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Gentler (Prouvaire): August, 1830
The first one was a hetaera, though I did not pay her. It was one of the many evenings when Aimery stood up after a meeting and announced that there was something to celebrate, although he did not explain what that was. Several bottles of wine later, we celebrants -- Aimery, Daniel, and I -- found ourselves in a house that must have had a very good reputation indeed. The ladies within were polite, cultured, courtesans of a sort such that I almost felt comfortable among them. I heard Aimery say something to one of them about how they should take care of his young friend. I wanted to protest this, but by the time I explained to the girl who had apparently chosen herself for me, he had disappeared, as had Daniel. I stared at the floor for several long moments and felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment. I didn't know any of them by name or by sight. It was nothing like spending an evening with my brothers. I didn't know what to say to these strangers, these strange women. The one sitting next to me clucked her tongue. "Come now, m'sieur Jean," she said lightly, as if she did not believe that was my name. "Kiss me quick and we'll find a bower, strewn everywhere with petals, if that's your pleasure." "I don't know," I said, and to my shame my voice seemed smaller than hers. "We can go if you promise to kiss me once we get there." She touched my shoulder and stood. I bit my lip fiercely, hoping that the pain would clear my mind of fear. "I'll try." When I stood, it was all too apparent that we were of a height. "I'm sure you'll do wonderfully well." She took my hand in hers and we left. I doubt anyone else in that room of men and women had noticed we were there, nor that we departed. When we reached the appointed room, an anonymous, dark place, she kissed me, and there was nothing quick about it. "Whatever are you worried about?" she asked afterward, smiling at me. "If you're as agile as all that --" "I don't know," I said again, and turned away from her. I knew I was blushing again. "I've never done this." "Oh, is that it." Her voice was gentler. "Don't fret, handsome Jean. You'll soon have the knack of it." "I --" I sighed. "You must suffer a lot of idiots like me." She stepped in front of me and touched my cheek. I looked up at her. If she was laughing at me, she was doing an admirable job of hiding it. "Most of the idiots are the lads who think they know what they're doing." I shook my head. "I don't know if I can do this." "Ah, now, of course you can. Lovely boy like you, in the prime of his youth -- it's perfectly natural." As she spoke, she began undressing me. I let her, not knowing a plausible excuse. "But I don't know you at all." "You will, soon enough -- sit down, love, would you?" I sat, but I couldn't look at her. "No, I mean I don't know who you are." "That doesn't matter so much, does it?" "Yes." I frowned. "It matters -- I can't --" I waved a hand. "I can't desire you if I don't know who I want, can I?" She thought about this, all the while running her hands over my body, "Most people seem to be able to desire strangers. But perhaps you don't, or can't." She gave me a cursory look and I nearly died from embarrassment. Her theory was clearly proven. "I'm sorry." She touched my lips. "All you need to do is make my acquaintance, though, is that it?" "I don't know." "It can't hurt, can it?" She began telling me about herself, or about some woman she had once known, or about a woman who was a lie -- her name, where she'd grown up, what her parents had been like, the job she'd had before she realized that she could make a good deal more money at night. All the while she dropped light kisses on my skin. When her story was over, she smiled at me. "Well, Jean?" I felt myself blush. "Enchanté, mam'selle." It had worked. Whether she had lied or not, I had wanted to believe her, wanted to know her and understand a little about her. And by the time I felt I had some sense of who she was, I was aching for her. "I still don't know, well, anything." She kissed me on the lips again. "Easily mended. Here, sit up for a moment --" I was awkward at first, afraid of offending this woman who was no longer nameless and soulless to me, who was a person whose history I understood. But she was more right than she knew; I had more idea of what to do than I could have admitted to her. "Show me what to do for you," I asked her in the midst of it, and she laughed. "Isn't for me, now, is it?" I shook my head. "If -- if you're being paid for this, show me." It hurt a little to remember that she was not with me of her own free will, and more that I was doubly a guest as the recipient of Aimery's largesse, but it convinced her. "Like that -- no -- there, yes. If you -- oh -- not quite, but -- for God's sake --" Afterward I was embarrassed again, as though she had become a stranger even as we lay in each other's arms. "Was that adequate, then?" She kissed my cheek. "More than adequate." I sighed. "Yes, but if I wasn't -- if you weren't -- in another circumstance, would it be all right?" "Don't worry, chéri," she said, softly. "Your ladylove will be pleasantly surprised." "I haven't one," I admitted, and blushed again. "A terrible waste of talent." She kissed me, long and lingering, then shook her head. "Did you want to spend the night here?" "I --" I bit my lip. "I don't know. I'm not paying; my friend is." "You'd probably best go, then, if you're not sure of his finances." "I -- I trust him," I said, hesitating a little but unwilling to doubt Aimery in her presence. I was also reluctant to consider my own lonely bed, many blocks distant. She tousled my hair. "If you'd like to stay, I'll need to talk to him." I sighed and sat up. "I'll go." "It's your decision." "Then I'll go." She nodded and began getting dressed again. When I was presentable enough to walk home without looking as though I had been robbed or assaulted, I smiled at her for a moment. "And --" "Yes?" "Thank you. For -- for being patient." "Of course, Jean. Bonsoir." "Bonsoir." I left that night determined to repay Aimery, both for the money he had spent on me, and for the experience it had bought. There were other girls like her, after that, women who were willing to humor my requests for information about themselves if I was willing to pay them a little more than normal. I did not seek their company terribly often. After all, it was a great deal more expensive and troublesome than going home with one of my brothers, who were nearly always glad to see me, and whose personalities and histories I knew well. But one of the girls wept in my arms when I asked her about her family. Sweet Genevieve had lost her son the winter before because she could not keep him warm enough to stop his coughing. She needed a warm place to stay before she, too, lost her life to the bitter winter. I found her a room, nothing special, nothing at all expensive, but better than a doorway at four in the morning. I visited her there occasionally and often sent her money for food that she might not have to work on a cold night. I had enough and more to do this good deed, especially after I wrote to my parents about her -- not her as she really was, but Genevieve as she might have been if her family had had a great deal of money. When Théophile decided that he preferred Chrétien's company to mine, I had a great deal more time to spend with Genevieve. One night she confessed to me that even when she received the money I sent, she went out. I frowned at her in the candlelight. "Why? I don't want you to have to do that in this weather." "I know," she said, and kissed me. "But I've good clothes because of your kindness, now, so I'm not so likely to get sick, and there are, well, more men would like to come up here than go into an alleyway in December." "That's not what I had in mind when I rented this room for you." "You don't need to pay the rent for me anymore." I sat up. "Are you mad? It's vicious out there." "No -- please, chéri, relax. I've saved enough money -- not just from you, Jehan, but from what I've earned -- that I can pay it, at least for the next two months." "And after that?" "After that, I'll have more saved, and I'll be all right." I sighed. "I don't understand why you can't do something else." She shook her head. "A sou for sewing a handkerchief? A centime for a shirt? I don't know what they pay seamstresses who wear their fingers to the bone doing piecework, but it can't be as good as what I earn, now that I'm not on the street." "But surely there's something --" "There isn't." She sat up, holding the blanket over her breasts. "Jehan, don't be angry. There isn't any point. This is the only way I can keep even this room, and you know it's small." "I'm sorry." I reached for my shirt. "Why? Because you gave me something?" "Because I can't give you more. I wish I could find you some splendid job, some handsome husband who'd keep you well-dressed and happy." She was silent for a few moments. "I don't know about the former, but I know someone who'd do for the latter." "Who -- oh." I blushed and looked at my shirt, anything so that I was not looking at her face. "I can't." "No?" Her voice was wistful. "I -- my parents wouldn't --" "Your parents!" She laughed. "You're old enough to do as you like and bedamned what they say." I didn't look at her. I didn't know how to explain the other reasons. "I don't have a profession, unlike you. If I told them I was marrying you, and the truth about who you are, they'd be furious." "You could just say you don't want to." I winced. "I'm sorry." "Go on." Genevieve sounded as though she'd been talking for hours. "Tell me you don't want to, so it's out in the open and we don't have to talk about it anymore." "It's -- I've promised to someone else." It was true, in its way, for when I was not with her, there were four people I could turn to for physical love, and two more who certainly cared about me. "You're -- when did this happen?" I bit my lip and got out of bed. "Years ago. I'm sorry." She shook her head and started getting dressed. "You never told me." "I didn't know how to explain." I put on my pants. "And what does she think of all of this, then? This renting a room for a whore." She spat the last word. "Your charity, m'sieur." "Genevieve. Don't. Please." "Does she know you're betraying her? Does she know where your money goes?" I sighed. "Not entirely, but I think if she knew I was helping someone who had needed it, and who was strong enough to be able to stop needing my help -- it would be all right." She laughed once. "All right! What saint is she?" I started lacing my shoes. "You don't know her, I'm sure." "I think I'd like to if she lets you do such things." "Perhaps. -- Then you don't want any more help from me?" She frowned at me. "I don't need it, and if you're going to go off and get married, I'll have to get used to managing alone, won't I?" I sighed. "Yes, I suppose that's true. I should go home, then." "Yes, you probably should." "May I kiss you before I go?" She blinked at me. "Of course, if you want to." That was not quite the last time I saw her, but she never seemed comfortable around me after that. It was as if my imaginary fiancée had come between us as soon as I hypothesized her and pushed us apart. Some time after that, I found a volume of Virgil on a park bench. I saw no one nearby who seemed to have lost it, so I picked it up. Written inside the front cover in a delicate hand was the name Emeline Berrube and an address not far from the garden. I had no classes that afternoon and nowhere to be until evening, nothing at all to do, in fact, but deliver Mlle. Berrube's book to her. She lived on the first floor of a building with her aunt Gaetanne. Their maid answered the door when I knocked and looked at me askance until I explained I had found something of the young lady's and wished to deliver it to her. The maid accompanied me to the sitting room, where mademoiselle was reading aloud to her aunt while the old lady embroidered. They looked up in some consternation when the maid announced me, and I felt my cheeks heat with a blush. "I'm sorry to intrude on you, but I found this book, and I thought it would be terrible if you were without it, mademoiselle Berrube." She crossed the room with the light steps of a well-bred young lady and took it from me. "Why, thank you, m'sieur." Her aunt scrutinized me. "Thank you, indeed. Would you care to stay for a cup of coffee?" I didn't feel comfortable in their parlor, and I wanted to go home, but I knew that the best answer to that was what I said, "That would be lovely, thank you." I spoke with Emeline for the most part, about Virgil, his subtleties and turns of fate. Occasionally, her aunt would interrupt with a question about me, my family, my studies, but Emeline would turn the conversation away from that inquiry, which made me nervous, back to Virgil, whom I could comfortably discuss for days at a time. After coffee, I found myself invited to dinner in two nights' time. That required absenting myself from a meeting, but I hadn't wanted to attend particularly; Théophile had been ignoring me and I did not want to talk to him. Dinner went along the same lines that coffee had: Emeline asked me questions about authors long dead and their great works in order to keep her aunt from asking about my ancestry. I learned, though I had not exactly asked, that Emeline was the daughter of the cousin of the uncle of the grandfather of the cousin of the king, or something to that effect. I tried to look suitably impressed, but I was not sure how impressed I was supposed to be by that news. When they asked me to dinner again, or rather her aunt asked me to dinner, I accepted. It was a month of uncomfortable occasional dinners before I saw her anywhere but in her home. We went for a walk in the park where she had unwittingly abandoned Virgil, with her aunt and one of her aunt's friends behind us at a distance sufficient that we could talk without having every word overheard, but close enough that I would know we were chaperoned. Those walks became a habit on the three afternoons a week when I had no classes. I desperately wanted to see her without her aunt's presence. I wasn't accustomed to having a friend as close as she was unless that friend was also a lover. It was uncomfortable, but I was hesitant to propose any sort of indiscretion to her for fear that she would refuse to speak to me again. She was not the sort of girl that one has such affairs with, after all. I suspected that she and particularly her aunt thought that I would propose an engagement at some point, but I was not ready to do that, either. Instead, I spoke with her for as many hours a week as I could spare, wrote her verses, and wished that I could have something more from her. I missed some meetings when I was expected for dinner, but my friends knew that there was a young lady distracting me, so they could not have been terribly surprised. On the evenings when I could join them, I often went home with Christophe, who had no mistress at that point. On one such evening, he asked me about Emeline. "You're pining after her, aren't you?" This after he had kissed me, when I could think of little but him. "Not right now." "In general, though." He loosened my cravat. "You've been busy." "Yes, I suppose." I returned the favor and kissed him again. "But she's a nice girl?" "Too nice." I sighed and let him unbutton my waistcoat. "Practically noble, to hear her aunt tell it." "Pauvre petit frère. Have you kissed her?" "A few times, when her aunt was distracted." "This aunt --" he had my collar open and my shirt half undone. "She's a harpy." "They always are, aren't they. Can't you get the girl, what's her name --" "Emeline," I said impatiently. "Can't you get her alone?" "Christophe --" "Lie down, chéri." "Must we discuss this?" He stood over me, his hands on his hips. "Can you get this Emeline alone, Jehan?" I rolled my eyes. "Of course not." He began unbuttoning his shirt. "And you're pining for her." "You seem to think so." "You are; I know you. Pants, cher." "All right, so I'm pining." I took my pants off. "Do you like pining?" "Don't be an idiot." "I'm not. I'm making a point. Do you like pining?" "No." I threw my pants at him. He caught them and tossed them over the back of a chair. "What's your point?" "I seem to recall you don't like rejection." "Who does? Christophe --" "Patience." He unfastened his pants and stepped out of them. "Tell me about her." "Why?" "Because she frustrates you." He sat down next to me and ran his hand down my body. I shivered. "I don't want to think about being frustrated, now." "Tell me. I won't leave you frustrated." I kissed him. "I don't want to be frustrated at all, damn it." He caught one of my wrists, then the other, and held them. "Talk, Jehan." I made a face at him. "You are incredibly aggravating. I should go home." "Probably," he conceded. "But you won't." "She has perfect lips," I said, if only to shut him up. "And her aunt doesn't let her use many cosmetics, so the shade of pink they are -- like the clouds at dawn in May -- is her, absolutely." Christophe grinned at me. "Really." "Yes, really. Kiss me, damn it." He obliged at great length, as if making up for all the kisses I had never been able to give her. Afterward, his tone light as though he was not aroused, he asked, "What else?" "Her waist is slim, not simply from fashion -- God, Christophe, must I?" "Go on, make me fall in love with her." "You'd hate her." "Why?" "She'd never let you touch her." He raised his eyebrows as though I'd surprised him. "How so?" "If you took hold of her narrow wrists like this, mon frère, she would scream." "A terrible pity." He let me go and sat up to fetch a bottle of oil. I shook my hands a little, though he hadn't hurt me. "It would be, at that." "What else?" He kissed me lightly and handed me the bottle. "I --" "Go on," he said, and I knew he was laughing at me. "I've only seen her ankles twice," I admitted. It was becoming increasingly difficult to think of her, delicate and beautiful, while faced with the aroused, supine bulk of Christophe. "And?" I shook my head. "I told you, she's naturally slim. I'm tired of this game." I knew part of what he wanted. I wet my fingers with the oil and set the bottle on the bedside table. He sat up a little and kissed me. "I only want you to feel better." "You're not a terribly good surrogate, that's all." "Do you think so?" He lay back a little so that I was between his spread legs, as clear an invitation as I needed to caress him and slide a finger inside him. "You couldn't be less like her if you tried." He laughed. "I don't want to be her. Does she let you make love to her?" "Of course not. Don't be absurd." "You keep missing the point." "You don't have a point." I wanted to stop the discussion, so I added a little more oil and a second finger. "I do." He bit his lip. "I want you, Jehan." "I noticed," I said dryly. "Do you desire her?" "Yes, but she's not you." He shook his head. "I know that. But it can't do you any good to think about her when you can't have anyone." "You're right here, aren't you?" "Yes -- God, cher, do that again." "What was your point?" "Just --" he hesitated, and I smiled. He had tormented me in the same fashion for too many nights; it was a small, sweet revenge. "If it helps to think about her --" I blushed, though he had his eyes shut and couldn't have seen it. "No, thank you. Not when I can think of you. Are you --" "Yes, damn it." He pulled me close and kissed me again. "Picking up my habits will get you into trouble." I did not think of the answer to that until we had finished. It was not the relief from Emeline he had wanted it to be -- he was altogether too masculine, too male for me to forget for an instant what I was doing. It was easier the next day when I walked with her in the park, but that was thanks to his habit of exhausting me as soon as I'd woken up in the morning, not to the recital of her charms. It was June, then, and I had been visiting her since March. At the end of July, I missed a dinner to attend a hastily scheduled meeting and two walks in the park. She would not have wanted to be in the park then. It was overfull of men with guns: my friends, our allies, strangers, soldiers. I was with Théophile and Chrétien all the while. In the excitement and fear of it all, I began to understand what was between them. We took refuge in their flat both nights, for it was closest to where we were during the day. On the second morning, I embraced Chrétien and surprised both of us. But I grinned at him when he pulled away from me. "I'm sorry, you know. For everything -- mon frère." "It's all right." He blinked at me. "At least, I think so." "You deserve an apology, that's all." "Well. Thank you." He glanced away from me in the moment before Théo hugged us both. "Idiots," he said fondly. "No, I was the only idiot." I sighed. "I am sorry." "It's all right," they assured me in chorus, then looked at each other and laughed. "Thank you." Chétien shook his head. "Don't mention it. We should go." We went. For the first time, I felt as though I was with two dear friends instead of Théo and a nuisance. We found the rest of our brothers, and not long afterward, we found victory. Théo and I spent the night with Christophe, Aimery, and Audric. I wanted to apologize to Chrétien for that, but there was never a good moment for it. Théo doubtless made his own explanation and apology at some other time. Several days later, I went to Emeline's home and found it in chaos. The books and belongings were disarrayed. Half were in stacks on the floor and the other half were moved from their normal places. "Where have you been?" she asked me as soon as the maid brought me to her. "I was fighting for freedom of the presses," I said proudly. She slapped me so hard my ears rang. "How dare you!" I blinked at her, one hand to my cheek. "What?" "You took part in that madness?" "It wasn't madness, Emeline, it was a revolution." She stepped away from me as daintly as she could across the messy floor. "It was horrible." "No," I protested. "It was for the good of the country." "Leave!" she pointed toward the door. "What?" "You heard me. Go, get out of here. Don't come back." I stared at her. "Why?" "If my aunt heard you say that, she'd have the police after you." "But we were in the right." "We're leaving Paris," she said and shook her head. "We can't stay here if things like that are going to happen." "It's over. I don't understand you." "We're leaving Paris, I said." "All right." She pulled out a handkerchief and began weeping into it. "Don't you care where I'm going?" "You just slapped me." "You were talking about the terrible riot!" I shook my head. "I should go." "But --" she threw up her hands. "Wait a moment." I watched in silence as she found a pen and a scrap of paper and wrote an address on it. She thrust it toward me. "Here. Write it me. Visit me. Please, Jehan." I took the paper because she was still crying, but I said, "You don't want to speak to me." "No, it isn't that, it's just the horrible riot frightened me terribly." I shook my head. "It was a revolution, Emeline." "It wasn't!" "Adieu," I said, as mildly as I could, and started for the door. "Aren't you going to kiss me?" she asked, on the edge of hysterics. I turned and looked at her. Her tears had made her face powder into a striped mess, and her eye makeup was a wreck. She was sniffling and blowing her nose. The last thing I wanted was a kiss from her in that state. "No, thank you. Goodbye, Emeline. Have a good trip to --" I looked at the paper "-- les Eyzies." "Cad!" she called after me. I let myself out rather than waiting for the maid That night, I told the story to Théo in my bed after we had made love. He chuckled and tousled my hair. "Poor Jehan. My evil genius has been looking out for you." "No, she hasn't." I kissed him. "Not if you're here." "Hush, love, you'll remind her." I grinned at him in the dark and laid my head on his shoulder. "All right," I said, deliberately loudly. "It was horrid and my heart's broken." In a whisper I asked, "Is that better?" He laughed. "A little, anyway. Je t'aime." I kissed his cheek. "Je t'aime aussi. Sleep well."
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