Free Hotelles by Emma Mars Page B

I don’t know what, but something felt wrong. Something seemed out of place in this otherwise perfect scene. The servant, who had been standing in the background, came to refill our champagne flutes. We’d hardly touched them.
    The bubbles foaming in my glass reminded me of something. The night before. The man I’d promised myself would be my last client. And another memory floated across my mind: the circumstances under which David and I had met. A secret I had been trying to forget  . . .
    And what if François Marchadeau, my future husband’s old friend, his tennis partner twice a week since forever, the man with whom I’d shared a bed the very night David had entered my life . . . What if François said something? Belles de Nuit, the online catalogue of girls . . . the room at the Hôtel des Charmes.
    â€œI don’t want to rush you, but,” David began, “if you give me an answer soon . . . I was thinking about setting a date in the near future.”
    What was his radiant smile telling me? He was so candid, so blissfully unaware of my troubles. What was I missing?
    â€œWhat do you mean by ‘the near future’?” I asked.
    â€œThe eighteenth of June.”
    My birthday. I’d be twenty-three.
    Mademoiselle Annabelle Lorand, will you take Monsieur David Barlet to be your lawfully wedded husband, till death do you part, at an age when you should really let yourself be free to sow your wild oats?
    â€œBut that’s practically tomorrow!” I exaggerated.
    â€œI know, but don’t let that worry you: if it’s okay with you, we can do it at our place.”
    â€œAt Duchesnois House?”
    â€œYes. Armand will take care of everything. All you’d have to do is give him a list of people to invite. And sign a few papers, of course.”
    I couldn’t torture him a second longer. His mention of what was supposed to be the “happiest day of my life” was the coup de grâce, an irresistibly convincing argument in David the expert negotiator’s arsenal. What else could I say but:
    â€œYes.”
    On the outside I was radiant and smiling. Inside I felt something visceral hollowing out my stomach. Something was gnawing at me and sending waves of pain throughout my body. It radiated into each one of my organs, shooting out through my limbs.
    Was this fear? Happiness?
    He leaped around the table, leaned over me, and delivered one of the most tender kisses my lips had ever received. More tender than sexy, as the absence of excitement between my legs indicated. But these things come in time, at least that’s what I tried to convince myself.
    This man whose picture I’d admired in a newspaper only a few weeks before, this inaccessible man. David, the boss, my seducer, looked at me beseechingly and asked in an excited voice that sounded nothing like him:
    â€œYes . . . Yes?”

7
    June 4, 2009
    Y es.”
    One little word and a woman gives herself to a man. Sometimes she knows in advance what she’s getting into. But more often than not, she isn’t sure if these three letters will mean a few moments or the rest of her life. Just a little bit of her time and body or all of her soul. We make decisions based on our present desires. But what do we know about our future wants? Can we know in advance how many “maybes” and “nos” will follow that one simple “yes”?
    I haven’t had that many orgasms over the course of my life. A few dozen, max. But I know one thing: at the fateful moment, I am one of those women who scream no instead of yes . I know some women yell, “Oh my God!,” “More,” or simply their lover’s name. What does this say about me? Why am I a “doll who says no, no, no, no, no”? I don’t know and I’m not even sure I want to.
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    Anonymous handwritten note, 6/6/2009—How does he know???
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    SO I SAID