couldn’t reach him for an explanation. She could feel her gorge rising. She ran for the bathroom and collapsed on the floor. Heaving and choking, there was nothing in her to bring up, but over and over her stomach rose. His icy dismissal of her was a kick to the guts, and her stomach was trying to rid itself of the excruciating pain.

And it was then that she knew, when she was face-down in the least romantic position she could imagine: she loved him. The constant gnawing in her intestines, the feeling of always being one evening away from losing him, of never believing that he cared about her or that their relationship was too much trouble, of never believing there would be a tomorrow. She cared so much more about him than she had ever allowed herself to. She had told herself that he was just sex, just a distraction – but it was so much more than that. At least, it was to her. To him, she was disposable. He could simply say, “let’s end this” and she was supposed to fade into the cityscape, never to be noticed again. Never to be touched by his hands or his lips. Never to be held in his arms, to breathe the scent of him. Over. Once more her stomach rebelled.

She sent him a message, “What the hell is wrong with you, Henri? Where did that come from? Is it that easy for you to say goodbye? You fool.”

She made herself a cup of tea to calm her insides, and sat waiting, trying to read to pass the time, chain smoking and obsessively refreshing her email account. It took him two hours to reply. He was just as vicious in his next email as he was in the previous one.

“Where did that come from, you ask? From the same horrible place as your dismissal of me. You are obviously angry with me, though I don’t know why, and I won’t stand for it. I have done nothing wrong. I don’t understand you, and at this point I don’t care to.”

Zora was reeling, torn between anger and heartbreak. Where was all this hostility coming from? She had a choice to make. As mistress, she had very little room in his life in which to maneuver. Either one of them could end it at any time with no questions asked – it was easier than returning a shirt to Chanel. She could simply accept his words at face value, and the relationship would be over. Or she could fight. She could fight for it because she loved him.

She sat there at her desk, reading his horrible denial of her over and over. She was angry with him, but she was more hurt than anything. She wanted to fling her anger at him, but she knew that it couldn’t last. She didn’t really want to hurt him. She just wanted an answer. She felt she deserved that much. She took a deep breath, and placed her hands on the keyboard,

Henri,

I really resent having to explain myself to you like a misbehaving child, but I have had a terrible day. The reasons are of little consequence right now, but I have very little energy to play this evening, I don’t have the spirit in me to go out and be my very best for you, which I always strive to be. I would have liked to get together some other time, as I said in my earlier note.

How come it’s ok for you to have a life, be busy or tired or unavailable, be non-communicative to the point where I want to send someone to check if you’re still alive, but it’s not ok for me to send a one-liner that equals nothing more than “not tonight honey, I have a headache”? Why is there a double standard there? I am supposed to bear your silences and your absences without ever betraying how they make me feel (lest we actually take a moment to acknowledge the direction this relationship has taken), but you will not bear mine, and you will say good bye. That is selfish and unfair. You don’t even make the effort to call and clarify what my intent was. You still haven’t heard my voice, its inflections and intonations. Nor have I heard yours. So we will have to continue to play this stupid email game, and I don’t know where you are right now – bar, office, home at the dinner table or even with a different mistress – but I would like you to stop whatever you are doing, and “listen” to me, in the only way you will let me talk. You have presumed the worst – that I am angry with you for something – and you wipe away the last seven months with no more feeling than if you were squashing a bug. But I am not a bug, Henri. I am a human being who cares about you, and you have just torn the heart out of me.

And so what if I get mad? So what if I want to beat my fists against your chest and call you a childish bastard, which is exactly what you are? That, too, is apparently grounds for dismissal in your book. You are allowed to fly off the handle and ascribe things to me that are just your own stupid fears making assumptions, but if I get a little worried and a little hairy from missing you and wondering if I’ve lost you, you say goodbye. Well, we know that’s a word you’re good at. You want me to be a certain way, it seems, but without the benefit of telling me what that is, leaving me to guess, and to get it wrong time and again. I said to you once (in anger) that it might be better if I was your whore, and then I’d be a sure thing. I’d say yes when you paid me to say yes, and the rest of the time I would leave you alone. That sounds like something you can handle Henri, because this romance thing? It’s not your style.

So I ask myself is it really worth it? And I HATE the answer that comes back, because it means losing you forever. And I wonder if that’s not what you want anyway, since you are so quick to throw it all away at the slightest provocation. You don’t care to know me, Henri? Really? After all this, you can say you don’t know me, and you don’t care to? If that’s really true, then I accept that it’s over and I will not contact you again. But honestly, I do not – I cannot and will not – believe it.

I don’t want to be kicked around by you. I want you to either love me for real, or take that offer off the table. Let me know that it’s not an option for you, and I will temper myself accordingly.

But for now, I love you. Stupidly, passionately, blindly. And that’s how you’re able to make me cry.

Z.

Send. Send, and wait. It didn’t take long before the phone rang.

“Christ, Zorisha, I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry, my dear, I love you. I have loved you since the night we met and I first took you in my arms. I-“ his voice broke. He was crying. “Can you forgive me? Will you see me, please? I just want to see your face and kiss your eyes and tell you – tell you everything.”

The tears streamed down her cheeks, soaked the front of her silk blouse. He was humbled. Henri Villeneuve, the financial wizard with the terrible temper was humbled and sorry.

“Henri, I…” her breath was jagged.

“I will come now, up to Montmartre!”

“No. No, you mustn’t. Not here.”

“You are not alone? Then come down here. We’ll sit in a bistro and talk it over until they throw us out. We’ll ride a taxi through the Bois all night if that’s what it takes.”

She was tempted. She almost ran to him. But to do so would be far more than she could possibly explain away. Stephen would be home any moment. Any moment he could come walking up the steps to her little studio, and find her sobbing on the telephone to another man. And not just any other man – but his own boss.

“Henri, no. I can’t. You know I can’t. Just talk to me. That will have to be enough. At least for tonight.”

There was so much to be said before the air would be cleared. For no real reason he had attacked her heart and cast her out, and it would take more than “I’m sorry” to make the pain go away.

He took a deep breath. “My love, I thought it was you who were casting me aside. Your simple words asking to get together some other time made me think you didn’t want to see me again. Ever. My anger was defensive.”

“Your anger was stupid!”

He became defensive again at her words. “I was trying to protect myself! What was I supposed to think when you said you didn’t want to see me?”

“I didn’t want to see you tonight, Henri. Tonight. That’s all. And you still haven’t asked me why, or if I’m okay. Instead you start another fight!”

“And you’re angry. You are angry with me. You are raising your voice to me. I don’t understand…”

“Stop it!” She yelled, then lowered her voice. “I am not your enemy, Henri. You don’t need to be defensive with me. We’re on the same side. Stop.”

“I – I don’t…” he couldn’t answer. She was right. He was fighting someone on his own side.

“Zora,” he breathed. “Oh, Zora. You are right. I’m fighting you. I am afraid. Afraid that I will lose you, that you will tire of me.”

She laughed, a cold hard sound. “You’re afraid? You? Don’t you know that every time I wait more than an hour for a reply from you, I think you’ve gotten bored or found someone else? That every time you go out to the farm, I think you might realize that you can’t cheat on Mireille anymore? Or that every time I kiss you goodbye, I feel in my heart that it truly is goodbye, and that I’ll never see you again? I live with that every single day, Henri – every day. This is my fear, and it is part of me. I don’t hold it against you, and I don’t try to hurt you because of it. If anything, I love you more passionately when I’m with you, just in case it is the last time.”

“You can’t go on living like that, Zora. It’s ridiculous.”

“It is not for you to decide how I can or cannot live. I have made peace with the inevitability of losing you someday, and I will handle it with discretion and good grace, but if I have a chance to fight for you, Henri, I will. Like tonight.”

“You are fighting for me, and here I am fighting against you. I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you are sorry. Say you will not jump to stupid conclusions anymore without verifying them first. Say we will ride this madness between us out until the bitter end.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and moved the phone away in order to snuffle her nose.

“Yes. I’m sorry I hurt you and I’m sorry for being such an angry fool. I cannot promise that I won’t do it again, but I hope that you will once more shout me down if I do. I need that. And I need you, Zora, so much. I am not going to leave you. I would be so empty without you.” He was sincere. “Please, let me see you.”

“Ha! You wouldn’t want to see me right now. I’m a fright.”

“You’re beautiful. You are always beautiful.”

“Tomorrow.”

“If we must. Where, when?”

“Here.” She had never allowed him into her home when Stephen wasn’t there. It didn’t seem appropriate to take her lover to the bed she shared with her husband. But since it no longer seemed much like a marriage bed, she wanted this. She wanted him in her safest places – her bed, her studio, her heart.

“Oui. But now I must go, Zora. The taxi has brought me to my door. Though I would prefer to be at yours.”

“Goodnight, Henri. Je t’aime.”

“Je t’amerais toujours.” I will love you always.

She put down the phone and went to wash her face. Always a brave and perfect face – for both her men. By the time Stephen came in a few minutes later, all was back to normal.

“Are you catching a cold? You sound stuffed up.”

“No, I’m fine. It’s just a little dry up in the studio.” She smiled, and he put his arm around her.

“Food?”

“Yes, let’s go out. Chez Marie?”

“Perfect. Let me just get out of this suit.”