I squeezed his hand again. It was good for him to hear that his art was appreciated, especially in this judgmental crowd. Although, in truth, it probably should have come from me.
“And how do you know so much about art?” Christophe continued.
Hayes smiled, his hand sliding to my knee again. “I have an exceptional teacher…”
* * *
I could not get him home fast enough. I could blame it on the wine, on Paris, on him spouting informed opinions on Murakami and Basquiat, but in the end it might have just been the knowledge of what he was capable of. Of the magic I felt when I was with him.
“You were so charming, Hayes. You made all the girls so happy…”
We were in the elevator en route to the eighth floor when I quoted Mary, pressed fully against him, my mouth on his neck.
“I did. I do.”
“Why don’t you show me … how you make the girls so happy?”
He chuckled, salacious. “Here?”
“Here.” My hand slipped in the opening of his coat, finding his belt.
“No.”
“No?” It was not a word I was used to hearing from him.
“There are cameras here.”
I looked up into the corners of the elevator. He was right. And it struck me, the idea that I’d never given them much thought, and that Hayes had a very different awareness of privacy.
“I assume you don’t want your daughter seeing how I make you happy.”
“No. Probably not.”
* * *
“Are there cameras here?” I asked when we’d reached our floor and were approaching the door to the penthouse.
He was fumbling in his pockets for the key card. “Typically, yes.”
“That’s too bad, then.” My hands found their way back to his belt, quickly unfastening it, the clasp of his pants, his zipper.
“Fuck,” he laughed, grabbing my wrist. “Was it something I said? Was it the truffles?”
“Yes.” My fingers slid into the front of his pants. Hayes and his perfect dick. “The truffles.”
“Fuck,” he repeated, closing his eyes. We remained there for a moment, in front of our closed door, me jerking him off in our semi-private hallway of the George V. Cameras be damned.
“You’re going to get us into trouble.”
“I am?”
“You are.” He stopped me finally, brandishing the key card and pulling me inside.
Hayes shut the door behind us and threw me up against the wall, hard. “Where were we?”
“Truffles.”
“Truffles.” His mouth was on mine as he wrestled off my coat. His hands moving over the surface of my dress, hiking up the hem.
“I wasn’t done.”
“Weren’t you?”
I shook my head, freeing myself from his grip, dropping to my knees in the narrow foyer.
We didn’t even make it to the living room.
“Bloody hell…” His hands were in my hair, his coat still on, his pants around his calves. Hayes, in his happy place.
But as much as I’d come to adore his reaction, as much as I’d come to adore him, I hated that the act gave me so much time to think. And always my mind went to dark places. What the hell was I doing with someone so young? And how in God’s name had I ended up here, on my knees in a five-star hotel, sucking some guy in a boy band’s dick? And dear Lord, please don’t ever let my daughter do this. The things you never see coming.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, Solène.” He stopped me before he came, pulling me up from the floor and pinning me once again to the wall. “Is this what Paris does to you? We’re going to need to come here more often…”
“I’m okay with that.”
“I can tell,” he slurred, his fingers sliding into my panties, sliding into me, easy. “Fu-uck.”
“That’s an awful lot of ‘fucks.’ Even for you.”
He smiled, peeling off my underwear. “Are you counting?”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t.”
He did three things seemingly at once then—lifted me off the floor, thrust his dick inside me, and placed his wet fingers in my mouth—and suffice it to say, I forgot every dark thought I had had two minutes prior.
* * *
Somewhere in the throes of it, with my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist and my dress twisted and bunched around my torso, I came to the realization that in all our years together Daniel had never fucked me like this. Not even in the beginning. He wasn’t this strong, he wasn’t this big, he wasn’t this uninhibited, and he certainly wasn’t this passionate. And I got the feeling that for all Hayes and I had already done, there was still so much more of him he had yet to reveal.
We came. And I had a vague awareness of hearing myself cry out and him pressing his fingers against my lips before we fell to the floor.
“Fuck.” He was laughing, lying prostrate in the foyer. His pants still around his ankles, his coat and shirt and boots still on.
“What’s so funny?” I crawled on top of him to kiss his dimples, to feel his warmth.
“You. You. Are. Loud. Mrs. ‘I’ve Never Been a Screaming Girl.’”
I was still catching my breath. “Did I say that?”
He nodded, his eyes closed. “In New York. At the Four Seasons.”
“How do you remember that?”
“I told you: I remember everything.”
He was quiet for a moment, his hand playing in my hair.
“And now I’m always going to remember how much fucking noise you made at the Four Seasons in Paris.”
I laughed. “Great.”
He nodded again, drowsy. “It was great. It was better than great. I like you loud. Happy Early Birthday, Solène Marchand…” He drifted off for a second, and when I kissed him, he whispered, “I’m falling in love with you. I’m just going to put that out there, because I can. Because you told me I couldn’t if I was sleeping with anyone else, and I’m not, so there you have it…”
“Shhh.” I put my finger over his mouth. “You’re talking in your sleep.”
“I’m not sleeping,” he said, his eyes still closed.
We were quiet for a long time, there on the floor, until I could feel his semen seeping out of me, dripping between my thighs. All the little Hayeses and Solènes …
“How do you suddenly know so much about art, Hayes?”
For a moment he didn’t respond, and I was certain he’d passed out, but then he smiled, faint. “I read a book.”
“You read a book?”
He nodded. “Seven Days in the Art World. I thought I should probably learn something about what you do…”
And in that instant I was thankful that he was half asleep. Because asleep, he could not see me cry.
* * *
On Sunday, after two full days of killing time, Hayes became restless.
“Please stay,” he begged from his position strewn across the bed, where he was watching me dress for my fifth and final day at the fair.
It was a quarter after eleven, and I had to be at the Grand Palais by noon. “You’ll have me all day tomorrow. Promise.”
“Not good enough. I want you now.”
I laughed, zipping my skirt. “Again?”
He smiled, resting his cheek on his folded arms, his hair fluffy and in disarray, a pair of black Calvin Klein boxer briefs his only attire. “I just want to be around you. Don’t go. Please.”
I finished putting on my earrings and Hayes’s borrowed watch before making my way over to him, cradling his face in my hands. “You are very, very, very irresistible. You know this. But I have to work. Please respect that.”
He lay there, allowing me to muss his hair and kiss his lips, without responding.
“I’ll text you later, okay? Okay?”
He nodded. This was Hayes, vulnerable.
* * *
That afternoon the Grand Palais felt slightly more cavernous than usual, and I could sense it in the air: the end of a beautiful thing. We had two pieces remaining unsold, and Lulit and I were already talking about Miami in December. The installation, the parties … It wasn’t quite half past three when I looked up to find Hayes striding into our booth.
“Do you know what today is?” he began the conversation. No greeting, no kiss.
Lulit and I exchanged looks.
“Sunday? October twenty-sixth? The last day of the fair?”
“It’s the last day of your thirties,” he said.
“Shhh,” Lulit laughed. “No one says that stuff out loud.”
“Sorry. It’s true…” He paused while a French couple who’d been admiring one of the Kenji Horiyama sculptures exited the booth. “So…” he continued, making his way over to me, “I’m taking her.”
“You’re what?” Lulit said.
“I’m taking her,” Hayes repeated, his hand encircling my wrist. “May I take her? I’m taking her.”
“Hayes, I’m working.”
“She’s working.”
“It’s your birthday, it’s Paris.” His angelic face broke my heart just a little.
“I know and I appreciate that, but we have all day tomorrow. We have tonight.”
“If I buy something, will that make a difference?” His eyes were scanning the walls.
“I don’t want you to do that.”
“What if I want to do that?”
“I don’t want you to do that,” I repeated.
Lulit caught my eye then, and the expression I read on her face left me cold. She was entertaining his offer. Knowing full well that he would go to extremes to close the deal. Her eyes said it all: Go. Sell. Art. To rich white men.
“No.” I shook my head.
“What’s still available?” He turned to Lulit. “She said there were still two left. Which ones are they?”