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The Quality of Her Tears

By: angiquesophie



There was no doubt: she was crying. It triggered a reflex in him to reach out and comfort her. Except – he didn't. Why should he? She wasn't the one hurt, was she? He was. So why should she be the one crying? 

And yet, she was.

Clear liquid trembled on the lower rims of her beautiful eyes – reflecting the candlelight. For a moment it clung to her painted lashes before sliding down her cheeks – leaving traces of gray. 

Her make up had been impeccable when they left the house earlier that evening. But of course it would be, as tonight was a special night. It was the evening of the day she had been married to him for exactly two years. 

It started off perfectly. Like always he'd had to wait for her to finish dressing. He had phoned to delay the arrival of the limousine that would take them down town. Already arriving half an hour later than planned, it stood idling for another quarter of an hour in front of their house. 

When she at last came down the stairs, she was a goddess. Her silk dress was new. Its hue shifted from ultramarine to a deep night-blue with every step she took. It hugged her body, looking as snug as the very cocoons the silk had been made of. The top showed her pale cleavage; the skirt's hem shied away from her knees just enough to remind the world of her glorious legs.

He watched how the delicate bones in her instep shifted as she came down the stairs on heeled sandals. Her fingers clutched the leather purse he'd bought her in Milan last year. She'd done up her blond hair to display her neck and show off the diamond pendants that dangled from her earlobes. They matched the necklace on her chest. 

He remembered shrugging when the set's price tag indicated it would cost him half of his year's bonus.

At the bottom of the stairs he embraced her. His lips nudged the soft spot where her throat met her shoulder. The subtle perfume clung to his nostrils. He could still smell it now, as he wondered why he embraced her. Was it a thank-you for a few unforgettable years? Or was it just an expression of his admiration for the way she had made herself look tonight?

With a smile she softly pushed his head away, not allowing him to smudge her hard-won perfection with a kiss. And when she told him they were late already, the sheer audacity of the remark made him chuckle. He smiled and opened the front door to lead her to the waiting limousine. Why call it a limo, he thought, when you pay the full price?

All the way down town he mused over the bizarre cocktail his mind had been mixing these last few days, adding the bitter to the sweet. He had known the sweetness for almost three years; the more recent bitterness added a new tang. Together they created a mixture of melancholy and nostalgia; you'd better sip it with caution. 

As he looked out of the window of the cruising car, his hand touched the outline of the gift box in his pocket – such an ironic comment on their marriage it was. On the outside it suggested great and expensive things to be found within ­– and well, he couldn't deny they were costly indeed.

He'd known what secret the box concealed, and now she knew it too. But it surprised him that she would weep because of it. Not that she sobbed or cried, she just allowed the perfect tears to roll down her powdered cheeks.

One fell on the silk of her dress, making an even darker spot on the night blue fabric. The other one seemed more unruly – it kept dangling from her chin.

His eyes left hers, following the trail of spilled moisture. His gaze traveled down the cleavage of her tightly packed breasts. They became a blur as his eyes focused on the object lying before her on the table. The box, though only an inch in height, seemed an insurmountable wall.

Inside it he found her eyes again – upside down now and printed on shining paper. They were as bright and sparkling as the real ones. He saw her perfect nose pointing up to her carefully painted mouth. It didn't smile, he saw. It would have been impossible anyway. One might say it formed an O – a wide, very wide O. But the O did not frame the dark cave of her mouth, where her perfect teeth and maybe her tongue would have shown. No, her mouth closed around a hard and shining cock that was just a fraction too large to be his.

Carl.

Should I introduce my wife Mia to you at all? It's obvious she will be removed from my life very soon, so what's the use of telling you where we met, how deeply I fell in love with her and how exciting and satisfying my life with her has been? As you see I'm putting it all in the past tense. There won't be a new today with her, much less a tomorrow. 

But well – I guess it would be rude to tease your curiosity and not deliver. Mia has been too important in my life anyway to be erased like that. She has been a part of me. Losing her is like an amputation, I guess – like the loss of an arm, a leg...a heart?

And yet, why bother? The content of my gift-box proved that our marriage had been a lie. Why cling to a lie? Why go on loving a fiction?

Enough of this lamentation, even though I think I am entitled to some. Let's try and compartmentalize the hurt. They say it was what made the Titanic unsinkable, remember? Well, that worked fine, ask Leonardo di Caprio. 

Sorry, I should not succumb to my weakness for sarcasm, even if I prefer to call it irony. They say it is the pathetic armor of the wounded romantic.

So, what happened? A good question I can only answer partially for now. To stay with the big legendary ship – I only know the tip of the iceberg. I assume there is a lot of ice still under the surface that I don't know of. When a guy discovers he has been naïve, you can bet he will be the exact opposite for a very long time to come – too long a time, I'd say. It is what treason does – it ruins trust and it ruins it for a very long time, maybe forever. It also doesn't stop at trust. It gnaws at the very foundation of a guy's life, his confidence, his energy, his concentration, and his sleep. 

And yes – treason it was.

I didn't find out in one of the classic ways. There was no coming home early and for god's sake no sniffing of crusted panties. There were no carelessly left condom wrappers either – the pictures suggest she never used them anyway. That of course might have led to another way of finding out – pregnancy or painful pissing. But no; and no telltale phone bills or credit card slips either. There was no change in her behavior. She did not work late often or go partying with the girls. She has been dressing well all her married life and her professional activities have always been way too varied to find incriminating patterns. 

I never believed in a marriage where wife and husband share every minute of their free time together. I like to play golf, she hates it. She loves the opera and sure, I went to a few with her, but more often she goes with friends. She works out, I run. I trusted her, she trusted me. She was right, I was wrong.

So, what did happen? One doomed but bright Saturday morning I found a short note in my golf bag. I was looking for my driver, ready to tee-off at the eighth hole. Tacked to the note was a picture of Mia kissing a guy in an elevator. His hand was inside her jacket, rubbing her breast through the fabric of her blouse – or under it? Her eyes were closed. Her long pale fingers caressed his hair. Her lips were open in an inviting way – a very inviting way.

I was playing golf with Tom Mansfield and two strangers who had been added to our flight. Tom Mansfield is an ex-colleague I'd been playing with for over three years. I am convinced that I did see neither picture nor note in my bag before the eighth hole.

I never showed Tom the objects I found, but I am sure he noticed the distress they caused. He must have wondered why I suddenly started playing lousy. And I don't think he believed the lame excuse I offered after the ninth hole. Headaches don't usually come up this suddenly.

Finding my car, I sat in it for a while, thinking of nothing as I stared at the picture. Only then did I see what was written on the note. It was a very short message. To be precise it just said: "Call us," with a phone number.

I suppose more impulsively wired guys would at once have punched the number into their cell phone, seething with anger. Not me – I am the slow burning kind, meticulous to a fault. It might be because of my profession. I research paintings for big vending houses, collectors and museums to see whether they are true or false. There is no use following up on your first impression there. Too often a perfect Monet turns out to be a clever imitation – or a stunning Rembrandt proves to just be an inspired attempt of one of his apprentices. Not to imagine the horror of dismissing a perfectly real early Van Gogh. I usually deal with less famous masters, but you get the drift.

Before I can act I always need every detail, even in this case, when all I had was a picture and a phone number. I supposed the handwriting was a woman's, but not Mia's. The numbers and letters were very round; the l's had fat loops and the writing itself showed a distinct flourish. That and the use of purple ink convinced me the writer must be a woman. But hey – I am not a graphologist and my gut feeling might be nothing but prejudiced sexism.

The picture was small – about 3 by 5 inches, and far from perfect. Obviously the photographer had been in a hurry and the light he'd had to work with came mostly from the weak overhead fixtures in the elevator. The face of the guy was in shadows. It was nearly impossible to see who he was, even if you'd known him. He was a bit taller than Mia. It might make him almost as tall as I am. His hair seemed dark and curling in the neck. He looked familiar.

The picture gave away more of Mia's face. She was shot slightly from the back, but the mirror behind the guy reflected an eye and part of her face. I also recognized the ring in her ear. We bought it when we were in Paris, March of last year, together with the jacket she wore. So the picture could not be older than that. Mia also seemed to have shorter hair in the picture than she had now, but not as short as she had last summer. It still had been long last spring, when she had it cut. So the margin stretched from last autumn through winter.

Mia's one visible eye was closed. The kiss was very intense and the man's hand was deep into the opening of her jacket. I stared hard, turning the picture this and that way, but it was unclear if his hand was over or under her blouse. Did it matter anyway?

I looked lower, seeing her nylon clad knee push forward from her skirt to disappear between the guy's thighs. It hurt seeing her do that. I wondered why it didn't cloud my mind with rage. All it made me think was that it could not have been September or even October. Mia would not have worn stockings like that. Well done, dear Watson. 

The lift itself was rather non-descript. The half-closed doors seemed to be made of stainless steel. The place could have been a hotel, but just as well an office building.

I stared through the windshield of my car, not focusing on the row of small trees bordering the parking place. Their fresh new spring leaves were a blur. I knew now why I had concentrated so hard on the picture's details, for after I stopped doing that tears struggled their way out.

My brain screamed to stop this nonsense. It was just a piss-poor picture it cried, trying to silence my gut reaction. But this time I knew that my reliable intellect was wrong. It just dug its proverbial heels in because it didn't want to be dragged into a world of pain.

To be honest, there was very little reason to doubt what the picture told me. So I cried. Then I cleaned my eyes and my face, and dialed the written number on my cell phone. There was a long silence, allowing the pumping of my blood to be noticed – then the electronic equivalent of ringing sang in my ear, five, six times. It changed into a woman's voice telling me I had reached the offices of Jones and Callahan, Investigators, but that they were closed for the weekend. She advised me to leave a message, which I didn't.

I did dial another number, though.



Mia.

I am Mia, the woman Carl Lundgren married and yes, I have to agree with you – I am not a nice person. I also know that you'll like me even less after reading this. 

Never worry, though, you don't have to punish me for it; life already did that for you. I've been taught a lesson that will satisfy each and every moralist and reward the multitude of people who told me so.

I am different now – wow, am I different. I guess life changed me so thoroughly that it is hard for me to give you an objective picture of myself back when I was still an arrogant teenager – and an even more arrogant young woman. I'll do my best, though. Please bear with me.

*** 

Let me start with an observation about truth I made as a child. People always insisted that I tell the truth. But when that truth didn't suit them, they preferred that I lie. And if I wouldn't go along with that, they'd call me an insolent girl or an impudent brat. 

Even as a child and later as a teenager I saw the opportunism of all this – the manipulation involved. And I decided I wouldn't have anything to do with it. 

Enough was enough, I said when I went to high school – no more false modesty for me, no more hiding of the simple truth: I was more beautiful than any girl or woman I ever met. I had a gorgeous face and body; no other girl in my vicinity compared to me. I knew that time would destroy that beauty, but not yet. Jealous plain-janes might call it skin-deep vanity, but I knew better: beauty was an asset, as long as it lasted. Beauty mattered; wasting it would be a sin.

Be honest – deep down you know that too.

Beautiful girls get higher grades in school, as every pimple-ridden classmate may grudgingly confirm. Beautiful girls find better jobs easier. They get things done by pouting and smiling. They get off the hook by fluttering their eyelashes. It is true, statistics prove it: beautiful people are underrepresented in criminal records. And even if they get caught, their cases go less often to court. In trials they are more often found not guilty and if found guilty their sentences are significantly lower. Did you know, by the way, that beautiful people are usually estimated an inch taller than they actually are?

Yes, one might say it's great to be beautiful. But that doesn't always make it easy. Being born a gorgeous woman guarantees a life filled with dilemmas. They attack you at every corner and there never seems to be a right choice to make. You grow up in a world of envy and even early on you have to decide how to deal with it. 

For example, at fourteen I had no entourage of girls. Every popular girl is supposed to have them, if only because she attracts the popular boys for them. You know, uglier girls picking up the crumbs that fall off my table? I tried to make a few, but I guess I was too intimidating or whatever. The only ones that stayed were these ugly, nerdy girls: fat, with rabbit's teeth, glasses that made their eyes bulge and no taste or money for decent clothes. I really didn't know why I kept them – maybe for the contrast? You know, go take a closer look and you'll see how many beautiful girls have short and ugly friends. 

So there was one of them who suddenly got all-angry with me after I forgot to tell her I went to the movies with this awesome eighteen-year-old guy. Why did she get angry? As if he would have chosen her? Fat chance. Beautiful girls date all the time and ugly fat girls don't. Was it my fault? Okay, I had promised to go to that movie with her, but come on – should I have chosen her and missed the excitement of snatching Dave away from Lisa-with-the-stuffed-bra, who was flaunting him as her exclusive boyfriend? For Christ's sake, I dumped the slob the next day, he meant nothing to me. But my so-called friend had to throw a tantrum, yelling she didn't ever want to be seen with me again. As if I cared.

Sigh – dilemmas.

Then there is the matter of clothes. At school I looked better in a sack than most girls did in silk. It wasn't something I asked for; it was a fact of life. Boys liked what I wore, no matter what it was. They whistled when I wore a simple pink T-shirt. They hardly looked up when Chrissie or Sandra wore the same one. So girls got pissed at what I wore, whatever I wore. What could I do? Dress down all the time – tug away my boobs, hide my legs? Should I have tied my blond curls into a severe library lady's bun just to avoid envious remarks? The guys would still have whistled anyway. 

As I said – dilemmas.

High school is hell for beautiful girls. I know, most girls would commit murder for even a single day of popularity. But ask them again after a full year of 24/7 attention. I had to fend off boys from day one. If I hadn't turned them down every girl would have called me a slut. So I lived like a nun, just to avoid being shut out. And then I was shut out anyway for being an arrogant iceberg. If ever there was a no-win dilemma! Do I isolate myself from the boys so I won't be isolated by the girls or vice versa? You tell me. 

I have these sparkling blue eyes. I have my perfect 100-watt smile. A pencil won't stick to the bottom of my tits – or the bottom of my ass, for that matter. I have perfect legs that never end. But what did it all do for me? I'll tell you what it did to me. It made me into what everybody already said I was behind my gorgeous back – a stuck up bitch. And it kept me a virgin until I went to college. You see, all the other girls got fucked; I didn't even get kissed. I scared the boys away. They got all tongue-tied around me, just to call me names after I left. When at last my little brother offered to take me to the prom for lack of invitations, I retired to my room. I closed the door and cried for two days till the damn event was over.

When you are a truly beautiful girl, college isn't much different from high school. My grades weren't bad. Well, I am not dumb and there weren't many distractions to keep me away from the books, were there? The few girls I befriended were dating their ugly asses off and here I was, sitting pretty on my lonely island. Being the perfect ice-queen had become second nature. Boys were intimidated and even the teachers gave up after a few nervous tries. 

I knew it would help my grades to be friendly with the teachers. High school taught me that. It had also taught me where being friendly with teachers gets you. Once I allowed a math teacher to find my tits inside my top and get his bearded lips around a nipple. But when he guided my hand into his open fly to produce his crooked little pecker, I ran to find a toilet and emptied my stomach. Being beautiful leaves one pretty intolerant of ugly things, I guess – especially when they want to put them in you. Anyway, math always stayed my poorest grade after that.

Of course you would expect me to be a model and yes, I was for a while – there might even still be a few old magazines around with my face on them. Maybe you heard how girls are supposed to be nice to photographers and producers to get anywhere at all. Well, I was friendly as friendly goes; I flirted and smiled. I suppose you know that there are enough moments when it is just professional for a model to be naked. There are also a lot of perfectly legitimate moments for men on sets to touch a girl. 

I was touched a lot. I also was whispered to a lot. And when I gave the impression to not understand the hints, there were always these more experienced girls to teach me. (Experienced in broader fields than just modeling.) They were more than willing to explain to me how important extra-curricular services are for an aspiring young model. It added up to yet another dilemma – should I accept being fucked to obtain a serious model career? Or not?


The Quality of Her Tears



I chose the not. So there were only a few new shootings after that. My career days were over. Beauty and perfection can take you far, but now there suddenly were these murmured remarks at auditions about my lack of warmth and lack of sex appeal. I appeared to suddenly have lost the mysterious but all-important "it." I could have strangled the lot of them, but what can a girl do? Dilemmas.

I lost interest in showing off my beauty. To be honest, I started hating it. I became the college nun and graduated in record time, ending up near the top of my class. I turned into the most beautiful nerd God created. I told myself to be proud and enjoy my educational excellence, as did my parents. 

That was when I decided to go to Europe for a year.

Carl.

"Stop this now, Carl," he said. "If you don't want to lose a friend." He was John. He'd been my brother for 26 years. His face looked calm, but I saw he only barely curbed the rage below. I knew him well enough to notice.

I called him from the car and was now drinking a beer with him, seated on the roof terrace of his apartment. The city hummed deep below us.

"Sorry, John," I said. "This is all too new to me. I don't know what to think anymore."

I had given him the picture. He had looked at it, taken a swig from his beer and said: "I see." 

"What do you see?" I asked. 

"I can see how you may think that is me," he answered. "But it isn't."

"The birthmark," I said. He sighed and returned the picture. 

"I can only ask you to believe me." 

I put down my beer.

"You ask a lot," I said. 

Then he did the line about losing a friend and I told him I was sorry. I really was, but mostly for confronting him. Maybe I should not have. I needed to see his reaction, but it didn't work. He never gave me a hint of his involvement. But he didn't convince me of his innocence either.

John and I grew up together. We were never really close, though. He is eight years younger than I, which is a wide gap when you are kids. I left home for college when he turned eleven. After that it was just holidays and the occasional weekend. By then he'd plunged into the quagmire of puberty that I had just wrestled myself out of.

But yes, I knew him well enough to read his face, I thought. Right now, however, I wasn't sure. The man in the picture had his build, his hair color and most of all: the same black dot on his left cheek. Or was it a shadow, after all?

I rose.

"I'm sorry to have bothered you," I said, pocketing the picture. He rose too.

"You never bother me, you know that," he hastened to say. "I can see how this could upset you. Damn, who would have thought..." I shrugged and thought: right response brother dear, but just a bit late. Self defense first, empathy later. Wrong priorities I'd say.

Only then it struck me how, within a few hours, everything I felt safe about had turned hostile. All I had taken for granted now had to be rationalized. Nothing seemed to be as it used to. 

When I came home, Mia wasn't there. I assumed she'd told me she would be out on an errand or something. I shrugged and realized that there had been a time, not long ago, that such assumptions might have been enough. Not anymore.

I put away my golf bag and took a shower. When I rummaged through my wardrobe for a fresh polo shirt and khaki slacks, a thought came to me. I walked into her closet, amazed as always by the amount of outfits and shoes.

There were too many dresses, skirts and tops to even start wondering if maybe I hadn't seen some of them before. Her zillions of pumps, sandals and boots would have shamed Imelda Marcos.

I just did a superficial search, never really knowing what to look for. There were loads and loads of underwear in three separate drawers – bras, panties, stockings, camisoles and slips. And there was one special section containing her workout lycras and another to hold her sexy lace and silky playthings.

I knew I was lost in this sea of textiles. I touched them, moved them around and even smelled them. It only pushed new tears against my eyeballs.

That was when I found the small photo album. It was leather bound and closed with a lock. I knew it. She had shown it to me shortly after we got together. It contained pictures from her time in Paris during the year she went to Europe, after finishing college. It also held diary-notes.

I returned it, fleetingly wondering why it should be locked. I closed her closet doors and was on my way down when the front door opened and Mia walked in. She looked freshly showered and carried her sports bag. I hugged and kissed her cheek.

"You glow, honey," I said. She smiled.

"Yes," she said. "I worked out hard and now I'm hungry!" She pecked my lips and walked over to the kitchen.

"Care for a sandwich too?" she asked. "Tuna? Chicken?"

We sat on the deck, munching. The chicken and the ruccola salad were mixed with homemade mayonnaise. The bread was a freshly baked baguette. You had to eat carefully or the sauce would squirt on your clothes. The fresh buttermilk held a promise of summer.

"I did the eighty kilo's twice on number five," Mia said, smiling proudly.

"Good girl," I said.

Mia was very competitive and liked to trump the kilometers I ran with the kilo's she pushed. Ah well, we all have our incentives.

"You are quiet, honey," she then said. "Something bothering you?"

I observed her – the calm eyes, the relaxed movements, and I wondered. Would she start giving things away if I acted out of the ordinary? Or would I just be telegraphing my new knowledge to her – my assumed new knowledge? "Dilemma's," she'd say. She loved that word.

"Yes," I said. "Something is bothering me. But I am not sure yet if it will become important. I'll let you know when it does." I smiled and she mirrored the smile, after a moment of hesitation.

"Mmmm," she said, pouting. "You are being mysterious and it seems you like it." I pointed at the corner of my mouth to indicate where a crumb of bread stuck to hers. She instinctively touched the wrong corner as most people do. We laughed. It was an amazingly relaxed laugh.

I guess reality hadn't reached all my niches yet.

Later that same night when we were in bed, reading, her hand traveled up my thigh and found my cock. We slept in the nude as we always did. She caressed me in a casual way, her warm hand wandering. I responded without thinking, finding her firm thigh. A minute of gentle stroking caused my cock to fill out in her hand. We didn't take our eyes off the books we read, but the words started making less and less sense.

She put down her novel and rolled over in my direction. I looked aside to catch her perfect eyes, knowing they must be perfectly lying – and my erection dwindled in her hand. She looked down and then up to me and said: 

"Honey, whatever's bothering you just became important."

I knew her remark was supposed to make things lighter. It was meant to defuse the embarrassing moment. But of course it was only barely covering her concern – we'd never had erectile problems in our marriage.

She threw back the covers and sat up, studying the dead, naked fledgling in the palm of her hand. It felt slightly wrong, as if she had no right to touch it anymore. I pulled back and sat up too.

"Yes," I agreed. "I guess it did get important. But I also think I don't want to discuss it – yet. I have to leave early tomorrow, as you know, and I do need my sleep."

My bluntness seemed to shake her. Her hand rose to her throat. Then she said: "Of course." I cupped her face with one hand, holding her eyes with mine.

"This is for the best, honey, believe me. Talking now would be useless. Let me give you some time. When I return you may have to tell me things."

I turned away from her, not waiting to see how she took it. She asked twice what I meant; the second time she shook my shoulder. I switched off my bed light and refused to respond.

I faked sleep for the rest of the night. Maybe she did too.

Mia.

So after college I went to Europe. I guess it was just to get away, really – to change the scenery and see what might happen. Who knew, maybe the guys over there would be blind? Maybe they were all gay or might prove immune to my healthy, American variety of beauty? You never know, it's Europe, isn't it?

I hate to make long stories short – this is the story of my life and it is short enough as it is. But okay, I'll zip through those first few weeks in Europe. The place proved to be just as the brochures tell us ("If it's Tuesday this must be Copenhagen.") We flitted through all the appropriate tourist routines – London, Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Venice, Barcelona, you name it, we went there. 'We' being I and two girls I might call friends if I stretched the concept. I had studied with the one and shared a room for a short while with the other. I could give you names, but again that would be stretching the depth of our relationship.

In Barcelona our ways parted. I went back to Paris and to a totally different kind of Europe. I planned on upgrading my French there and had a job waiting. The girls flew on to Berlin and Scandinavia, after which they would return home. Apart from a few phone calls, text messages and the exchange of snap shots on the net, they virtually left my life. I felt okay with that.

In Paris I found a tiny apartment in the district called Montparnasse. It is close to the touristy Left Bank, but far out enough to give you a taste of the real thing. The apartment was stuffy and had this rickety elevator you always see in old French movies. To me it was paradise.

I loved to just go out and walk around. While doing that I found out how very different this new world was, compared to the places I grew up in. Back home it would be considered dirty and chaotic. In my town half the buildings would have been torn down long ago. Hell no, most of them would never have been built in the first place.

Montparnasse still has a vaguely remembered reputation as an artists' neighborhood. Well-known modernist painters like Picasso, Kandinsky and the notorious surrealists lived there at the start of the 20th century – mainly because the rent was low and the red wine cheap. American writers went there too, like Hemingway and Scot Fitzgerald. And let's not forget Lenin and Trotsky, before they grabbed their chance and took over Russia.

Montparnasse was built in the heydays of the Bel Epoque, which was the end of the 19th century, right until World War One wiped it all away. It has wide avenues lined with plane trees and elegant housing blocks. It also has an ugly skyscraper dumped right at the center of it. On the corners are café's with street side terraces and burgundy awnings against the sun. There are shops and kiosks and galleries. There is a small street market filled with fruits and vegetables, snails and crabs and silvery fish. A legendary café is La Closerie des Lilas. And of course there is La Coupole, Paris' most famous brasserie. Ever since the 1890's it has been seating a thousand guests daily, and feeding them delicious food, served by the fastest waiters in the world.

I loved Montparnasse. From the moment I opened the doors to my tiny balcony and was engulfed by the sounds and fragrances of the busy streets, I was sold. I spent hours on the sidewalk terraces drinking the tiniest sips of tea, chatting a bit and watching Paris walk by. There was a boulangerie on my corner that I frequented just to smell the newly baked bread. There were bookshops where I read whole chapters of novels before not buying them. And there were the petits zincs, the little bars I visited just to hear the short, swarthy men discuss the world in sentences too fast to follow.

My French wasn't bad and it improved quickly. After a few days I was able to understand normal conversations and take part in them. I even started getting the hang of the exotic street-patois that in recent years gobbled up more and more idiom and accents from the former French colonies.

My job was with the American consulate on Avenue Gabriel, close to the Arc de Triomphe. I got it through friends of my father and soon discovered that it was a fake job, really. I was supposed to be there four days a week, but they hardly seemed to have enough work to fill part of my mornings. 

So I asked for and got permission to enroll into a French literature course that would occupy me during afternoons and some of the evenings. They were held in a gloomy building in the Latin Quarter; it was part of the Sorbonne University.

That was where I met Jean-Luc – not at the course proper, but at a café close by where some of my fellow students gathered after school. I initially refused to go with them – old habits die slowly. But I'd noticed from day one that French guys and girls are different from the ones back home. Maybe I was being naïve or just desperately alone and wanting to belong in this strange city. Whatever the reason, I felt at ease with them – so I joined them after lessons.

The guys sure looked me over and their eyes sparkled as they did, but they never gawked. And thank God they never made these sickeningly smug cliché passes while finding transparent ways to "accidentally" touch me, as did most guys I knew. Through the years I had grown tired of those quasi-casual remarks. I knew they were only meant for the other guys they hung with. They were meant to prove how macho they were, but never to compliment me – or even to convince me they liked me. 

Here guys really talked to me when they talked to me, and not through me to their friends. And amazingly, most of the time their eyes were not on my tits.

The girls just seemed to accept me for what I was: a foreign student with a funny accent. I was welcome if I wanted to – as long as I didn't expect them to slow down their quick French gossip or explain the clues of their jokes.

Jean-Luc seemed a few years older than us. He had a dark, Mediterranean skin, black, unruly hair and brown eyes framed by dark-rimmed spectacles. He was about as tall as I, which is pretty tall for a Frenchman, I'd noticed. His English was passable, but heavily accented – at times I understood his French better. He looked good in a casual way, dressed in jeans and a linen jacket over a tight white t-shirt. It suggested a trim body. He wasn't extravert in the well-known Gallic way, but he wasn't shy either. The word is unassuming, I suppose. 

My friends from the course seemed to know him, so he got kind of sucked into our group. But I knew at once that there was a difference. The usual relaxed kind of camaraderie was going on, but with Jean-Luc there always seemed to be a distance. When he gave me a hand and introduced himself, I understood – he was an arts professor at the university. A very young one too, I thought, smiling. The open and relaxed way he mirrored my smile attacked a wall I had put up ages ago. I could almost hear it crumble and shatter around my feet.

It made me feel like I'd never felt before.

Okay, cliché of all cliché's – American girl in Paris falls for dark and handsome Frenchy. Oh-la-fucking-la. And I fell hard. I guess all the pent up feelings of the last half-decade were released at once – like air shrieking out of a balloon.

The evening at the café was on a Friday. I never saw my little flat again until Monday next. Jean-Luc took me everywhere and he took me – everywhere. He was surprised about my tightness. I was surprised that I could even take half of him in. 

I also thanked God for the pill.

Carl.

The Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg asked me for a second opinion on a Ruisdael. A rich Russian gas tycoon planned on acquiring the painting from a private source and leasing it out to the museum. All the lab tests and microscopic research had been done; there seemed to be no problem as to the piece being a genuine Dutch master, painted with the right paint on the right surface and in the right period.

It depicted an Italianate landscape with a water mill and a group of travelers. The theme was familiar for this painter and so were the colors and the touches of his brush. Funny thing was, though, that the painting had been absolutely unknown till it surfaced at an auction. There were no written sources, just one or two sketches and an etching of roughly the same subject.

No one knew how to call the painting or even where to place it in the well-researched life of the artist. The signature was there, though, and all other indications were right – both technically and art-historically.

I had long discussions with the head conservator of the museum and two of his restorers, one of whom was a piece of fine art herself. She seemed not yet thirty, petite in a well-curved way and with those high cheekbones so many pretty Russian girls are endowed with. Her name was Natalia. I asked her if she knew a nice place for drinks, after we finished.

Asking her surprised me. Well, not the asking by itself. I'd asked women out before for an innocent drink or dinner on my lonesome trips. But it had been a long time since I felt a rush of excitement while asking.

Natalia was sweet. She took me to a lovely café and over drinks she told me about herself. Once again I was impressed with the way the Russians train their talents. Natalia could easily run with the best in her field should she decide to come to New York or London. She would also triple her income. Here in Russia she was treated as just one of many, and it didn't seem to bother her.

We had a nice evening. We even danced and had dinner. I also drank way too much vodka, but when she asked me up for coffee I found enough remnants of sobriety to know it would be unprofessional to respond to her invitation. She laughed at my careful refusal. Then she kissed me on my cheek and whispered: "It would really just have been coffee. See you tomorrow."

In the morning of the third day I advised them to be wary of the painting. I had no hard proof against its authenticity, but I shared their gut feeling. There was something not entirely kosher about the suddenness of its appearance. I promised them to put more research into it back home and let them know what I found.

Natalia took me to the airport. At the gate she rose to her tiptoes and kissed me. I don't know about Russian etiquette for public kissing, but I'm almost sure Natalia's interpretation pushed a few envelopes. My cock still twitched when I tightened my seatbelt over it.

She was on my mind during the entire flight. Not just her obvious attraction (or my natural response to it), but mostly the thought how easy it had felt to go further this time. I am a one-woman guy, but I don't wear blinkers. That means I see women and am attracted to them when they appeal to my sense of beauty and sexuality. But that's it – or was, up till now. What had changed?

I guess the very act of marrying Mia had severed a connection between my easy arousal and my acting upon it. I could flirt with women, touch them, dance with them and even kiss them – and never have the slightest inclination to follow up on it. I didn't even think of straying. But with Natalia things were suddenly different. 

I could and would have fucked her then and there, that evening – there would not even have been a trace of guilt. The only reason I didn't go through with it must have been the shock of surprise about my own feelings – and the alarming notion of what it might mean.

I wondered how finding one simple snapshot could have changed my attitude so fundamentally. I would not normally have fallen for a girl like Natalia – not before I found out about Mia's cheating. I had met many like her on my travels. She didn't stir special feelings. She was just another sweet and pretty girl – damn sexy too. 

But this time I might have cheated on my wife, and there would not have been remorse. Flying back home I started wondering about something I'd never wondered about before. I wondered if I'd ever really loved Mia – and moreover: I wondered if she'd ever really loved me. To anyone else this might seem a legitimate question; to me it was a shock – like pondering if one could live without breathing. 




The Quality of Her Tears



Loving Mia had been the most natural thing for me to do, right from the moment I first saw her. It had been so natural that I never even considered the possibility she might love me less or even not at all. It didn't matter – until now. I tried to probe back into the years since we met, but it was impossible for me to have one objective thought concerning Mia.

Did my changed attitude towards women mean that I'd stopped loving her – that my sub-conscience had already decided there was nothing to salvage and I just should move on – and all that just because I saw a picture?

When I arrived at home Mia wasn't there. A note on the kitchen table reminded me she was out of town for work. She is a freelance journalist, which at times takes her away for days. I could have known her whereabouts by simply checking my BlackBerry. We kept track of each other in our diaries. I know – it is the curse of the yuppie lifestyle.

I could have called her; a few days ago I might have. Right now it was not even at the back of my mind. I took a shower, left a note and went to the Ox and Bull, a bar that started out as a would-be British pub, but had gradually deteriorated into a run-of-the-mill sports bar. I went there once in a while when Mia wasn't around – sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. I never took her there; it was too male a playground, floating on alcohol and the incidental impersonation of food. 

Everything at the Ox was brazenly ugly. The food was greasy and so was the barkeep – as a matter of fact: so were most of the things you touched, except the immaculately polished glasses.

I started off with a scotch on ice and an amiable discussion concerning football. The game leaves me cold, but I'd early on decided against talking about things not related to sports, cars or women at the Ox – things like culture or art. The one time I tried, the guy I talked to told me he was the proud owner of a genuine Bob Ross painting. I congratulated him and changed the subject.

Tonight – inexplicably – there was a group of women in the Ox. They were all in their thirties or a bit younger. They also seemed to have had enough drinks to double the volume of their voices. 

I never before noticed there was music in the Ox, but now there suddenly was. There even was dancing, although the improvised dance floor hardly allowed more than a few square feet per dancer. Some of the regulars didn't mind that at all and bravely melted into the women they faked to be dancing with.

"Hen party," the blond girl next to me explained, shrugging her shoulders and spreading her hands in mock excuse.

"Who's the bride?" I yelled over the country song that blared out of the jukebox.

The girl pointed at a woman on the dance floor who wore a little girl's plastic crown and a nylon tutu. She was totally into a guy I knew as Randy; he was never more appropriately named.

"Care to dance?" the girl asked. "I am quite drunk though, I must warn you." I smiled and took her into my arms. She at once solved the problem of her tipsiness – we mostly used my legs.

Three dances and two drinks later I learned that her name was Lena, that she liked to touch me and that she had a lovely dry sense of humor. It also appeared that the hen party had abandoned us.

Dancing with her head against my chest she suddenly said: "I'm starved." So we ended up across the street where we had two impressive steaks at a vintage diner.

A cab brought us from there first to a smoky jazz cellar and then to a Japanese karaoke joint, where Lena proved to be an amazing singer.

"I'm not sure what time it is, but I guess I should go home," she said at last. Her voice was hoarse from drinking and singing. I knew it was about 3 a.m. but didn't tell her.

"Do you know where that home is, honey?" I asked and she found that quite funny.

"I should know," she chuckled, "shouldn't I?"

"Guess so," I agreed. "Is there anyone waiting for you?"

The question seemed to sober her up.

"No," she mumbled. "Not the last time I looked."

The subject did obviously nothing to cheer her up, so I tried a different tack.

"What about the other hens, honey? Don't they miss you?"

She shrugged. "Called them earlier. They all went to a strip joint, cheering on naked guys with six packs and a bow tie, no doubt." She snickered and slipped her finger inside my shirt. 

"And they all have these overstuffed little thongs too, no doubt." Her other hand suddenly covered the bulge in my pants. It had been nicely simmering during the last hour. She squeezed it, chuckling. Then she looked up at me. "I'd say you are nicely stuffed too, sir."

I didn't see her mouth coming, but her tongue couldn't be missed. Her lips were weak and open, and I didn't mind the pressure of her tits into my chest – or her firm hand rubbing.

In the cab to her apartment she had to wrestle her mouth free from mine to give the driver directions. My cock was out before we arrived and so was her left breast.

The furnishings of her flat looked tasteful. My favorite piece was the bed.

Mia.

Two weeks after I met Jean-Luc we were at his apartment, lying once more on his ruined bed, exhausted. Let's say it was a Saturday morning. I had just blown his cock. It seemed I was getting the hang of it considering his groaning compliments. I felt his drying sperm tighten the skin of my chest – I still chickened out of letting him come in my mouth.

My finger ran tiny circles around his nipple. My mind went back over these last few weeks, only recalling sweet smelling, pink clouds of bliss. I had skipped quite a few of my fake office-hours and missed several lessons to be with him or to rest from being with him.

There had been moments when I took a step back to take in the amazement of it all. There also had been moments of wondering what was happening to me, but they were increasingly rare and far between. A new feeling had surfaced. To me it was entirely alien and squeezed the last drop of bitterness from my heart – it was happiness, I guess.

I was happy with him, with his friends, with the places he took me to, the parties, the people we met, the food we ate, the streets we walked, the parks we strolled in and the theatres we went to. It was as if everything was new, even the silver sickle of the moon when it rose over the river Seine. I giggled at whatever he said, my knees were permanently liquid. My nipples ached when he smiled. I had to change my panties three times a day when he was around – and when he wasn't. 

I was in love. I guess I was in heaven. 

"You are incredible," he said. I had learned that he loved thickening his silly accent on purpose. He still panted from our vigorous exercises.

"Tu n'es pas mal toi-même, chéri," I commented in response, emphasizing each word by pulling at his dark chest hair with my red nailed fingertips.

He grabbed me and pulled my face close to his. "Je suis sérieux," he said. I grinned. "You better."

His brown eyes looked intense as they darted left and right to cover every detail of my face. His obvious seriousness sent shivers down my spine.

"I really mean it. You are special, Mia. Very special to me." The accent was almost gone.

I had no answer. There was just a tiny voice at the back of my mind, yelling "watch out, stupid!" But I took a virtual pillow and smothered it until it stopped. 

I wanted him. I wanted this. I needed it after all these years of frustration. He was so different. He adored me, respected me. He was sweet, tender, and I needed to enjoy every damn fucking second of it.

He now rested on his elbows, his face over mine. I saw the wild black hair and wanted to run my fingers through it. I felt the stubbles on his chin and needed to scratch them. I touched his mouth and had to kiss it again and again – I needed to taste the sweet salty sweat on his chest; I had to drown in his eyes... 

"I want us to get up and go out and buy you a dress," he said, exaggerating his accent again. "I want to give you the most expensive and sexiest dress you ever had." I chuckled and kissed him.

"How could a girl refuse?" I asked. "And in Paris no less? But why?"

"Parce-que je t'aime, naturellement," he answered without a hint of a smile, reawakening my shivers. "The girl I love should look the most beautiful of all Paris." 

'Zee most beautiful of all Paree,' he said. I kissed his nose. He sat up, eyes sparkling.

"And also because I have to take you to a party." 

It took us all afternoon to find the perfect dress – and the road to finding it had been perfect too. Dressing for him aroused me no end. Walking out of the fitting room just wearing this flimsy Dior or outrageous Gaultier next-to-nothing on my bare skin dug up all the exhibitionist tendencies I had buried years ago. Just to watch his eyes take me in went straight to my well-ploughed pussy.

Of course he decided on the sexiest piece – a sea-green filmy thing of knitted jersey wool that clung to my curves with soft, caressing fingers. It stopped above my knees and although it covered my chest entirely, the supple fabric loved to cling to my teased nipples, following the free swing of my tits. 

I did not want to know what it cost. Just as I did not want to know the price of the stiletto sandals he insisted I should wear with the dress. But I agreed with him that we should sprint back to his apartment and reunite his poor hard cock with my weeping pussy before getting ready for the party.

The party's location was outside Paris proper. We sat together in the back of the sumptuous car he had called to pick us up. It was all I could do to keep my new dress unruffled from his roving hands or to save my freshly painted lips from his searching mouth. 

Whatever function this might be, it must be very important to Jean-Luc, I thought. He seemed as nervous as a schoolboy. He was dressed in an Italian suit and it looked marvelous on him. Ah well – in my eyes he would have looked great if he'd gone to the party in oil-stained coveralls and rubber boots.

I still glowed from the lovemaking we did on our return – and from the long shower we took afterwards. Being with Jean-Luc had changed me mentally – I felt on top of the world. My self-confidence had become a matter of course. I even turned and flirted back, smiling, when men called after me in the streets.

It also changed me physically. I walked straighter and used my hips, enjoying the effect. I only now realized how stressed and knotted my muscles had become – how stingy I had been with my smiles.

"Je t'aime, Jean-Luc," I whispered, caressing his face – right when the car drove through a gate watched over by marble angels. It followed a winding driveway leading to a mansion that lay basking in spotlights.

I noticed his lips kissing my fingers. Then I felt his hand slide up my thigh.

"Raise your hips," he said. His eyes locked with mine.

"But..." I tried. 

"Do it," he said with a cool flat voice. He didn't smile and there was no Maurice Chevalier in his accent.

I raised my hips and felt his fingers reach for the narrow band of my thong. He snapped it with a tug – I felt the silk material slide off my naked leg. His hand came up and crumpled the lace-and-silk nothingness into a ball before putting it into his breast pocket where it peeped out like an innocent handkerchief.

"Now you are ready," he said, at last smiling.

The door beside me opened. A young valet held it for me to get out while my dress was still up my thighs. The spotlights that lit the mansion from below must no doubt have allowed the boy to see my exposed crotch. Jean-Luc had freshly shaved and oiled it during our prolonged shower-session.

My face turned crimson when I stood and tried to pull the dress down to a more modest length. Jean-Luc had rounded the car by then and took my hand to lead me to the steps of the entrance.

I swear I heard him chuckle, so I pounded his upper arm. I should have hit him harder.

Carl.

I returned home from my night with Lena in the early afternoon of the next day, still tasting the furry tail of my hangover. I saw Mia's vintage MG in the garage and found her in white tennis gear, nursing a cup of tea on the deck. She smiled. I felt no guilt. As a matter of fact, the memories of the night before left traces of happiness at the back of my mind.

"Tea?" she asked. I declined, setting myself down across from her. I had stayed away all night and all morning, but she did not seem to wonder.

"How was Petersburg?" she asked, perfectly relaxed. I just stared at her. I let the silence speak for itself, knowing she would break it. When she did, her voice was still smooth.

"Before you left you were upset, honey. Why? You promised to talk about it, remember? Then all I found was a note and an empty bed. You had me worried."

In contrast to her words she sounded dead calm. I ached to shatter that composure. I knew that showing the picture would do just that, but I decided against it. Ever since getting the picture one question had been foremost in my mind: should I confront her with nothing more than that snapshot? Now, at the very last moment I decided to wait.

"I have been seeing a doctor," I lied. "Because of...you know?" I gestured vaguely in the direction of my lap. I knew I was being cruel. I didn't care. Her eyes reflected a sudden worry. Was it real? Was it fake? Damn, I hated this game.

"What did he say? Are you ill?" she asked, rising from her chair. I held up both hands, not sure if I meant her to stay seated or to allay her worries.

"Oh no, honey, nothing of the kind!" I said, smiling – or trying to. "Howard wasn't in, so I talked to his replacement. He thinks I might be stressed out and it could result in incidental loss of erection. He did a general check-up. All is fine."

Howard was our doctor – or mine, to be precise. It seemed saver to use an anonymous substitute.

She walked over to me and sat down in my lap. She smelled lovely and her lips were velvet. My mind went miles a minute. I tried not to respond to her kissing, but thought better of it. And anyway – my body had its own mind, it seemed.

"My poor lover," she whispered when she released me. The sound of her voice and her choice of words took me back to reality. 

"Uhm," I said, not even convincing myself. "I have an appointment in... let's see... half an hour. I really have to shower and change." 

Never minding her puzzled look and pouting lips, I pushed her gently aside and went upstairs.

I really did have an appointment. It was with the PI firm behind the phone number on the note. I'd found their address in the city, a twenty-minute drive.

I showed the receptionist my note and told her I'd made an appointment with the person behind the written down number. She looked and smiled. She had a lovely smile.

"Ah yes," she said. "This would be Ms. Callahan's number. She knows you are coming, Mr... Lundgren, is it?"

Her face was bright and open, making her look very young. It was the kind of face you see in villages and small towns, but hardly ever in the big city. Maybe it's the stress and air pollution that paint them gray after a while, even if they've initially arrived fresh and blushing. Whatever the cause, I mused, right now she looked like freshly picked fruit. 

The tag on her desk told me her name was Debbie. I liked to watch her while I waited; it didn't seem to faze her. Once again I was surprised by the urge to fuck her. The tender rise and fall of her white cotton blouse went straight to my cock.

Ms. Callahan looked to be in her late thirties. Her businesslike suit hugged a slender body. Her hair was as red as her name promised, but maybe she colored it for the same reason. She smiled with a warmth equal to Debbie's, although her face seemed to have lived in the city air quite a bit longer. She reached for my hand to shake it.

"My name is Mary Callahan. You called us, Mr. Lundgren. What can I do for you?"

I followed her into a rather small but tastefully furnished office, where she made me sit down in a leather club chair. I refused the coffee she offered and gave her the note. She studied it in silence.

"I guess this note made you think it must be from us, Mr. Lundgren." She looked up. "But I really don't think it is." 

"Call me Carl, please," I answered, accepting the note back. "If not from here, why would it say: 'call us?' and have your number?"

"A good question, uhm, Carl. One I can't answer, though. We are four people in these offices – my partner Gus Jones, Debbie you saw at the desk and Rita who works part-time doing our books and taxes. And me, of course." She smiled again.

"None of us writes like this," she went on. "No one ever uses purple ink as far as I know, at least at the office. And although I am not an expert in handwriting, the note does seem to have been written in one single flow by a self-assured hand. So if it is a counterfeit, it's been done very professionally."

I handed her the photograph. She studied it unhurriedly. Then she looked up, waiting for my explanation.

"That is my wife," I said. "And I have a strong suspicion that the man is my brother, although he denies it. I found the note and picture in my golf bag at the eighth hole of our club's golf links. I am certain it wasn't in there before." The banality of my story made me feel embarrassed.

She looked down and again studied the picture.

"Is it recent?" she asked.

"I have reasons to believe it was taken in late fall or early last winter." I explained my reasoning. She nodded and asked about my friend and colleague Mansfield, and the two men added to our golfing flight.

"Mr. Lundgren... Carl," she finally said. "Please accept that I am as surprised about this as you are. I wonder why anyone would want you to contact us."

It was a conclusion I hadn't come to – a third party writing the note to have me contact a private investigator's office.

"Could it be that?" I asked. The question puzzled her. I went on: "Would some third party want me to contact you?"

"Ah!" she said, bringing her hands together on her desk – long fingers interlacing. "You mean, would they want you to use us for further investigation?" I just looked at her.

"Well," she went on. "If so, it is quite an uncommon way to be... introduced to a client." She smiled. Not one of her smiles was ever quite the same. She also had perfect teeth.

"Would you?" I asked. "I mean – would you investigate for me?" She hesitated.

"Mr... uhm, Carl," she then said. "We always love to hear that question. But this time I think it should be me asking you: would you? I mean – are you sure you want to find out? Experience tells us that questions like that often open doors to misery and pain."

She was right. She might find things that would end my marriage to Mia, but it also might end my relationship with my brother. And it might change my life in other ways too – ways I could not even foresee. 

The silence went on. The woman never broke it. She allowed me time to consider her question – such a rare quality these days, I thought.

"Would you?" I then asked, softly repeating my first question.

She nodded and reached for a yellow legal pad. She took the cap off an old-fashioned fountain pen and asked: 

"Where do you live?" It would be the first of many questions.

Mia.

When I entered the mansion on Jean-Luc's arm, I expected the house to be filled with voices. But the hall was empty – so was the corridor leading to the back of the building where huge doors opened to a well-lit ballroom-sized salon. It might once have been a conservatory, an orangery of some sorts, with huge windows looking out on a marble terrace and a well-kept garden that bathed in spotlights too.

The large room had a wooden dance floor. Enormous crystal chandeliers hung from a distant ceiling, brightly illuminating everything around. There was soft, disembodied music.




The Quality of Her Tears



I gasped when we entered. It made Jean-Luc chuckle. "Pas mal, eh?" he whispered, pulling my shoulder into him.

There were only five men in the beautiful ballroom; no women. They varied in age from maybe forty to fifty-five, sixty – their hair went from pepper-and-salt to silvery white. They were all wearing tuxedos.

One of them cut loose from the group and walked over to us. He held his arms wide until he closed them around Jean-Luc. I stepped aside to watch them embrace. Then Jean-Luc freed himself and gestured to include me.

"Papa," he said. "Please meet Mia. She means the world to me." I felt a blush at what he said. Yes, I guess he meant the world to me too. 

I smiled and placed my hands in the older man's, now noticing the similarities of father and son. Papa was heavier set than his son and his hair was totally white, but the eyes were the same and so was his voice. His hands felt warm and dry – they were strong too.

"Let me wish you a cordial welcome, mademoiselle," he said in French, his voice booming. "My son is a very lucky man." As he talked, he brought my right hand to his lips. The old-fashioned gesture gave me shivers.

"Merci, monsieur, je suis honorée," I stuttered in my best French, having no clue as to what might be proper phrasing. 

I was tickled pink that Jean-Luc would present me to his family this soon, but I would never have agreed to dress like this had I known.

The old man smiled and kept looking me up and down. My virtual nakedness gnawed at my confidence. The way my nipples poked into the soft jersey didn't help either. Hot flashes crept up from my throat.

He winked, touching my shoulder lightly to steer me towards the other men. What followed was a round of hardly understandable introductions. No one reached out for a handshake; we just all nodded and smiled a lot. Their eyes made me feel as if I were pushed through a scan. The men were all very distinguished and fit for their age. One of them was Asian.

Jean-Luc handed me a glass of sparkling wine, whispering in my ear how I impressed them. My smile was as weak as my knees. 

"Who are these men?" I whispered back, urgently. "And aren't there others? Women?" But he'd already turned away.

Papa lifted his glass and proposed a toast in French that I could only partly follow. There was the obvious santé, there were flattering phrases concerning my physique and compliments for Jean-Luc. And then he ended by wishing everything would go as satisfactory as he expected.

I wanted to ask Jean-Luc what his father might mean by that, but Jean-Luc took my glass away from me and told me he'd be back soon. As I watched him walk out of the room a mild panic got hold of me. It didn't help that five pairs of male eyes stared at me when I returned my gaze. Somehow they had formed a circle around me. 

I felt very naked again.

Papa bared his teeth and stepped closer. His big hand reached well into my private sphere, touching my hair. I tried to step back, but the man behind me did not yield. 

"Jean-Luc didn't lie," the old man said, now caressing my face. I said: "I...," too stunned to find words for the growing turmoil inside my head. Hands touched my back and the slopes of my ass, through the dress. I cursed its flimsiness, overwhelmingly aware of my nudity below. I turned around, crying out. Hot waves of panic engulfed me. All I saw were smiles.

"Jean-Luc!" I screamed. "Where are you? What is this? Jean-Luc?!"

The men chuckled. My flaring nostrils caught the acrid smells of cigars and garlic. Fingertips grazed my neck. I lifted my arms and mowed with them to push the men away from me. I needed space. I needed to run. 

"I don't want this!" I cried out, repeating it in French. "Je ne veux pas... pas! Non! Laisse-moi!" But there was a solid wall of male bodies around me now. Papa's face came in close, his ringed fingers caressing my cheek. He smelled of cognac. His smile made me feel sick. 

"Be a good girl now and show us what my boy has been bragging about," he said in badly accented English. "Get out of that dress, please." 

I just stared at him. He repeated the question, but I could not move. The air was closing in on me, crackling with the mute aggression surrounding me. I could only gasp and stare; the casual question had chased every last thought from my mind. Fingers were touching me, bodies pushing. But even if I had been free, I wonder if I would have moved – I couldn't even scream. 

I guess I was in shock. Papa's face swam in and out of focus. I felt hot, numb and fuzzy, not even noticing how the hands let go of me. The lips in the blurry face started moving again.

"Deshabille-toi," they said. 

I was too dizzy to understand. "Get that dress off, girl," he repeated, once more in vaudeville English. His hand rose. I shrunk away. Then I felt fingers at the hidden zipper behind my back. The fabric slithered off my body. It pooled around my heels, allowing the cool air to kiss my skin. I automatically tried to cover my nipples with one arm, my crotch with the other. Hands came from behind, pulling them down and holding them. A whiff of well-known cologne hit my nostrils. It took the last resistance out of me. With no bra and my panties taken off earlier, I was completely exposed. Panic choked my throat; the ultimate humiliation made my face burn.

"W-why... what? Pourquoi, Jean-Luc?" I stammered as tears trickled down my cheeks. My lips trembled. The old man never answered, nor did his son – and I couldn't find words to go on. I just stood there naked, my arms held back – not able to meet his or anyone's eyes. 

It must have been the overwhelming suddenness. One moment I felt perfectly safe; the next instant it seemed as if the floor was pulled from under me. The sheer sense of treason brought sickness to my throat. Confidence had been like breathing to me; I'd never had to live through a situation like this – not even remotely. My shoulders sagged. The hands let go of my wrists. I just let my arms dangle, defeated, powerless. I couldn't handle this. 

I had no defense.

Closing my eyes, I shivered, swaying on the pins of my heels. Murmuring voices were all around me, as were clouds of smoke. My mind screamed 'flee!' but my feet were glued to the floor. I lived in a stifling cloak spun of shame and humiliation. Foreign words were hissed. They were void of meaning, but left their sticky dirt everywhere. I felt disgusted. I felt outraged. I did! Didn't I? But if so, why just stand there with trembling thighs, a treacherous glow in my belly? I had to run. Why couldn't I run? 

Someone moaned "no, no" – it was me. Male voices conversed around me, businesslike; I caught fragments concerning my ass and my breasts – tits, "tetons." I also heard "vache" and "salope." There was a lot of chuckling.

I opened my eyes again, blushing like a torch. The hands had gone; the spell broke. Jean-Luc stood in front of me, holding up the dress. The men had moved to a distant corner, chuckling as they looked in my direction. I wanted to slap his face, to spit in his eyes. I could only whisper. 

"Why are you doing this to me? He, your father touched me – they, they all... And you took off my dress!" He smiled, raising a hand to silence me.

"Put it back on, chérie, we are leaving."

I slapped his hand away and started running on my stiletto heels. Even before I reached the entrance, the slick leather slipped on the polished floor and I fell down, sliding towards a huge marble pot that held a palm tree. All I saw was the black stone looming in front of me – then all was darkness. 

*** 

I must have been out for a bit, for when I came to I was in a different place. It hummed and floated around me, definitely moving. A car? My skull hurt and there was a bitter taste in my mouth. I looked up and, yes, I was in a car. The only light came from outside – fleeting neon and traffic lights, mostly. 

I lay on the backseat. A man's head and shoulders were silhouetted against a screen of multi-colored lights. He was the driver and he looked familiar. I pushed myself up from under a pile of clothes – blankets? 

"Jean-Luc," I croaked, but all I produced was a groan. The man turned shortly to me. 

"How's the head?" he asked; then he turned back to the traffic. His voice made me shiver – it was as warm and sweet as ever. I didn't answer.

"Mia," he went on. "Don't be mad with me. Je suis fier de toi, so proud of you. You made a very good impression." Everything came back to me, soaked in bile: the disgusting men, the humiliation – the treason... I rose to my knees, reaching for the door handle. It didn't budge.

"Let me out!" I screamed. "Let me go. Let me, please... please let me..." My hands hit the glass. My nails scratched the door to no avail. I collapsed, my cheek sliding down the windowpane. Rage melted into despair.

"Why, Jean-Luc?" I asked, turning back to him. "Why did you bring me there? Why did you let them? It was rape, Jean-Luc, goddamned rape, and you let them! You helped them!"

The car hummed; traffic-noise filtered in. Jean-Luc didn't answer. I flung forward, grabbing his shoulders – shaking him while I repeated my questions.

"Arrête!" he cried out. "Stop this, you are killing us both, Mia!" But I didn't let go. A blood red rage had come over me and I didn't even see how the car swerved, spawning a wave of angry claxon sounds and screaming tires. I pulled at his hair now, scratching the skin off his neck.

"You took me to those bastards!" I cried. "Half-naked. You just handed me out to be... to be raped."

At last he found an empty lot to park and as soon as the engine died, he turned around, grabbing my hands and pushing his face into mine.

"Stop, Mia! Stop and listen!" I didn't stop, I didn't listen. I fought him furiously, spitting in his eyes.

"Let me out!"

The slap stung my face, making my ears ring. Another slap followed. I stopped, stunned. I stared at him, wide-eyed and wide-mouthed, panting.

"Mia," he said. "Ecoute! Je t'aime. N'oublie-jamais, c'est moi, Jean-Luc et je t'aime. Repeat what I tell you: I love you!" I was speechless. He went on, tightening his grip.

"Répète, Mia: je t'aime. Tell me you love me too!" I just stared; this was all too crazy. His fingers now closed around my jaw. He pulled me close and kissed me – hard. "Tell me you love me." I gulped air. Then I felt my head nodding; my lips moving. He smiled.

"I am proud of you, chérie. They were so impressed." He closed his mouth around my open lips again, invading me with his tongue.

Bizarre confusion struck me, followed by frustrated anger. How could he tell me he loved me after all he did to me? How could he slap me, then kiss me as if everything was all right? How could he embrace me and praise me for making a good impression after throwing me naked to a bunch of perverts? How on earth could he expect me to love him still?

I smelled the treacherous familiarity of his aftershave, the corrupted intimacy of his scent. I tried to scream, but all sounds were strangled by the intensity of his kiss. And when he at last stopped, I couldn't speak for lack of breath. 

"C'est rien, chérie," he said, still panting from the kiss. "It is just a tradition. I take pride in showing my girls to my father." His eyes sparkled in the streetlights. "You should feel honored; he was very, very complimentary. He agrees that you are so much more than just another beautiful girl." He stopped but held my gaze with his hungry eyes. 

"Mia," he whispered. "I bombarded him with my praise for you, so he had to see you; all of you, and show you off to his friends." He pulled me even closer, forcing my lowered eyes back to him. 

"Please understand, Mia. I need papa to be proud of me. I need the appraisal of him and his friends. I need them to know how important you are for me. That is why I took off your dress and held down your wrists." A wave of sickness touched her stomach as she watched his face. It glowed like... like a schoolboy's. 

"They were flabbergasted, Mia," he went on, mauling the word. "Your beauty stunned them all."

My panic abated – replaced by a chill that made me shiver. He was a schoolboy, yes, I thought, proud of showing his dad how well he did. Holding me, stripping me, putting me on display. I felt numb. My hurt skull pulsed with muted pain. Half-forgotten images of a story flashed before my eyes – a silly porn book, a movie. A chained woman with a blindfold.

Jean-Luc reached out and caressed my face. It shook me out of my stupor. I yanked my head away, bumping it into a headrest. He tried to stop me, but I climbed halfway over the right front seat, grabbing for the handle of the door. It opened, but before I could struggle out, his strong hands pulled me back by my dress. I heard it tear. Falling into him, I suddenly struck out with both elbows. Maybe I hit his face, I don't know. But he cried out and let go, so I fell forward through the open door. My knees scraped on the concrete and the heel of my right shoe snapped. I kicked both off and ran. 

The treacherous dress hung in tatters, exposing me to the cool night's breeze. I felt more naked than ever. 

Carl.

Sitting at my desk I studied the envelope a courier delivered that morning. It was large and well stuffed. It had the letterhead of Jones and Callahan in its left hand top corner. I could guess what might be in it, but as long as I didn't open it I wouldn't know for sure, I told myself. It would be a report, no doubt, but what about? There would be pictures, maybe, but of what? I suppressed the urge to open it. Fooling yourself for just a while longer can be soothing – something to hang on to, like the guy falling from the sky scraper saying "so far, so good."

I turned the envelope in slow circles. My finger pushed at one corner. Then I propped the thing against the photograph of Mia on my desk, covering her smile.

I worked for a while, struggling through the life of an obscure Italian early Renaissance painter. He didn't even have a name; he was known as the Master of the Suckling Madonna of Assisi. A rich Azerbeidjani recently bought a painting he thought was by the famous Ghirlandaio. He wanted to lend it to the new art museum in his native Bakoe that would gratefully name an entire wing after him. It was an old friend at the museum who consulted me, and I had good reasons to think he was a bit late with that The painting showed all the signs of being by the Master from Assisi. In which case the poor rich owner would lose quite a few millions.

Work, especially dull work, proved to be a great way to chase off the nagging ghosts occupying my skull. But today the envelope kept distracting me. Ah, how a crisis befuddles the mind – at one point I even praised myself for holding out.

Around twelve I left the house to have lunch with an art historian friend to get his opinion on what I found out about the Italian master. The man also was a wine connoisseur, so the lunch had a way of stretching into the afternoon. I hurried to get his sober insights before the first bottle was empty. After that I stuck to mineral water. We decided the painting couldn't be a Ghirlandaio. We even doubted it being by the suckling master. And after a feeble pun about "the poor sucker having to suck it up," I knew my time to leave was way overdue.

When I returned home, the envelope was still there, of course. I picked up my paring knife. It was an antique and had been a gift from Mia. How appropriate, I thought, as the sharp edge split the paper.

A report fell out, together with a stuffed smaller envelope. It probably contained pictures. I started reading.

There was a short list of times and places. There also were transcripts of phone calls and text messages. Mia was toast. So was I, in a way. A tremendous sadness weighed down on my shoulders.

The photos were of two people meeting. They kissed most of the time and one of them was always Mia. The other was always a man, but not always the same, as far as I could see. I knew none of them. I found close ups of a woman sucking cock – fat, dark cock. And of a woman on her elbows being fucked from behind by a man who was just a silhouette. That woman too was Mia. And her face showed delight. I was past anger, even past sadness. I just wondered how they'd been able to get the pictures.

I pushed them away, making them slide over the shining surface of my desk. I looked up, straight into Mia's framed smile. I wondered what she'd say when confronted. I supposed I'd hear all the known clichés. "I can explain. It meant nothing. We have to talk. I am sorry. It isn't what it seems. It was just sex. Please forgive me. I love you. Only you."

It was a week before our anniversary. I had already bought her a present – jewelry, as was our (all too short) tradition. I opened the drawer and took out the gift box. I saw how the pictures would fit inside, once I removed the large and intricate Art Nouveau broche that was in it. It gave me an idea about when and how to confront Mia. No need to waste more jewelry on her, anyway. 

I knew it would be hard to wait for another week and not explode. But I also knew she would be busy and I'd find ways to be gone a lot as well, thanks to the suckling master. Time would fly, surely, even if I might not have much fun.

*** 

So I confronted her at our anniversary dinner. Thank God she spared me the cliché reactions. She never said she could explain, nor did she insist that it was meaningless sex – so far so good. But she didn't say she loved me, either. Well, it would have been a hollow phrase anyway, but it stung that she didn't. She did cry, however, I had to give her that. And she said she was sorry, but her reason for being sorry wasn't at all what I expected.

"I am sorry to have stolen four years from your life," she said. "Time you could have spent with a better woman." She'd understand if I wanted a divorce and she would go with whatever I proposed.

That was fast, especially since I had never even mentioned the D-word yet. Her voice sounded businesslike when she said it. I had to admit this was more in line with the Mia I knew than the crying had been, but it felt awkward; and yes, a bit disappointing.

I'd put the lid back on the open box and said I would get the papers tomorrow. She gathered her things and we left the restaurant. Back home she wished me good night after a very long shower, and went to our spare bedroom. Without make up her face looked childlike and open. The rims of her eyes were red, ah well, reddish, maybe.

I guess she didn't get more sleep than I did, but that may have been wishful thinking. I lay in the dark wondering what her feelings were, if any. I knew mine, having lived with them for a fortnight already. Her response wasn't at all what I had expected. Maybe the cool efficiency hurt me more than her cheating.

When I returned home the next afternoon, she was gone. Her wedding ring was on the kitchen table – with a note telling me that her solicitor would call me. There were no good byes, nothing even remotely personal. 

She took very few things with her – her laptop, of course, but none of her toiletries or even her beauty case. As far as I knew hardly any of her shoes or clothes were missing, and none of her jewels. I did see that she'd taken the locked diary. 

I supposed she'd be back for her things, but she never was. She also never called, texted or e-mailed. Apart from her remaining stuff and the faint perfume that lingered on her pillow, it seemed she never existed.

I found a friend of a friend who through sad experience knew a good female divorce lawyer. When I visited her, she told me things would be simple as long as Mia didn't object to anything. The apartment was rented; the pretty MG was hers, so I only would have to split our money 50/50 and give her all her own stuff. Then we waited for the attorney who would call us, according to her note. But he never did. 




The Quality of Her Tears



A crazy period began while I took every opportunity to be out of my desolate apartment. I was busy traveling to Europe and Asia, so the few contacts with my lawyer lady were short and hasty. Not that they would have been more fruitful if they had been longer. Mia hid in a pool of silence. I never got to hear from her or her lawyer. Her sports car started gathering dust, as did her stuff in the bedroom closets. 

Only after returning from Frankfurt one day, I had the time to sit down with my lawyer and consider our possibilities. Her name was Greta. She must have been in the upper half of her forties and showed all the outward signs of the cliché butch lesbian – short blond hair, a square face and a strong, stocky body. She also had the handshake of a construction worker.

"Mr. Lundgren, Carl," she started, after pouring me some coffee. "It seems your wife has changed her mind about granting the divorce. It will be hard to find her if she doesn't want to be found." A smile lifted her fleshy lips. "Are you sure you did not misunderstand her?"

I shrugged. "She was the first one even to use the word divorce. The last thing she told me before leaving was that she'd be okay with a divorce and would go along with anything I proposed. She left a note about her solicitor calling me, and her ring. She never came back to explain, or to get her things, not even to get the rest of her clothes or her jewelry."

The woman – Greta – just looked at me.

"Odd," she said. "Could it be that someone else changed her mind for her – her lover, maybe? What do you know about her affair?"

"I don't know of an affair or affairs. The dates seemed one-time happenings. The men in the pictures were never the same, as far as they were even recognizable. The PI-reports didn't give much detail about them."

"Which is odd in itself," Greta mumbled. She looked up and said: "You thought the man on the first picture might be your brother?"

I shrugged again. "That was because of the birthmark on his cheek, but his face wasn't clear at all. My brother was very adamant when he denied it. I haven't seen him since."

Greta shifted through the pictures. "Odd," she said again, obviously fond of the word. "Are you sure she isn't with your brother?" I shrugged.

"I could call him," I said.

She started going through the photo's. I can't say I appreciated her doing that yet again. Then she said "odd" once more and put away the pictures. She folded her meaty hands on the shining desk.

"Carl," she said, "I'm afraid we can't do anything if we don't find her. She could be anywhere – with her family. You say she likes Paris. She might be with one of the anonymous lovers or maybe back at her old apartment. Did you check?" I'd checked with her family and a few friends of course, but not Paris. I promised I would.

Greta said our only chance for a quick divorce was to track Mia down. She knew people who'd be able to do that, maybe. I hated what she implied – because of the time and the money it would take, and the emotional burden. I wanted it all to just go away. I wanted to drown in my work until the hurt and the sadness wore off and a new start would be possible.

"Do I need a divorce at all?" I asked.

"Only if you want to remarry," Greta said. "Or if you need it in order to move on – to feel free, you know?"

I considered what she said. Remarriage wasn't even remotely in the charts. But yes, I needed to be free from the bitch, to move on. I felt like walking in a pool of slush. It pulled me away from where I wanted to go. And the slush was my connection to Mia. Romantics might point out I was still in love with the slut. Maybe, but what was the point? She never loved me, did she?

"Yes," I said. "I need to be free. I need a divorce. But I don't need months of fruitless investigation, and the ruinous bills that go with it. In the end I may loose half of my money anyway."

Greta smiled a very tight smile.

"There is maybe a way to flush her out," she said while reshuffling the pictures in front of her. I wondered what she meant. She cleared her throat.

"It isn't advice a lawyer should give," she said, smiling again, waiting.

"Blackmail, you mean?" I picked up the photo where Mia swallowed cock. "Showing them to family, friends, colleagues, bosses?"

Greta's bland face was non-committal. "We can't reach her," she then said, shifting the pictures. "But we could send some of the least explicit ones to family et cetera, just to see what happens."

I once more studied the pictures, wondering who the men were. Knowing at least one or two names might give leverage. They could be married or otherwise vulnerable. But finding them would be as costly as finding Mia. And getting at Mia by blackmail? I never found that she was overly concerned with protecting her image, even in sensitive circles. Her rather prudish family was another matter. 

"It might help if we knew at least one or two of the men," I commented.

Greta looked again.

"We do have the phone-calls, the different appointments," she said. "For our purpose it might work. Let me contact my investigator. We'll stop if it gets too expensive." I agreed – reluctantly.

I checked with my brother and Mia's family. John was pissed off and her family seemed worried as they hadn't heard from Mia as well. The Paris apartment proved to have been rented out to several inhabitants since Mia went to the States and got married. Wherever I checked, I poked into a big nothing. 

Greta was as unsuccessful as I. The investigator found out that one of the men was from an escort agency. Not exactly blackmail material. Another one was a single fashion model. Then there was a stripper and a porn actor.

I reconsidered needing the divorce. I drank a lot while reconsidering.

Mia.

Looking back, it is hard to imagine who I was before I became me. Before her change Mia was a spoilt, selfish and very arrogant girl, but she also was intelligent. She was full of energy and proud of her independent place in the world. Of course that soon proved to be nothing more than a thin layer, easily removed. But there are still moments I crave to be that girl again. Those moments are few, and they taste of treason. They are also useless. 'Water under the bridge,' as they say – although the liquids involved were more like sweat, blood and tears, mucus, too, and several fluids of a more private origin.

So they changed her, pretty Mia – or did they? Sometimes I think she let them. Sure, she was would be infuriated by the insinuation. "It was rape," she'd scream. And admittedly, at the start assorted chemicals were used to break her will, but it would be cowardly to just put the blame there. She might as well blame it on the incessant physical punishments – the repeated floggings, the painful bondage and the robbing of sleep. Then there were the never-ending public rapes, the forced orgies, the threats with permanent harm and other causes of exhaustion. But what broke young Mia most efficiently was of her own doing – although you wouldn't think so, considering the night she escaped her lover and ran off into the darkness. 

Her heart was pumping like crazy; the adrenalin kept her going. She tried flagging down cabs, but as her purse and money were still in Jean-Luc's car, they wouldn't take her ­– especially in the torn-up dress she wore. When the third cabdriver started hinting about other possible kinds of payment, she slammed the door of his car closed and started running again. 

Her bare feet got bruised and the chill of the night made her shiver. She shied away from people she stumbled into. They were mostly men and she was well aware of her appearance. She stopped in front of a police station, hesitating to go in and report what she considered rape. Seeing the dreary population of the waiting room and the fat, greasy gendarme at the reception, she turned and ran again.

The sky already showed the pale light of dawn when she arrived at her Montparnasse apartment building. Thank God, the old lady concierge was already up and about, opening her flat for her.

The next days were an exercise in sleepwalking. She spent hours in bed, under her shower or just sitting in front of her mirror, staring, and whispering a name. She called in sick, not daring to go outside.

The second morning, as she lay in bed, there was a knock on her door. It caused her to cry out. She hugged her racing heart as she sat up, listening. Then she heard the voice of the concierge through her door, asking if all was well with mamselle. The relief brought tears to her eyes. She grabbed her robe and shuffled to the door, opening it on its chain.

The woman had a big French-style bowl of milky morning coffee and a buttered croissant. She also had a few questions. Mia suddenly felt famished. She took the coffee and the bread, smiling. But she ignored the questions, assuring the woman she was fine.

She knew her appearance belied her words.

Three days later she called home, telling her mother she would pack and come back; she didn't give a reason. It was her first home-call in weeks. Her family and America had been totally erased from her mind – engulfed as she was by the perfumed clouds of infatuation. But now, her wings singed by a perfidious sun and her poor heart in tatters, Smalltown, USA seemed the only bright place in a world of darkness.

*** 

Of course her return was a disaster. Her parents were intolerably sweet and understanding. They had no clue what had happened, but especially her father had his opinions about anything French – and he aired them with a mistaken sense of loyalty. Mia resented it. She was shaken by the betrayal of her love, but it was her love and her betrayal, wasn't it? People she'd always considered dull, frightened and unimaginative now smirked at her premature return. Without a doubt they'd say behind her back how they'd seen it coming. Where did these provincial midgets find the right to ridicule her? What did they know and what risk did they ever take anyway? 

There was no way she could tell the truth of what happened. Her free and intoxicating time in Paris felt too precious to let it be sullied and ridiculed by chicken-livered told-you-so's. Never mind how it ended.

Soon she got into ugly fights with her self-righteous father and her homely sister, defending Paris and the life she'd led there. Former friends and schoolmates looked glassy-eyed whenever she tried to make them see the many things she loved about France and Europe – the people, the food, the culture. And as so often happens, she started overdoing her defense. She considered herself under siege of barbarians.

How could she not justify the choices she'd made? She hated being the one coming home with the tail between her legs. So she did what so many did before her; she edited the memories of what had happened. She downplayed the treason and remembered the exalting moments. Hadn't it been Mia, there at the front row of the famous catwalks? Wasn't that her, toasting with Steve McQueen, the scandalous couturier? Or with Sophie Marceau, the actress? 

Maybe she had judged things wrong. Maybe it had been her inability to react properly to what happened? Maybe she had been the silly provincial?

She distanced herself from her kinsmen and peers. She started to compare the crude American boys she met with her idealized French lover. Her few girlfriends were no match for the witty, fashionable girls she knew in Paris – the true-blood Parisiennes who had accepted her as one of them. She dismissed the gauche compliments, the clumsy advances and halting conversations riddled with teenage cliché's. Within weeks she was back on top of her ivory tower, not allowing the boys even a peep up her skirts.

And God, was she unhappy.

So, inevitably, stupid little Red Riding Hood returned to the forest of the big bad wolf. Not at once, of course. As these things go, she needed time to find sufficient excuses. She had to convince herself that she really only would return because she loved Paris – the town, the metropolitan freedom, the language, her new copains, the excitement and the bustling busyness of it all? She just had to escape the boring self-sufficient know-it-alls; the doldrums of Backwaterville, America. She had to, even knowing it might be stupid. She was well aware of the risk she took. Maybe even then she already knew her real, deep-down reasons.

So, after two months in limbo she went back to Paris, the place she still didn't know whether to call heaven or hell – or both. She found an apartment close to the one she had and even got her fake job back. It took her at least another three weeks to pick up her course at the Sorbonne again – just for her French, mind you.

Had she been honest, she'd have known better. But she wasn't. In her highly edited version of what happened she succeeded in allowing Jean-Luc to almost become an innocent bystander – maybe as much a victim as she had been. Yes, I think we may blame Mia for most of what happened afterward – even if she couldn't help it. 

Jean-Luc had been her first and only true love. During the weeks with him she'd floated in bliss, immersed in a blood-warm ocean of attention – not to disregard the mind-shattering orgasms.

When he'd suddenly betrayed that love, she wasn't ready for the ice-cold awakening. Who'd want to wake up after a dream like that anyway? So, giving in to him again after the inevitable 'accidental' reunion in their after-course café shouldn't have surprised anybody – least of all herself.. 

Of course she had been tentative at first. But when he'd offered to take her home she'd nodded. And when he held the door to the elevator for her, she didn't protest when he slipped in beside her. Of course they kissed in the lift and stripped in her hallway and fucked in her ancient, metal-framed bed. And of course she insisted it was Love they made.

Tasting his mouth, caressing his skin and feeling his wonderful cock slide into her tight furnace again was enough to chase away the last remaining demons that might have lingered. When she arched and cried through instant orgasm, her silly little brain waved good-bye to any doubts that still might protect her common sense.

"Je t'aime," she sighed. Were sweeter words ever used in a suicide-note?

Carl.

So I decided to forget the divorce. It was Mia who'd left me and I understood that if she'd stay away long enough, the divorce would be automatic and painless. Two years, they said. Two summers, two autumns, two winters and springs – it sounded like a lifetime to me. Painless? My ass.

That summer I adopted the lifestyle of a traveling hermit. I spent more time in planes and hotels, galleries and museums than I did at home. Home meant mostly my desk anyway, and me hunching over it. There was the occasional date, mostly abroad and work-related. There even were one-night-stands and I did indeed end up in bed with pretty Natalia from St. Petersburg's Hermitage (which by the way means a hermit's place.) She was great, sweet, lovely, but by then my fucking was as mechanical as everything else I did. After three months I was virtually a dead man walking.

It was in the third week of August that I got a phone call from Julien Lagrange, who is one of the directors of Sotheby's in Paris, a branch of the big British auction house. I knew him well; we'd worked together, even as recently as last year. I wondered why he would be at his office in August, France's most sacred holiday month. It must be important, and indeed he sounded grave, hardly responding to my joking hellos. Even before he broached the subject of his call, a cold finger traced my spine. I had no idea why.

"We'll be having a big auction at the end of September," he said. "Part of the collection of the late Duchess Romanova will be sold."

I had heard of the grande dame's demise. She was distantly related to the last czar of Russia and heir to the fortune of Russian refugees who left their country after the 1917 revolution to live in Paris. Her collection was famous; she had been adding to it even while she was on her terminal sickbed.

"I am calling you because of the Alma-Tadema," Lagrange went on.

"What Alma-Tadema?" I asked, wondering why he would call me for that. The last time I did anything with the famous British society painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema was at least ten years ago, and in London. I remember turning down the job. I never much liked his posh faux oriental paintings, which so much enthralled the upper crust of Victorian England. I guess I was rather alone in my judgment, as a piece of his called The Finding of Moses did almost 36 million dollars in New York, last year. It had been estimated between 3 and 5 million.

"I mean the painting you evaluated and approved," Lagrange said, intruding on my musing.

"Me?" I asked. "That seems unlikely. You know well enough that I love to avoid the knighted bugger. Last time I even came near him was ten years ago. What painting are you talking about?" There was a silence on his side of the line. I heard papers rustling.

"It is The Marriage of Nefertiti," he then said. "And your name is under the report."

"Well," I said. "If you say so. But I never put it there. Never even saw the damn painting! Never knew the thing existed. Nefertiti? Never heard of it." Another silence fell.

"The painting is false, Carl," he then said, his voice very low. "Madame bought it last year for 14 million Euro. Yesterday I got two counter-reports and laboratory tests that prove the thing is a fluke. As it is it might bring her heirs a few hundred bucks as a curiosity. They won't be happy and neither will you, I guess."

"You're damn right about that," I answered, getting anxious. "But my signature must be as false as the bloody painting."

"Might very well be," he said, dry as a bone. "The counter expertise is from the National Gallery in London and from Lavallier, you know him. The laboratory is Strickner's, only the best."

"Ffffuck," I said, stretching the f's. "But the report isn't mine!"

"I hear you," he said. "What are you going to do about it?" Which was a good question.

I made an appointment with Julien to come to Paris and look at the painting and the report. I was on the plane the next day, carrying all information I could find on the Marriage of Nefertiti. It wasn't much as, curiously, the damn thing was never even mentioned before two years ago. There had been drawings of the subject and there were even written records of the painter talking about his plans to do a big piece about the legendary Egyptian queen. But that was it, until the Duchess bought the painting at a small vending house in Bordeaux. The turmoil about this new and unknown masterpiece could be traced in some papers, but as I never counted the painter-knight as one of my favorites, I had only picked it up in passing. 

Sotheby's is in a place called Galerie Charpentier in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. It is a lovely building from the Second Empire, not far from the Elysée palace. It also is France's largest auction house, specializing in the selling of collections.

Of course I wasn't really interested in the touristy aspects. I sat with Lagrange in his opulent office, staring with amazement at the documents he showed me. My supposed report was printed on my stationary, showing my watermark all right, and it had my signature under a very detailed report supporting the authenticity of a painting I had never seen. The report had my style and lay out; I recognized the build-up of my argumentation. And yet, I knew with certainty that I hadn't written one word of it.

The counter reports leaned heavily on the lack of history of the painting, just as I would have done. The British even had found proof of Sir Lawrence dismissing his plans to do the piece. The laboratory doubted the probability of Alma-Tadema's choice of canvas and especially the frame it had been mounted on. All in all there were too many uncertainties to support the painting's authenticity. For crying out loud, I was sure I would have come to the same conclusions. But my signature said otherwise.