French Wine 3:

PINK FIZZ

Thom Lane

www.loose-id.com

French Wine 3: Pink Fizz
Copyright © February 2013 by Thom
Lane
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Pink Fizz

“Excuse me, please. Are you gay?”
It’s not a question you get asked

every day. Especially not in the street
and by a total stranger, apparently at
random, even on a warm spring Saturday
evening when all the bright boys are out
on the town. And double that especially
not when the person asking is a young
woman with no particularly obvious
need to know.

A young French woman, as it

happened. She was comfortable enough
in English, but she had that giveaway
accent and a chic sense of style that
would have marked her out instantly if

she hadn’t said a word. English boys
should have been queuing up around the
corner.

Most English boys. Not apparently

the ones she was after.

I know I blinked; maybe I hesitated

a second, before confessing with a
shrug.

“Yes, I am. As it happens. How did

you know?” It’s no great secret, but I’m
not camp, and I don’t wear badges or
slogan T-shirts. I don’t think it’s that
obvious to strangers. At least, I didn’t
use to think so, until that moment. Not
walk-down-the-street obvious, unless
I’m hand in hand with a boy. Which does
happen, but only at the other end of the
evening, going home. What else is it for?

She beamed, pleased with me and

delighted with herself. “I have a
gaydar,” she said. Announced, rather.
She’d be happy to tell the world, first
that she had it and second that it was
working just fine, thanks.

I was surprised again, that she

would even know the word. My own
sense of who liked what was maybe not
so reliable with girls, but I’d have put
her down as straight. Or at least straight
so far. Not quite too young to know the
difference, but if she was twenty yet, I
didn’t think she was any older.

“Also,” she added confidingly,

“your clothes are nicer than the straight
boys’. I think that is always true.”

I grinned. I’d been telling my het

friends for years that it wasn’t just a
cliché—we really did dress better.
“Okay,” I said. “So you can pick a gay
man out of a crowd, by gaydar or fashion
sense or whatever. So what now? What
can I do for you?”

“Please, can you tell me where a

gay man would go tonight, if he has had
a stupid row with his boyfriend and
come stamping out on his own?”

In this town? That was easy enough.

“There’s only one gay club,” I said. “As
it happens, I’m going there myself.” Of
course I was. Where else would I be
going on a Saturday night in my party
clothes? “There’s any number of pubs,
though, where he’d be welcome enough
if he just wants to drown his sorrows.”

She shook her head. “I know him.

He is my cousin; he is an idiot. When
they fight, he thinks he may as well make
something to fight about. So he goes to a
club to pick up a boy and make Charlie
jealous. Only when he gets there, he
doesn’t want to do that after all, so he
just sits in a corner and drinks and feels
unhappy.”

“Well,” I said judiciously, “that

doesn’t sound too bad.”

“No, but I have to look after

Charlie now and both of them in the
morning. It will be much easier for me if
they kiss and say sorry tonight. I can
make that happen, but I need to find
Matthieu first. So which way, please?”

Okay, so she was one of those

organizing

girls

who

can’t

help

interfering with other people’s lives. I
felt briefly and sincerely glad not to
have had her in my own family. Still, she
was attractively odd; and helping her out
might not qualify as an adventure, but it
would certainly make a story for a
dinner party. And she’d be company
during those first few minutes in a club
when you’re just scanning the dance
floor and the tables, working out who
else is on their own, who’s available,
who’s worth picking up…

“Down here,” I said. “It’s not far.

And I can sign you in. I get a guest on my
membership card, so you won’t have to
pay.”

She looked momentarily startled, as

though the thought of paying had never
crossed her mind. I guessed she had a
well-used credit card in her purse—that
chic French style doesn’t come cheap—
b ut Maman or Papa covered that, and
boyfriends covered the rest. Boyfriends
or cousins. She had that air of little rich
kid, utterly unworried about money.

Still, she smiled prettily and

thanked me nicely, slipped her arm
through mine with an accompanying waft
of Chanel, and said, “My name is
Juliette.”

“Pleased to meet you, Juliette. I’m

Gregory. Greg to my friends.”

“Greg,” she repeated, claiming her

place blithely among my friends. I
wasn’t quite sure if that was deliberate

or unconscious; she was clearly no fool,
but she was still very young. “What do
you do, Greg? For your work? I know
what you do for fun; you go to nightclubs
to chase pretty boys.”

From another mouth, in another

accent,

that

could

have

sounded

sneeringly offensive. Even though it was
true. From her, that night, it was just
charmingly gauche. And still true, but
she didn’t make me feel at all bad about
it. I thought she’d probably cheer me on,
given half a chance. Actually, I thought if
I wasn’t careful, she’d be offering to
pick out the right boy for me.

“I’m an engineer,” I said. Which

was maybe a little mean, but it is what
we call ourselves, between ourselves;

and maybe I wanted to test her English a
little further. Or maybe I just wanted to
knock her off her stride, just for a
moment, the way she kept on knocking
me.

“An engineer?” She cocked her

head and peered up at me, frowning. “I
do not think you are an engineer. You
smell of Calvin Klein, not motor oil.”

I laughed. “Even engineers can

scrub up for a night out—but you’re
quite right, of course. I’m a software
engineer. I write computer programs.”

“Ah. This I understand. We have a

man who comes to the château to work
on our computers. I don’t think he calls
himself an engineer, though.”

“Likely not.” He probably spent his

time deleting viruses and speeding up
the broadband, rather than writing code.
“You have a château, do you?” I was
right, then, about the money. Not that I
begrudged it; I was paid well enough
myself. And even if she’d been born to
it, she carried it gracefully.

“Of course. We make wine.” As

though that were an explanation or a
justification, as though you couldn’t
make wine without living in a château.
She’d probably never considered any
other option. “I will give you a card,
when we have found Matthieu. Is this the
place?”

“This is it.” Under the railway

arches, painted bright rainbow colors,
with hard high music pulsing out. I

whisked her past the queue and was
nodded through the door without anyone
even asking to see my pass. It occurred
to me that maybe I came here too often,
or too often alone, though I usually left in
company. It was the girl on my arm who
raised the bouncers’ eyebrows and might
lead to some awkward teasing later.

Well, I could deal with that when it

came. If it came. It would be my own
fault; I’d paraded too many young men
out through these doors to get away
unmocked. Or to deserve to.

It was early yet; the dance floor

wasn’t crowded, there was space at the
bar and room to sit down at the tables.
There was even a clear line of sight
from one end of the club to the other.

Juliette took one scouring look around
and grunted in satisfaction.

“Found him?”
“But yes. He is where I said he

would be, see? In the corner there,
sitting by himself, talking to his beer as
if it was his only friend.” She sounded
affectionate and exasperated both at
once, and I thought it was probably not
such a terrible fate after all, to have this
girl for a cousin. Even if she did insist
on taking a hand in your affairs.

“So what now, will you go and talk

to him?” Lead him away by the hand, I
was guessing, back to his boyfriend and
a heart-to-heart. A supervised heart-to-
heart.

I was wrong. “No,” she said,

fishing out her BlackBerry. “I will text
Charlie and tell him to come here. Then
they can sit and pull faces at each other
and pretend it is too loud to talk; they
will prefer that. They are boys; they
don’t like saying sorry. Meanwhile, you
can buy me a drink and ask me to dance
while we’re waiting.”

Of course she’d want to wait, to

check that they made up properly and
didn’t just fight again. I did let myself
wonder vaguely how come she’d lived
so long, how come nobody—a blood
relative, most likely—had actually
murdered her yet. Then I grinned,
realized that I was enjoying myself, and
cooperated with the inevitable.

She claimed a table while I fetched

the drinks. Then she said, “I’m sorry.
Will I hurt your reputation, being a girl,
if I dance with you here?”

“Too late to be sorry,” I said

cheerfully enough, given that I’d already
been fending off wisecracks from the bar
staff. “My reputation is in the dust
beneath your feet. A dance isn’t going to
make any difference now.”

Besides, I was quite looking

forward to it. I wanted to see if she was
as light-footed and graceful on the floor
as she was in the street. Dancing with
girls is different, and I didn’t get to do it
very often. I had girlfriends in plenty, but
somehow they didn’t seem to come
clubbing with me anymore. Mostly they
were settling down with permanent

partners, thinking about kids; maybe they
were just bored with watching my
relentless pursuit of one fresh face after
another.

Maybe I was bored with it myself,

come to think. At any rate, I was happy
enough just to settle down and pass the
time with Juliette, as if she gave me an
excuse not to go cruising after every
unattached cutie we watched passing by.

Before long, of course, we were

spotting boys for each other, giggling
together as we watched them make their
moves.

“That one is very pretty. And he

moves nicely.”

“He does—but only because he’s

watching himself in the mirror. He’s

pure vanity, that one. Trust me, I know.”

And yes, we danced too, and let

other watchers make their own ill-
informed guesses about us; and yes, she
danced like a feather in the wind, or else
like a flame in the night when the music
heated up. And we moved between the
table and the bar and the floor, and at
last she nudged me and gestured with her
chin at a young man who’d just come in
alone after coming out in a hurry, not
stopping to shave, not dressed up.

”Charlie?”
Juliette nodded, bright-eyed and

watchful. The newcomer caught her eye;
she jerked her head toward where her
cousin still sat in the corner, paying so
little attention to the room he hadn’t even

noticed us. That was all it needed,
apparently. Charlie paused at the bar,
picked up two bottles of beer by the
neck, and bore them away to make the
apologies easier.

Eventually, I thought to ask:

“Juliette, what are you and your cousin
actually doing here? Shouldn’t you all be
at home in your château, making wine?”

She shrugged. “There is not so

much to do this time of the year. The
vines can manage a little while by
themselves. So can the business.
Matthieu and Charlie were coming to
visit friends for the weekend, and I came
with them because my boyfriend, Luc, is
away all year.” This drew an irritated
little shrug at the inconvenience of it. “I

thought we would all have a nice time
together, until the stupid boys had their
fight. And now Jeff and Benet are
staying home, and I have to work”—she
sighed,

long-suffering—“to

make

everyone happy again.”

“Well, it looks like you’re doing a

pretty good job of it,” I said. Behind her
shoulder, her cousin and his boyfriend
were sliding out onto the dance floor,
arms tight around each other and heads
together. Music is sometimes better than
beer, even, to smooth out an argument. I
could guess more or less how this one
would go now. They’d work up a sweat
on the floor, then take it home and work
it off in bed. And fall asleep in each
other’s arms, and wake up hungry and

easy together, to another slow Sunday
fuck, and then a search for breakfast.

I could almost envy them the fight,

for the pleasure of the making up
afterward.

Almost. My own life was better

organized; I avoided fights, so I never
needed to make up. Living alone means
never having to say you’re sorry.

I bought Juliette one more vodka

tonic

in

celebration,

then

gently

suggested that her work here was done.
They really didn’t need her checking up
on them now, so why didn’t I find us a
taxi and see her home?

“Oh,” she said, “no, I am perhaps

ready to go back now, but you are not!
You haven’t found a boy yet…” She

started looking around with a serious
intent. It was no joke now. She really
would pick someone out and try to pair
us off if I allowed it. Which I was
absolutely not going to do. I had her up
on her feet and heading for the door in
short order, my arm very firm across her
silk-clad shoulders, while she was still
peering back into the packed masses.
Would I rather have a blond or a brunet,
or perhaps that lovely black boy with the
shaved head…?

I had the taxi driver drop her at her

door, before he doubled back to my
place. On that last leg, it occurred to me
that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d
come in from the club alone—and that I
really didn’t mind tonight. To be honest,

it was a bit of a relief.

* * * *

Next morning I worried that

perhaps I was losing my grip or showing
my age. Twenty-seven, and past it
already. Apparently. Nevertheless, as I
pottered around between bathroom and
kitchen and living room, I did keep
thinking how it made a happy change not
to be wondering how long last night’s
conquest would take in the shower or
what he’d want for breakfast, whether
he’d expect to hang around for lunch,
how heavily I’d need to hint to chase
him out.

Alone for once, I was determined

to enjoy it. Coffee and croissants and the

Sunday papers, and nobody there to call
me sad for doing the sudoku and the
cryptic crossword, finding an old black-
and-white movie to watch, spending all
day indoors if I wanted to…

Even so, I leaped up eagerly

enough when the doorbell sounded a
little after midday. Turns out that solitary
Sundays are quiet and unhurried and
easy to manage, but they’re lonely.

Apparently I wasn’t allowed to be

lonely any longer. There was a pack of
people on my doorstep: two total
strangers, two that I recognized but
hadn’t actually met, and—of course!—
Juliette.

“Greg, good, we have found you.”

She was oozing self-content at her own

cleverness. And pleased with me too for
being in, for being easy to find. For
fitting into her plans so conveniently.
“Here are Matthieu and Charlie.”
Happily together, showered and shaved
and short on sleep, a little embarrassed
perhaps but still standing so close that
they didn’t actually need to hold hands,
they were touching all the way from
shoulder to hip. “And that is Jeff and
Benet.” Their English friends: another
obvious

couple,

perhaps

a

little

surprised to find themselves on a
stranger’s doorstep but playing along
because it was Juliette, and that was just
so much easier.

I said hullo, and so did they; then

we all waited for Juliette to explain.

Presumably they knew what she was
going to say; me, I wasn’t even trying to
second-guess her.

“You were very kind,” she said, “to

help me last night, especially because it
maybe spoiled your night, so we
thought”—meaning

she

decided,

obviously—“that we should take you out
today to say thank you. Come, change
your clothes”—she gave a frowning
glance at my lazy-Sunday gear—“and
we will go now.”

“Jules, we’re only going to the

pub!” That was one of her English
companions, laughing, protesting; I
flipped a mental coin and decided it was
Jeff.

“Yes, but it is a nice pub, and what

Greg is wearing is…”

“Not nice?” I suggested when she

faltered. “Well, you’re probably right.
Wait one minute.”

I wasn’t going to fancy up on a

Sunday—well, not much—but if you’ve
got nice jeans and a frowning French
girl, boy goes into jeans in nothing flat.
Five minutes later, I was at least smart
enough to be acceptable to her critical
eye; so off we went, all six of us
squeezed into Jeff’s BMW as if we were
all as young and slim as Juliette. When I
was that young, none of my friends had a
BMW; I think I used to dream of days
like this, unexpected adventures with
total strangers. I’d become more sober
since.

They were an easy crowd to get

along with, I found. Just as well, given
how we were all squashed together; but
gay men are often easy with each other,
when none of them are hunting. And that
wasn’t the only thing we had in common,
after all. We’d all been bullied by
Juliette.

Before

we

reached

our

destination, I was calling her Jules as the
other guys did, and teasing her just as
mercilessly, and submitting to her diktats
just as weakly.

Once we arrived, I was suddenly

grateful to her for making me dress up at
least a little. Only the pub, Jeff had said
—and I suppose that was true, in a very
literal sense. But this was the Flower in
Hand, which is the smartest gastropub in

the county: one Michelin star already,
and people come from everywhere to eat
there. They barely serve beer anymore.
It’s all about the food—and the prices
would have made me hesitate right there
on the doorstep, if I’d thought for a
moment that we’d get in. Of course I
didn’t; no chance. You needed to book
months in advance for Sunday service at
the Flower in Hand. I was sure we’d be
turned away and have to creep off in
search of some more likely venue. Every
pub does Sunday lunch, so at least we
shouldn’t go hungry…

That’s what I thought, walking to

the door; that’s what gave me the
confidence to cross the threshold. Again,
though, I was wrong. Juliette went first,

and apparently she could charm a maître
d’ as easily as she could bully a poor
engineer. One quick murmured word
with the severe lady who greeted her,
and all that severity melted away in a
moment. Instead she was all smiles and
all apology that the dining rooms were
fully booked—but the chef’s table in the
kitchen was available, and they’d be
only too delighted to seat us there, and
come this way, and welcome…

Matthieu

grinned

at

my

astonishment and left it to Charlie to
explain, soft voiced as we were led
between tables of smart, expensive
people: “We’re old friends here. They
buy our wine, and Jules is coming over
as an intern in a couple of months.

Anything to get her out of our hair. She’s
supposed to be studying the business;
we’re planning to bribe them into
making her wait tables and polish all the
glassware.”

I’d eaten in plenty of good

restaurants, but I’d never been backstage
before. The contrast is astonishing. In a
dining room, every separate table is its
own bubble. Some are vivid and some
are loud and some are quiet and intense,
but they’re all focused inward, on food
and drink and conversation. The
lighting’s subdued, and good waiters are
discreet, flitting from one table to
another and dragging barely a shadow
behind them.

The kitchen is a whole different

level of intense. The lights are fierce,
and so is the heat; the pace is frenetic
and the language explosive. Even when
they don’t have an audience, it’s a
performance, and the chef is the star.
When there are people there to see,
when they know they’re being watched
—well, maybe the language gets dialed
back a bit, but everything else is dialed
up.

Sit at the chef’s table, right there in

among it all, and everyone is showing
off all around you. In a happy kitchen,
they’re all trying to make the chef look
good.

This? Was obviously a happy

kitchen.

It must have been something else

originally,

several

smaller

rooms

perhaps or a luxurious private parlor.
Our table stood in a window alcove,
tucked out of the way but with a perfect
view of the arena. At the far end, waiters
were coming and going from the dining
rooms, collecting full plates and
returning empties. Between here and
there were flaring stoves and banging
oven doors, people flying from fridge to
flame juggling pans and dishes and
bottles in a seeming chaos that was
really strictly ordered.

In control of it all was the chef,

who came striding down to greet us as
soon as we were settled. The sleeves of
her white jacket were rolled back to
show tattoos on both arms; her blonde

hair was caught up in a piratical
bandanna, and her skin gleamed with
sweat as her eyes gleamed with a kind of
concentrated mischief.

She had a bottle in one hand, a

fistful of champagne flutes in the other.

“I’m Carrie,” she said. “I guess I’m

feeding you today. If anyone’s allergic to
anything, speak now.”

No one spoke; she grinned.
“Brilliant. You just sit here, then,

and eat what you’re given. Who’s
driving?”

“That would be me,” Jeff said a

little woefully.

“Okay. I’ll fix you some interesting

drinks that don’t have alcohol as we go

along, but you can have one glass with
me now. It’ll be out of your system long
before you leave.” As she spoke, she
was pouring: something fizzy and pink
that I wouldn’t have given a second
glance, another time in other company. If
a serious cook and serious winemakers
were prepared to take it seriously, then
so was I.

The glass was chill in my hand,

misted with condensation. The wine
wasn’t really pink, now that I looked at
it more closely: not in a sickly, sugar
marshmallow kind of way, at any rate. It
was closer to the color of a tawny sherry
and smelled as crisp and dry, with just a
bit more fruit behind it; it tingled on the
tongue, with a bite like sharp apples and

not a hint of sweet.

“We make this,” Matthieu told me.

“It was Charlie’s idea. Rosé wine is a
tradition of Provence, but my family has
never made it sparkling before. He is a
genius, I think.”

Charlie made a rude noise and said,

“Matt’s the one who did the work. I just
said ‘Can’t you make it fizzy?’—the rest
is all down to him. It’s good, though,
isn’t it?”

“It’s wonderful,” I said honestly.

Also wonderful, I thought but wasn’t
going to say, was the way they were
proud of each other and not ashamed to
make it obvious. Jeff and Benet were
less demonstrative—though they hadn’t
had a fight and a big makeup scene,

which always leaves couples with a
hangover of conspicuous care—but even
so, there was a tenderness between them
that ran deep. Juliette too: she might talk
nonstop, she might be determined to
have all the fun that was available, right
here right now, but she was seriously
missing her Luc. It’s a dead giveaway,
when someone’s name just happens to
crop up every other sentence. The guys
around the table rolled their eyes a little
but had clearly given up teasing her
about it; me, I hid my smile the way I hid
my envy.

It was odd to find myself feeling

that way. I really didn’t mind being a
singleton. Indeed, it was a deliberate
choice; I worked to keep myself that

way. Being the only one at the table,
though, did leave me with a contrary
feeling that I might be missing out. Not
on sex—I got plenty of that—and I didn’t
care much about the hearts-and-flowers
side of romance. What I had an
unexpected pang for that day were the
incidentals: the entirely casual touches,
the private smiles, the sense of being
settled and secure. Just suddenly, I
missed having someone to miss: making
two cups of coffee instead of one, his
socks in my laundry, like that. The
simple ordinariness of living tangled up
with someone else rather than being so
cleanly and carefully alone.

I clamped down on the thought as

quickly as I could, crushed it into

nothing.

My

lifestyle—I

reminded

myself swiftly, furiously—just didn’t
turn that way. I had no space for a
partner: not in my flat and not in my
calendar either. I worked crazy hours
when a project was hot, all day at the
office and half the night at home, and my
downtime was just as intense. Long late
nights and fierce greedy sex, instant
gratification because there was no time
to linger, no time for a slow seduction.
Next week I’d be away on a business
trip or sucked into another heavy
project; all I ever had was now. All I
ever wanted was that sweet, hot frenzy
and good-bye. Sufficient unto myself,
that was my motto.

Here I was being offered a glimpse

of another life, another kind of life:
unhurried

and

comfortable,

companionable and easy, so very much
not the kind of life I actually led. I could
envy it without actually wanting to
snatch for it, the same way I could envy
my boss’s Ferrari without actually
wanting to drive one myself. These
people had deep tans, deep pockets, and
deep affection for each other; it was all
utterly enviable, and all so utterly out of
my reach I didn’t even crave it. I
couldn’t imagine that kind of life for
myself. Which meant I could relax and
enjoy the benefits, just this one
unpredictable day out…

Fizz was only the first of those

benefits, and not at all the most

significant. Lunch went on all afternoon,
a seemingly endless succession of little
plates, a taster menu of Chef Carrie’s
finest and fanciest tricks. Butternut soup
with a cumin foam; wild salmon cooked
sous-vide and served with hand-dived
scallops; chicken boned and stuffed
three different ways… I’d never eaten
food quite like it. And each dish came
with a new wine, carefully chosen—and
even so, it still wasn’t about the food, let
alone the drinking. The best of the day
was the company. These people were
almost strangers, and even so: it was
like that thing that happens at really good
parties, where you meet somebody at the
drinks table and a couple of other people
in the kitchen and someone hanging out

on the stairs, and you all lock together
like Lego pieces because you just fit that
well, and you spend the whole night
talking and drinking and arguing and
laughing and making plans to rule the
world and writing down each other’s
numbers on whatever comes to hand,
because you know you’re going to want
to meet up again tomorrow.

Like that, the six of us in that bright

warm alcove, that amazing afternoon;
and I was so lost in it, having such a
good time, I didn’t even notice what else
was going on until Juliette clued me in.

Juliette, of all people: her gaydar

going full blast, while mine? Not even
switched on, apparently.

She

nudged

me

extravagantly

between courses, like a shout of I’m
being discreet! in vivid semaphore for
everyone to see, and then, pointedly,
said, “The staff take their smoke breaks
in the courtyard. Through that door.”

If she was being pointed, I was

missing the point. “I don’t smoke,” I
said, a little bewildered.

“No, but Andrés does.” Andrés

was the sous-chef who’d been waiting
on us: young and Spanish, tangle-haired
and tanned and brightly smiling, enjoying
his job and our pleasure both equally as
far as I could tell. “He’s out there now.
Go on, go and join him…”

“Why would I…?”
“Greg, focus! He has been making

eyes at you all the time since we came!

He is very pretty and very gay, and he
thinks you’re pretty too.”

Oh. Had he, was he, did he? Yes to

all three, to judge by the nods and winks
and little sidelong gestures of the head I
picked up now from all around the table.
This wasn’t matchmaking on Juliette’s
part, or mischief-making either. Only a
statement of the obvious, apparently. At
least, it was obvious to everybody else.
Me, I hadn’t even noticed.

And now I’d had it pointed out, I

still wasn’t following up. Wasn’t on my
feet and heading for the door that opened
onto the courtyard, practicing my line:
Actually I don’t smoke, but I thought
I’d just come out for a breath of air
and keep you company, you looked

lonely on your own…

I could do that on autopilot, play

the willing fish and reel him in. It was
the sort of thing I’d done week in, week
out for years; why would I even
hesitate? And yet…

“He’s very cute,” I said, “but—”
“Cute?” Charlie protested. “Greg,

that boy’s as hot as a habanero. And he
wants you, and he won’t wait around;
cooks are pirates—it’s all about
grabbing what’s in reach or else moving
on to the next thing. So go get him, man.”

I’d always been a bit of a pirate

myself, if that was the definition. Even
so, oddly, I found myself shaking my
head and trying to change the subject.

Not much chance of that, with

Juliette scowling at me, but it was Jeff
who asked, “Why not, Greg?”

I didn’t really have an answer for

him. Hell, I didn’t really have an answer
for myself. I was just as puzzled as they
were. “I don’t know,” I said awkwardly.
“Maybe it’s because I didn’t notice,
because you guys had to wake me up;
maybe that’s a sign, that I’ve just been
having too many casual flings with too
many random boys. I’m a bit tired of it, I
think. Tired of the whole game. This
mood won’t last, I’m sure—but maybe I
just need to catch my breath, take a
break, not wake up to another face I
don’t recognize with a name I don’t
remember.”

“What you need,” Juliette said

firmly, “is a holiday.”

“Didn’t I just say that?”
“No, I mean a proper holiday, away

from all of this. Sleep in the sun, drink
good wine, swim, and see a country that
is not your own. You must come to the
château,” she said decisively, nodding at
her own wisdom.

“What? Juliette, I can’t impose on

your family like that! You hardly know
me, and they don’t know me at all…”

“Matthieu and Charlie are my

family too,” she said, “and they know
you now. He must come, mustn’t he?”

“Well, why not?” Charlie said.

“You’d be very welcome. And it would

be the perfect rest cure if you do want to
get away from it all. Besides which,
Juliette has a fine tradition of seizing
hold of single boys and making happy
couples out of them. As witness, there’s
a whole tableful here.”

“I thought we’d just agreed that I

needed to get away from all of that?” I
may have sounded a little dry; I’m really
not used to having my life organized for
me, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

“Ah, well. Fight her if you can. If

you dare to. But come anyway. Eat,
drink, sleep alone if that’s really what
you want. Grandmère will disapprove if
you do, mind, and I wouldn’t want both
of them on my back. Separated by sixty
years they may be, but they make a

formidable team…”

He was just talking, half teasing,

the way they all did. But somehow, by
the day’s end—in another pub, having a
last drink together after an unexpected,
extraordinary day in charming company
—I seemed to have said yes. Or at least
everybody else was assuming that I had,
and I lacked the moral fiber to disabuse
them.

* * * *

I spent the next couple of weeks

wrapping up one project and putting off
another, making a space I could
disappear into. Then a drive to the
airport, a flight to Marseille, a short
walk out of the terminal into blistering

sunshine. Inside I was still not quite sure
how this had happened or why I’d come;
this really wasn’t the kind of thing I did.
However captivating they might have
seemed over one dizzy weekend, Juliette
and her family weren’t the kind of
people I hung around with.

Still, here I was, and the sun did

feel wonderful after a long wet English
spring; and then I heard the sudden blast
of a car horn and turned to see a girl’s
arm thrust high and waving wildly. That
was Juliette, of course: tipped oddly
sideways, so that she could wave with
one hand while she reached the other in
through the car window to play that loud
fandango. Rather to the discomfiture, I
thought, of the young man in the driver’s

seat.

He was called Lionel, I learned, as

he helped me load my bags into the boot
while Juliette danced around us,
delighted with me for turning up and
herself for being so clever as to arrange
it. “I had to borrow Lionel with his car
to collect you,” she explained airily,
“because mine only has two seats.”

“Um, you and me, Juliette? There’s

only two of us.”

“But then how would you meet

Lionel, idiot? He is training to be un
advocat, a lawyer; I had to argue with
his father to make him free this
afternoon…”

So then I had to apologize to him

for his wasted time while he was

obliged to say, no, no, he was perfectly
happy to help Juliette and to meet me, of
course, it was no trouble at all; and
neither one of us could quite admit what
was obvious to us both, that she was
matchmaking already.

She made me sit in the front,

despite my protests, and then she
sabotaged her own efforts by spending
the entire journey leaning forward
between the seats to point out this sight
or that, an old ruined castle on a hill or a
château by a river or a daily market. Or
a friend of hers on a pushbike, who had
to be shrieked at as we passed; or a
friend at work in a field, or a friend
outside a restaurant, or…

“Juliette, do you know everybody?”

“Of course,” she shrugged. “I have

lived here my whole life. Look, there’s
M’sieur Talbot; he has a vineyard in the
valley next to ours; he should come to
dinner, you will like him. I’ll tell
Grandmère…”

What, is he gay too? Are you

lining him up for me, in case I
disappoint with Lionel? I couldn’t say
any of that aloud, not while he was
listening; and I couldn’t manage the kind
of outrage her meddling probably
deserved. She did have my best interests
at heart, all too clearly. And she was
enjoying herself entirely, and despite
myself I did enjoy watching her scheme;
there was no harm if I simply let it all
wash over me. Lionel was another

victim, of course, but he didn’t seem to
mind either. More than once he glanced
at me with a kind of amused roll of the
eyes, an acknowledgment that we were
both long-suffering here, and that
suffering was part of the fun of being
with Juliette, and that it really was fun in
spite of the hoops she made us all jump
through.

All that, with one facial expression.

You probably grew skilled at silent
communication,

I

thought,

around

Juliette. Certainly we had small chance
to talk; she never stopped to breathe, let
alone to listen. Scenery slid by, on that
ceaseless flow of words: rivers and
hills, canals and roads, woods and fields
and vineyards.

“And here is our château, do you

see, just hiding behind the slope of
vines? We never go to the front door, of
course. The front is for tourists and
government officials; real visitors all
come to the yard, as we do. See, there is
Matthieu’s car, and Papa’s. Just park
beside, Lionel, and come inside.
Grandmère will want to scold you for
staying away so long, and give you a pot
of confit for your mother, and…”

Cobbles beneath our feet as we

stepped out of the car. I stretched and
looked about me, saw a stable yard and
a high old house and a back door and an
elderly woman just wiping her hands on
a tea towel; this must be the fabled
Grandmère, queen apparently of all she

surveyed.

She nodded at me, steel-blue eyes

pitiless beneath a cap of white hair. Her
bony hand was steely too as it gripped
mine.

“Parlez-vous français, Greg?”
“Oui, un peu…”
“Bon. Come, then,” she went on,

still holding my hand, drawing me
inside. “No, never mind your bags. The
children will see to those.”

Les enfants apparently meant

Juliette and Lionel. Poor boy: bullied on
the one hand by an irresistible young
girl, and on the other by a formidable
old lady. I grinned privately and
followed where she led me.

A long cool corridor, delightful

after the hammer heat outside; a broad
shady kitchen, with a wood-burning
range and copper pans hanging on the
chimney breast, tiles and whitewash and
a stone-flagged floor. It might have come
out of any period movie, any Victorian
novel. Or simply, directly, untouched out
of the past, lifted from a hundred years
ago. In a way, I suppose it was exactly
that.

Grandmère too, she was like a

glance back into former times. And she
knew it, I think; she knew that I was
thinking it, at least. There was a hard-
edged, almost ruthless amusement in her
eyes as she caught my gaze. She was
laughing at herself, not at me. She was

what she was, though. There was nothing
fake about it, and she wasn’t playing up
to any stereotype. Her life had made her
this way and led her here, and she was
quite content with that.

In a matter of moments she had me

sat at the table with a glass of something
cool, refreshing, and only mildly
alcoholic in my hand, a plate of crisp
sweet biscuits before me. They were her
own bake—of course!—and still warm
from the oven.

I barely had time to breathe before

she was adding a bowl of dark, salty
olives and slices of saucisson sec, in
case my taste ran that way instead. I was
still looking about me into shadowy
corners, still havering indecisively—

savory or sweet? chew or crunch?—
when she started asking questions and I
realized that the nibbles were only an
enticement, meant to distract me from the
hard interrogation that lay ahead.

Alas,

poor

Grandmère—she’d

hardly started before the young people
came tumbling in to join us, fatally
interrupting.

“We took your bags up, Greg.”

Juliette said we, but from his slightly
rueful expression I gathered that Lionel
had been the one who did the hauling,
while she supervised. Well, of course he
was; the boy must be used to that. He
seemed to find her company worthwhile
nonetheless.

He was being firm now, though,

determined to take himself away.

“Truly, Juliette, I must. I have work

to do. It was a pleasure to meet you,
Greg—and Grandmère, I am so sorry to
hurry away—but I have to go now.”

Juliette pouted at him and said,

“Well, come back, then. Come and swim
tonight, and stay for dinner.”

“You are not the one who cooks the

dinner.” It was a gentle scold from him;
Grandmère gave her a snort that must
have stung, though it was followed by
the old lady’s swift invitation.

He didn’t stand a chance, of course,

against the two of them. He gave way
with a shrug and a smile, then backed out
with his arms full of jars and bottles,
gifts for his mother that he could in no

way refuse. Juliette saw him out—and
whispered something, I was sure, about
me, something he could take away with
hi m, I can tell that he likes you or
something like that.

It was true enough. I thought he was

delightful: slim and shy and irresistible.
Ordinarily irresistible. I was still
finding it surprisingly easy to let these
chances by. Where was the old driven
Greg, the man I’d been a while back,
who wanted to lay every boy he met?

Thinking back, I thought I hadn’t

been that man for some time, actually. It
had just been habit that kept me going to
the clubs and fetching young men home;
it was the thing I did, what I was known
for, how I passed my weekends. Not the

urgent need or the frantic pleasure that it
used to be. Maybe I was losing my
drive. Maybe I’d lost it altogether. I was
growing older, after all: twenty-seven
last birthday. Maybe that was it, and my
sex life would be all downhill from
here…

Maybe I should let Juliette set me

up with however many boys she liked,
just to prove to myself that wasn’t true.
But… Nah. I couldn’t be bothered,
apparently. I was tired; it was the
promise of a holiday that had brought me
here, not the promise of unmitigated sex.

That wasn’t going to stop Juliette

trying to pair me off. She came bouncing
back into the kitchen, already talking. “I
hope you brought your swimming shorts,

Greg. We have spares, in case of not.
You are not allowed to be English and
shy; we all like to swim in the evening,
and you have to join us. Lionel will
come tonight. Did you like Lionel? He is
one of my oldest friends, but I think he is
lonely now, since his boyfriend went
away…”

Really, she couldn’t have been

more obvious if she’d made her point
with a sledgehammer. I distracted her
with biscuits and didn’t answer her
question, left her spraying crumbs
indignantly and talked to Grandmère
instead, trying to loosen my rusty French
with practice.

She was like a baguette, I thought:

crusty on the outside, soft and sweet

within. Of course she was. I knew that
already; I’d have known it sight unseen.
However hard she tried to seem
forbidding, the younger generation gave
her away. Juliette and her clan wouldn’t
treasure her as they obviously did,
wouldn’t cluster around her like grapes
on a vine, wouldn’t tease her and take
her scoldings peaceably if they didn’t
adore her at heart. And I thought it
probably worked the other way too, that
the company of the young would help to
keep her sweet. She wouldn’t have the
chance to grow bitter with age, even if
she had the inclination.

Not she. She was hard on herself

and hard on everyone, but only because
she loved them. Me she didn’t know

from Adam, but she’d take me on their
word, at their valuation. Because she
trusted them, because they gave her good
reason to.

All families should work this way,

I thought, with a little twist of regret in
my heart. Not that I wanted to join this
one—not the way Charlie clearly had,
swallowed whole and delighting in it.
I’d sooner admire from the outside, keep
my distance, hold my tongue. Take what
they offered, which was a couple of
weeks of sunshine and relaxation, and no
more than that; be friendly, be grateful,
then be gone.

Should be easy. Shouldn’t it?

* * * *

It might have proved easier if I

could have played the sullen adolescent,
all grouch and growl and spiky touch-
me-not. If I could have said it out loud,
even: I’m not one of you. I’m just a
stranger you stopped on the street. And
I’m not a stray puppy either; you don’t
get to keep me. Don’t try to adopt me.
I’m not moving in.

I was ten years too old to be that

ungrateful, and about twenty-five years
too young to do the same thing with a
bitter grace and irreproachable manners,
hold them all at a distance the way my
mother would, with icy politeness and a
smile that could bite through glass. The
most I could manage was a promise to
myself: two weeks and no more, a

fortnight of simple uninvolving fun, a
kiss on each cheek—very French!—and
fare-thee-well. Home again, rested and
ready to start again with the old life,
the way I’m comfortable with. I’ll send
the kids a postcard, a bunch of flowers
for Grandmère, and that’ll be that.
Once I’m gone, they won’t bother to
keep in touch. Out of sight, out of mind:
they won’t care enough to make the
effort if I don’t.

And if I cared, if some penned-up

hidden part of me wanted to open like a
flower and bask in the warmth they
offered, if it wanted to howl at the cold
meticulous plan my logical mind was
hatching—well, let it howl. Nobody
could hear but me, and I wasn’t

listening. I was just doing what I had to,
to protect myself.

* * * *

They really, really didn’t try to

make it easy for me. That evening there
was the promised ordeal by swimming
pool, and time to be grateful all over
again that I wasn’t still adolescent,
victim to all those vicious giveaway
hormones. So much lean, bronzed
healthy male flesh on display, in tight
trunks or baggy clinging swim shorts,
each of them revealing in different ways:
my teenage self would have hunched
somewhere in a corner with his legs
crossed, miserably trying to hide a
raging hard-on. Years of experience

gave me better control than that—but
only just. And when lovely Lionel
snatched my ankle underwater and then
climbed me like a monkey on a rope,
already smiling as his head broke
surface just inches away from mine, just
a moment short of a kiss—well, just then
I was glad to be in ten feet of shifting,
sun-glittery water, so that no one knew
what might be happening in my shorts.

No one but him, at least. He knew,

without touching. If there was a
challenge in his eyes, in his smile, it was
sheer mischief, nothing aggressive; if
there was disappointment as I shook my
head, it was philosophical. And very
French, that too: a shrug, a little moue of
mock-petulance, and then another kind of

challenge. A race, ten hard laps of the
pool that had us both straining and
gasping for victory, touching almost
together at last, squabbling amiably
about the result—“You won, I think?”
“No, you, for definite”—as we hauled
ourselves out and sprawled on warm
stone and reached gratefully for cool
drinks, not a thought anywhere near his
groin or my own.

Juliette

was

more

obviously

disappointed in me when I let Lionel
drive off alone. I thought disappointment
was probably good for her. I would
almost have spited myself by then, just to
teach her that she couldn’t control other
people’s lives that way, and she really
shouldn’t try. Almost. Truth was, though,

that I really didn’t want to go to bed with
Lionel, sweet and charming and sexy as
he was. I was tired of flings, tired of
random men, and absolutely not wanting
anything more lasting. I didn’t even want
to think about sex. There was good wine
and good company here, fabulous food
and wonderful weather: that was enough
for me.

It was almost too much, indeed.

Even that first evening I could feel the
lure of this place, these people. Nothing
to do with sex or celibacy; I had walls
around my heart, erected long since, but
I

could

feel

them

shaking

all

unexpectedly. Cold hard determination
will go soft as butter in the sun,
apparently. The last thing I wanted was

an adopted family—I’d tried the real
thing and didn’t like it—and even so,
this one was threatening to worm its way
in under my defenses. I’d thought I’d be
safe, holidaying with near strangers.
Idiot that I was. First impulses are
always reliable; I should’ve taken note
of mine—how much I liked them,
individually and en masse—and backed
off fast. Of course I should.

Too late now, but that one evening

was enough to set off all my alarms.
Alert now, at last, I’d be careful; I’d
keep as much distance as good manners
would allow, I’d enjoy my time and
commit myself to nothing, and I’d go
home heart-whole and secure. Yes.

* * * *

Maybe it was that determination

that had me wide-awake at six next
morning, despite food and wine and
travel and a fairly late night. For a while
I only lay there, watching a finger of
sunlight track across the duvet, thinking
that there probably ought to be a cat.

Eventually, once it was obvious I

wasn’t going to sleep again, I thought
any sensible cat would be down in the
kitchen, keeping warm by the range or
swinging from the rafters in an effort to
reach the ham. I could get up, have a
quick shower, wander down to see.

Also, there might be coffee.
I followed that plan, then, as far as

the kitchen table. No cats to be had, but
coffee, oh yes. I’d been smelling it from
halfway down the stairs.

Also,

of

course,

there

was

Grandmère. Perhaps she slept here, in a
sternly upright chair? She’d certainly
been busy for an hour already; it wasn’t
only coffee that I’d smelled on my way.
There were buttery pastries cooling on a
rack, bread dough rising, something
seething softly in a pot on the back of the
range.

She bade me good morning and

waved me to a chair. A moment later I
had coffee and a croissant in front of me,
and a fruit pastry that I didn’t dare call
Danish because it was so very obviously
French. Apricots, when I bit into it, over

a base of almond sponge, in a case of
mille-feuille.

I could maybe have died just then,

except it would have inconvenienced
Grandmère and annoyed Juliette.

Grandmère said, “You are up early,

Greg.”

“Yes. So are you, but I suppose

that’s normal?”

“I do not sleep so much.” A shrug

said the rest, that she was not the type to
lie awake in bed and let idle hours slip
away. Nor was I, apparently, here and
now. It was news to me.

“I thought I might go for a walk,” I

said. “Up to the end of the valley,
perhaps.” And farther, perhaps: a good

long walk, half the day, set trouble and
anxiety and temptation all behind me.

“Or a bicycle ride, perhaps?” she

suggested.

“Oh, is there a bike I could

borrow?” I hadn’t thought of that, but it
would be better yet. Go farther, see
more, work harder. Sweat under a hot
sun, which was even better than
sweating under hot lights on a dance
floor, and do it alone, unpestered. Get
my head straight. Or else just zoom right
out of my head, not think about anything,
leave it all behind me. More than one
boy had told me that I think too much,
and I was starting to think they were
right.

“Certainly there are bicycles. Also

there is un sac à dos, a backsack?”

“A backpack. Or a rucksack. You

don’t need to give me lunch, though, I’ll
find something… Oh, wait.” She wasn’t
offering me a packed lunch. Her smile
was thin and patient, waiting for me to
catch

up.

“What

do

you

want,

Grandmère?”

“There is a market in Apt today. I

will write you a list. Otherwise I must
ask someone to drive me, which is
inconvenient.” To them, or to her? I
thought I could guess.

Well, if someone in this family was

going to be arranging my time for me—
and apparently they were—I’d sooner it
was Grandmère sending me off to shop,
as against Juliette finding me someone to

sleep with. Besides, I was honestly glad
to make myself useful.

I took Grandmère’s penciled list,

then, and the ancient rucksack she dug
out for me, and followed her directions
to the bike shed. Really it was the far
corner of the stable yard, a roof of
corrugated iron and a frame of two-by-
four, hand built at a guess fifty years
before.

Perhaps

by

some

beau

Grandmère inveigled into it, before she
was Grandmère or even Mère. The late
lamented Grandpère, maybe…?

I was expecting the promised bike

to be more or less the same vintage:
black and heavy and sit-up-and-beg, the
kind old ladies rode to market long ago.
With a basket on the front, most likely, to

make the rucksack redundant.

I’d forgotten, I guess, that even rich

kids tend to grow up with push bikes
before they graduate to motors. And
some of them keep on cycling, for fun or
for health or to keep up with their
friends. Hell, I still had a bike at home,
and I put in some serious roadwork
every other Sunday with a bunch of like-
minded enthusiasts.

There was at least one equally

dedicated cyclist in this house, and it
seemed as though all the young folk liked
to turn out now and then. I was looking
at a mix of road bikes, mountain bikes,
and racers; all top of the range, none of
them more than four or five years old, all
of them clean and well maintained.

I dithered for a while and

eventually settled on a mountain bike.
The run into Apt should be fairly flat, but
the valley’s sides were steep, and there
were more serious hills on the horizon if
I really had a mind to sweat.

Grandmère had supplied a map too,

as old and well-worn as the rucksack.
They’d probably been handing it out to
visitors for thirty years. The new and
busy highways weren’t marked, but that
didn’t matter. It would take me to Apt
the old way, along country roads all the
better since they lost their traffic.

I adjusted the saddle, ran through

the gears, tested the tire pressure, and
was off. Quick and quiet and leaving
them all asleep, making it feel like a

getaway. Which it was, in all honesty. I
may even have huffed a sigh of relief as I
freewheeled down a bumpy track toward
the canal. They were lovely people, all
of them, but. I do better on my own,
that’s all.

* * * *

Towpath cycling is an art: not to

slip into the water, not to knock any
pedestrians in either, not to get tangled
up with dog leads or joggers or heedless
kids. I’ve had a lot of practice on
riverbanks at home. After those, canals
are easy. Dead straight and well
maintained, with reliable paths that
aren’t going to disappear on you. This
early it was fairly quiet, though I did

still

have

to

weave

around

holidaymakers getting an early start and
locals on their way to market just as I
was.

I didn’t really need the map. At the

foot of the valley, the canal met the road;
the road took me down to the river, and
the river led me all the way to Apt.

I should probably come back

another day, a quiet day, if I wanted to
see the town. Saturday morning, it was
all about the market. I found a handy
railing where it was apparently okay to
lock the bike, as a couple of dozen
people had done the same thing before
me; then I just drifted. Up one aisle and
down the next, stalls on both sides
heaped high with fruits and vegetables,

with fish on ice and bread in baskets,
olives and oils and salt and honey and
more kinds of dried sausage than I had
ever imagined. Aisle after aisle, under
canopies against the strengthening sun.

I’d have had a lovely time just

looking,

if

it

hadn’t

been

for

Grandmère’s list. She hadn’t given me
specific instructions, which vendors to
seek out for which goods: “Just find the
best today,” she said. Which was fine
for her, who knew what she was looking
for and who she was buying from. It was
a heavy responsibility to lay on a guest,
or I thought so. Especially a guest who
didn’t cook. I really wasn’t competent to
assess the best. Grandmère, I was sure,
would do it by eye and touch and smell,

prodding and squeezing, feeling the
weight in the hand, with all the benefits
of experience. I was equally sure that I
could be conned by every unscrupulous
market trick around.

Should I choose these carrots, or

those, or someone else’s? Was this
asparagus fresh, or fresher than that, or
fresh enough? How do you pick a jar of
honey, for crying out loud, when “honey”
is all that your shopping list says, and
there are half a dozen separate stalls
with a dozen different honeys each, and
you can taste them all if you want to?
Suddenly I couldn’t make my mind up
about anything, there was just too much
choice, and I was too ignorant, and I
really wished I hadn’t come. Hadn’t

come to the market, or even maybe
hadn’t come to France at all. I wasn’t
sure about that either. I couldn’t even
decide how overwhelmed I was.

Still, I did have to do something,

buy something. I couldn’t go back with
an empty rucksack. What was the worst
that could happen, a scolding from
Grandmère and a less-than-perfect
dinner? Phooey.

Maybe the best stalls were the most

popular? But by definition, the most
popular were the least attractive to me. I
couldn’t see any system in the scrum of
customers, no line to join. It’d take me
forever to be served, and the vendors
were the most harassed, the least likely
to be patient with an idiot Englishman

who didn’t know what he wanted.

Instead, I stopped at the first

vegetable stall that didn’t have a queue.
The produce looked good enough to an
inexperienced eye—hell, to an eye used
to English supermarkets, the produce
looked fantastic—and there was enough
variety. I thought I could pretty much
pick up everything Grandmère had asked
for in the way of veggies, just at this one
stall.

Also—to my very experienced eye

—the guy behind the stall looked good
enough to eat himself. He was blond and
compact, tanned golden, with that kind of
easy, unforced fitness that you get from
actual work rather than gym work:
muscle on show but not too much of it.

He was at least as tempting as his
carrots. I’d take him scrubbed and raw
and just as he came—except that of
course I wouldn’t, because I was having
a break from all that, and this wasn’t my
cruising ground, and he was probably
married anyway, with kids on the farm
and a mistress in town and—

And his hazel eyes met mine and

twinkled at me, and my gaydar slammed
on full force. No, I really didn’t think
this guy was married with kids. I hoped
not, anyway. I hoped he had a nice
steady boyfriend back on the farm and
was thoroughly happy and only smiled
that way at strangers because he was so
content with his life, because otherwise
he was going to be disappointed. I’d

given up men for the season, apparently.
The longer I went without one, the less I
wanted to dive back into my old ways,
shagging whatever came along and
always looking ahead, always waiting
for the next. Not because the next one
might be better, or a keeper—I never
wanted to keep anyone longer than
overnight—but only because he’d be
different, something else, someone new.

This guy twinkled and smiled at

me, and I took out the list and put on my
best French accent and asked for a kilo
of carrots.

And he smiled broader and put on

his own best French accent—which was
a hell of a lot better than mine—and
said, “Mais certainement, m’sieur —but

would you rather we did this in English?
Because we can, if that’s easier for
you.”

I could have felt insulted, if I chose.

Instead I just laughed. “Is it that
obvious?”

“Only when you hear actual French

people all around you all day, perhaps.
The same way that French speakers have
a typical accent in English, whether it’s
cartoon awful or just a hint and sexy as
hell, I think to them we all have an
English accent, however good we are or
however long we’ve been here. Me, I’ve
been here long enough that I hear it the
way they do—though they assure me that
I still have an accent of my own. In
honesty, I’m the one who’ll be glad of

the chance to speak English for a bit. I
almost never do, and I’m scared I might
forget it. My name’s Robin, by the way.”

“Greg.”
We shook hands across the

vegetables and then got back to business.
As the rucksack filled with shallots and
fennel and potatoes and celery and
peppers, he cocked his head on one side
and said, “I had you down for a single
man, but that’s not just yourself you’re
cooking for, is it?”

“Not me at all; I’m no cook,” I

confessed. “I’m staying with a family up
the valley, and Grandmère asked me to
do some shopping for her. Actually, you
could help me out here—when she says
‘honey,’ what kind and how much and

which stall should I go to?”

He twitched the list out of my

fingers and ran his eye over what I
hadn’t ticked. “Okay, this is easy. Honey
—you go to Michelle and say that Robin
sent you for half a kilo of her best
lavender. She’s the woman at the end of
this aisle, with the yellow-and-black-
striped awning and bees painted
everywhere. Looks cutesy, but she
knows what she’s doing. For the spices,
you go to André…”

And so on, all down the list. He

was exactly what I needed, an inside
source to guide me. I left the bag with
him and trotted back and forth with jars
and bottles and bags until everything
was sorted. I still had one more errand

to run, though. I said, “You saved my
life, or at least my sanity; now you let
me buy you lunch, as a thank-you.”

“I won’t argue. I said, I’m really

glad of the company. I can’t leave the
stall, mind; but if you go down to Marc’s
truck at the bottom there, he will sell you
the finest stuffed baguettes you’ve ever
come across. Mention my name, and
he’ll produce a bottle of scrumpy from
under the counter to wash it down with.
He makes that himself, and he’s not
really allowed to sell it, so it’s all a bit
hush-hush.”

I was getting used by then to

mentioning Robin’s name and coming
away with something extra, or more
change than I’d expected. Everybody

knew him, it seemed, and everybody
liked him, and everybody wanted to do
him favors. Which served to back up my
own first impression, that he was a
really nice guy.

Which made it slightly odd that he

didn’t seem to be very good at selling
vegetables. There was no queue when I
came across his stall, and there’d been
no queue at any time since. He had
plenty of variety but not actually very
much of anything, and what he had
wasn’t disappearing very quickly. I’d
have put him down as the new face on
the block, the amateur and undesired
rival that everyone must want to squeeze
out, except that he obviously couldn’t be
that.

Maybe there was something wrong

with his merchandise, so that the regular
shoppers had simply learned to avoid
him? Something I couldn’t spot, because
I didn’t know what to look for. Maybe
Grandmère would wrinkle her nose and
sniff and say “You bought these from that
Englishman, didn’t you? Pah!” And
Juliette would roll her eyes at me, and
Charlie would lead me kindly away to
hide from my disgrace…

In the end, I had to ask. I waited

until he had a mouthful of bread and
cheese and olives, to give him time to
chew over a response, and I said,
“Robin, you don’t seem to have many
customers today. Is that just the luck of
the draw, or…?”

He chewed, swallowed, chased it

with a gulp of cider, and grinned at me.
He still had a fleck of cheese on his
upper lip, which I found distracting and
utterly adorable.

“Or does everybody avoid me, you

mean, because I’m not kosher? Or
because I don’t know what I’m doing, or
because I seduced the mayor’s son,
or…?”

I nodded. “Yup, exactly that. I was

worried about the mayor’s son, mostly.”

“The wretched youth is safe from

me. He’s got two local girls pregnant
and is busy hiding from his own mother,
never

mind

theirs.

Meanwhile,

everybody loves me. That’s why I sent
you to scatter my name up and down the

market, as a character reference.”

“Okay, so why…?”
“Why does nobody buy my

veggies? Actually, they do—but mostly
not till later. Afternoon’s my busy time,
after the big stalls have sold out and
closed down. I get the latecomers and
the forgetful, all the last-minute sales.
The early birds all have their favorite
stalls, and that’s not me. Not yet. I’m too
new. Eventually, the sheer quality of my
onions will draw them in from far and
near, but it all takes time. That’s okay; I
can wait. This isn’t my livelihood
anyway, so I can afford to be patient.”

So he was a newcomer, and he was

an amateur—but that didn’t make any
kind of sense. He was too popular.

“How come you know everybody,
then?”

There was a teasing laughter in his

eyes; he knew how confused I was. “I’ve
lived around here for years, and I’m a
foodie; I used to be a professional chef. I
made friends with all the marketeers
long ago. I was a good customer, and I
liked to talk about their produce; I was
interested in what they were doing, how
they grew things, how they’d prepare
them and cook them and so on. Then
after I quit the restaurant business, I
made myself available to help them plant
a field of beans or bring in the harvest,
or man a stall for someone if they
couldn’t be here one Saturday. And I
found I liked it. This is the first year I’ve

had a stall of my own, which is why I’m
nobody’s favorite yet—but I’ll be sold
out before we close, you’ll see.”

There was a quiet assumption there,

that I’d hang around to watch it happen.
Well, he might be right at that.
Grandmère wouldn’t need her shopping
till

this

evening,

and

I

didn’t

conspicuously have anything more urgent
to do in the meantime. If I got back to the
château in time for a dip in the pool
before drinks and dinner, that’d be fine.
Right now I was happy just to sit here
and chat with Robin, chase good simple
food with sharp cloudy cider, turn my
face into the sun and listen to the market
all around me, scent the warm dry
perfume-laden air, breathe it deep into

my soul. Living in the moment, I guess
you could call it.

And keep the conversation going

the lazy way, with a few judicious
questions. He really did seem glad of the
chance to speak English, so…

“So,” I said, “if you’re not working

in a restaurant now, what are you doing
instead?”

“Ah,” he said. “I went into

property, I guess. In a really, really
small and entirely personal way. This
area’s full of ramshackle old houses that
have stood empty for a generation. When
I burned out on the whole chef lifestyle, I
bought a real wreck and spent six months
doing it up, pretty much as therapy:
living off savings and sleeping late,

going to bed early, seeing friends, seeing
the country… Just living, really. Then I
was almost out of money when someone
stopped me at the door and offered me
twice what I’d paid for the place, cash
down.”

He left me hanging at that, while he

served a couple of customers; then he
came back to me. “So what did you
say?” I nudged.

“Oh, I said yes. Of course I did. I

bargained, mind, and got a better deal
out of the guy. Then I spent half the
money on another house, banked the
other half, and did it all again. And
that’s what I do still: find a place I like,
track down the owner and persuade them
to sell, camp out in the driest spot while

I fix the roof, renovate the whole place
inside and out, then sell it and move on.
Only the house I have at the moment
came with acres of land attached, and
it’s going to take me a year or more to
fix the place up properly, so I thought I
might as well put the land to use while
I’m there and make a bit of money on the
side. Turns out I really like growing
vegetables and bringing them to market.
Maybe I’ll stay a little longer than I have
to and get a second year of crops before
I sell.”

“Do you do all the work yourself?”
“Pretty much, yes. That’s half the

point; I’m learning all the time,
developing new skills, understanding
how houses work. I’m a sort of house

doctor, if you like: I see how they’re
sick and how to make them better. I love
that. Working by myself gets a little
lonely sometimes, but I can handle it.
Maybe that’s why I love the market so
much, because it gives me my weekly
dose of people.”

Maybe that was why I went to the

club so much, like it was a cattle market.
Maybe that was why I took so many boys
home, just for a weekly dose of people.
Except that I seemed to have overdosed
and sickened myself—except that I was
thoroughly enjoying Juliette and all the
Romaines, so not that. It must just be the
sex, then, after all. Except that if I’d
poisoned myself with too much sex, why
was I reacting so positively to Robin,

here and now? That was another good
reason not to move. Maybe if I stayed
sitting down, he wouldn’t notice how my
cock was pointing directly at him inside
my jeans. Him, let’s take him. Let’s
have him now…

Honestly, though, if he hadn’t

noticed by now—well, he wasn’t the
man I took him for, that was all.

If he had noticed, though, he didn’t

seem to care. He kept coming back to
me, at least, between customers.
Smiling, chatting, or just sitting quiet for
a bit, snaring the bottle and taking a gulp,
passing it back like an open invitation,
This isn’t the only thing our lips might
close around, where we could share the
pleasure…

I shivered in the heat, in the sun’s

glare, and struggled not to respond as my
body was aching to. I was supposed to
be having a break, getting away from all
that, rebooting, recharging…

Apparently my cock at least didn’t

need recharging. It was full and hot and
ready to go: all day and all night if I
asked it to, if I let it take the lead.

I wasn’t going to do that. I was

quite determined. For once in my life,
I’d be thinking with something other than
my groin, thanks. I’d already decided to
throttle back on what I felt building with
the Romaines at the château; I’d best do
the same with Robin. Take charge of my
own body, overcome my worst instincts,
get myself under control before I did

something foolish.

Not that anyone back at the château

would care, of course, if I got myself
hooked up for the night. Well, Juliette
might be put out, that I’d rejected her
choice in favor of my own—but that
would do her nothing but good. I thought
she could use the lesson, not to interfere
so blatantly in other people’s lives.

It would be outrageous, of course,

to sleep with a guy just to teach a girl a
lesson.

Besides, if she sulked, it wouldn’t

be serious, and it wouldn’t be for long.
She was too nice a girl for that, and as
soon as she met Robin, she’d understand
—

Wait, what? She wasn’t going to

meet Robin. She’d have no opportunity.
And no reason either, because I wasn’t
going to sleep with him, right?

Right…?
My cock still didn’t believe me, but

I was going to disappoint the thing for
once.

Absolutely I was. I was quite clear

on that.

Still, he was right about one thing:

apparently I was going to hang around
till the market closed. Just sitting there
watching him move, listening to him chat
to his customers in swift, easy French
while I admired the stretch and bunch of
his muscles, of his charming butt. Seeing
his smile every time he glanced around,
admiring the confidence in him that knew

he’d find me still there. Out of his way,
out of his eyeline, apparently fixed
firmly in his head.

Something else he was right about

too: he sold his last few veg by
midafternoon. By then the market was
packing up all around us. He turned to
me and said, “That’s that, then. Done for
the day. And done rather nicely too. Will
you join me for a drink to celebrate, or
do I need to take you home?”

“You don’t need to take me,” I said.

“I’ve got the bike.”

“I know, but you’ve a heavy load

there”—with a nod toward the stuffed
rucksack—“and I’m betting you don’t
want to carry it. I can throw that and the
bike into the back of the van and deliver

you with no sweat. Or we can load the
bike and everything into the van and
abandon it all, make a night of it, link up
with some friends of mine, and crash at
their place…”

There it was, that open invitation

spelled out at last. And oh, I was so
tempted, but, “I’d better not,” I said, my
voice laden with an infinity of regret,
and every iota genuine. “Grandmère will
be needing her vegetables, and the rest
of them will expect to see me for
dinner.”

The glint in his eye suggested that

he was about to say disappoint them, but
I forestalled him by the simple expedient
of switching my cell phone on. As I’d
suspected, it jangled at me imperiously

with missed messages and urgent texts; I
didn’t even need to look to know who
they all came from. I was just starting to
tap out an answer to the latest when the
phone rang in another tone, a new call
coming in.

Rolling my eyes just a little at

Robin in a sorry, but I really need to
take this kind of way, I answered the
call, and yes, of course it was Juliette.
Where was I, and was I on the way home
yet, and by the way, where had I been all
day…?

I apologized for not checking in

sooner, assured her that I was fine and
still in Apt, and on my way home at any
moment, and she said no, don’t bother;
they’d come down and fetch me. There

was a new cocktail bar in town that they
were eager to try, and the big SUV could
take them all and me and the bike too,
and they’d see me there in half an hour,
okay?

I conveyed the gist of that to Robin,

minus Juliette’s hectic volubility. He
grinned and said, “Splendid. Let’s toss
that bag of yours in my van meantime,
and I’ll get to buy you that drink after all.
The Flamingo is only five minutes from
here.”

“Tell you what,” I said, talking

slowly suddenly, oddly uncertain of
myself, “I’ve got a better idea…”

* * * *

Either the name was meant to be

ironic, or else Le Pink Flamingo was a
genuine

reference

to

the

nearby

Camargue and its famous birds. Either
way it somehow missed its mark,
managing to sound nothing but faux
seventies, sugar soaked, and cheap. I
guess irony is hard to pull off in another
language.

Good cocktails are also hard to

pull off, but we were in the south of
France. A decent drink would never be a
problem. By the time a small but noisy
stream of people flowed toward us—
Charlie, Matthieu, Juliette, and rather
surprisingly

her

mother—we

had

discarded

the

vivid

eccentric

confections we’d felt duty bound to try,
and were sipping something chilled and

crisp, our flute glasses beaded with
condensation that couldn’t quite disguise
its tawny pinkness, the bottle discreetly
wrapped in a napkin.

“I’m driving,” Madame Romaine

said with a kind of grim affection, “so
that the children can indulge themselves.
But we’re only staying for one drink.”

“Juliette,” I said, “we’ve ordered

you a Blue Flamingo Flambée; you’ll
adore it. Never mind what’s in it or what
it tastes like: it comes in a flamingo-
shaped glass, and the bird’s neck is the
straw you drink it through.”

She pouted at me and might even

have wanted to say “Don’t treat me like
a little kid” or something like it—but I’d
tipped the waiter in advance, and here

he came, with a flaming creation on a
little tray. Her eyes sparked in response,
and I guessed I was forgiven. For now,
for a little while.

Meanwhile, Robin was pouring

pink

fizz.

The

designated

driver

wouldn’t take one, asking our waiter for
a tonic water instead; Charlie passed a
glass to Matt, who looked, frowned,
sniffed, and didn’t need to taste.

“This is our own rosé,” he said.
“Of course. Did you think we’d

drink the competition? It’s a kind of
intimate marketing strategy; I’m making
converts, one person at a time.
Everybody, this is Robin. Matt, he likes
your wine.”

In fact, Robin turned out to be very

familiar with the family’s wines. The
sparkling rosé was new to him, but he’d
both served and cooked with bottles of
Romaine in his restaurant days. Soon
enough he and the boys were geeking out
together, getting technical, talking about
mouthfeel and legs and whether soft
tannins were more like lamb’s leather or
peach fuzz on the tongue. At last I tuned
out and just sat there watching him
enthuse. I’ve always admired expertise,
and when it comes tanned and lithe and
lively and sitting next to me, well…

By the time Juliette had slurped her

way to the flamingo’s bottom, our bottle
of fizz was empty too, and, “We should
be going back,” she said. “Grandmère
will want the vegetables, and I want a

swim. Greg, if you would like to invite
Robin…”

I smiled and shook my head, which

shook her too, a little, but not as much as
what I said next. “Actually, we’re not
coming back with you. The veggies are
in the rucksack, here.” I hauled it up out
of the corner and handed it to Charlie.
“We’ve got the bike—whose is it, yours,
Matt?—safe in Robin’s van, and I’ll
bring it back tomorrow. With me. I’ll
bring me back tomorrow too, if that’s
okay.”

“No!” Of course it wasn’t okay, not

with Juliette. She might allow me to find
my

own

partner—reluctantly!—but

she’d want to supervise, to nurse us
through any difficulties, to lead us to the

bedroom door and interrogate us both
over breakfast. Which she’d probably
bring us in bed. “Robin is welcome, and
home is best. With all your things, and
the pool, and—”

“Give it up, Juliette,” I advised her.

“We’re meeting up with friends of
Robin’s in a bit, having dinner, and
going back to their place. We can’t let
them down now. And as you say,
Grandmère needs her veg.”

“She doesn’t need all of us to

deliver it. I could come with you, just
for a while; one of the others will come
to collect me later. It’s too soon to
desert us, you’ve hardly been here a day,
and—”

“Juliette!” That was her mother, on

her feet now, elegant and sharp and
absolute. A sulky girl didn’t stand a
chance. “You’re being ridiculous. Come,
we are leaving now. All of us together.
Greg, enjoy your evening, and we will
see you tomorrow. Robin, it was a
pleasure to meet you; I look forward to
your vegetables, as we cannot enjoy
your company tonight.”

She was swift and firm and

irresistible, sweeping her family out on
the tail of her words, leaving us abruptly
alone with the consequences of my
decision.

No regrets, no, not for a moment. At

least, not on my side. I couldn’t speak
for Robin, obviously, though I’d do my
damnedest to make sure he had no cause

to regret it. The little pang I felt as the
door closed behind them was just
performance anxiety, and perfectly
normal: would my damnedest be good
enough? There was only one way to find
out, and it started now. Till this moment,
we’d been meeting up, getting to know
each other, hanging out together. Now
we were dating. We both knew it.

If it was odd for me, that was

because I didn’t usually start an evening
with the boy I meant to sleep with. I was
a pickup artist. I went out hunting,
tracked them down, and brought them
home. That was the point of the evening:
the hunt, the snare, the victory. Tonight,
none of that applied. I’d won already, if
it was any kind of contest. That was the

other thing we both already knew, that
we’d wind up in bed together at the end
of the night. Between now and then—
well, yes. We were on a date.

Very odd. I wasn’t quite sure what

to do. Except for keeping my mind firmly
focused on the purpose of all this, the
reason I’d so suddenly overturned my
self-imposed chastity. I hadn’t caved,
despite my body’s yearning; this was a
clear, rational decision. One more night
following my old habits, sleeping with
one more new-met man, would do me no
harm at all. I could do it in my sleep, and
then maybe I could reboot, cycle back to
zero, wake up absent this sudden
craving, and be cool again.

I needed to fuck him, I thought, to

get him out of my head. That was how it
worked. How it had always worked.
Quick, efficient, and clean: and I could
walk

away

unencumbered,

alone.

Secure. Until the next time.

Recently I’d been preemptive,

hunting boys down on a regular basis
just to take my edge off, to stop anyone
getting under my skin. But I’d let that
practice slip, and here was the result: a
sudden, unlooked for, unreasoning
passion.

It would answer to the same

remedy, though. They always did. Even
when I was younger, when I was new to
this whole game, when I still believed in
love as a raw red wound on the heart,
painful and deadly and inevitable. Like

family: something you couldn’t evade,
couldn’t just walk away from.

Oh, I’d had so much to learn back

then.

I was an expert now. Casual

encounters welcome, walking away a
specialty. I was so good at it I couldn’t
remember the last time anyone had come
chasing after. Something in my manner
said it for me, I guess, that I was strictly
one time only. Something in my intensity,
perhaps. I did get fairly intense; when
you only had a night, it was a shame to
waste a moment.

Robin would learn. If he was quick

on the uptake.

Just at the moment, it seemed like I

was the slow one. He was sitting there,

smiling at me, patient as a rock, while I
tried to remember how to date. First
dates were all about testing each other,
trying things out, asking questions. And
having to answer them, that too…

I glanced at my watch. “What time

are we meeting your friends?”

“In an hour,” he said easily.

“They’re coming here.”

It’s just you and me , he was

saying. For an hour. Your move.

We’d been doing fine at the market,

for several hours on the trot. But that
was different; we’d both had legitimate
distractions and all the pleasures of new
uncommitted discovery. Now suddenly
the whole dynamic had changed, and I
felt utterly wrongfooted.

Even before he said, “I feel like

I’ve been talking all day. It’s your turn.
I’ll buy another bottle, while you tell me
all about Greg and how you got yourself
adopted by one of the great wine
families of Provence.”

“Are they one of the greats?”
“Oh Lord, yes. Not size-wise,

they’re very small and select, and they
don’t export in quantity; but they make
fabulous wines. Like this one.”

Pop, fizz, gush: and bless him, he’d

dealt me a hand I could play
blindfolded.

“Sure, I love their wine. I love

them too; they’ve been amazingly kind to
me. I haven’t known them a month yet,
and they’re throwing their house open to

me.”

“And I’ve been here since I was a

teenager, and I’ve never met them
before. I’ve met plenty of winemakers,
but they’re not famously this generous.
What happened?”

“Juliette happened, of course,” I

said cheerfully. “She stopped me in the
street, gave me the third degree about my
sexuality, then demanded to be taken to
the nearest gay hot spot.”

I told him all about that fateful

evening and how I’d been swept up
since; and we got to talk about the
Romaines a lot, and about me hardly at
all, and I was fairly sure he hadn’t
actually noticed that.

And then his friends came bursting

in, Jeanne and Marc and Patrice; and
then it was no trouble at all, just to ride
along on a wave of alcohol and talk and
laughter. More drinks at the Flamingo,
which I was changing my mind about
fast: good wine and good company, and
who cared about the stupid name? I
could see this becoming a regular
hangout, if only I was local.

As I wasn’t—well. These guys, I

thought, should love it.

Then we moved on, to eat at a

pavement cafe and drink a simple vin
rouge in carafes that just kept on
coming; and after that there was a walk
through the warm night, and a bottle that
we passed from hand to hand ever more
elaborately as it grew ever emptier, as

we grew ever more reckless. With its
inevitable conclusion, a wild toss and a
desperate grab and the bottle flying
straight into the river.

But it was almost empty by then,

and at least we weren’t leaving broken
glass in the street. The river would carry
it down to the sea, and the sea’s tides
would etch it into curious and lovely
shapes, and…

And it was about then that I

realized quite how drunk I was, but
never mind. I had this strong, reliable
man to lean on as we went, and he had
me; when he lurched one way, I kind of
lurched the other, so we were pretty
much holding each other steady. And
here at last was Patrice’s flat; and there

was Patrice’s room, and that one was
claimed by Jeanne and Marc, and here
was the spare for us. With a double bed
and all that that implied for pleasure, for
relief, for release, for the morning.

No trouble. I was good at this. At

every part of this, from the first deep
kiss to the firm farewell.

Which reminded me, I hadn’t

actually kissed him yet. And we were
supposed to be on a date; and the others
had left us discreetly alone after they’d
shown us where to find the bathroom and
towels and toiletries, and oh so politely
made it clear that the walls were pretty
thick here, so not to worry if we made a
noise.

He turned on the bedside lamp; I

turned off the main one.

“Hey,” I said as he straightened, as

he turned. As he came within reach.

“Hey what?” But he knew. My

hands found his hips; his face turned up
toward mine. He was just that little bit
shorter than me, that little bit that I like.
Not that it matters, of course, in the long
run; everyone’s the same height lying
down. I’ve fucked men much bigger than
me and enjoyed it just as much. Like I’d
fucked men much uglier than Robin, and
it made no difference with the light off.
It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do
with it; I believed that absolutely. And
variety is the spice of life. I definitely
had the right idea, marching a constant
succession of men through my bedroom.

And not letting any of them stay,
regardless of how well we fit together.

Still.

I

did

still

have

my

preferences, those little physical factors
that made my heart skip, my cock throb,
the breath catch all unexpectedly in my
throat. Robin seemed to have them all, a
perfect roll of the dice. And now his
hands were gripping my head, pulling
me just that little way down for our first
kiss; and all unexpectedly I liked that
too. Usually I’m the one who takes
charge, who initiates the next move. To
have someone else take it out of my
hands was…exhilarating.

Also unnerving, but hey. That’s

what we’re here for. If it doesn’t tweak
something deep inside, then why bother?

Maybe that was the trouble back home,
that it had all become just too routine.
The hunt, the chase, the capture. This felt
different, and not only because I really
hadn’t been hunting and wasn’t looking
to capture anything. Anybody. Any body.
Maybe it was because I hadn’t felt
hunted, either? This was something else,
two people finding each other on equal
ground.

Maybe.
His mouth found mine, at any rate: a

brush of lips, an exchange of breath, first
contact. Then we were both more
serious, lips and tongues and teeth. He
tasted superficially of wine and garlic,
more deeply of heat and sex and
urgency, deeper still of nothing but

himself.

I don’t know what he tasted in me,

but he kept on tasting for a long time. His
hands wouldn’t let me pull away, I
barely even got to snatch for air before
his relentless mouth came back at me
again. Lips and teeth and tongue and all
his body else was engaged in that kiss,
pressed

against

mine,

hard

and

determined, irresistible. Unbreakable. I
couldn’t have broken away if I’d wanted
to; I couldn’t have wanted to if my life
depended on it.

This was all I wanted, this, here

and now. This wasn’t sparks, this was
lightning itself, the core of the storm.
Ripping down to the bone of me, all
heat.

Clothes? I guess we still had

clothes on.

I wasn’t particularly

conscious of them, his or mine, nor of
taking them off. It was his body I was
aware of, all of it, every last, sweet
inch: the power in him and the
confidence, the smooth skin and the stiff
hair, lean flesh and firm bone beneath,
the dimpled, desirable butt and the
jutting cock, fat and assertive and…

And apparently I was on my knees

already, to take a taste of that too. I
heard him suck in his breath, I felt his
hands in my hair again—and then those
hands slid down to my shoulders and
were lifting me, turning me toward the
bed, and his voice was in my ear. “Don’t
rush things, guy. You don’t want me to

come before you’re ready. Let’s make a
night of it, okay?”

Oh, I was ready to come right then

and

there—it

had

been

weeks,

remember, weeks and weeks: I couldn’t
remember the last time I’d gone so long
without a fuck—but sometimes it’s all
about control, and I’d had plenty of
practice. If he wanted to wait, then so
could I. I could outmatch him; we could
make a game of it, all night long if he
insisted.

Did he fetch out his own lube, or

had that come from the bathroom too?
Were our hosts that well prepared?
Maybe this was a regular gig, maybe he
brought back a different date from the
market every week…

Which would suit me just fine, of

course. One night of delight, hard earned
and nothing easy: I could carry that away
with me and be entirely grateful, entirely
satisfied. It’s what I’d always been
looking for. The quick encounter, ships
that pass in the night, fuck and farewell
and no comebacks, no lingering, no
regrets.

What would we ever have to regret,

either of us?

Side by side, we wrestled with

each

other’s

bodies,

exploring,

discovering,

grunting

at

sudden

pleasures, at being discovered in our
turn. Our cocks jostled each other, half
teasing, half in earnest; perhaps I bit my
lip just then, just to remind myself that I

wasn’t coming before he did, no way.

Greased already, his fingers found

my butt crack and pushed in deep. My
turn to suck in my breath, as they found
my sphincter and pressed against it,
pressed on through. Deep and deeper,
stretching, twisting, almost withdrawing,
then pushing in again.

By then I had a mouthful of pillow,

to stop myself biting my lip bloody. All
my body strained against the mattress,
like I was writhing in slow motion,
hovering on the very edge of climax. I
may have groaned a protest even so,
when his fingers really did pull out of
me—but that was only to make room for
his bully cock shoving its way in to
replace them.

In and nearly out, that same trick

again, and then in and farther in, farther
than his fingers could ever hope to
reach, and—

Oh!
There went all my resolutions, all

my illusions, all my self-conceit in one
eruptive moment, as I came. As I came
and came, all those banked-up weeks of
abstinence behind me and inside me just
like he was, and my cock in his hand to
encourage me, and…

Just for a moment there, I really felt

ashamed. I was sweating and shaking
and all ready to apologize as soon as I
had the breath for it; and he laughed
behind me and kissed my neck and said,
“Good. Now we’ve got that out of the

way, we can get down to business.
Serious business”—as he stroked his
hand slowly all down my sticky spine
—“without all that hurry-up. Mind over
matter’s so much easier when the matter
isn’t wound up like a spring and ready to
pop.”

I hadn’t known I was ready to pop,

until he popped me. But, mind over
matter, yes. I could quite happily have
lain there and let his fingers wander
over my skin, tracing out the course of
my muscles; it felt wonderful, and I felt
utterly drained. But I was ruthless with
myself, generous to him. I heaved up and
rolled over and said, “Sure, but I’m
going to pop you first.”

Neither one of us had thought to

turn the light off. His eyes gleamed with
challenge. “Come on, then. If you can.”

Sometimes

sex

is

gentle,

cooperative, a mutual journey, slow and
immersive and revelatory. Sometimes,
on the other hand…

Oh, yeah. Sometimes it can be

competitive as hell. He’d made me come
when I wasn’t half-ready, and he was so
not getting away with that.

You can be competitive, though,

and giggle while you do it. Which was
how I got him, as it happens. Some guys
are ticklish and hate it; some guys are
ticklish and revel in it. This guy, I
already knew that a light touch in a
sensitive spot could make him twitch
and catch his breath, and then grin a little

shamefacedly; I had him tagged as the
tickle-me-you-brute variety, who would
roll about laughing and cry revenge, and
then come back for more. So I wrestled
him onto his back, pinned him down
with as much of my body as I could, and
kissed him slowly and progressively
from his rough-shaven throat on down.
Down over his ribs, pausing to nip quite
sharply at his nipples; down over his
belly, lapping at his navel and tangling
my tongue into the first wiry outcrop of
his pubic hair; down to where his cock
rose up to meet me like a gentleman. I let
him feel my teeth there too, nibbling and
nuzzling at the tender skin of the shaft
before I engulfed the swollen head in my
mouth.

His breath was coming hard by

then, and my fingers could feel the sweat
on him as readily as my tongue could
taste it. Even so: I could feel, taste,
sense the confidence in him too. He was
shifting beneath me, the blood pumped in
his cock, and his cock pumped in my
throat, his hips worked in a steady
rhythm, but he was holding himself just
that moment back from coming, his self-
control was strong, and he was in no
danger here, he could hold it just as long
as he chose—and then I tickled him.

I tickled him under the ribs, and he

lost it, lost it utterly. His arms flailed
against the mattress, his head flung back,
he almost swallowed his tongue in a

desperate effort to swallow the giggles
—and he came, which was the point and
purpose of it all. He came hard into my
mouth. I felt more than tasted the flood of
it on the back of my throat, and
swallowed and sucked and made him
come again.

And then, when he’d subsided, I

licked him carefully clean so that I could
encompass the rich, full flavor of it, so
much more than salt and musk, filling my
head with complexity, with him. And
then I swarmed up the length of his body
again, and we lay comfortably, stickily
entangled, head to head and eye to eye;
and it was my turn to mark my triumph
with a grin, and he said, “That was so
totally cheating, I hope you’re ready for

retribution.”

“Promises, promises,” I said.
His hand slid up my thigh and

closed around my balls, softly and gently
threatening; and—is “retributed” even a
word? If it is, that’s what he did, slowly
and relentlessly, all night long…

Except that actually it isn’t, of

course. What we did after that, we did
together, competitive no more. Now it
was exploratory, mutual, revelatory.
Still

challenging,

still

sometimes

ruthless: we played havoc with each
other’s bodies, and there was no
prospect of sleep for either one of us.
Just that bone-deep exhaustion that
comes with the rising sun, when you’re
almost sick of the touch of another man’s

body and still can’t quite bear to stop
touching.

And

then

all

the

little

awkwardnesses of getting up, getting
clean in someone else’s house, trying to
be quiet and not use all the water, not
sure if it’s really okay to be in the
bathroom together and sharing the
shower anyway, soaping each other and
still playing idly—a stroke, a kiss, an
impertinent finger—and checking the
hallway to be sure it’s clear before the
dash back to our room, naked for this
last little moment and twice reluctant to
pull on yesterday’s clothes.

There was coffee and croissants for

five, slow conversation, and long

speaking glances that had our hosts
laughing at us before they chased us
away. It was a beautiful crisp, clear
morning, and on a regular day I’d have
relished the bike ride to the château. I
always did like that moment when you
turn your back and go home alone, the
security of farewell. That day, I was so
bone weary I felt nothing but grateful
when he offered to drive me and the bike
both, all the way. Not even a twinge of
reluctance, just, “Thanks, that’d be
really welcome. I’m not sure there’s
enough left in my legs to push the pedals,
frankly.”

His answering smile was a dead

giveaway if you knew what to look for:
unhurried and warm and reminiscent and

barely a twitch of the lips, it was all in
the eyes. And the bags under the eyes
that even a cold blast in the shower
hadn’t been able to lift. Strands of his
uncombed hair were still damp; it took a
positive effort of will not to reach out
and twitch at them, right there in the
street.

We got a little lost on our way to

the château, because I was too tired or
too distracted to pay attention; but his
knowledge of the area brought us back
on track, and for the last little bit there
were signs at the roadside to point the
way.

“Hey,” he said. “Tastings and tours.

I might come.”

“You should.” When I’ve gone, but

I didn’t need to say that. “You’d be
interested—and more interesting than
most of the tourists. The Romaines
would appreciate showing you around.
Cut through to the back now, though,
down that way; I come and go like a
servant.”

“Like family, I think you mean.”
We were both keeping it carefully

neutral, both aware by now that really
we’d have been better saying good-bye
in town. Leave it where it lies, where it
happened: that was my motto, and I
figured it must be his too. I thought he
must be feeling the same way I was, that
this was after all a drive too far. Ships
that pass in the night really shouldn’t
keep company the following morning; it

only confuses the issue.

As witness, when we rolled to a

halt in the stable yard: he didn’t know
whether to get out of the van, and then I
didn’t know whether to kiss him one last
time. We were both suddenly awkward
with each other, when it had all been so
easy before. In the end we came over all
English and embarrassed, with mumbled
good-byes and no hugs and practically a
handshake that I blessedly managed to
forestall by scrambling awkwardly out
of there before he’d quite made up his
mind.

He waited while I lifted the bike

out of the back, waited while I slammed
the doors, and then he drove away. I
stood there in the yard and watched him

go, then turned toward the house.

Where, of course, Juliette and

Grandmère were standing in the
doorway watching me, side by side like
an alliance, inescapable. Wanting to
hear everything.

Not going to hear everything. Not

by a long chalk. Robin might call them
my adoptive family—and he might not
even be joking—but even so. Especially
so. I don’t talk to my family that way.
Hell, I don’t talk to my family at all.

Even so. They took me to the

kitchen and sat me down at the
interrogation table. Grandmère poured
me a cup of her irresistible coffee;
Juliette suggested that I begin.

I’m honestly not sure whether it

was out of deference to the old lady’s
years or young Juliette’s that I kept the
intimate details to myself. That was the
best that I could manage, in the end. I
still told them more than I meant to, a lot
more than I wanted to; and my body for
sure was telling them more yet, giving
me away with every indiscreet yawn,
every visible bruise, every shadow
under my eyes.

It was Juliette, inevitably, who

asked the inevitable question. “So when
are you going to see him again, this
pretty English boy of yours?”

He is pretty, isn’t he…? Of course

I didn’t say that, any more than I said,
He’s not mine, don’t call him mine … I
only said, “Oh, I don’t suppose I will.

We didn’t make any plans. And chances
are I won’t be going back to Apt on
market day, so—”

“You must telephone him,” she said

immediately. “Invite him to dinner. Say
he is to come tomorrow. Say he is to
come early, and we will swim first. We
can see how well he swims, then.”

We can see how well he strips was

what she meant, and the gleam in her eye
admitted it.

I knew already, how well he

stripped. Something in me felt a pang at
not seeing it again, not seeing him in
company, not getting to show him off a
little. I squashed that fleeting thought
firmly and just said, “I can’t do that.”

“No? Then I will do it for you, if

you are too shy. The invitation should
come from the family, perhaps. What is
his number?”

Me, I thought the invitation should

come from the one who’d have to cook
the dinner she was so blithely inviting
him to. Grandmère might think so too, to
judge by the way her fingernails tapped
the table. She didn’t say anything,
though, so I was obliged to. “I don’t
know his number. I didn’t ask.” Ships
that pass in the night, no more.

“You didn’t ask? Imbécile!” Her

arms flew everywhere; so did her
suddenly fractured English. I couldn’t
have stemmed the flow of words, even if
I’d understood them all.

Her grandmother could, of course.

“Juliette, tais-toi! Greg is a guest in our
house, not one of your cousins to be
abused for your amusement.”

Juliette

subsided,

though

not

without a muttered, “Greg is an idiot, I
think,” that she quite obviously intended
me to overhear, or she wouldn’t have
said it in English.

It was not impossible that her

grandmother agreed with her, but the old
lady was far too busy pretending she
hadn’t heard, while at the same time
quelling poor Juliette further with a
glare.

“Of course it is your affair, Greg,

who you see while you are here. No one
of us will interfere.” Except for Juliette,
a thought that passed unspoken between

us, and she can be crushed. “You must
be quite at home here; come and go as
you wish. Use the bicycles, or ask one of
the children to drive you.”

“I can drive you,” said Juliette,

irrepressible after all. Her grandmother
might have a lifetime’s experience of
crushing her, but she had the same
lifetime’s practice at bouncing back
again. “If you want to go to visit Robin, I
can drive you anytime. Where does he
live?”

I grinned, perhaps a little savagely,

and said, “I don’t know that either.
Sorry.”

Then I fled precipitately up to my

room. Discretion is the better part of
valor, and sometimes outright cowardice

is absolutely the way to go.

* * * *

It wasn’t cowardice that kept me up

there half the day. It was a nap that did
that. At least, I guess you could call it a
nap. That was my plan, anyway. If you
want to call it a plan.

Mostly, I wasn’t thinking even that

clearly. I just pulled off last night’s
clothes and thought maybe I’d lie down
for ten minutes on the suddenly magnetic
bed. Maybe I’d close my eyes, I thought,
in the warm sunshine and the muted
sounds of rural France coming in through
the half-closed shutters…

And then it was three hours later,

and I only roused because someone was

thumping on the door. Thumping quite
hard, as it happened.

I dragged myself up, pulled on a

pair of jeans for decency, and opened
the door to find Matthieu, fist raised, on
the point of thumping again.

“I came to see if you were dead,”

he said cheerfully. “And if not, if you
were hungry.”

I had to think about it for a moment,

still logy with sleep. “Not dead,” I
confirmed at last. “Possibly hungry.
Possibly very hungry. Not sure yet.”

“Good. Lunch is by the pool. Don’t

bother to get dressed; just find your
swim shorts and come down. There’s a
robe on the back of the door.”

“You’re not…”
“No, but I will be. That’s the other

reason I came up, to change. If you want
to wait, you can come down with me.”

I definitely did want to wait, rather

than go parading half-naked through a
house not my own. I said that or
something like it, making out I couldn’t
find my way to the pool without a native
guide. He said, “Good. I will come back
for you, then, in ten minutes.”

That was time enough for me to

jump into the shower and blast myself
awake. I think he knew I’d want to do
that; it surely couldn’t have taken him
that long to slip out of a business suit
and into his own trunks and robe. When
he tapped on the door again, I was clean

and refreshed and ready, in so far as I
ever could be ready for this family and
this life. I’d been here three days, and
far from getting settled, I was feeling
increasingly dizzy and bewildered. Last
night I’d asserted my independence,
maybe, reminding them and myself too
that I might be their guest, but I was my
own man, and I could and would find my
own men. It had seemed necessary
yesterday, perhaps even funny in the face
of Juliette’s determination to pair me off
herself. Right now, I wasn’t sure that it
wasn’t just rude. Going off so quickly
with someone else, as though their
château and their generosity were just
conveniences to my pleasure: “treating
the place like a hotel,” my mother would

have said.

I didn’t listen to my mother

anymore, but in this instance at least she
would have been dead right. Looking
back, I was suddenly and startlingly
ashamed of myself.

Well, I could make it up to them

from now on. I could be the perfect
houseguest: helpful but not intrusive,
willing to play whenever they had the
time but keeping out of their way when
they were busy, exploring by myself but
no, not picking up any more stray boys.
Not staying out all night, not sleeping off
my indulgencies half the day…

Nobody seemed to be accusing me

of anything, but that just made me feel all
the more guilty. I sat in the sun with a

plate piled high with artichokes and
olives and cheese and cold meats and
tomatoes and fresh bread, with a glass of
cool beer at my feet; I should have been
in very heaven. Instead I just wanted to
apologize to everyone for everything, for
coming here in the first place, and then
for preferring someone else’s company
to theirs, and pretty much for existing at
all. I didn’t think I was doing very well
at that.

Juliette splashed me from the side

of the pool. “Come and swim, Greg.”

I said, “I’m eating,” though really I

was only picking at it.

She scowled and splashed harder.

“Come and swim.”

“You’d better just go,” Charlie said

lazily from behind me, where he was
toasting his tan a little darker. “You’ll
get very wet else, and so will your
lunch. And actually so will I, once she
really gets going.”

“Why hasn’t anybody drowned her

yet?” I sighed, sliding my plate under the
chair for protection both from the sun
and Juliette.

“It’s been tried. She’s slippery as

an eel in the water. Go right ahead, by
all means. Give it your best shot.”

Juliette’s scowl threatened him

with dire consequences, but she beamed
at me. I dived in over her head, and she
paced me for a lap or two, and then she
raced me; and then we did lengths
underwater and dived for things on the

bottom, because swimming can be as
competitive as sex. It’s still a lot less
intense, though. I felt about fourteen,
playing games in water with a girl; my
sisters and I used to go swimming and
mess around this way, back when.
Luckily, Juliette didn’t look anything like
either of my sisters, and they wouldn’t
have been seen dead in the skimpy two-
piece she chose to swim in. No real
chance of confusion. Nice kid, I thought.
She’s

hopelessly

spoiled

and

appallingly interfering, but at least she
doesn’t bear grudges…

Then her hand snared my ankle and

dragged me under, down and down at the
deep end; and she swarmed up my body
and sat on my shoulders with her fists in

my hair and her own head out of the
water, and her legs gripped lung-
squeezingly tight, and this was purely
revenge.

I struggled and flailed and held my

breath frantically, and couldn’t shift her.
It took me almost too long; I was almost
ready to drown—almost!—before I
figured out how to rescue myself. All I
had to do was crouch suddenly,
deliberately go down deeper, pulling her
under just as she was crowing with
laughter overhead.

Then she was flailing herself, still

trying to laugh with her mouth full of
water and no air to breathe with.

I toppled her off my shoulders and

shot to the surface, gasping. So did she.

We bobbed there side by side, eyeing
each other warily, just starting to giggle
together—and then a shadow moved on
the water, and I glanced instinctively
upward, and there was Robin.

I didn’t—quite—go under. Not

again. And I was already breathless, so
it wasn’t that.

Actually, my first reaction was Oh,

hell; now we’ll have to have The Talk.

No. That’s not true. That was my

first coherent thought, but not my first
reaction. First there was the startlement,
that almost sank me; then there was the
sudden unexpected warmth that flooded
through me, that must have shown as a
livid flush all over my skin; and then

there was that interior sigh, and the
resolution to have that inevitable talk.
Talk with a capital T.

Apparently I needed to have it with

myself too. With myself first, perhaps, to
explain all over again why it was such a
bad idea to see anyone more than once.
That first flush of simple pleasure said
that I was forgetting my own rules or the
reason for them.

At least we didn’t have to have The

Talk now, though. I could put it off till
we were private somewhere. I was
already assuming that we would be:
somewhere else, and by ourselves. Why
else was he here, if not to whisk me
off…?

Juliette was of another mind

entirely. Also, she was a lot quicker off
the mark. I was still recovering, still
gawping from midpool; she was already
eeling out of the water, all sinuous in
sunlight, cooing at him. “Robin, we’re
so glad you came! That idiot in the water
there, he forgot to take your number, so
he couldn’t call you. Come with me. I
will find you some swim shorts so you
can dive in and rescue him where he’s
splashing, and tell him what an idiot he
is while I get you a drink, and you will
stay for dinner, of course, after coming
all this way…”

“Actually,” he said equably, “it

was your grandmère I really came to
see. I’ve spent the last hour with her in
the kitchen there, trading recipes and

swapping fresh veggies for a couple of
bottles of wine. And I really don’t have
time for a swim. I have to go now, I’m
running late; but I did just want to slip
out here and say hullo.”

He might seem to be talking to her,

but he was looking at me. I stayed right
where I was, midwater.

“Oh, pooh,” said Juliette. “Of

course you must stay. And swim. Look,
poor Greg is lonely, waiting for you…”

“He does look lonely, doesn’t he?”

Robin agreed mildly. “What he needs is
some company.”

And then he bent, scooped Juliette

up wholesale and flung her toward me.

Her wild shriek was lost in the

almighty splash of her landing. By the
time she surfaced, I was at the poolside
hauling myself out, ignoring her entirely.

Robin and I eyed each other from a

meter’s distance, and never mind if he
saw more of me than I did of him. I said,
“Seriously. Why did you come?”

He said, “Seriously? I wanted to

meet Grandmère. I’m still a cook at
heart, and she’s a legend. I’ve been
asking around. And I wanted to see you
too, to ask if you wanted to come and
see my house—but not tonight. I have
places to be tonight. Besides, I don’t
think I’d survive another night like that
without a rest in between. Seriously.”

He was grinning as he said it,

reminiscent and anticipating. I thought,

You’re not going to get another night like
that. Ships that pass in the night; we
don’t loop back for a second run. Not
ever.

But that was The Talk, or the

fringes of it; and, not here, not now. I
would like to see his place, and that
could be the somewhere else I wanted,
the privacy we’d need.

So

I

nodded

and

said,

“Tomorrow?” Might as well get it done
and behind us, so I didn’t spend the rest
of the holiday holding my breath and
watching for shadows on the water.

“Tomorrow. Good. I’ll come and

find you.” He smiled, and I thought he
was going to kiss me, and I thought I was
going to let him, and never mind good

resolutions or everybody watching.

But that smile was all he gave me,

unless there was the hint of a shake of
the head to say, No, I’m not going to
kiss you: not here, not now, not like
this, with you nearly naked and
everybody watching, no. Apparently we
both wanted to be private and
somewhere else, albeit for entirely
different reasons.

He turned and walked away around

the side of the house, and I watched him
go, and I swear that everybody sighed
aloud as he vanished.

Everybody except me, obviously. I

was already framing The Talk in my
head, dreading the awkwardness of it,
regretting the necessity.

Robin was a destroyer of good

resolutions, seemingly. No sooner had I
decided to be a better houseguest than
there he was, turning up out of the blue, a
fatal distraction. There and gone, but he
lingered in my head all evening, turning
me vague and unresponsive, no good
guest at all.

Except that actually they seemed to

enjoy having me in that state, eminently
teasable. It was Charlie who told the
senior Romaines, “You mustn’t mind
Greg being all quiet tonight. He’s got
Robin on the brain, that’s all. They’re
seeing each other tomorrow.”

“Ah? Greg, you must ask him here

for dinner. Not perhaps tomorrow, but

soon, yes?” Madame Romaine fixed me
with a gimlet smile. “I like that young
man.”

They all did, apparently. Juliette

might be planning some kind of hideous
revenge, but she was doing it cheerfully,
trying to enlist her cousin Matthieu.

Even so: I said, “I can’t do that.

It’s, um, not appropriate for me to be
bringing other people in for dinner,
when I’m a guest here myself.”

That brought an explosion of rude

noises around the table, as it deserved
to. Mme Romaine pointed out, a little
icily, that it was her own invitation, and
I was merely the messenger. The
younger generation was more forthright.
Grandmère, who’d be doing the actual

cooking, merely observed that he was a
ghost at the table already. These were
his carrots we were eating, and his
recipe for tarragon butter, which she
thought had come out better than her
own. Really he might as well be here in
the flesh. Then she and he could talk
more, which she would enjoy, and the
whole family would benefit…

All that chorus of welcome, and I

had to sit in the midst of it thinking, You
don’t understand; I’m going to break up
with him tomorrow. Not that there’s
anything to break. I just need to make
that clear. We’re not dating. We just had
a one-night stand. Why’s that so hard for
everyone to get their heads around?

Perhaps because I hadn’t told them,

and it was not an obvious assumption,
given how there I was visibly making
another date with him, with the love
bites from our last eminently visible on
my neck. But I have my own sense of
honor, and I had to tell him first. Which
meant I had to endure all their
amusement that evening, their innuendos
and outright suggestions, where we
should go and what we should do when
we got there.

“Have him take you to the coast,

swim in the sea; the pool is lovely, but
the sea, oh…”

“Never mind the public beaches.

There is a private cove, which I will
show you on the map, where our family
has access—oh, pooh. Of course you are

family. We have adopted you. We don’t
let people go, when we have found them.
Ask Charlie, ask Jeff and Benet; they
may be in England now but even so, they
are still ours. Ask poor Luc, whom
Juliette found in school and has never
allowed to escape us since…”

I didn’t need to ask Charlie, or

anyone. I could feel it for myself, how
their tender affectionate teeth were
closing around me. They didn’t mean the
least harm in the world, and even so: I’d
fight, I’d kick, I’d do anything I had to, to
be free. If it meant going home early, just
walking out, I could do that. Cutting all
contact, I could do that. I’d had the
practice, after all.

Tomorrow. I’d do it all tomorrow.

Yes. Start with Robin. After that,
everything else would be easy.

* * * *

Funny thing: before this, I’d always

found The Talk came naturally to me. I
could be ruthless without a second
thought. After all, the whole point was
that I didn’t want to see them again, so
why worry if I came over as cold or
callous or unkind? That was all to the
good, to their benefit as well as mine;
after that they’d stop wanting to see me
either. Perfect solution, easily achieved.
And I really truly didn’t care if a number
of young men had me tagged as a shit. It
was a university town; every student
generation moved on, and there was

always another one coming through.

I didn’t even care if they were

right, if I really was a shit. I was doing
what I had to, to protect myself. Self-
defense is an inalienable right and
always justified.

Yeah. It’s just that I wasn’t doing it

very well, as far as Robin was
concerned.

All next morning, I was practicing

The Talk in my head, even while I
played tennis with Charlie and Matt
alternately.

“Where’s Juliette?” I asked. “I

thought we were going to play
foursomes.”

“We were—but she’s Skyping with

Luc. We won’t see her, so long as she
can keep him talking. It’s why she’s so
obnoxious at the moment,” Matthieu
went on. “She doesn’t know what to do
without him, and she’s tired of being a
playgirl, so she interferes with everyone
else’s life as much as she’s allowed to.
It’s not always a bad thing”—he shared
an affectionate, reminiscent glance with
Charlie—“but

it

can

be

bloody

annoying. Put up with her as much as you
can, Greg, and then squash her if you
have to, yes?”

“Sure. She’s not doing me any

harm.”

If we’d waited for Juliette, we’d

have waited in vain. Instead the boys
took turns to play coach on the sidelines,

being roundly rude about each other’s
style and stroke play, while I was run
ragged on the other side of the net. They
wouldn’t let me sit out a set while they
played each other. “We want you
warmed up and glowing nicely,” Charlie
said, “for when Robin turns up. Does he
play?”

“I don’t know.” I barely played

myself; tennis was a game for the comfy
middle classes who could afford club
fees and coaching and maybe had room
in the garden for a court of their own, or
knew someone who did. Like the
Romaines, for example.

“Ah, that’s always my favorite

time: when you hardly know anything
about the other guy, when it’s all still to

discover. I’m an old settled married man
now, of course”—Charlie couldn’t be
thirty yet—“and we know everything
there is to know about each other. I
know all his bad choices before he even
makes them. It’s very dull. I envy you
exceedingly.”

He gave me a wink I didn’t want,

and walked away before I could
respond; carried a towel to his lover and
tossed it over Matt’s head, rubbing
vigorously until he was duly swatted on
the butt with a racquet. I was fairly sure
that nothing in their life together was
even approaching dull. I could have
envied them, except that I knew so well
that such a life, such a partnership was
not for me. Not even to be dreamed of,

no.

I wasn’t glowing nicely so much as

sweating like nitroglycerin about to
blow, when a voice hailed me from the
terrace, and that was Grandmère, with
Robin in tow.

“Greg! Your guest is come!”
She was disgruntled, I thought, that

he wouldn’t stay to lunch, which made
her a little sharp with me, because
obviously that was my fault, because I
was tempting him away to lustful
pleasures. I’m not, I wanted to tell her,
truly. I’m going to call everything off.
Whatever he thinks is happening. I’m
going to tell him that it’s just not. I
don’t do second dates, or holiday

romances. Nothing that might linger.
I’m strictly once in a lifetime, and no
returns…

Which meant of course that

Grandmère could romance him herself if
she cared to, trade dishes and recipes
and food talk to her heart’s content, just
as soon as I was out of the picture. Two
short weeks; she could wait that long.
She didn’t need to be scowling at me so
crossly.

“Hey,” he said. “You look all…

hot.”

I didn’t know if Grandmère was up

to double entendres in English, but I
scowled at him anyway and said, “Give
me five minutes to shower, and I’ll be
with you.”

“Sure. Take all the time you want.

I’ll be in the kitchen, with Grandmère.”

She brightened in a moment and

wheeled him away by one arm. I hoped
he wasn’t just charming the old lady to
work himself into what he must think
were my good books—but no, he was a
real foodie, and he’d said she was a
legend. I didn’t think he was faking
anything. For definite he was charming
the old lady, but that was only because
charm came naturally to him. I was
fighting it myself, even now, at
secondhand. I liked it, that he would go
out of his way to spend time with
someone I liked; even though I’d
decided that he wasn’t doing it for my
gratification, I did still feel gratified.

Maybe especially because of that.

I did take my time in the shower;

you want to feel good on the outside, at
least, when you’re doing something that
isn’t calculated to make you feel good on
the inside. Besides, it was reassuring. If
I was truly in a hurry to fuck him, the
way everyone was assuming, I’d skimp a
proper shower and settle for a splash
and a promise, because I was only going
to get sweaty again, wasn’t I? Wouldn’t
I?

So no, I was scrupulous in the

bathroom, and picky about what I put on
afterward. I’m not sure what the dress
code is for dumping someone, but I don’t
think you should scruff up for it. You
don’t need to go all formal, jacket and

tie; but you ought to show respect, both
to the dumpee and to the relationship.
You had a half share in it, after all, until
this moment. Out of simple self-respect
if nothing more, you can wear something
nice to say good-bye.

Purely by chance, I’m sure,

everyone was in the kitchen when I did
finally go downstairs. I faced down a
little sequence of nods, smiles, and
approvingly pursed lips—and then met
Robin’s gaze and found him grinning
broadly, perhaps a little incredulously.
Shaking his head. Saying, “Greg, man—I
did explain about my house, didn’t I?
Work in progress, half of it a building
site, dust everywhere? Your nice clothes
are going to get filthy, even before I take

you round the garden.”

“They’ll wash,” I said, shrugging

like it really didn’t matter, like I’d
thrown on the first things that came to
hand, like I had plenty more where these
came

from.

“Besides,”

I

added,

improvising madly, “I thought I’d take
you out to lunch first. Somewhere nice.”
I hadn’t actually thought about it, but
now that I did, I liked that plan. The Talk
comes more easily on neutral ground,
neither his territory nor mine. Maybe
he’d just bring me straight back
afterward,

home-and-garden

tour

abruptly canceled, but hey. Message
received, that would say; nothing
clearer. And that was what I wanted,
so…

“Actually.” he said, “I was

planning to give you lunch. I was a chef
once, remember? And I have a garden
full of goodness, and—well, I guess I
want to show off. You can take me out
for dinner later, if you like.”

I wasn’t at all sure that he’d want

that, after we’d had The Talk. But he’d
given me nothing to argue with, so I
nodded agreement and felt like a heel,
felt like I was lying to him when I’d only
ever wanted to have the truth laid out
between us.

Then there were good-byes and

promises, all meaningless, all based on
the notion that this was a date and not a
breakup, so of course they’d all be
seeing Robin again, of course he’d be

around a lot these next couple of weeks;
and then he was leading me out to his
van, “Shall we?”, though he was the
stranger here, and I was the resident
guest.

I thought I should probably offer to

stow a bike in the back again, so that he
wouldn’t need to drive me back if this
all went as badly as it might. I could’ve
lied about it, I could’ve said I might
fancy biking back, come morning, and
he would have accepted that—but
apparently I’d sooner say nothing than
lie outright. I couldn’t work out if that
was a point in my favor or another black
mark, another notch in my cane of self-
contempt.

Instead I sat beside him as he

drove, and it was like having my own
private guided tour, as he talked about
the villages we passed and the hillsides
and the vineyards, history and gossip all
intermingled. “There was a famous
battle fought over this bridge, but locally
it’s better known for the night Mme
duBours

ambushed

her

husband’s

mistress, rammed her car into the wall
there—you can still see the scar in the
stonework, see?—and threw all her
jewelry into the river…”

He loved this country and its

people, that was obvious; and I found his
open delight as sexy as I found the man
himself, the body of him, tanned gold
and sweating lightly under light-worn
linen, strong and confident and assertive

and here, with me, attending to me,
throwing these words at me and glancing
aside from the road to see how I took
them. Amused, desirous, desirable…

I should perhaps not have bothered

with the showering, the careful dressing
after. I felt a prickle of sweat myself, a
rising heat, my breath coming short and
sudden and my cock stiffening in my neat
charcoal slacks. It’s good to get clean,
but sometimes it’s utterly futile, when
you’re only doomed to get dirty again.

Sometime on that drive, that

journey, it dawned on me quite clearly
that The Talk was going to be delayed
again. Just by an hour or two, no more.
Maybe I’d leave it till after lunch.

Before lunch… Well. By now,

what came before lunch was inevitable.

* * * *

Robin’s house stood on a rising

stretch of ground, overlooking a shallow
river. The view was lovely, in that raw
almost desolate way the south of France
can look, with bare rock breaking
through dry soil and not much evidence
of civilization: a few rough roads, some
old stone walls dividing one property
from the next, tumbledown barns and
cottages. It might have been a hundred
years ago, or more.

“It’s why the place was so cheap,”

Robin said cheerfully as we left the last
metaled road behind us and bumped
slowly along a rutted track. “The

motorway and the railway both chose the
next valley over, so all the investment’s
gone there. We get nothing. Just land,
water, sunshine, peace, and privacy.”

Everything we need, he was

saying; and welcome to Paradise, that
too. It was all too clear already, just
how attached he was to this place. Me, I
thought I’d have gone to the next valley
over and got on the first train out; I was
a city boy through and through. I didn’t
say so. Why pour cold water on a
dream?

Much of his own land was stony

soil and wild scrub—“maybe I’ll get to
a couple more acres next year, if I have
the time, if I can take the time”—but the
ground all around the house was planted

and irrigated and flourishing in orderly
rows of green. Peas and beans and
carrot tops I saw, spinach and cabbage
and other leafy vegetables I couldn’t
identify as we juddered past.

Then we passed through a gateway

and into a walled courtyard, and here
was the house.

As he’d promised, it was half a

building site. In the yard there were
stacks of masonry and timber, buckets, a
cement mixer, ladders, and more.
Beyond was a structure with no roof and
half-built walls—but that was an
outbuilding, or at least it had been.
Robin was remaking it, little by little,
into an extension of the house proper.

When I turned to look at the house

itself, it was like an exercise in
contrasts. It looked neat and weathertight
and fully finished. More: it looked
beautiful, all honeyed stone and new
features on old bones. It looked like the
kind of house a man might want to live
in. If it wasn’t miles from anywhere and
in another country. If he was the kind of
man who could be happy making his
living from the land and working with
his hands. As Robin apparently was and
could be, yes. Not me. I’d go mad, I
thought, without the buzz of a city
outside my windows. Neon lights and
twenty-four-hour action. This was a
place for stillness and silence, a place to
disconnect. The very opposite of
everything my life was about.

This must be the attraction of

opposites, then, him and me. For sure,
we were deeply attracted. In the way
magnetic poles are attracted: clinging
hard

to

each

other,

physically

inseparable as we scrambled out of the
van and into the house, up a flight of
open wooden stairs, already fumbling at
each other’s zips and buttons as we
went. I wasn’t looking around me, I
wasn’t looking at anything but him; I
only knew we were in a bedroom now
when he pushed me off-balance, and I
fell back, and there was a bed beneath
me to take my weight and make it easier
for him to strip the shoes from my feet,
and then the slacks from my legs, and—

And I wasn’t having that. Eager as I

was to feel his hands, his mouth on my
bare skin, I wasn’t just going to lie there
and let him strip me like some passive,
submissive little bottom. So I locked my
legs around his hips, reached up to grab
his T-shirt, and started yanking it out of
his jeans.

From that angle, of course, I was

never going to get it over his head
without his cooperation. That wasn’t the
point. It was just an invitation, unless it
was a response—Oh, you wanna play
strip wrestling? Okay, then…

And of course he did; he’d already

started. And it’s really not a game two
can play when one of them’s on his feet
and the other’s sprawled on the bed.
That’s too much of a handicap. So he

tumbled down on top of me, all weight
and elbows and suddenly breathless
laughter. We rolled back and forth
across the mattress, grappling and
straining, trying to tug the other’s clothes
off while clinging madly to our own.

There was a whole lot of giggling

going on too, when we had the breath for
it, and a degree of snatched kissing.
Though that was just as likely to turn to
biting, if the biter saw a moment of
advantage.

I was the heavier, he was the

livelier; I could pin him, but I couldn’t
hold him down. Pound for pound he was
stronger, but muscle isn’t everything.
Besides, neither one of us really wanted
to win. It’s better to travel hopefully than

to arrive; we were having altogether too
much fun fighting for victory, to have any
actual desire to achieve it. Like when
you’re fucking and you think that
orgasm’s what you’re there for, but
actually all the pleasure’s in the process,
the slow relentless building to that
moment, so that in the end it’s a
disappointment when you come. Or
when he does. A moment’s eruptive
release, and then the letdown, the
mournful understanding that that’s it, it’s
over now. Until the next time, the next
boy. The next weekend.

It wasn’t the story of everyone’s

life, I did know that—but it was most
emphatically the story of my own. I’d
written it that way deliberately.

Fucking Robin was much, much

easier than explaining it to him. The Talk
wasn’t canceled, far from it, only
postponed—but I was almost more
relieved than excited, and I was very
excited indeed. If this was a sympathy
fuck, it was myself I was feeling sorry
for, and grabbing the chance to put the
hard thing off. Grabbing it two-handed,
wrestling it down, tugging its clothes
off…

Did I say strip wrestling was like

fucking? I’m an idiot. Strip wrestling is
fucking, the first interesting stage of it.
At least, I can’t imagine a situation
where the one doesn’t lead on to the
other. For sure it’s never failed for me.

That day, there was no question of

failure. Robin was as horny, hot, and
eager as I was, or we wouldn’t be doing
this. We’d be somewhere other than his
bedroom, having the guided tour and The
Talk simultaneously.

This was better. Even before I

jerked his boxers down with a cry of
triumph and buried my face in his groin.
Which was totally cheating, as neither of
us was absolutely naked yet, and proper
strip wrestling never turns into sex until
one or the other of you has been
thoroughly stripped. But, hell, I was
barely hanging on here—my Jockeys
tangled around one ankle that I was
barely keeping out of his reach, and
nothing else left to me at all—which
made it the perfect time to introduce a

quick cheat.

His fists pounded my back in

protest but only weakly. His cock was in
my mouth; he wasn’t about to do
anything rash. Besides, he was enjoying
it. Who could tell better than me? I felt
the blood surge beneath his skin, his
body surge beneath mine; I heard the
breath catch in his throat, I felt his hands
catch in my hair. For a moment I still
thought I might exploit that, take
advantage, rip his boxers off and claim a
victory. But my tongue was already
seeking his balls, his cock was a rigid
pillar of potential, and—nah. Game
over. Neither one of us was playing
now.

So I licked and sucked and reveled

in the taste of him in my mouth, the shape
of him beneath my lips, the presence of
him everywhere; and when he came, hot
and hard, I wasn’t scoring points any
more than I was making them. I was just
one man exulting in another, coaxing him
into climax, and then just hoping that
he’d hold me while I came myself.

He did that, of course he did; and

then there might have been that
inevitable letdown, that touch of sadness
that always seems to follow, but he
didn’t let it linger.

“Hey,” he said softly, “let’s do that

again after lunch, huh? Take our time
over it, though. We always seem to be in
a hurry, first time. There really doesn’t

need to be that much rush. Come on now,
put something on in case the neighbors
come by, and I’ll show you round the
estate.”

“Okay if I grab a shower first?

Quick and cold, just to cool off a bit…”

“Sure. I’ll do the same—but after

you, not with you. In case we get
distracted and never make it downstairs
after all. The bathroom’s through there;
I’ll just lie here till you’re done. I might
watch you getting dressed, mind. Is that
kinky? Maybe I’m kinky…”

No point getting dressed up smart

again, if we were only going to get
naked again. Besides, my poor clothes
had taken a bit of a beating, being
wrestled off my body. Buttons were

missing, a seam had split. He lent me
shorts and a muscle shirt—“They’ll be a
tight fit on you, but hey: I’m not
complaining, and who else is going to
see?”—and pulled on the same himself,
old

sun-faded

gear

worn

almost

threadbare, soft and comfortable until it
fell apart. A pair of flip-flops each, and
we went slapping down the stairs like
longtime lovers who couldn’t be
bothered to remember which clothes
were whose.

I really hadn’t noticed anything on

our way up, when the heat of his body
had been inflaming mine. They say that
love is blind, but I think they just confuse
it with passion.

Now, though, all too literally

cooled off if not exactly sated yet: now I
could look. I didn’t even need to think
about it. I had to look. The house would
allow no other option.

“Robin,

man—this

place

is

beautiful…”

He blushed, suddenly all English

and embarrassed. “It had good bones,”
he muttered.

I was sure that it had—but he’d

said himself, it had been half a ruin
when he bought it; he couldn’t have
afforded it else. I could see now how he
could make a living doing this, buying
houses and doing them up and selling
them on again. We obviously had
different ideas of “doing a place up.” I’d
pictured him doing the manual work,

plastering and carpentry and plumbing,
making a place habitable. In fact, he’d
taken a shell—and there were photos on
the wall by the stairs there to show me
what it had looked like before, a shell
with no roof—and he’d made it
sumptuous. He might have had good
stone walls to build on, but all the
beauty here was his own work.

He’d plastered some of the walls

and left others the natural honey of the
stone. He’d laid a floor of polished pale
oak, the same wood that made the stairs
that climbed one long wall in open
treads. The wall at the end faced south;
he’d opened the house up to sunlight by
replacing the whole wall with glass
panels, which slid aside to let you step

out onto the terrace beyond…

Even in my own head, I was

starting to sound like an estate agent.
Worse, I was just standing there at the
foot of the stairs, staring around, saying
nothing out loud. Robin was watching
me, smiling a little awkwardly, caught in
some difficult space between showing
off his work and welcoming me to his
home. I said, “I’m surprised you can
bear to sell it.”

“Well…” He shrugged and looked

a little shamefaced. “It really should
have been finished and on the market by
now, but I spent so much time working
on the garden, it won’t be ready till next
spring. It wasn’t a conscious decision,
but—yeah, I do like living here. I may

have let the schedule drift just a little too
easily. Bad me.”

I spanked his bottom lightly, as he

seemed to be inviting it. “And you did
say you might stay here another summer,
to raise another season’s crops for your
market stall.”

“Yeah, that too. It’s all excuses,

really. I might be getting tired of moving.
Sometimes I think I’ve found the place
I’d like to stay. But I can’t afford it, so
it’s not actually a question. Vegetables
won’t keep me. Unless I get serious
about it, and turn all the land over to
growing crops; but I’m not sure I want to
be a farmer. Not just a farmer. I like
playing at it, to be honest. Enough to
justify the stall, but not as a full-time

job. I think I’m a dilettante,” he said,
smiling disarmingly. “A little bit of
everything. That’s why doing up houses
suits me so well: it uses all my skills
and teaches me new ones all the time,
and there’s always something different
to do or to learn. It might be quite nice to
think I was doing it for my own benefit,
in my own home—but I’d probably get
bored or something, if I tried to settle
down. So it’s just as well I can’t.
Probably.”

He sounded a little wistful, and I

thought he was covering up, disguising
the truth from himself, maybe, as much
as from me. Or trying to. I thought what
he’d said first was more honest, that
really he’d like to stay here if he only

could.

There was probably a life lesson in

there somewhere, that you shouldn’t
work so hard to make things lovely, if
you were likely to find them hard to
walk away from. I was sorry for him, at
the same time as feeling selfishly glad
that he’d broken that rule, if rule it was.
Not because it would cost him in the
end, I’m not that mean; but it did mean
that I got to enjoy the house now, with
him. Which was a pleasure doubled,
because he did take so much pleasure in
it. I could let him show it off, once he’d
got past that native English reticence. He
grew positively excited in the kitchen,
talking about the marriage between
ancient and modern, sliding his hand

lovingly over stainless-steel surfaces
and old stone walls.

Then that hand reached for mine,

and he said, “Come on, let me take you
round the garden before lunch. Just
quickly. I promise not to babble on much
longer, but I need to pick some herbs
anyway.”

I assured him that he wasn’t

babbling yet. Actually I’ve always found
a blend of enthusiasm and knowledge
intoxicating, and Robin had both of those
in spades.

Green fingers too, he had those.

Right now they were intertwined in
mine, which felt rather good, actually.
I’ve been heard to say cynically that
holding hands was fun—when I was

seven. Maybe my inner seven-year-old
was coming out again. Or else the
warmth of the sun was melting hard,
cold rational me into a sticky puddle of
sentimental goo. Or else it was Robin’s
own warmth, his sunny smile, and his
apparent delight in having me around.
He’d be just as happy with anyone else,
anyone at all, I thought, trying hard to
keep the cynical edge I was accustomed
to. He just likes introducing people to
his artichokes and his onions and his
asparagus bed…

In honesty, though, I couldn’t keep

it

up.

I

was

comfortably,

uncomplicatedly

happy

too,

with

sunshine on my shoulders and him at my
side, strolling round his vegetable patch.

“I’d put in a flower garden too,” he said
yearningly, “around the house here, a
little touch of color, a touch of England
maybe if the right plants would grow in
this climate—but there’s no point, if I’m
not staying.”

If that was true, there was no point

in his asparagus bed either. That would
need three years to establish itself, and
he’d be long gone by then. I didn’t point
it out, though. At some level, he knew. I
thought his subconscious was tripping
him up again, laying snares to hold him
here, just one more year…

We came to the limits of his

planting and stood looking out over the
rest of his land as it fell away toward the
river, and I suppose I wasn’t thinking.

Certainly I didn’t mean to be cruel. I
said, “You could plant vines, if you
were staying. Rival the Romaines, you
could.”

“I do not,” he said, “want to rival

the Romaines. Even if I do keep stealing
their favorite houseguest. But yes, don’t
think I haven’t thought of that. It would
make this much land practical, if I turned
those slopes over to vines. And they’re
south facing, the soil’s right, it’s perfect;
and I’d like to be a vigneron, growing
grapes on the same scale that I grow
vegetables. But I don’t have the money
or the time to make it happen, so there’s
no point dreaming. I could make myself
an English cottage garden quicker than I
could make a vineyard happen.” And

then, swiftly, because I think it really did
hurt him to have to puncture that dream,
and he’d probably had to do it again and
again and again since he found this
place, he said, “Enough about me now;
I’m a real bore when someone gets me
talking about the house. Tell me about
you. Hopes and dreams, in twenty words
or fewer. Go.”

“Actually,” I said, “I’m happy as I

am.”

He quirked one firm, purposeful

eyebrow at me—dark gold his eyebrows
were, a couple of shades darker than his
hair, which I found enchantingly
distracting—and said, “Liar.”

“No, I’m serious. The life I have

suits me just fine.”

He shook his head at me. “You’re

only saying that because it’s the
comfortable thing to say. It’s just habit;
it’s not the truth. You’ll be pushing thirty
in a year or two, and you’re still living
like you’re fresh out of college, single
and solo, living alone and working alone
and picking up a different boy every
weekend. You’re still young, Greg, but
you’re not that kind of young anymore.”

“I like being single,” I said

defensively. “It suits me.”

“No, it doesn’t. Trust me.”
I smiled—maybe a little thinly—

and shook my head. “Can’t. I have trust
issues.”

“That much,” he said, “is obvious.

It’s why you live the way you do, why

you fuck anything that moves and shy
away from the least suggestion that you
might want to form a real relationship
with someone. Anyone. Want to tell me
about it?”

“No,” I said bluntly—but he just

cocked that seductive eyebrow at me
again and waited patiently. Come to
think, I supposed this was one way of
having The Talk. Coming at it backward
and inside out, but even so. It’d have the
same effect in the end: I’d walk away
and not look back, and he’d not come
running after. If I had to gut myself to
make that happen, okay. That was the
price I had to pay. Usually I was the
cool one, in control, explaining that I
simply didn’t do relationships; if anyone

got upset, it was safe to be the other guy.

Not this time, not this guy. Okay,

then. Call it a sacrifice for the cause, in
the interests of keeping me sane. Sane
and safe. Sane and safe and single.

“I blame the parents,” I said, still

trying to keep it jocular and superficial.

“Of course,” he said, nodding

wisely, playing along. “They fuck you
up, your mum and dad.”

“They do. Oh God, do they…” Not

so jocular after all, apparently. I don’t
know what my face looked like in that
sudden betraying moment, it was utterly
out of my control for once; but his hand
closed tight over mine, and I was nothing
but grateful to be able to squeeze back.

“Tell me,” he said softly.
“Oh, it’s easily told.” Even so, the

words seemed to be extraordinarily
difficult to say. I had no practice. This
was territory I just didn’t visit: one more
good reason for living alone, for not
being obliged to, for having no one who
could lead me or force me or expect me
to talk about intimate truths. “My
family’s

religious.

Devout.

Professionally devout: Mum’s a deacon
in a small evangelical church, Dad
lectures at a theological college. You
can imagine the kind of childhood we
had: Sunday school and church after,
Bible study daily, and a good Christian
education. Which we all bought into, my
two sisters and me. At least until I hit

puberty, I did. We were a close, tight,
warm family group until then. And then
suddenly I was fighting with my parents
over anything and everything, which my
sisters never did; and it’s way too late to
psychoanalyze it all, but I’m fairly sure
the figuring-out-I-was-gay thing had a
big hand in that. Not that it was ever
actually talked about. We just fought like
cats in a box, until at last I could get
away to university.

“I guess that was a relief to

everyone. Though of course I was a
disappointment too, because they’d have
liked me to keep up the family traditions,
and I’d already rejected their beliefs. By
their lights I was headed for hell even
before I got the whole sex thing sorted

out. I did that in the high grand manner,
fucked my way through my freshman
year and like an idiot went home to lay
my cards on the table, come out of the
closet, and be proudly, defiantly gay…

“Well,” I finished bitterly, “I’m

sure you can guess how well that
worked out.”

“Oh, I could guess, sure—but why

don’t you tell me?” He probably thought
confession was good for the soul. Which
was another of my parents’ teachings
that I’d flung out with the bathwater,
with everything. Right now, though, I
was willing to play along. It was good
for me in another way altogether, as a
tool to achieve what I wanted.

“My mother threw me out of the

house,” I said bluntly. “There and then,
into the night. She couldn’t possibly
sleep, she said, with a creature so
perverted under the same roof. A
creature of her own flesh, whom she’d
nurtured of her own body, she said…
So, yeah. I slept on a mate’s floor that
night, left town the next day, went back
to my college rooms. A week later a
heap of boxes arrived: every single thing
I’d left in that house, all sorted out and
packed up by my father so there’d be
nothing to remind them that they’d ever
had a son. Over the next couple of
weeks, I had letters from each of the
girls. Hurt and horrified they were,
appalled at my degradation, standing
shoulder to shoulder with our parents.

They never wanted to see me again
either.

“So they haven’t. I’ve never been

back, I’ve never been in touch again and
nor have they.”

And that, my dear, is why I have

trust issues. Why I shy away from
happy families, why I only ever have
one-night stands. Why you’re already
an exception. When the people who
should be closest treat you suddenly
like shit, when the place you should be
safest locks its doors against you, is it
any wonder if you never let anyone that
close again? If you choose to be the
one who locks the door, and with only
you on the inside of it?

There. He was a bright guy, he’d

pick up all the subliminals, the subtext,
what I was really telling him. I wouldn’t
need to spell it out. We’d had The Talk,
just from the opposite angle. Usually I
just explained what the rules were and
left it at that. If the other guy thought I
was a shit myself, so what? We
wouldn’t be seeing each other again.
That was Rule One; that was the whole
point. I could be a shit if I had to, to get
that point across.

I’d somehow failed with Robin the

first time: having too much fun, perhaps,
or just being out of context, off my
regular

beat

and

finding

myself

unexpectedly snared where ordinarily I
was the hunter. Whatever the reason, I’d
lost the script for once. My fault entirely,

mea culpa: I’d left him thinking it was
fine to come back for a second round. If
that left me exposed in the way I hated
most, if I had to peel back my skin to
show him the raw mess I was beneath,
just to make him understand—well, that
was the price I paid for letting my guard
down even that little way.

He was too wise, perhaps, to offer

an easy sympathy. He could see, I guess,
how much this cost me, and he wouldn’t
respond with anything so cheap. Instead
he listened soberly and nodded when I
was done, and said, “Come on back to
the house. I’ve got something for you.
Not a prescription, no, not a remedy,”
nothing so cheap, and was he reading
my mind now? “Just an experience,

something I want you to have.”

What he had for me was a chair on

the terrace, apparently, in the golden
caress of the sun; and then a tall narrow
glass already chilled, the sudden pop of
a cork with a head of gas behind it, a
spume of froth followed by a slow fill, a
tawny liquid beaded with bubbles rising.

“I hate to spoil the surprise,” I said,

“but you should’ve wrapped the bottle in
a napkin, if you didn’t want me to
recognize the label. This is Matt
Romaine’s pink fizz. Hell, didn’t I
introduce you to this?”

“You did—but that was indoors, in

the evening, in the town. It’s a different
drink in sunshine, at the height of the
day. Wines are like people, they open up

in different ways at different times, in
different settings.”

“I’ve drunk it at lunchtime before.

They sprang it on me the weekend we
met.”

“Yes, you told me—but that was in

England. That doesn’t count. You need
to meet it in its natural habitat. Stop
complaining and drink. It’s meant to be a
treat.”

I wasn’t complaining, exactly—but

he knew that, exactly. He was laughing
at me, even while I thought he was
telling me something. People are like
wines, I thought he was saying. It’s okay
to be different, in different settings. It’s
okay to relax the rules.

He’d heard me loud and clear, I

thought he was saying—and he was
ignoring The Talk altogether, proposing
something utterly other.

“Aren’t you joining me?”
“Not immediately. My glass is in

the kitchen; so’s your lunch. We’ll be
coming out to join you in a bit, but I’ve
still got some prep to do, and I thought
you might appreciate ten minutes on your
own, in the sun, with a wine that’s going
to open up like a flower in your mouth.”

Smart guy. I said he was smart,

didn’t I? Smart and perceptive. He was
not wrong about any of that. The solitude
was as welcome as the sunshine, and the
wine juggled both into something
sensational in my mouth. In company it
was all about the fizz, the bubbles,

sociability; on my own it was a
peaceful, reflective drink, light and cool
and soothing like balm on the wounds of
the day.

And he’d taken the bottle with him,

so after I’d mused for a while, when I
realized I was ready for company again,
my glass was empty, and I simply had to
go in search of him. So then I got to sit in
a corner of his high-tech kitchen and
watch him make magic with hands and
blades and inspiration, working on the
simple ingredients that he grew himself
or traded from his market friends.

Between the two of us, I think we

discovered yet one more aspect of that
multifaceted wine: an intimate face,
teasing and sensuous and provocative.

We almost didn’t make it to lunch, let
alone through to empty plates and
satisfied appetites. If the food hadn’t
been quite so tempting, I think we’d have
abandoned everything but the bottle and
taken that upstairs.

But there was fresh baguette from

the village bakery, and pork rillettes and
duck confit that he’d made himself, and
his own vegetables—of course!—both
fresh and pickled, and olives and soft
sheep’s cheese and figs, and…

And of course it was only polite to

make a glutton of myself, and help him to
eat everything, out in the courtyard in the
sun; and after that it was only polite to
go back upstairs with him when he
tempted me, with a cock of his head and

a hand held out in invitation, while the
other clutched the lure of another bottle.
And it really didn’t seem to matter
anymore, as this was already no longer a
one-night stand, so why not? It was a
bend in the rules, but I figured I could
cope after all with a holiday romance.
My shields were strong enough. It
wasn’t like it could mean anything in the
long run; I was going home soon enough,
and he was rooted here. We’d be the
best part of a thousand miles apart.
Which is the kind of distance I like: way
too far to be at any risk of growing
closer.

So up the stairs I went, oh yes.

And came down them only later, a

lot later, and reluctantly. Hot and sticky
and still naked, leaving Robin in bed—
well, on the bed, at least—and not at all
ready to leave him like that, but my
phone was ringing.

Apparently I was conditioned; I

couldn’t just let it ring. It was probably a
function of that same mindset that kept
me

so

determinedly

single

and

uninvolved: whatever the company I was
with, I’d always be open to a better
offer.

Not praiseworthy, perhaps, but

that’s okay. I’m not always looking for
praise.

Right then, I was simply looking for

my phone. It should’ve been in my
pocket, but obviously wasn’t; all my

pockets were upstairs in his bedroom,
still attached to my abandoned trousers.
Which meant it might be anywhere:
anywhere in hearing, at least, as we had
at least heard it from the bed. Not that
that meant much, in the circumstances. I
recorded the ringtone myself; it’s the
sound of a pair of F-15s flying very low
and directly over my garden. F-15s are
loud to start with, even in the distance;
as they come closer, they provide their
own crescendo. I could probably have
left the phone in the château, and we’d
still have heard it here.

By the time I’d torn myself away

from

Robin and come stumbling

downstairs in search, they must’ve been
directly

overhead.

Overhead

and

underfoot by the sound of it. I cast about
frantically and spotted the little dark
thing fallen in a corner by the door.
Where we’d been pawing each other, of
course, as we came in, already heedless
and heading for bed…

I snatched it up and pressed the

button to answer without even glancing
at the screen. I hate missed calls even
more than I hate not knowing who’s at
the other end.

Besides, I knew already. Of course

I knew. Who else?

“Hullo, Greg. You sound out of

breath.”

She

sounded

more

than

complacent about it, positively smug.
Very pleased with herself, as if it was
her own achievement.

“Juliette.” With anyone else, I’d

have been speaking through gritted teeth;
with her, there really wasn’t any point. I
was almost laughing, she was so
magnificently

in-your-face

and

insouciant. “What can I do for you?”

“Really I need to talk to Robin,”

she said earnestly. “We have a crisis.
Mice have got into the larder, and
nibbled and pooped on everything; and
people are coming for dinner, and
Grandmère is beside herself, she’s
really upset; and I am sorry to interrupt
you, but Robin is really our only hope to
save the night from disaster…”

She was a little liar, of course. She

wasn’t sorry in the least, and Robin
wasn’t at all their only hope. The valley

must be full of grocery stores with
produce still for sale, never mind friends
of the family who would happily raid
their own larders to help the Romaines.
Robin might be their best bet for quality,
perhaps even the only way to soothe
Grandmère’s ravaged soul. I was sure,
in any case, that he was the first resort
Juliette had thought of, this the first call
she’d made; and I was sure that I knew
why, and that it had little or nothing to
do with the freshness of his vegetables.

Even so. Let her play games if she

wanted to; I was still glad that she’d
called me. I was as keen as anyone must
be, to help Grandmère; apparently I was
also mysteriously pleased, you could
almost say proud that Robin was her

nominated salvation. He came padding
down the stairs now, belting a short robe
over his golden body. He mouthed, Who
is it? and instead of answering, I just
held the phone out with a grin.

Puzzled, he took it from me and

said hullo, listened to her briefly, and
said, “Of course. Whatever I’ve got
that’s ready. Tell her we’ll be there in
an hour.”

He cut her thanks short, passed the

phone back to me, and shrugged. “Sorry.
There goes our idyll.”

“Not really.” I thought we’d had

our idyll already, delightfully, even if it
had been abbreviated. Besides, I was
suddenly looking forward to what came
next. It might be unexpected, it might

even be unpredictable, but it too could
prove delightful.

I wasn’t wrong. We went back

upstairs to get approximately decent,
because picking carrots in the nude is the
stuff of weird fantasy, and neither mine
nor his; we settled for shorts and nothing
more, because we were going to get
sweaty and grubby, even more than we
were already, so why fuss with more
clothes than we had to? Besides which,
picking carrots with the man you’re
fucking is a pleasurable, sensuous
experience, apparently. Who knew? Not
I, until I tried it that first time.

Side by side, bending and lifting,

sharing the work; glancing up often and

often, to see how the sun lay like poured
honey on the golden toast and butter of
his back, how it sparked off the
pinpricks of sweat as they broke his
skin; nudging him and giggling at the
occasional inevitable comically shaped
vegetable; tossing a handful of dry soil
at him now and then and just because…

If we hadn’t sated ourselves so

thoroughly on each other’s bodies
already, if we weren’t on a mission of
mercy here with Grandmère anxiously
awaiting the results of our labors, I think
the horseplay and the distracting
desirability of flesh would’ve had us
scrambling back up to the bedroom, or
else just abandoning decorum and shorts
together and fucking there and then in a

potato trench.

As it was, we kept ourselves more

or less together, more or less under
control. We were constantly physically
aware of each other, bumping shoulders
and hips, mock-wrestling as we both
reached for the same plant. Maybe not so
mock, that wrestling; I was seriously
trying to out-tussle him, until I learned
eventually that I couldn’t. But another
time, for sure it would have turned into
something more. I was as aware of his
cock stiffening inside his shorts as I was
of my own.

But even my bones felt heavy,

drained; and people were depending on
us. We were behaving magnificently, we
assured ourselves, as we rinsed soil off

what we’d gathered and headed for the
shower to do the same to each other.

Hot water and soap and someone

else to wash you down: it’s a different
kind of pleasure, when you’re just too
tired to let it escalate, if you even had
the time, which you don’t. I leaned into
his massaging hands with soft grunts, a
kind of agonized delight; I took a wholly
other delight in working my own hands
over all his body, questing, learning; I
kissed and teased at his cock, as he did
mine; and still we stepped out of there
and dried each other off and got dressed
in our own clothes and headed for the
van like good boys.

Good boys whose clothes were

something of a giveaway, in my case at

least, a little ripped and missing a
handful of buttons, but hey. Nothing
about that would be any kind of a
surprise to anybody.

We didn’t talk much on the drive to

the château. Maybe there was nothing
more to be said: a compact agreed,
mutual understanding, all those simple
physical pleasures to be anticipated for
what remained of my stay. It was like my
regular one-night stand, only extended,
one night stretched across two weeks.
One-fortnight’s stand. I could learn to be
comfortable with that…

* * * *

Grandmère greeted us at the kitchen

door and rhapsodized over our basket.

Apparently we had saved her life, her
reputation, and her sacred honor, or
something close to it.

Then she and Robin put their heads

together over tonight’s menu, in French
too rapid and technical for me to dream
of keeping up. I left them to it, slipping
upstairs to my room, and slipping
quickly out of my too-revealing clothes.

Slipping into trunks and robe

instead, padding barefoot out to the pool.

Where, no surprise, I found Juliette

waiting. Alone, a little impatient, a little
petulant; sipping a beer and working on
her tan, not noticeably pleased with
either one. What you need, my girl, is
inner resources, I thought. It’s important
not to depend on other people for

entertainment,

or

for

intellectual

engagement. You’re always going to find
yourself on your own sooner or later;
you need your own interests to fall back
on, to be good company for yourself.
Lacking that, it was no wonder if she
was bored; no wonder if she meddled
with her friends’ lives, to fill the hollow
in her own. She came across as spoiled,
even ruined, but I didn’t actually think
that was true. I thought she’d be fine, if
she could only find a focus in herself. I
thought that was what everyone needed,
self-sufficiency.

She brightened when she saw me,

leaping up from her lounger and diving
straight into the water, not coming to the
surface till she was all the way across

the pool, bobbing up right at my feet, and
holding on to my ankle rather than the
edge of the pool.

“Swim with me,” she demanded,

imperious as ever.

“Well, I will,” I said. “On one

condition.” What else was I here for,
after all, stripped to trunks, with Robin
busy in the kitchen? I have resources in
plenty, I had my laptop in my room, I
could amuse myself all the way until
dinner; but I’d rather be here and doing
this. She didn’t know it—hell, I hadn’t
known it myself until just now, catching
my first sight of her alone—but I’d just
adopted Juliette as a project.

“What condition?” She pouted, just

a little; surely a queenly command

should be enough? She hadn’t expected
bargaining.

“I need to practice my backstroke.”

Actually so did she, though it was wiser
not to say so. “So no races, we just pace
each other, swimming laps; and while
we swim, you tell me all about Luc.”

Clearly that wasn’t the kind of

condition she’d expected. She cocked
her head quizzically and said, “Mostly
people try to stop me talking about him.
Are you sure you won’t be bored?”

“If I get bored, I’ll let you know. I

promise. I just feel like he’s the missing
member of the family, the one I haven’t
met yet…”

Now she was beaming up at me,

tugging at my ankle to urge me in. “He is,

of course he is family, though we have
not married yet. They say we are too
young, but bah, I have known since I was
fourteen that I would marry him.
Everyone knows. I have told them so.”

“Him too?”
“Of course, him too! Not first, I

told my girlfriends first, and then my
brothers, and then Luc. Then my parents.
For six years, I have been telling
everybody. And he is studying to take his
place at the vineyard here, and everyone
knows it, and even so. Too young, they
say, we must wait; and oh, but I am
bored with waiting…”

Which was exactly her problem,

and exactly what I’d like to fix for her. I
couldn’t do it in a fortnight, but I could

lay the foundations, at least. Leave her
with some solid questions to ask of
herself, and some new roads opening up
ahead that might lead to an answer.

There’s no better way to learn

about someone’s true heart than listening
to them talk about what they love. That
doesn’t always mean who they love, but
sometimes it does. We plowed up and
down the pool, matching each other
stroke for stroke; I was holding back just
a little, to leave her breath enough to talk
with. She wasn’t holding back at all, she
had no understanding of too much
information; but it didn’t matter, and I
wasn’t bored, because I was listening
beneath the flow of words about the
wonder that was Luc, to hear what she

was saying about herself.

Which was engaging and frustrating

in equal measure, because this girl had
plenty of resources, and she just wasn’t
using them, and I didn’t understand that
at all. She had a lively interest in art and
music, she was deeply involved with the
development of the vineyard as a family
business, she had a horse to ride and a
car to drive, a hundred local friends to
visit and a hundred things to do—and
still she was just pining her time away,
meddling in other people’s business
because her own was on hold until her
boy came back.

I wanted to say, Pull yourself

together, I wanted to say, You’re better
than this; I did try, in gentler words at

more oblique angles. She didn’t seem to
get the message. Behind the vivid little
social butterfly was another girl
altogether, apparently helpless, almost
desperate in the absence of her man.

I might have said a prayer if I’d

been religious: not an appeal, just a
word of gratitude, not to be that
dependent on anybody else. Never to
expect it. She was like a walking proof
of my argument, that it’s always better to
be self-reliant and stubbornly solo. Have
as much sex as comes your way, but
don’t get tangled up in other people’s
lives, and above all never ever let them
tangle themselves in yours.

Then her cousin Matthieu plunged

splashily and accurately and deliberately

between the pair of us, jumping unseen
from the end of the pool; and we were
swamped

and

half-sunken

and

floundering, sent tumbling away from
each other by the great volumes of water
Matt displaced; and by the time I’d
recovered, she was hell-bent on
revenge, and the moment was thoroughly
gone. Nothing I could do now but cling
weakly to the side of the pool, still
spluttering, and cheer her on as best I
could manage as she chased him from
one end to the other.

And then Robin appeared, for a

quick ten-minute dip and a drink before
dinner; and the rest of the family came
after him, and after that there was really
no hope of anything productive, except

that I did manage to corner Matthieu and
Charlie and mutter, “We need to talk.
Soon, when Juliette’s not around.”

“Oh—damn, has Jules been making

a nuisance of herself again?”

“No, actually. It’s my turn now.

Ours, I hope. Talk later, okay?”

* * * *

It was obvious already that “later”

meant “tomorrow.” Pool time ended
earlier than usual, because guests were
expected; we had to dry off properly and
dress up smart. For me, that meant some
quick work with needle and thread, and
a spare set of buttons begged from
Charlie; for Robin, it meant a suit and a
nice shirt borrowed from Matthieu’s

extensive wardrobe, and just hoping that
nobody looked below the trouser cuffs to
what he was wearing on his feet. He did
offer to sit the meal out in my room, but
none of us would hear of that. Especially
not when he’d saved the day with our
emergency vegetable dash. “We really
didn’t mean to gate-crash your party,” he
insisted, “either of us, you could just
chase us both away—” But that got the
short shrift it deserved. Quite clearly
Robin and I were expected to stay for
dinner, and for the night.

So we dressed up as best we could

manage, and sailed downstairs to meet
and chat with that evening’s guests, who
turned out to be another winemaking
clan. Inevitably, it seemed, we started

the evening with Matt’s fizz. It was quite
the talking point, carrying us through to
the dinner table and the first in a
kaleidoscopic succession of courses.
Grandmère

had

surpassed

herself,

though she tried her best to shift the
credit to Robin: not only his produce but
his help in the kitchen. Predictably, he
was having none of it. Less predictable,
perhaps, was my own reaction as I sat
silent beside him, fighting the most
ridiculous surge of pride. It was utterly
inappropriate, but I was proud of his
contribution, of his skills, of his modesty
too. And far too English to say so, but it
all swelled up in me so hard I found it
hard to talk at all.

Absurd to take such pride in

someone else’s achievements when he
was just a passing fling, no real part of
my life. That was one more reason to be
glad of his hand on my thigh, that I could
distract myself with the immediacy of
something else swelling and hard. I
could be crude, even, and reach beneath
the tablecloth myself to shift his hand
higher, to make him splutter over his
soup and help everyone misunderstand
his embarrassment.

Juliette’s dad was pulling out all

the stops himself, or at least pulling out
the corks of some fine family wines to
match the food. I guess winemakers get
competitive even in social situations,
and want to show off their best to one
another. We should probably both have

been more abstemious, but it’s hard to
absteme when some of the best wines in
France are being sloshed into your glass,
when you’re at the back end of a day that
just keeps taking you by surprise, when
you’re still struggling with the latest of
those surprises. When your lover has his
hand on your cock, beneath your
judiciously placed napkin, and you’re
fairly sure that half the table knows it.
That sort of thing.

So we drank, and flirted as

discreetly as we could manage, and used
Grandmère’s fabulous food mostly as a
sop to let us drink some more. And
didn’t disgrace ourselves or our nation,
though my French did degrade fairly
quickly, so that half the time I was only

pretending to follow the conversation.
Actually I would probably have been
pretending anyway, with Robin being so
actively distracting at my side; it was
handy to have the language to blame, or
the wine, or both. More and more I
depended on his muttered translations,
or else I just gave up.

Blessedly

the

Romaines

had

realized that I wasn’t keeping up, and
they were nice enough not to throw
direct questions at me that I wouldn’t
have been able to field. Their guests the
same, or else they were simply too
polite to question strangers at the dinner
table. We all bluffed our way through
dinner, with none of us perhaps fooling
any of the others; then there was

Armagnac and coffee on the terrace,
with the stars ablaze above the darkened
valley, and soon enough all French had
deserted me altogether, and Robin was
making my apologies for me and steering
me quietly toward the stairs.

Where I paused, hand on the

banister, to say haughtily, “I am not that
drunk, that I need to be dragged away
from the party like a kid on the verge of
throwing up.”

“No, of course not—but do you

want to spend another hour nodding and
smiling and being left behind, or would
you rather be fucking me? I took
advantage of their good manners and
your bad French, so bite me.”

So I did. There and then, as a

matter of fact; and then again and more
thoroughly in the privacy of my room,
once I’d got all those borrowed clothes
off his willing, squirming body. My
mouth strayed all over everywhere; it
had been an evening of sensational,
exhilarating tastes, but this was the best
of them, the taste of him: his skin and
hair, his lips and tongue, his chest, his
belly, his cock…

I hadn’t been able to contribute

much to the dinnertime conversation,
maybe, but there’s more a mouth can do
than simply talk.

More a tongue can do.
And then there are the teeth…
Naked, his body showed absolutely

the kind of life he led, physical and

outdoor, muscles like cables under
golden skin, with no hint of fat for
padding. Traditionally I recoiled from
gym bunnies in favor of softer men, but
this was different; apparently I could
totally find that kind of physique erotic,
when it was driven by work rather than
narcissism. It was just lust, obviously,
and I should probably be ashamed to be
so greedy—but in the urgency of the
moment, shame just wasn’t a feature.
Right then I felt like I could spend
eternity like this, with him, exploring
each other’s bodies. His fingers in my
butt cleft, his cock in my mouth.

Or the other way around, or the

other way up, or…

By the time we were sated,

exhausting ourselves on each other, our
mouths were far beyond talking. We
made soft little grunts of contentment as
we nestled in together for whatever
remained of the night. It was strange
enough that weary as I was, I still
wanted to puzzle my way through this. It
was more than odd; it was really
disconcerting to feel long habits
crumbling away. By now I’d have
expected to be bored, to be looking
forward to the next lover, already done
with this one. Instead I seemed to be
increasingly obsessed. I knew Robin’s
body intimately, and yet I just wanted to
explore it—and him—further, deeper.
The more I fed, the hungrier I got: what
kind of appetite was that? It made no

sense…

It really needed thinking about, but

there

was

something

seductively

comfortable about the sticky revealed
heat of him, his slow breath in my hair,
his arms around my chest, and the weight
of him against my side. I hadn’t expected
it, but I drifted off to sleep long before
I’d worked my way to any conclusion,
beyond a dawning awareness that I was
really looking forward to the morning, to
waking up with him right there, right
here, in my bed and in my arms.

* * * *

I did that, I woke up, and there he

was. Here he was, his head on my
pillow, his eyes smiling into mine, his

sweet breath in my mouth even before he
kissed me.

“That’s not fair,” I mumbled sourly.
“What?”
“How can you taste so good, first

thing in the morning, before you’ve even
cleaned your teeth?” I felt foul to myself,
sweat sodden and rank.

He chuckled and kissed me again.

“You taste pretty good to me,” he
murmured. And proved it, or at least
provided evidence: it was his turn to
kiss and lick and nuzzle and chew at me,
apparently, moving down slowly over
my throat and chest to my nipples, to my
belly, to my cock. For once I was almost
passive, just lying there under his hands,
under his weight, letting him do as he

pleased with me—which pleased me
exceedingly, especially when he flipped
me over and reached for the pot of
expensive-smelling oil that stood ready
on the bedside table, for all the world as
though someone in the château knew
exactly what would be going on between
us.

Hell, they must all know pretty well

exactly. I might’ve blushed at the thought
if all my blood hadn’t been busy already
keeping my body oxygenated and my
cock stiff and straining. There was no
effort in that; all the effort was not to
come too soon as I gasped beneath him,
as his slick fingers stroked between my
butt cheeks, seeking out my sphincter.
And found it, and pressed against it,

pushing their way rudely in; two fingers,
stretching and probing, each with a life
of their own. My butt lifted of its own
accord, to thrust against them; and then
they were gone, and I may have moaned
aloud for that little time before I felt
something else press in to replace them.
His

cock,

of

course,

fat

and

commanding.

Then things may have got noisy; I

may have been glad, afterward, that the
château was so big, and we were the
only couple here on the guest corridor.

After Robin had come with a yell,

deep inside me, and I had finally yielded
to his demanding hands and my own
overwhelming urge to come myself;
while we were still lying there, spent, in

a tangle of sheets and sweat and each
other; before either one of us could make
a move toward getting cleaned up, he
said, “What are you thinking about?”

A sentimental man would have lied

and said you or us or how good that was
or something like it. Thankfully I could
just be honest, tell him where my
thoughts had wandered and not sound
sentimental at all. “I was just thinking,
it’s a different world, where your house
has a whole corridor set aside for
guests.”

His whole body shook abruptly,

enticingly, as he laughed. “I know what
you were thinking,” he said, “you were
thinking about all that noise you made.”

“Me? You were the one who

shouted…”

Apparently we still had a bit of

energy left after all, just enough to
scuffle with. It didn’t last long, but then
we were all tangled up another way; my
head was on his shoulder, and his lips
were right by my ear as he said, “You’re
right, though. It’s amazing to visit, and
I’m really glad to know the Romaines,
but I wouldn’t want to live like this. So
much

responsibility,

so

much

expectation: Charlie’s a brave man to
marry into it. Me, I’m happy with a
smaller house and a smaller life and no
sense of history looking over my
shoulder, all those dead old relatives
wanting to see what I’m doing with their
legacy. And their land, and their house.

At least my house is my own. And it’s
manageable, even with all that land. Not
for me on my own, maybe, but a couple
would cope easily enough once I’ve
finished, when I come to sell. This
place? I can’t even imagine the upkeep,
never mind running a business on the
side.”

“Yeah, it’s too grand for me too, as

a lifestyle—but it’s fun to be a guest.
Come on, let’s go play in the bathroom. I
want to be clean. Eventually.” I thought
it might take some time; there was a lot
to play with. And every kind of soap and
gel and lotion known to humankind. It
was a gay man who stocked the
bathrooms here, I was sure of that. A gay
man with exquisite, indulgent tastes, and

a fondness for extremely fluffy towels,
bless him.

* * * *

Finally clean and smelling costly,

dressed—a

trifle

haphazardly,

in

Robin’s case—and decent and still a
little damp about the edges, we went
padding down the stairs to see what the
day would bring.

It brought coffee, of course, first

thing, and fresh pastries still warm in the
kitchen, despite how late we were, and
the offer of an English breakfast if either
of us wanted. That offer didn’t come
from Grandmère; for once she wasn’t
there. Matthieu was presiding over the
coffeepot and the croissants.

Robin was clearly thoroughly

acclimatized, smiling and shaking his
head, because who could need more than
this to start the day? I pondered the
pleasures of a real cooked breakfast, and
was strong, and said no thanks.

Matthieu grinned in relief. “It’s just

as well,” he said. “Poor Charlie would
have had to cook it, and he would have
moaned and fussed. Even after I’d got
him out of bed, he would have moaned
and fussed. He says we can’t get proper
English bacon here, and what’s the point
of breakfast without bacon?”

“He’s quite right,” Robin said. “I

cure my own in self-defense. If Charlie
wants some, he only has to ask. I can
make double quantities just as easily.”

“Oh, what? He makes his own

bacon? Greg, you should marry this guy.
And move in with him here, obviously.
So that we can still get bacon.”

Maybe Robin had been in France

so long he’d forgotten how to be
properly, Englishly embarrassed. I
hadn’t. I could feel myself blush fierce
red as I changed the subject, gratingly,
like a man clashing gears in his car:
“Where is Grandmère, anyway? I don’t
think I’ve ever seen this kitchen without
her, I hadn’t realized she could be
removed.”

“Ah. She and Juliette are having a

girl’s day out, shopping for pretty things.
Grandmère has a birthday next month,
and Juliette is determined that she must

celebrate it properly, with a party and
dancing and dressing up. Grandmère
made a lot of fuss at first, but now she
has given in. Secretly, I think she is
enjoying it.”

“I’m sure.” Juliette was irresistible

but in the nicest possible way. Talking
of which… “That’s actually very
convenient, because there’s something I
want to discuss with you, Matt. You and
Charlie together, if he’s free.”

“Of course. I will fetch him.”

Amused by the subterfuge, intrigued by
the mystery, mature enough not to ask
questions yet, Matt went off in search of
his boyfriend.

Robin eyed me over the rim of his

coffee cup. “Do you want to be

private?”

“No, actually.” Even that was a

surprise; I was so used to doing things
on my own, working out my ideas solo,
and here I was creating a conspiracy and
actively enjoying it. “You can help,
maybe.” Even if not, that was the other
surprise, my active enjoyment of his
company, his simple presence at my side
there, like a promise of support. The
opposite of what I expected, or looked
for, or ever needed. Ever.

Matt came back with a sleepy

Charlie, and everyone looked at me
expectantly. I said, “We need to do
something for Juliette.” They all heard
the subtext, we need to do something
about Juliette, and nobody disagreed

with me.

And then I told them what I thought

we should do. Matt whooped; Charlie
said, “Wait, you’re not Greg. You’re
Juliette in disguise. That is such a total
Juliette thing to do…”

Robin just grinned and kissed me.

Quite slowly, quite carefully, and with
not a trace of English bashfulness.

I may have blushed again.

* * * *

Once a ball starts rolling, if there’s

nothing in its way, things happen fast.

Anyone watching from a distance

might have thought that nothing was
happening at all. We spent the day by the
pool, mostly. The odd phone call, a few

texts sent, half an hour on a laptop in the
shade: we weren’t exactly busy. Just
setting events in motion, lubricating their
progress, keeping an eye on things.

And soaking up sun and cool drinks

and each other’s company, hanging out
like

regular

people

on

holiday

somewhere special. Every now and then
I had to remind myself that this was their
own pool, Matthieu’s and Charlie’s; that
this was their own home, they lived
here, they lived like this on a daily
basis. At one point I did eye them and
murmur, “Don’t you people have jobs
you should be doing?”

“Absolutely,” Matt said, nodding

wisely. “We are—what’s that word,
Charlie? Skivvying?”

“Skiving. Skivvying would be

pretty much the opposite. But we’re not
actually skiving either. Uncle Maurice
gave us the week off. We only got back
from a long business trip last week, and
there’s a big expo coming up that we’ll
have to do all the work for;
betweentimes we get to play a little, so
we’ll do a better job later. He is a
master of human psychology, is Uncle
Maurice.”

He also wasn’t Charlie’s uncle,

except by virtue of a marriage that had
never actually happened yet, because
they were still waiting for gay marriage
to be legalized in France. Charlie had
been clearly and thoroughly adopted,
though. I was oddly envious, that the

thing I ran from so determinedly could
work so well for him. He almost made it
seem

desirable

for

others,

for

everyone…

I closed down that line of thought

swiftly and cynically, reminding myself
that his chosen family came complete
with a château and a business to work
for and a lot of money behind it, perfect
weather, and a world of travel
opportunities, which apparently sat very
well with Charlie where it wouldn’t so
much with me. Nor with Robin. I
glanced askance at him and said, “What
about you, then? Shouldn’t you be
working? Those carrots won’t pull
themselves, y’know.”

“They won’t, no—but they don’t

need pulling till Friday, and I’m kind of
hoping I’ll have someone to help me
then. Someone tall and lithe, who hasn’t
had enough sun recently. Talking of
which, turn around, and I’ll do your back
with Factor Fifty. You’ll burn if you’re
not careful, you pallid creature.”

I turned obediently, for the sheer

self-indulgence of it, his hands slick on
my skin; but I said, “Don’t try to distract
me. If the veg doesn’t need picking yet,
you still have an ocean of work to do on
the house. You told me that. Shouldn’t
you be at it now, instead of frittering
your time away with us?”

“Yes, of course I should—but I’m

self-employed, which means I have a
very understanding boss who has given

me also the week off. And next week
too, for some unfathomable reason. It
can’t have anything to do with a stray
Englishman who just happens to be
around at the moment, surely. Not when
he’s so keen to see the back of me.”

I might have refuted that. I might

have pointed out that it was him who’d
demanded to see—and fondle, under the
guise of sunblocking—the back of me;
only those slippery fingers of his were
trying to mock-choke me so that I
couldn’t actually talk, and I had to mock-
fight him off, and we were struggling so
hard and giggling so much that neither
one of us noticed the danger until we did
actually topple into the pool for real,
taking my lounger with us.

* * * *

Grandmère and Juliette arrived

back in the early evening, at cocktail
time. Grandmère shed her hat and
changed her smart town shoes, and
would have headed straight for the
kitchen except that we waylaid her.

“You’ve

had

a

hard

day’s

shopping,” we cried, relieving her of
parcels and bags. “Sit down, take the
weight off your feet”—that was my
contribution, and in English because I
couldn’t for the life of me think what the
French might be—“and relax. Here, this
is for you. Sit and enjoy, here on the
terrace in the last of the sun…”

The glass of kir royale that we

pressed into her hand was my other
contribution. The fizz was Matt’s own
wine, of course; what else? It went
remarkably well with cassis, to make a
drink more layered than the traditional,
more complex, just as delightful.

I had another ready for Juliette,

who took it and sipped it and eyed me
balefully over the rim. “And where is
Robin?” she demanded, meaning, You’ve
let him go home alone, haven’t you, you
fool of an Englishman?

“He’s in the kitchen,” I said

cheerfully. “Cooking tonight’s dinner, so
that Grandmère doesn’t have to.”

As soon as she heard that, of

course, Grandmère protested and tried to
struggle to her feet. It was unthinkable, a

guest in the house, cooking dinner!
Unheard of! Insupportable…!

But her tired feet got the better of

her, as we’d guessed they would after a
day of shopping with Juliette; and then
her family simply overwhelmed her.
Moral advantage, backed up by a cool
drink and a comfy chair: she didn’t stand
a chance.

It had, more or less, been my idea.

Charlie glanced across her acquiescent
head and mouthed, Juliette! at me. I
shrugged. At least he did it grinning, and
it was a fair accusation. I was absolutely
meddling once again in the family’s
affairs, if you wanted to look at it that
way. Or I was just saving an elderly
woman the effort of cooking a family

meal when she was tired, allowing her
to enjoy the generosity of others for
once. It was only fair; she was generous
to others day in and day out. To me
included. Indeed, to me particularly, as I
was no part of this family and only
passing through, a temporary guest,
experiencing generosity at every hand…

Suddenly I wanted very badly to be

with Robin in the kitchen: for his
company, for his wisdom, for whatever
small help I could be to him. I couldn’t
go, though, without Grandmère coming
with me. Just to talk, no doubt, to sit in a
corner and watch what he did. Except
that she was like Juliette herself: she
couldn’t conceivably watch without
wanting to interfere, to suggest a

different way of doing things. Look, let
me show you… And that was strictly
forbidden. The conspiracy demanded
that we keep her right here, where she
was. Which meant that I had to do
without Robin in my turn, which I was
finding unexpectedly difficult, however
much I liked the Romaines. It wasn’t the
language thing, they all spoke English as
well as I did, nearly, except perhaps for
Grandmère, and she did well enough. It
wasn’t because they were strangers;
after all, Robin was more of a stranger
still. It wasn’t because I lacked the
company of my own kind, with Matt and
Charlie both to hand. And I’d been fine,
perfectly at ease with the whole damn
family before I met Robin, so it wasn’t

that either, not some simple social
anxiety at being stranded here and
expected to deal.

Just, I missed him, that was all, and

I wanted to be with him. No: I wanted
him to be with me. Obviously, that was
what I meant. I wanted him to be here. It
was a shame for him to be missing this.
That was all.

Here came Juliette’s parents to join

us for predinner drinks—and here with
them was their son, her brother Paul,
unexpectedly dropping in. He was on
sabbatical, as it were, working in a
neighbor’s vineyard for the season—and
utterly enjoying the freedom of being out
from under the parental eye, according to
Juliette—but here he was tonight,

visiting

the

family

homestead

unannounced. And she was delighted to
see him, and that might almost have been
enough, except that it wasn’t.

I wasn’t the only one listening for

the sound of another car rumbling up the
valley.

Here it came now, into the stable

yard where the family parked up.

There were the sounds of its doors,

one and two. A driver and a passenger.

Here were the sounds of voices,

making their way around the house: two
young men, babbling away in French.

There was Juliette, suddenly still,

staring into the dark.

Here came the late arrivals, both of

them strangers to me, but I knew who
they were. One was Juliette’s other
brother, Henri: also farmed out to a
neighbor to learn new ways of
viniculture, also apparently dropping in
for dinner with his long-suffering family.

The other—well. It hadn’t been

easy to arrange, but it surely couldn’t
have been hard to guess even if you
were a total stranger to all concerned.

The other, of course, was Juliette’s

boyfriend Luc. He’d been sent on a more
serious

long-term

training

course,

working all over Europe as an intern for
various related businesses. Currently, he
was with a wine merchant in Berlin. Or
at least he had been, until we’d got busy
this morning. We’d begged him a few

days off— “It’s a family emergency,
his girlfriend is going to drive his
whole family crazy if he doesn’t come
out here and calm her down”—and
organized a flight for him, sworn
everyone to secrecy, arranged for Henri
to pick him up at the airport, and here he
was.

And Juliette, who had of course

been talking nineteen to the dozen:
Juliette was struck utterly, delightfully
dumb. It was beautiful to see, how she
blundered away from us all with her
eyes aswim. How she headed directly
for him, like a bee to the hive. How she
ignored her brother entirely, though
Henri was reputedly her favorite. How
she clenched her fists in Luc’s jacket and

tried to shake him, apparently, tried to
scold, except that she still had no voice,
and she was shaking herself, there was
no power in her arms, just an
inexpressible need. And he wrapped his
own arms around her and bent his head
to hers, and—

And suddenly everybody was very

busy looking around for someone to talk
to, or for their drink, or to watch the
rising moon above the valley wall.

Me, I clearly hadn’t been paying

too much attention to what was going on
around me. Behind me. Because
suddenly I was enveloped myself by a
strong pair of arms, and a voice in my
ear murmured, “You? Are a genius, of
sorts. Bravo.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in the

kitchen?” I muttered gruffly. “You’d
better get back there quick, before
Grandmère spots you.”

“I will—if you come with me. If

those two can come over all Romeo and
Juliet on the balcony here—”

“It’s a terrace—”
“Whatever, then I say you and I can

sex it up discreetly in the kitchen. It’s a
reward.”

“For you, or for me?”
“That would depend on your point

of view. Maybe we both get rewarded,
two for the price of one. Every good boy
deserves favor, and we’re both being
good

tonight. You have successfully

silenced Juliette, which is a little
miracle, and which I just had to emerge
from my cavernous hothouse to observe;
a n d I have successfully blocked
Grandmère from entering said hothouse,
which is pretty miraculous in and of
itself. All have won, and all shall have
prizes. You be my prize, I’ll be yours.
Come with me, my prize…”

So I followed him through to the

kitchen, where we didn’t really sex it up
at all. Mostly I perched on a stool out of
his way and watched while he chopped
and stirred and rolled out pastry.
Occasionally I topped up his glass and
my own, from the chef’s-perk bottle on
the counter; but actually we mostly

ignored them. He was too busy, and I
was too distracted, following him with
my eyes from counter to stove to sink to
kitchen table. When he cooked, it was
like a dance: graceful and precise and
never a wasted motion. I could have sat
and watched all night. Well, half the
night. So long as we got to spend the
other half in bed, being graceful and
precise and never wasteful with each
other.

Even

so—or

actually

maybe

because, because the one thought drove
the other—I did have to say aloud what
I’d thought before. “Looking at the two
of them, though? Seeing how needy she
is? I am so, so glad not to be in love that
way. Not to need someone else to

complete me.”

He glanced at me sideways,

smiling. “Poor Greg,” he said.

“Oh, what? What do you mean,

what’s to pity in that?”

“Only that you try so hard to sound

like a mean bastard, and all the time
your fundamental niceness will keep
showing through. If you were really that
hard, you wouldn’t ever have thought of
bringing Luc back for her, let alone spent
half the day organizing it. And
subsidizing it, don’t think I missed that
either. The truth is, you’re soft as butter
underneath.”

Am not. I didn’t say that, though,

just: “I only did it to keep her out of our
hair,” in a sullen mutter.

“Of course you did. You keep

telling yourself that. Hell, maybe you
even believe yourself—though if you do,
you’re the only one who does. Now stop
talking”—and he slipped me a passing
kiss to snatch my breath away, just to be
sure of it—“I’m ready to plate up, so
you can come and help me carry.”

Dinner was a triumph, only

underscored by the fact that Juliette
hardly said a word. She didn’t eat much
either, just nibbling randomly and
indiscriminately from her plate or from
Luc’s. He wasn’t much better company;
he had to be nudged into talking about
life in Berlin, and his anecdotes kept
petering out as his eyes and his attention

slid inexorably back toward Juliette.
Shortly after we’d finished eating, Mme
Romaine lost patience and sent them
away upstairs.

“…And that,” said Henri, as we

watched the two of them scurry off hand
in hand, “is another little miracle for
today. It’s probably the first time since
she was six that she’s actually done what
Maman told her, and gone to bed without
arguing.”

Robin and I weren’t actually that

far behind the lovebirds. With the
household’s two sons back for the night,
it was obvious that they wanted an
evening en famille, so we made our
excuses and left them to it.

Besides, watching the youngsters

canoodle had obviously given Robin
some ideas, beyond that ridiculous
notion that I was a poorly disguised
romantic. He was unreasonably keen to
get me behind a closed door and put
those ideas into measurable effect, so I
was… Yeah. Unreasonably cooperative.
Utterly beyond reason, indeed, all
instinct and craving. The way I never
was, the way I hadn’t been since
adolescence. Where was my self-
control, my discipline, my oh so
necessary rulebook? The wrong side of
that seductive door.

Hell, it’s only for two weeks. Less

than that, now. I can afford a
fortnight’s self-indulgence. Then I’ll go
home—alone!—and get back on the

wagon, take charge, be a bastard once
again. Robin doesn’t think I’m really
like that, but he’s wrong, so wrong…

* * * *

Those weeks weren’t all about

early nights and late mornings, frantic
sex at every chance we could grab.
There was some of that, to be sure—all
right, there was a lot of that—but some
days we got up early to work on the
house or pull vegetables or man the
market stall. Some days we got up early
to play tourist, driving to Avignon or
Arles with cameras at the ready. If we
took more photos of each other than of
picturesque Roman ruins, well, that’s
just classic tourist behavior, and we

were being ironic about it, obviously.
Playing

tourist,

clowning

around,

mugging for the lens the way young men
obnoxiously do.

That’s our story, anyway, and

we’re sticking to it.

Some nights we sat up late and

talked with the Romaines or some of
them or one of them or none, just by
ourselves sometimes. Taking outrageous
advantage of their deep cellars and
generous natures, talking to match the
mood of what we were drinking, serious
with the brandy or frivolous with the
fizz. It’s odd how drink can do that, and
odd too how there always seemed to be
something to say that fitted. Even left to
ourselves, Robin and I could be deeply

engaged one night and stupidly giggly the
next, just like adolescents once again.
Too much fun was rotting my brain,
apparently;

I

hadn’t

been

this

bubbleheaded in years. Again I swore
mighty oaths to fix myself as soon as I
got back home. Meantime I just sailed
gaily on, into my second teenage. It was
even easier in company, especially with
Luc and Juliette around. They were
barely out of their first teenage, still
trapped in the throes of first-love
infatuation despite all their years
together.

“They say you never forget your

first,” I growled to Robin one evening,
while the kids were making out in the
pool right in front of us, “but honestly,

don’t you think they ought at least to give
amnesia a chance? Try a second, a third,
just for variety’s sake? It’s not healthy to
grab the first boy who asks you out and
then just never let him go.”

“Oh, hush. You’re only grouching

because you think it suits your image, but
you’re wrong about that too. Actually,
you’re

pretty

much

wrong

about

everything,” Robin said cheerfully, his
head cushioned against my leg. “And
young Luc is not exactly struggling to be
free, as far as I have noticed. I think they
just landed lucky. They found their one
and only, and good luck to them. Not
everyone feels the need to fuck
everything that moves in their vicinity.”
He poked a finger firmly into my ribs,

making me squirm and choke and almost
spill my daiquiri.

“Hey. I don’t want to fuck Juliette.

Or Luc either.” Despite his parading a
smooth tanned healthy body in front of
me, barely clad in a pair of Speedos. It
was something of a surprise, to realize
suddenly how very uninterested I was.
Not that I was in the habit of chasing
straight boys, or stealing other people’s
lovers—but even so. He was a loose-
limbed young man, still carrying the
memory of awkwardness in his bones,
like a gangling puppy not quite grown
yet into grace—and even so. Shouldn’t I
at least be feeling a twinge of
dispassionate desire, even if I never
meant to follow through on it?

Maybe there was something wrong

with me. It was too warm to worry,
though, and the cocktails were icy good,
and Robin was way too cozy, settled
against my leg this way. I was probably
just tired, or relaxed, or…

The word “content” strayed across

my mind, just for a moment. I shied away
from it quickly. That had always been a
danger signal for me, a red flag. Content
people settled for what they had. And
then they settled down, and then they
were stuck, nowhere that I wanted ever
to find myself.

Just now I found myself surrounded

by content people who seemed happy, or
happy people who seemed content—but
I shied away from that too. If a man can

shy in all directions at once, refusing to
look at anything around him.

After a few days, Luc did have to

go back to Berlin. Which threatened an
unhappy malcontent Juliette again, until
her father proposed the easy and obvious
solution.

“I suppose we’ll just have to send

her with him.” He directed a baleful
glare in her ecstatic direction. “To work,
mark you, not to be idle at our expense.
I’m sure Hermann can find a use for an
extra pair of hands in his warehouse.
That’s if you want her, of course, Luc? If
you have space? I doubt your lodgings
are very spacious.”

“Oh,” Luc said casually, “I expect I

can fit her in. She doesn’t take up much

room. As long as she leaves all her
suitcases behind, and—oof!”

That was when she sat on him, and

neither one of them made much sense
after that.

So the next day we waved two

people off at the airport, rather than just
the one; and if the château was quieter
after that, it only meant that I could hear
my own inner voices all the louder.

Which was maybe why I was so

firm with Robin when he tried to make
plans for the next day and I said, “No.
I’m sorry, but I need to work tomorrow.
I’m going home at the weekend, and I
need to get myself back into the swim of
what’s happening. I’ve been out of touch
for too long as it is. I’ve booked a Skype

meeting for ten o’clock, and after that
it’s e-mails and catch-up reading all the
day.”

He shrugged. “Fine. Bring your

laptop, you can work anywhere you like
around the house. I won’t disturb you,
except to make you eat lunch and keep
your liquids topped up. I’ll be busy
anyway. I just like having you around—
and then you’ll be right there when
we’re both done, and we won’t need to
make plans or arrangements or anything,
we can just do what we feel like at the
time.”

“I don’t know, Rob. I can’t go on

treating this place like a hotel, coming
and going at the drop of a hat. They
never know whether I’m here or with

you…”

“Actually, they always know that

you’re with me, whether we’re here or
not. They don’t seem to have minded so
far. And what, is it better to treat the
house like a business center? Hole up in
your room and tappy-typey all the day?
Better get out from under their hair and
come to mine.”

“Your hair?” I said, but it wasn’t

really funny. And then, “I didn’t even
know you had Wi-Fi out in the wilds
there. Is it stable? More to the point, is it
secure? I bet it’s not, and I don’t just
need a reliable connection, I need one
that my contractors can trust. Maybe I’d
better just stay here.”

“My Wi-Fi,” he said gently, “is

solid as a rock, and I have the strongest
encryption this side of a bank. Not
because I need it, just because I can. All
cooks are geeks, didn’t you know? I put
the network together myself—and if you
can hack into it without the password,
I’ll drive you to dinner in Marseille
tomorrow, pay for everything, and stay
sober too for the drive home.”

Well, after a challenge like that, of

course I had to sit up half the night
trying. When I finally slipped into bed,
defeated, he was still wide-awake and
waiting to hear me grovel. Which I did,
but my only real regret was the death of
my good intentions. After that, I couldn’t
possibly hold out any longer.

Also, of course, it was understood

that I was now buying dinner in
Marseille when the working day was
done.

“You’ll still have to stay sober,

mind,” I grumbled against his neck. “I’m
not insured to drive anything of yours.”

“We can fix that. Tomorrow. On my

rock-solid Wi-Fi. I’ll just add you to my
insurance. It’ll take ten minutes, tops.”

* * * *

Boxed in at every turn, outclassed

and outplayed, I should have been
resentful and mean-spirited all the next
day, feeling alternately bullied and
trapped. It was what I waited for; what I
hoped for, almost, just to prove to
myself that I was right. I should be

hankering for distance now, fighting for
it, getting ready to leave.

I expected to come over all

adolescent again, to hunker sulky over
my keyboard and get almost nothing
done. That would be a flag I could wave
at myself: See? I told you so…!

Instead…
Instead, from first to last, from

croissants in the kitchen to cocktails in
the garden as the sun set behind the hill,
it was a lovely day. A perfect day. I
used the half-finished study for my
Skype meeting, and found the Wi-Fi
connection as solid as Robin had
promised. After that, my laptop and I
simply followed the sun around the
house. I worked indoors and out,

perching on windowsills or old lichen-
covered stone walls as the whimsy took
me; and I really did work. I touched base
with a lot of contacts, negotiated for a
new project, wrote code solidly to end
the day. Between stints, Robin came and
went, with drinks and snacks and his
soft, warm willing mouth. Half-naked
and golden from the garden, sun-ripe,
like a distillation of pure sex. At last he
tempted me away from the laptop, and
that mouth, that body seduced me among
the tall canes of flowering beans. I
suppose we were discreet, or discreet
enough; I doubt if anyone could have
seen us from the road. I’m not sure that
either of us actually looked around to
check.

We shared a shower after, then

drifted irresistibly outside again, for
sundowners.

“I guess I’m not driving you to

Marseille tonight,” I said softly. “Sorry
about that.”

He shrugged and smiled. “I’ll take

a rain check.”

You’ll never cash it. These are our

last days. If the Romaines ever invite
me again, it’ll be too late; you will
have sold the house and moved on. And
besides, I never do that. I don’t look
back. You know that, I told you. I’m
sorry if it’s too soon, but really, this is
it…

Instead of the long drive and the

fancy dinner, we shared a simple supper

of roast chicken and salad, eating with
our fingers in the kitchen and talking
about his yen to keep chickens of his
own, if he ever had a house he could
hold on to. I thought maybe we’d drink
ourselves insensible, but actually we left
the wine unfinished. When our voices
grew thick with yearning, we just
abandoned the bottle and went to bed.
Sometimes it’s easier to fuck than think,
and if you’re lucky, you can sleep
afterward, and that’s easier than thinking
too. If you’re not lucky, if you just can’t
sleep—hell, you can always fuck again.

We fucked till we were sodden

with it, sodden with each other, far too
weary to think.

Next

morning

we

dragged

ourselves reluctantly, eventually out of
bed, and he drove me back to the
château. My last day: we’d agreed that I
should spend it with my hosts. This was
good-bye, then. Neither one of us wanted
to make a big deal out of it; a kiss and a
wistful grin, and I’d stand by the door to
watch as he left. That would be plenty.

I’d had practice enough at these

brief and meaningless farewells. Parting
was second nature to me. It must have
been him, then, who made a mess of it:
him who clung too long, who kissed too
deeply, who really didn’t want to let me
go.

If there were tears smeared

between us, they must have been his.

No shame, then, no surprise if I

didn’t stay to see him drive away. That
had been too hard a parting, on both of
us. I just blundered indoors and up to my
room, glad to encounter no one at this
time of day. Too late for breakfast, too
soon for lunch: even Grandmère had
abandoned her beloved kitchen for an
hour, so that I could sneak through
unobserved, unquestioned, undelayed.

Probably I should’ve buckled down

to work again. Certainly that was what
I’d intended: to work and pack and be
minimally social as necessary. Hole up
as much as I was allowed to, practice
being gone.

But I didn’t want to pack, and I

couldn’t focus on work, or anything.

After a while, it dawned on me that I
was really restless in my own company,
as though I’d forgotten how to be alone.
Or it had lost its value to me, or I didn’t
seem able to enjoy it somehow, or…
Was this what “lonely” meant? I didn’t
know, I wasn’t sure—but I couldn’t
stand myself after a while.

I thought maybe I just needed to

walk off this mood, settle back into my
own bones again. I’d try to slip out as
quietly as I’d slipped in, go for a tramp
along the canal. Or a cycle ride, maybe:
work up a sweat, see if that helped
any…

I didn’t exactly tiptoe down the

stairs again, but I did kind of slither.
And huffed with relief when I reached

the kitchen unchallenged and found it
shady and quiet as before; and was
halfway to the back door when her voice
arrested me.

“Greg. Good, I was hoping to have

some time with you. Come, we will sit
in the sun and take a glass together, and
you can tell me everything that is in your
heart.”

A sudden light illuminated her face,

as she swung the refrigerator door open.

Not Juliette, of course; she was

seven

hundred

miles

away.

Not

Grandmère either. She was more like
her granddaughter, not likely to ask what
I was feeling, only to tell me what I
ought to feel. No, this was the third of
the

Romaine

women

who

was

ambushing

me

now,

the

middle

generation, Juliette’s mother. Claudine, I
remembered, after a brief inward
struggle. We hadn’t mixed much before
this, hadn’t really talked at all; she and
her husband both tended to hold
themselves apart, except at meals. It was
a kindness in them, perhaps, not to
inhibit a younger generation. Now,
perhaps, I had to pay for it.

Well, she and all her family had

been extraordinarily generous to me,
extraordinarily welcoming of the near
stranger. One last tête-à-tête, a heart-to-
heart if that was what she wanted: I
figured I owed her that much. Besides, I
was good at this. I’d been practicing
sincerity for years. I could leave her

with a warm and abiding idea of myself,
the kind of memory that leads to
Christmas

cards

and

affectionate

invitations that lay no burden on either
side.

She handed me a chill, heavy

bottle. I took it with care, and
nevertheless startled myself with my
own clumsiness as I said, “I, um, I don’t
feel much like celebrating, to be honest.”

“I understand,” she said. “But

champagne is not only for toasts and
parties. I always drink something
sparkling when I am sad or alone.”

It wasn’t champagne, of course: not

in this house, not now that they had their
own fizz. I reached down two tall flutes
on command and followed obediently as

she led me out onto the terrace, to the far
corner where a small table and two
chairs were waiting for us.

That only renewed my sense of

being ambushed. Everything was here
except the ice bucket. Perhaps she didn’t
expect to be long enough to need it,
despite the hot sun; perhaps she wanted
only a quiet word, something I’d done or
left undone. Or was it to be a gentle
maternal

warning, Don’t break that

boy’s heart or something like it? Too
late, if so: but if Robin’s heart was
suffering, it was his own fault and his
own problem. I’d made no promises. I’d
spelled it out, indeed, that he should
look for none.

I drew the cork, poured once,

twice, felt the air freshen with the
wine’s sharp scent as it frothed and
hissed in the glasses. Then I set the
bottle in the shade of the stone
balustrade, just to keep it that little bit
cooler that little bit longer, just in case;
and then I looked at her.

“Well,” I said carefully, “I’m

obviously not alone.” I tilted my glass a
little, in a private salute. “I’m a little sad
to be going home, of course. I’ve had a
wonderful time here, and made some
good friends, I hope; but…” A shrug of
inevitability rounded that sentence off
neatly.

Not neatly enough, apparently. She

cocked her head on one side and said,
“But?”

“Well, I do have to go back. My

ticket’s nonrefundable.”

She made a dismissive gesture, and

quite right too. “Tickets are neither here
nor there. It is a short flight, a cheap
flight. You flew Luc to us, as a kindness
to my daughter; we could fly you back to
England at any time. If you chose to stay
longer. You would be very welcome
here, or I think with Robin. Or as you
are now, coming and going between the
two. Why not?”

“Why not? Well, because I have to

work…”

That wasn’t even worth a gesture,

apparently, before it was dismissed.
“You work from home, mostly; can it
matter, where that home is? You meant

to work yesterday at Robin’s house.
How was that?”

“Oh, that was fine, but—well, I

can’t do that every day, obviously…”

“Why not? It is not obvious to me,

why not.”

Damn. It wasn’t obvious to me,

either, not in any way that would prove a
telling argument. I could say, He hasn’t
asked me, but that would be feeble. I
hadn’t given him the opportunity. Indeed,
I’d deliberately avoided it or worse:
prevented it, negated it, made it
impossible to say.

I could say, He’s just a fling, a

fuck, a holiday affair—but that was true
only because I was making it true, only
because I was going home. Robin didn’t

want me to go. He hadn’t said it aloud,
but his body had, his hands had as they
clutched me during that final frantic kiss.
Or had that only been me after all, my
body, my hands…?

I said, “It might work in the short

term, I suppose, but Robin has to sell
that house and start again, with another
broken shell of a place. I can’t do that
the way he can, I can’t camp for a month
or two with no power and no Internet. I
need reliable connectivity.”

“You would have it,” she said

quietly, “if you bought a half share in his
house. Then he wouldn’t need to sell. He
could grow his vegetables and plant
vines and finish the building work, and
you two would have a charming place to

live, while he worked on another house
to sell. Why not? You have some friends
in the area already, he has many. It could
be wonderful for you both.”

I shook my head, helplessly. Again,

relentlessly, she said, “Why not?”

She wasn’t so different after all,

from her mother and her daughter. Her
approach was a little different, but the
purpose was just the same. She’d
spotted what was best, and she meant to
steer me there.

This time, desperately, I did say,

“Because he hasn’t asked me.”

“You could ask him,” she suggested

simply. “Perhaps he’s only waiting.”

Perhaps he was. He’d put me on his

insurance, after all. That might not have
been a joke after all, nor a sudden
convenience we’d failed to take
advantage of. I’d never been on anyone
else’s insurance before; just the thought
of it made me want to run away. Perhaps
he knew that. He should do. After all I’d
told him, he’d know for sure that the next
move—if there was one—would have to
come from me. Perhaps he was hopeful
even now, watching the hours tick away,
knowing precisely the time of my flight
in the morning…

But, “I can’t,” I said.
“Why not? People do. Sometimes it

answers very well.”

“Not for me. Not ever.” It’s a

promise I made to myself…

And then it turned out that the bottle

didn’t stand a chance of warming up,
because we needed the whole thing right
now, or I did. I used to use my bad
history as a weapon, to keep people at a
distance; now suddenly it was a
meltdown story, and I was the one who
was melting.

She sipped thoughtfully, listening; I

talked, and drank, and talked some more.
Ripped through all my easy platitudes,
and all my masks; every defensive wall
I’d built around me turned out to be
weak as paper, if they were kicked away
from inside. I was in tears before the
end, naked and soul-stripped and
despising myself.

She didn’t seem to despise me. She

suggested gently that my family was not
my fault, and that it was entirely
understandable if for a while I’d thrown
the baby out with the bathwater. That
didn’t need to be forever. Other
families, she suggested, were also
available: with an intimate little gesture
toward herself, her home, her own.

I said, “This isn’t… None of this is

how I live. I don’t just mean your
château, it’s not about that. But you, all
of you, and Robin too—you have a kind
of life here that’s nothing, nothing like
mine…”

“I think that is what I’m saying,”

she pointed out. “That your life doesn’t
have to stay the same. It could be like
ours if you allow it: full of love and

sunshine,

and

family,

yes. Chosen

family. When I was young, a wise man—
he was my uncle, actually, a watch
mender in Bordeaux—he said to me,
‘Don’t marry the one who fits your life,
chérie. Marry the one who’ll change it.’
And so I did. And so could you: yes, and
change his life too. I think he’d like that.
I think he’d love to have you with him.
You don’t need to be frightened of the
commitment. One day at a time, that’s
how you build a marriage; and then one
day you look back, and see it standing
there behind you like a château, and see
how very worthwhile it was. And how
easy, when all it meant was that you had
to be happy with the man you love, one
day and then another and another. You

should take that bottle in now and go up
to your room, and wash your face and
call Robin.”

“Uh, it’s empty, I think…”
“Then take another. I think it will

be a long conversation. Oh, and you
might want to cancel your flight first, so
that he knows you are serious.”

* * * *

She’s not often wrong, Claudine

Romaine, but she was wrong about one
thing that day. It wasn’t a long
conversation at all. The longest time
might have been while his phone was
ringing and ringing, and I was waiting
and waiting, always on the edge of
giving up, hanging up, losing my nerve.

Running away.

Only I didn’t know how I’d explain

that to Mme Romaine or to myself or
anyone; so I hung on and hung on, just
that little bit longer.

Just long enough, as it turned out.

At last, at long last he picked up,
breathing hard, barely gasping a hullo.
What, was he fucking someone else
already? I could barely credit the spear
of jealousy that pierced me at the
thought. Again I almost hung up, almost;
but I did the grown-up thing instead,
swallowed down the lump in my throat
and said, “Robin, hi. It’s Greg. Sorry, is
this a bad time?”

“God, no. Never. Only I was the far

end of the garden, I barely heard the

phone, and I had to run, just in case…”

“In case of what?”
“In case of this,” he said simply.

“It’s you. I was kind of thinking it might
be. Hoping so, anyway.”

Those few words seemed to say so

much more; now I had another lump to
swallow. And my own voice was rough
and awkward as I said, “Unh. Yeah. Can
we talk?”

“I’m counting on it. Your place or

mine?”

I meant here and now, on the

phone—but suddenly that was the last
thing I wanted. Here would be okay,
people would leave us alone, but we’d
both be aware of them anyway: their

curiosity, their hopes, their intentions…

“Don’t move a muscle,” I said.

“I’m on my way.” To his ground, where
we could be truly alone together, where
everything would fall into place if we
could only do this right. Nervousness
came over me, all of a rush: it was on
me, I knew, to make it work. He was in
place already; I was the one who had to
move. Literally and metaphorically too.

Right now, I was moving fast,

because that was easier than sitting still
and thinking. Now that I’d started, I was
in a terrible hurry. Even so, something in
me remembered to keep hold of those
bottles of fizz; though I was treating them
shockingly, pelting back downstairs,
tossing them into that old backpack,

borrowing that and the bike again,
pedaling pell-mell toward Robin.

I didn’t really know the way, but I

kind of worked it out as I went along. At
any rate, I found him. Found him waiting
for me in his open doorway, as grimy
from the fields as I was sweaty from the
ride; and he led me upstairs by the hand
without a word, into the bathroom,
where we peeled off unnecessary
clothes and soaked and soaped and
washed each other, and then didn’t have
time to get dry before stiff cocks were
suddenly frantic, and we barely needed
each other’s help to come, right then and
there as we clung tight together. And I
guess it was just the association of ideas

that triggered my foolish tongue, because
I needed to be so serious with him, there
was such a lot we needed to talk about,
but still the first thing I actually said
was, “Oh, damn—I forgot to put the fizz
on ice…”

For a moment he just stared at me;

then he cracked up laughing. And then so
did I, and after that everything was easy.
By the time the fizz was cold enough to
drink, we’d done all the serious talking
already and had nothing more to do but
seal the bargain. It was the first step in
the long, scary, irresistible process that
would be the rest of our lives, and how
better to wash it down than with pink
champagne?

Loose Id Titles by Thom Lane

The FRENCH WINE Series

White Flag

Red Light

Pink Fizz

* * * *

The TALES OF AMARANTH Series

Dark Heart

Healing Heart

Hidden Heart

Runaway Heart

Thom Lane

Author Thom Lane is an English

writer who has published romances and
erotica as well as fantasies and other
books under other names. In his tales of
Amaranth, he is combining as many of
those genres as possible…

Table of Contents

Pink Fizz
Loose Id Titles by Thom Lane
Thom Lane

Table of Contents

Pink Fizz
Loose Id Titles by Thom Lane
Thom Lane