BED & BREAKFAST

CHAPTER 7 - Was I (s)eating where they'd fucked?

"Loose? What do you mean loose?" I had to know!

"Maybe it's the wrong word. Umm... Interesting in the sex part? Not once a week on a Friday night... the rest of the time no kissing, no touching, no breaking this habit, living like flatmates; I see this too much. Sex is love. Sex is also like eating, oui? I love to cook for Daniel, I am French non?" (I recall closing my eyes at this point and discreetly wincing?) "But I also like to cook with Daniel, à savoir?"

I savoired. Meandering off into mental images of the two of them-

"Not always I cook, he eats; sometimes we cook ahhh... naked together!"

She laughed- in his direction. I meantime savoired what lay hidden behind the laugh and... the images in my head changed to suit- I think I may have blushed?

But she had more. "Many times we make love here, where we eat..."

Her gaze (and her now more smug smile) drifted to the small vase of native flowers at the centre of the table.

I used this opportunity to wipe the drool from my mouth. Saliva had pooled, I hadn't swallowed in forever- images cascading in my head, my butt squirming in the chair that could well have been... Was I (s)eating where they'd fucked?

Someone will read this and instantly perk up at the mention of food porn, I know it. And the whole formal dining; gold-rimmed tableware and crystal and flowers and candles and and and... The romantics too, will - as I did - swoon at the imagery. (Once the idea of being in some stranger's most intimate space is filed away in the too squirmy folder!)

My hosts apparently ate breakfast together every morning; a proper meal that was cooked from scratch (sometimes by one or more fully naked chefs?) and they savoured the time taken to prepare and then feast. Who does this? And after sixteen together and two grown kids in the house part of the time (hers, and happily accepted by him) they apparently - and very obviously - did?

Now, most will be dishonest- if I am to pose the question: "How's your sex life going?" at this point. I don't mean you young ones in the throes of your very first 'La Passion Grande' (you very young ones better only be taking notes!) or you newly married or you just married a second/third time so technically starting fresh over again- which obliterates your excuses anyway. I mean YOU in your decade-maybe-two of marriage: Kids almost or already grown and moved away. Separate careers or retired to different interests. Different lives. Busy, tired, have a headache, have to get up early, too distracted, is it Friday already, didn't we do it last month? YOU  you!

I was witnessing physical attraction way, way past its usual 'use by' date. It was in every movement they made towards each other- I mean, he reached out and cupped her cheek at one point and that was somehow excruciatingly intimate and yes, sexual? Every word they exchanged and every look they shared... they were oozing "la passion" for each other- intimacy and connection. Their minds were already bloody there- in the act itself. And so was mine, in a discomforting voyeuristic immersive way! What the?

My love and I- okay, we oft fantasize of another place, another time: A shack by a secluded sandy beach (in our more daring moments, it transforms into a small island we've bought and happily share) where we live out our 'retirement' in harmony and creativity. (And plenty of non-virtual fucking, in-between... sigh.)

Yet we remain ever trapped in screens; he, tethered securely by his circumstances and me... by mine. (Ne'er the two shall meet kinda thing.) Too difficult, too impractical, too bloody disruptive and if one were to consider altruism, too bloody selfish. That's right.  Too selfish. How dare we, he and I- it's not even able to be thunk, you know?

Besides... it takes courage. (Truth be told, I am the lion in Oz. Always felt for that poor lion. He and I share the same - albeit mistaken - idea that courage is to be sought, given to, asked for.)

These two though... they'd bloody done it. It was what was driving me bonkers. They'd done it! They didn't waste time in fantasy and wishful thinking or at the other extreme, lamenting and placing blame on their ill-luck/mistiming. Yes, there was a period of disruption as they mentioned- you can't simply stop living one life and start another without some collateral fallout- but. This "but" was wreaking havoc in my brain and still does to this day. (I'll get to 'lives lived regretfully' later.)

But the world didn't end! Because that's what it feels like. The world ending. As though the union of two people would ripple out in a massive tsunami, sweeping everything and everyone away, leaving nothing behind but barren wasteland. That's what it feels like, every time my mind dares venture there. And I run, and I hide because I am shit-scared.

I... uh, often hear of marriage referred to as a 'partnership'. This term- for one with a Business/Marketing background... it sits not so comfortably. Yes, practicality (division of duty/responsibility/labour) on the surface might make for an easier living?  But hey, love is not a business model. Juxtaposing the practical with the plethora of often irrational and at times volatile and constantly shifting emotional accoutrements (pardon my French)... I'll take anything over this confining, boring-even-on-paper word. (I'll take it- but I won't wreck the planet over it?)

"La passion. This is number one." (She was definitely a mind reader. Either this or I was so utterly, blatantly transparent she was reacting to the very evident-on-my-face-internalizing.)

"Passion wanes though!" Yes, I protested. The words tumbled out with much protest. There's a reason for that which I won't go into here. Well maybe I'll touch on it: The nagging suspicion that if everything is given over, then everything is known, thereby, the mystery is gone?

"Non. You are wrong my dear. (Only two people have ever called me 'their dear', my lover and she. This oddity did not escape me, was just added to the growing eerie coincidences.) "You think passion is sex." She continued. (I think, my eyes were very, very wide?) "But sex is one part of la passion, there are other parts non? How you look, how you speak, how you share, how-" She tapped her right index finger to her lips. (???) Daniel, tell Elise about the time we were in Venice."

No! No no no! NO!

I'd withstood enough concurrences, enough too close to home instances, enough bloody reverse serendipity. A silent voice screamed out of that deep place inside me, the hoarding place, the place reserved for- Nikk you bastard, I hate you! You hearing me? I fucking hate you!

Yes, I blamed my departed friend.