Morning Sunday, July 7th, 2024

Garin had pushed their luggage cart through Newark Liberty International departures terminal to the check-in counter and then set them loose with hugs and kisses at the security checkpoint. Almost 9 hours later, on landing, Alan taught Penny how to blow the pressure out of her Eustachian tube with the Valsalva maneuver, and she was relieved with awe that it worked. On the other side, at Charles de Gaulle, coming out of arrivals, Penny, Alan, and Lyrou found Gramie waiting. Alan and Penny went straight for the Gramie sandwich, locking their arms together around her in a ring of grandkids. Lyrou was stunned for a moment, and privately saddened, to see how small her maman was, shorter than Alan, about even with Penny in height, but also noticeably older. Of course, Lyrou had seen her maman’s face on video call; wrinkling, sagging, greying… but in-person she really saw a different face from the one she’d said goodbye to years ago. And worse, her maman’s posture had slumped, her head positioned a touch forward, shoulders in, her musculature had slackened, and she was now frail and elderly in body in a way diminished from the fuller, taller, healthier figure Lyrou remembered.

As Alan purposely hugged too long and practiced his best la bise air-kisses, Gramie could see in Lyrou’s eyes what she was thinking; she recognized her daughter’s regret and sorrow at the realization of how these years that had passed were not mere numbers, “Faisons en sorte que vous trois arriviez chez moi! Je n’oserais rien vous demander après huit heures d’avion… sauf que si je ne vous mets pas au lit, vous devez au moins me laisser vous nourrir!”

Penny and Alan knocked heads together, whispering to decode what Gramie had said, “Demander is demand, vous trois arrivez is you three arrive…”

Lyrou pushed her luggage cart one-handed, taking her maman’s elbow by the other, “The sight of all these thin Europeans, we must look huge, Alan. We mustn’t eat anything while we’re here.”

Alan gestured that his lips were zipped, taking the luggage cart and pushing it in place of his mom. Gramie objected, “This is the one city in the whole world you must eat, and I have stocked up my pantry and made a list of must-taste dishes. You will get the full-bellied breadth of your national cuisine, I solemnly pledge.”

⚜

Evening Friday, July 19th, 2024

Coming up on two weeks since returning to Paris, the matrilineal trio and one Alan had taken Paris in. Walking through the streets of her childhood, Lyrou had noticed what had changed and what had stayed the same, such as the boulangerie, where she picked up a warm, crusty baguette some mornings, with its fresh scent and incomparably quaint aesthetic.

Their first formal stop was the Catholic girls’ school she had attended, where a familiar teacher welcomed them inside for a quiet tour; Lyrou shared stories of her time in the classrooms, the girls she girlied around with, the nuns who taught them over their constant chit-chattering, and the chapel where she had lip-synced, gone to confession for that little stuff which she didn’t mind telling an adult, and prayed for the things of this world you’re supposedly not to pray for. Though Alan and Penny were curious, they didn’t quite grasp its meaning for their mom. They made a few comparisons and contrasts with their school in Edgewater: “The classrooms are so small, it looks like a cross between a wizarding school and a cathedral.”

They continued on to the Louvre, despite the heightened security ahead of the big games, where the children spotted Amor et Psyche and recalled their story, as Garin had told it, to Gramie. She replied, “That’s a fine lesson to take from it. I wish I had been told this rendition 40 years ago.” Lyrou thought to herself that this summer was the farthest and longest the two had been away from their dad, and yet they still carried him within.

Lyrou took advantage of a lull in the crowd traffic and pointed out the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. The day ended with a picnic courtesy; Gramie in the Jardin des Tuileries, where she laid out cheeses, baguettes, and charcuterie under the shade. Alan and Penny played near the fountains while Lyrou and Gramie sat together. “Alan aime bien ici. Je peux l'inscrire pour un an, il y a un programme pour ça.”

Lyrou ate, ignoring the request except to answer, “C'est possible.”

⚜

Noon Wednesday, July 24th, 2024

The summer stretched hot, a megalopolis screaming outside his window as Garin leaned back in his sleek, ergonomic chair. His eyes scanned over yet another set of projections dancing across his screen. Some would be cold and indifferent to the mess of figures he scried; to him, it was alive, and it made him alive. This is what making a living meant to Garin. 

In July, Garin had met Mel and Terry at a sprawling event hosted in the cavernous showroom of Mel’s private car gallery. The space had been designed to Mel’s specifications to look like an upscale museum, the polished concrete floors and whitewashed walls a backdrop to a collection of vintage cars worth millions. The place smelled of fine leather and engine oil, the sharp scent of expensive cigars and aged Scotch, too. Clients in tailored suits and polished shoes circled the showroom like hammerhead sharks, their laughter deep and self-assured, while the cars gleamed under spotlights as Mel's prized trophies. Mel spotted a “top-tier mover” enter, asked Garin and Terry to hold down the fort, and invited this guy to jump in the driver's seat of whichever showpiece caught his eye. Mel rumbled out of there like a teen stealing dad’s car to tear up the streets; business. Not such as in boardrooms or trading floors, but in places like this, jokes and proposals are exchanged over expensive hors d’oeuvres and chilled champagne. Garin and Terry did as ordered, attending to the lower-tier panjandrum movers, with the ambition that in the next decade or two it’d be their own impressive collections and their sovereign place to single out the biggest fish in the pond.

⚜

Noon Wednesday, July 31st, 2024

They boarded a Seine River cruise, gliding past the reconfigured Notre Dame and under the Pont Neuf. In Montmartre, Lyrou and Gramie led them through the cobbled streets, past the Sacré-Cœur. They walked down the Champs-Élysées, admiring the Beaux-Arts architecture and the neoclassical Arc de Triomphe. The summer games had brought to Paris the peoples of the planet, and though it wasn’t quite 8 billion bodies, it seemed to be just shy of that. They attended an outdoor silent cinema in Parc de la Villette that Penny found delightful despite the body odor and mosquitoes. Alan slapped them from her arms, “You’re going to be the next chikungunya case.”

Lyrou with a quick spray of repellent, “Don’t scare her, Alan.”

In the Musée d’Orsay, browsing about the train station turned museum, Gramie explained to Penny and Alan the Impressionists’ outlook, “They wanted to convey how the scene felt, not just how it looked. They weren’t photographers or realists, but had imagination.”

Alan saw that Penny liked it and scoffed to provoke her, “I could paint that.”

Penny turned, then turned back to look at the painting, then, unable to bite her tongue a second longer, turned to face Alan once more, “You could paint it now, but you wouldn’t think to paint it before seeing it. That’s because the artist was original, and you’re not.”

Alan scoffed louder, “Yeaaah. I painted a boat picture in art class like this, but better, way before this plein air did.” Alan waved dismissively at the 152-year-old masterpiece.

Penny gritted her teeth and pointed to the date on the caption plaque below, “Monet, 1872. Idiot.”

Lyrou tapped Penny’s shoulder, “You were so correct until you spewed ‘unoriginal idiot’. Please Pin-Pin.”

Penny calmed herself and continued on to the next painting, Alan following, “You don’t pronounce the T in Monet.”

Penny sighed, at Alan but also herself, she knew that... but she’d pronounced the “t” anyway, “Merci, idio.”

Chuckling, “The repartee will kill me.” Gramie interrupted to bring peace, in a pleasant tone, “Tomorrow, we’ll visit the marché together. And Penny, I’ll show you how to pick the best strawberries. We’re at the end of the season, so it must be tomorrow. And Alan, we’ll find you the perfect beret.” 

Alan winced, “Sorry, but I don’t want to wear it.”

To Alan’s surprise, Gramie clasped her hands in delight, “Alan! Such a contrarian spirit.”

Penny, with her hands on her hips, “Why can’t you wear the stupid beret for Gramie? You always wear a hat, it’s just another hat!”

Gramie lit up, “Penny! Such spectacular deconstructionism!”

Gramie again pressed Lyrou to agree to one or both kids staying with her for a year, promising to thoroughly Frenchify them and give them a better education than she assumed they were getting in the U.S., Lyrou clarified, “They have an excellent district in Edgewater. And…”

Gramie spoke over her, “Non. Non. They’d have a disciplined, strict, character-building education here. It isn’t just about grades here, but about the full child, making a complete young adult. Like you, Lyrou.”

Alan liked the idea of staying a full year. “I want to be a full child!”

Penny was ecstatic, “I want to stay, I want to stay!”

But Lyrou declined, “You’re too young, and you’ll change your mind no sooner than you’re left behind. Dans le cas d'Alan, c'est possible.”

⚜

Noon Monday, August 5th, 2024

Lyrou met her ex. Vincent, her last boyfriend before leaving for the US. It was through a neighbor whose sister still held regular contact with him.  Having gotten his permission, this go-between sent Lyrou his contact, and from there they reconnected online. Then they met for an early evening walk in the Trocadéro Gardens. There he appeared at the entry gate, tall, slim, and dressed politically, "Salutations, ancien amour d'une autre vie."

"Le chevalier croisé? J'ai entendu dire que tu fais de grandes choses avec ta vie." She gave him his accolades, which he received with an air kiss.

"You haven't aged badly," he said kindly and truthfully.

"Nor have you." She meant it, however far his hairline had given ground to forehead.

Twisting up in pleasant surprise, "Nor? You speak English proficiently now?"

Defending herself, "I spoke English when you tutored me in it."

"Not much. Have you improved?" he frowned in interest.

"I should hope so. Am I not proving it? You are the one who convinced me to take my English studies seriously," she gave him ample credit, given it was her ticket to a new life.

"I should hope so. I should hope so. Nice fixed expression, you probably have a few more memorized," he complimented her as they walked the path.

"Alors, tu fais quoi pour ton parti politique?" She wanted to hear about his career success.

Sharp, angular eyes behind his big glasses, "I'm Director of Communications & Media Strategy for Rassemblement National. I met your adoptive country's president a few years ago."

Lyrou was definitely impressed; her eyes widened, "The last one?"

"And future," he added, as if it was insider knowledge.

"You think he'll win?" Lyrou really trusted his insight.

"Not that I think he'll win, but I know your young country won’t elect a woman to its highest office, and it won’t elect another black commander-in-chief now that it has a token to pull out of its pocket to rebuke anyone who calls it racist.” He poked at her place in America.

Lyrou flipped his criticism in defense of the sweet land of liberty, “Will our home country here elect a woman to its highest office?”

“No. Better for our movement, it will put a woman in prison for being poised to be elected to its highest office.” They walked beneath low-hanging branches, and he pressed and bent a few aside to allow her to pass through.

Lyrou nodded deeply, “Like all good dissidents, she needs to do a stint and write an autobiography-manifesto.”

“C’est exactement ça!” he backhanded his palm with a slapping echo.

“Je suis désolée pour ta femme… pour l’accident.” She gave her condolences regarding his spouse and her car accident.

“Et pour ma fille.” He added that he was expecting to become a father.

Lyrou was confused for half a second, then understood she was pregnant, “Oh? Oh… c’est plus tragique que je ne le croyais.”

“C’était fait en un instant.” He took solace in the fact that his wife felt no pain at her end.

They walked in silence until they came to the end of their course through the gardens, “How strange, you are exactly who you were when we parted, and yet you aren’t that boy.”

“I’m experiencing that same phenomenon regarding you. Same person, but that girl isn’t here, is she?” Vincent looked at her with regard. “Last I knew you, you were Lyrou Sanou. And now you are Lyrou Keller.”

“Yes and no. Should we be going to the… show?” Lyrou reached for his hand.

Vincent took her hand, holding it up between them and briefly massaging her phalanges before keeping it down at his side, “Now this is the hand of a woman I know. Yes and no, that girl is here.” And he led her to his car just as it pulled up in a pickup lane.

In the backseat together, Vincent silently watched Lyrou as she stared out the window. He could guess she was taking in as much of her hometown as she might have before returning across the ocean to that other life she had made. Silently, he took another look at the people and places she was, looking at them with an approximation of her lens, with a renewed appreciation of the grandest city on Earth, his city, a city he took for granted.

“Do you love it, the new Paris?” Vincent asked, watching out the passenger window with her, “Or is it as they say over there, Paris isn’t Paris anymore?”

“Oh? Do you mean the tents along the canals and under périphérique ramps? Homeless sleeping in packs outside stations, students clutching their backpacks like ballast, and young women quickening their pace night or day. Police vans ever-idling nearby. Garbage piles from collection strikes, black plastic bags leaking and ripening in the heat, tourists stepping around the mess, or taking pictures to show the world. Stupid graffiti everywhere. There was always graffiti, but now it’s everywhere, everywhere.” She lamented.

Vincent lowered his gaze and grinned, “On critique mieux ce qu’on aime.”

They arrived at Place Vendôme, and his chauffeur opened Lyrou’s door and helped her out. Vincent scanned his phone at a security podium and was allowed in past a growing mass of foreign guests and cameramen. Lyrou stopped to be wanded. Vincent quipped, “I would be demoralized if I graduated from suicide bomber camp, with the monkey bars and tire run, and they sent me to a fashion show. Can’t I get assigned to the Eiffel Tower or an embassy? I think I should make it count.”

Lyrou grinned, “Whatever your profession, you just want to make the top headline on the television news.”

His head swiveling in a quick laugh, “Hm! Tu me piges parfaitement, hein? The television news is dust in the wind.”

Lyrou attentively, “You want them to speak of you after you’re dead?”

Vincent wagging his finger, “Me? Non. Of my work. Of my work.”

He led her into their destination, an old hôtel particulier, gutted. Raw plaster walls, craggy stone, scaffolding left exposed on purpose, and cold metal rebar. Floors were polished to a mirror, but cracked. A row of flickering crystal chandeliers hung low. She smelled amber resin, worn leather, and Left Bank cigarettes.

The guests: deadpan, bone-thin, swaddled in black. Cashmere and wet silk. Glossy boots with nothing practical about them. Everyone whispered, names, rumors, lines of critique rehearsed before spoken aloud. The models’ refusal to smile caused Lyrou to smile, and then to suppress it. Phones on silent, lenses raised, Lyrou thanked Vincent softly, “Merci.”

The lights dropped, ice-white, surgical, and the crowd hushed doubly so. The soundtrack pulsed, glitchy, industrial. Mixed with church bells and a whispering, raspy voice in Franglais. Then in their pomp, thee models. They walked like they didn’t care if the building was rigged to detonate. Long-legged. Hollow-cheeked. Some shaved bald, others had wet, tousled hair. Skin like porcelain or lacquered bronze. The outfits were provocative and couture. A sheer turtleneck over pierced nipples. A velvet cape was dragging across the floor. One wore a blazer that stopped at the ribs, nothing below but tattooed skin and high-waisted vinyl. Another in a sleeveless trench with no shirt, thick leather cuffs, and silver rings stacked to the knuckles. No smiles. No glance at the audience. A boyish girl in a bowl-cut walked out in knee-high boots and a sculpted latex kilt. People leaned forward. Murmured. Not approval, but recognition. The next model, a girl, maybe, or a boy who walked like one, draped in organza, bluntly tucked behind one ear. At the end, the designer walked out. Would he speak? No one knew. Black hoodie. No bow. Just a nod, sharp and fast. Applause came late. Sparse. No one stood, except all at once.

“Seeing as the student has surpassed the teacher, will you return the favor and come be my home tutor?” Vincent asked with mischief.

“If I’m the tutor, should I pretend to lean over you to check your workbook, and squeeze your breasts as I take red ink to your answers?” Lyrou poked into Vincent’s abdomen.

Defending his methods, “That is a pedagogical technique, Lyrou. I’m sure you didn’t forget your lesson.”

“Page 42, prepositions,” she said with rote clarity.

“See! On you, under you, in you. We must memorize our English prepositions by any means.” Vincent held her close, leaving with the rush of important people.

“At your house? In your bed?” she asked, slipping past some of the most public faces without batting an eye.

“Oui. Or yes.” and so Lyrou and Vincent spent their night.

Later, Lyrou and Vincent were dropped off at his building in the 7th arrondissement.

Leading her in, he opened his door onto a stillness that belonged to thick walls and old stone. The hôtel particulier held a neutral warmth, finished rather than lived in, carrying the layered scents of a meal brought precisely to its end. Browned butter, lemon peel, thyme bruised between fingers, the saline trace of a white wine reduced and mounted just before service. Lamps were already lit, placed for function rather than mood, their light settling on waxed parquet and pale stone without coaxing it into life. The salle à manger was set with the care of routine, not anticipation. Linen pressed flat and cool. Porcelain, thin and undecorated. Water glasses filled to the same line. A chair at one end stood slightly back from the table, the spacing exact, uncorrected. From the cuisine, metal ticked as it cooled, a pan relinquishing its heat, the last dry breath of steam thinning into the room.

The chef à domicile passed them in the entrée, jacket folded, apron clean again, movements economical and practiced. No pause, no curiosity. “Bonne soirée, monsieur.” A brief nod to Lyrou, professional and complete. “Madame.” Shoes already changed, keys chiming softly, the door closed with the finality of habit. The meal remained where it had been placed. Tomatoes peeled and gleaming with olive oil, burrata torn open so its milk pooled without drama, basil ripped by hand. Under a cloche, sea bass skinned to silver, resting beside baby leeks softened to silk, the sauce smelling of lemon and capers held just long enough. Bread waited under linen, warmth fading, crust quiet. A small bowl of strawberries sat macerating with sugar and black pepper for later.

The grand appartement revealed itself in measured cues. High ceilings, tall windows dressed in plain fabric, shelves ordered by height, not subject, a sideboard with decanters aligned. Nothing here reached outward. The rooms did not respond to their presence. They contained it, holding the traces of a life organized for one, and the absence of another that had never been granted the years to settle.

Lyrou and Vincent ate, and in fast, comfortable French, he spoke of his work, about the Hajnal Line and the importance of the number of children people had. She told him about her Alan and Penny, he implored her to have a third child, she asked for baby name ideas, to which he had one ready, "Hélène," and to which Lyrou paused in eating, drinking, and speaking.

Vincent paused also, then added as she could guess that it was the name his late wife had chosen for their unborn daughter.

Lyrou complimented it, "C’est un grand prénom pour une fille."

Vincent nodded, and then Lyrou, meaning to soothe the pain in his eyes, stated a common fact in a way that slipped her filter and which she only heard the stupidity of once it left her lips and couldn't be reeled back. She said that it is maybe a mercy to him that he never met his daughter, meaning he could not become deeply attached only to then lose her.

Vincent clinked his fork lightly in thought, and Lyrou could say nothing as he formed his reply. And then he explained that though it isn't real or logical, in his heart he had met his daughter, and that in the years since her death he had imagined if she were here, ever calculating her age and how she might look, sitting "Ici. Ici." he repeated, pointing his fork overhanded where Lyrou sat. 

"Je suis désolée." Lyrou apologized.

Vincent smiled and stood, "Non, non."

Full-bellied, they left their emptied plates on the table and moved from his salle à manger into his petit salon, a room set slightly apart from the axis of the apartment, quieter, narrower, meant for hours rather than occasions. Curtains were half drawn across the tall fenêtres, the Paris reduced to a diluted glow pressed into fabric, but also a clear view of the pale stone mass of Les Invalides rising just enough to break the line of rooftops, its dome softly lit, matte. A single lamp cast its light downward, catching the grain of a low table in dark wood and the dull sheen of leather. Two fauteuils sat close, not arranged for formality but for use, angled just enough that bodies could turn toward one another without effort. Vincent poured Northern Rhône into a carafe, the sound of it soft and deliberate, the air filling with something darker now. Black fruit, tannin, a trace of earth. He set the bottle aside, unlabelled to the moment, and brought the glasses back already breathing cool and moist.

They sat side-by-side, close enough that their knees nearly aligned, the small table before them no barrier. Lyrou leaned back, one leg tucked beneath her, glass resting lightly in her hand. Vincent sat forward at first, elbow on the armrest, then eased back into the chair as the wine opened. From where they sat, it would have taken very little to close the distance; a shift of weight or a turn of the head.

Lyrou shifted in the fauteuil, then stilled. Something pressed uncomfortably beneath her hip. She reached down into the cushion and drew out a small object, cold and metallic, no larger than a wallet. It was smooth, dense, fitted with sliders and recessed buttons that offered no immediate logic. She turned it over in her hands, brow faintly furrowed, thumb pressing experimentally at one end. Nothing happened.

Vincent watched her for a moment before smiling, in restraint not to laugh. She rotated the object again, pressed harder this time, then looked up at him.

“C’est quoi, ça?” she wondered.

He told her it had been a gift from a Swiss colleague at a conference for EU-skeptical parties in Vienna. The man had pressed it into his hand, insisting it was indispensable, "très pratique," and he'd misplaced it until now.

She tried another button. Still nothing.

He leaned closer, amusement now unhidden. “Attends.”

He reached in, his hand covering hers, adjusting her grip with a precision that felt instructional rather than deliberate. His fingers closed around her knuckles, repositioned her thumb, and steadied the weight of the device in her palm. “Comme ça.” His voice was calm, almost absent.

With his finger guiding hers, he pressed. A sharp electric crack leapt briefly between two contacts. The sound was sudden and alive. Lyrou startled, half-laughing, half-gasping, pulling the device back instinctively. “Un taser?”

Vincent shook his head, wagging one finger. “Non, non.” 

He adjusted a small wheel with his thumb, still holding her hand. Pressed again. A clean blue flame bloomed at the tip.

Lyrou laughed outright now. “Je ne fume pas.”

“Peut-être pyromane, alors?” he said lightly, the corner of his mouth lifting.

He turned the setting again and pressed once more. A thin, piercing beam of green light shot across the room, skimming the wall, cutting sharply through the dimness of the salon. Lyrou followed it, tracing the line with a grin, aiming it deliberately higher, then lower.

“Ça peut aveugler un avion,” Vincent said, amused.

She handed it back, still smiling, and he adjusted the mechanism again, slower this time. With a soft mechanical snap, a long, narrow blade sprang free, catching the lamplight.

Lyrou’s eyes widened. “Mais c’est absurde.”

“Personne ne me teste si j’ai ça dans la poche,” he said.

She took it from him, examining it now with genuine curiosity, turning it, opening and closing the blade carefully, her attention absorbed. Vincent watched her profile, the way her hair fell behind one ear, the line of her jaw as she concentrated. He moved closer without announcing it, the distance between them closing while her focus stayed with the object.

“Il y a même une boussole intégrée,” she said, almost to herself, angling it toward the light.

And then he kissed her neck.

Lyrou’s body melted, and Vincent floated over and onto her, his hands sliding under her clothes and rediscovering her breasts. With a hunger, she embraced him, pulling him tight and kissing his neck. Her hands dove for his ass, and gripping both cheeks, she squeezed with all the force her fingers could generate. That, Vincent’s ass, was a man’s ass gifted by fortunate genes. He dropped his pants, and she hurriedly pulled off her bottoms. Standing as she remained seated, his exposure invited her mouth and hands to his privates. She licked the underside of his sack, sucked his glans with a satisfied pop of her lips, and ran her fingers along the contours of his V-line. Seeing him totally engorged, bobbing, pointing at her with an upward curve, she reclined and spread her legs wide as they could go. Vincent gave her clit and vulva an underhanded rub, and, feeling her moist and hot, readied his cock to enter. He slid in, and in, deep, and then deeper. They looked into each other’s eyes, appreciating that they were there and that this moment was earned somehow, that it was happening, and that it was good. And with that, Vincent began thrusting fully, slap slap slap, sending her tits bouncing and ankles flexing and rolling over his shoulders.

⚜

Morning Tuesday, August 6th, 2024

Some mornings, such as this morning, Garin would come in with his workday planned, but then Mel would text a message, “Let’s fly out.” Garin didn’t ask questions. He grabbed his leather briefcase and walked out of his office, past the framed portraits of the company’s history, up the elevator, and onto the helipad atop the skyscraper. The helicopter was a Raptor, sleek and silver with dark accents, and it waited for them. The chip-chop of the blades was a steady thrum in his ears as they soared above the glistening Hudson below. Like soldiers getting dropped behind enemy lines, Mel briefed him in the air; he trusted Garin would put down ordnance and accomplish mission objectives. 

⚜

Evening Wednesday, August 7th, 2024

Garin got a video call from Lyrou. He was sitting on their balcony, "Bonjour," he answered.

Lyrou's face appeared on his screen. She was walking a narrow street at night, and her face lightened and darkened as she passed under street lamps, "Are you outside, Garin?"

Garin gave her a look around from his vantage, the neighboring houses, oaks, maples, cedars, "Outside at home."

Her face was brightly lit, such that the camera had to adjust. Lyrou entra dans une épicerie. The bell on the door jangled, and Garin watched as she approached the freezers, "Milk. Penny has cramps, and she swears dairy soothes it."

Lyrou panned her camera phone, pointing her finger into frame like a monitor cursor, “Do you see?”

Garin looked closely, a wine section, “Oh! California?”

Lyrou vindicated, “Oui.”

Garin wondered, "What's Gramie feeding them?"

Lyrou at the checkout swiping her card, "Not that, Garin."

Garin looked about, and it hit him, "Oh.. oh? Is she OK?"

"First time, and it's in the same room I first had mine." Lyrou was back out on the narrow street now carrying a carton of milk.

"How would she know milk does anything?" Garin was curious.

"Lil ‘Carla told her." Lyrou chuckled. 

Garin nodded, "In Lil ‘Carla we trust."

Lyrou looked into the camera with caring eyes, "I miss you. Are you going crazy without me?"

Garin kissed his camera, giving her a sight of his lips pressed to the lens, "I miss you, too. But since you've been gone, my sanity has been restored. I don't mistake myself for the reincarnation of Napoléon Bonaparte."

Lyrou sighed loudly, "Napoléon Napoléon Napoléon! I spoke his name three times, and it’s a hundred times less than Alan has spoken his name today. We are going to Les Invalides tomorrow morning for our Alan-boy to pay his respects, wear the bicorne hat, and tuck his fingers into his vest. Then, at night, the catacombs tour."

Garin grinned enormously, "Good. Good. My short emperor shucks off the boy’s beret for the man’s bicorne."

Lyrou recalled, “He and Penny were both wildly moved to tears and laughter upon discovering the statue of the orangutan strangling le Bornéen, à l’entrée du Muséum d’histoire naturelle.”

Garin recalled la sculpture animalière from his own visit to Paris, “O-Landru-Tan!” he snortled.

Lyrou smirked into the camera, "I can't let Pin-Pin know I spoke to you on my way to get her milk. I'm going inside."

Garin shook his head, "Please, I want no part of it. Call tomorrow from the dome, I'd like to see our littler corporal survey my resting place."

Lyrou raised her eyebrows, "Oui? So you lied. You are going crazier without me."

Garin shouted "En avant!" and hung up.

⚜

Noon Monday, August 12th, 2024

Garin found himself seated at a pristine white table in one of Manhattan’s most exclusive restaurants, with walls adorned in private art collections and a menu that the waiter had to pull out the Rosetta Stone to help you decide. Terry sat across from him, the two of them massaging out a prospect’s reluctance to “swim in the deep-end” all while the waiter hovered near them, ready to refill their crystal-clear glasses with 100-year-old Bordeaux. “Expansion and growth,” Terry and Garin won him over by tag team tactics, daring him to trust in inverse convex pressure flip and front-end compression loop.

The real grind. The office emptied out as the night grew long, but Garin and Terry stayed, hunched over their laptops, buzzing through email chains, revised revisions of revisions, and blocks and blocks and blocks of figures. The air in the high-rise office was heavy with coffee, their third round of the night. It was usually just Garin and Terry, rarely anyone else, if not Wayne. The sharp, fluorescent lighting cast long shadows as they pored over data, refining pitches, mapping out quarterlies that looked so cool and sterile. Nice. There was no time for exhaustion, no space for doubt. The hours blurred, and with the sundown, the carpet of lights outside their window resembled the grid of colors on their screens. These two men chiseled at marble and sculpted their futures.

⚜

Noon Thursday, August 22nd, 2024

With Gramie taking Penny and Alan out with her flock of mémés du quartier, Lyrou had a day to herself to unwind. Playing flaneuse, she visited the narrow winding streets of Le Marais. She sat at an outdoor table and finally cracked into the goblins & dragons novel she'd brought to finish before returning to Edgewater, ordering sparingly and lingering there in that way few on the East Coast do.

Comparing the vibes to the Paris she remembered before leaving for America, cafés were full, but the sound was thinner, no overlapping talk, fewer arguments, fewer strangers crashing into each other’s conversations. Phones on tables everywhere, less eye contact. Men still looked at her but fleetingly, with that respectful caution and no approach building behind their eyes. Posters and placards in the subways and bus stops warned men against giving women unsolicited attention as if flirting was sexual assault. Consent. Inclusion. Vigilance.

She made a mental note of the foreigners she saw passing through, various Europeans, East Asians, Indians, and Canadians. A tour group of Gulf Arabs came through, abayas, ghutra, and dishdashas giving them away as not your local Maghrebi-heritage French-born Arabs. It was dhuhr, and they found a place in the tight pedestrian-way to lay their prayer rugs and do their four rak'ahs. While finishing up, they stood and became momentarily distracted by the approach of their tour guide, excitedly poking into her phone, shout-explaining to the group, and huddling them together. Just then, a trim and dapper curly-headed White man with the most care-free expression turned the corner, saw the boulangerie entrance, gave a prayer rug a quick grinding wipe of his shoes, and let himself in for a quick shop around.

Lyrou watched, her novel sitting open in her hands, wondering if anybody in the group noticed what disrespect the Franj had just done. Two of them had and began to inform the others. They stood together outside the shop doors, and when the shoe-wiper reappeared, they stood glaring at him as he obliviously slapped his cigarette carton, pulled one out, and set to light it... stopping as he noticed them, all eyes on his person. The tour guide stepped forward, pointed to the rug, and asked him for an apology, "Ce n'est pas un paillasson, veuillez présenter vos excuses pour l’avoir sali."

The man, cigarette and carton in one hand, lighter in the other, stood dumbfounded, "Je je je suis désolé, je... parle pas.. parle pas.. uuuh.. bien le France... le français...je suis... confusion.. cónfusíon? I don't know what you want."

Lyrou understood then that he was Scottish. Ma vie! Al-Khaleejeen became flustered, demanding of their tour guide. The tour guide tried again with the cool, confused Celt, "You... eh.. You walking here, you walking there? Sorry?!"

Licking his lips and scruffing his hair, "I'm at a loss, I'm pure melted."

Lyrou set her novel down and did a little run-walk, calling to him, "You stepped on their prayer rug."

"I what?" Looking down at the rug, he tapped his palm to his temple, "I did? I did, didn't I?" and looking regretful with a touch of apprehension, he looked to Lyrou as she came standing between him and the tour group, "What'll I do? I haven't a clue."

Lyrou gave his arm a little slap, gesturing to the tourists, "Tell them sorry, that's it."

His hands together, he looked into the group and, in a sincere tone, said, "I am sorry. Terribly. I didn't realize what it was... I mean, looking at it now, it's beautiful and obviously not for.. soles. Is it? Again, sorry."

Lyrou looked to the tour guide, "Il réalise maintenant que c’était un tapis de prière, mais dans la précipitation, il ne l’a pas su. Il s’est excusé deux fois. Merci d’en informer votre groupe."

With some explaining in Arabic, their faces calmed, and with a head nod, they expressed forgiveness. The tour guide to Lyrou said, "Ils auraient peut-être déposé une plainte auprès de mon agence si je n’avais pas obtenu ces excuses de sa part. Merci d’être intervenue."

Lyrou turned to the Scot, taking his elbow and escorting him away as the group rolled up their prayer rugs, "You're in the clear, but Allah might get you."

With a grin, "If so, then I deserve one last smoke before I’m smote," and he lit up. Blowing, "Thanks for helping. My name's Finlay. Yours?" he stuffed his carton in a pocket and reached for a handshake.

Taking his hand and gathering her novel up into her purse, "Lyrou."

As she walked, he kept up beside her, "Are you from here?" 

Registering his interest in her, she started to consider if she was equally interested, with a strong preliminary affirmative ringing in her mind, "I am."

He pried, following her still with no idea where she was going, "You sound.. American?"

Lyrou looked at him with a smile, "Merci. That has taken me some effort and time."

Nodding, "Accent training? I can do a bad American accent, see’in as I owe you mightily.. iff’in yer fix’in t'eat I kin treat you kindly to a nice supper time!"

Lyrou clapped her hands tight, "Aaah! You've done a book report on Mark Twain."

Finlay followed her through a park, "I was an exchange student in Louisiana, and I visited his childhood cabin in Missouri. Maybe I'll be your Huckleberry Finlay and take you for Cajun tonight?"

Lyrou found a bench and sat, giving it one pat, inviting the flirt to sit beside her, "Cajun? Did you acquire a taste for jambalaya?”

Finlay shook his head in appreciation for the delicious, “Mmm..mmm chi’ile! But the Cajun Café is scutters here, doesn’t do it justice.”

Lyrou shrugged a shoulder, “Then… where?”

“I acquired more than a taste but a fair touch with a pan. My home-stay has a dead brilliant kitchen, and if I’m stirring a scran I’m surely welcome to bring a guest. There ain’t nothing in the world so good when it’s cooked right.”

Finlay’s approach was too on point. She wanted to see him cook, she wanted to see his home stay house, she wanted to try his jambalaya, and she wanted to try him, “Wait a minute. Huckleberry pretended to be British to rob a woman,” she said as if suspicious, looking askance at him.

Finlay exhaled, arms at his sides as if coming clean, “That’s foul of you to have read my playbook.” with a defeated little smile, “But Huck couldn’t do it because she was most awful beautiful, and her face and her eyes were all lit up like glory. You’re pretty safe.”

“I’m pretty safe? Oh?” Lyrou burst with a goofy laugh, “Oui. Sure. I’ll join you.”

Finlay brought Lyrou to his home stay and introduced her to his hosts, in a little prank, as an American. Lyrou played along, as Finlay suggested, "to see how the French really treat foreigners".

He made it interesting, “I bet you can’t make it 30 minutes before my hosts suspect you’re actually also French yourself.”

"What will we bet?" she had asked before they'd entered.

"If they suspect you're their fellow countrywoman within 30 minutes of your first spoken word to them, then you must shave your legs tonight, here."

Lyrou cooed at his wager, "Oh no! Should I also shave my fuzzy armpits?" She lifted her arms at him, sarcastically exposing her smooth armpits.

His eyes wide, suppressing his smile, "That's a turn-up."

She burst with giggles in lowering her arms, then presenting her legs, entering his hosts' courtyard, "I have some growth on the gams, though. But what if I win? What do you have to do?"

Finlay smirked, eyebrows raised, and knelt to pull up his pants leg and reveal his curled-red leg hairs, "Fair is fair, isn't it?"

She play-slapped his shoulder as he let his pants leg drop and stood to allow her into the building. She clasped her hands, "I can't wait to see you up to your balls in shaving cream tonight."

"Christ on a bike!" Finlay loudly found the door to his hosts' place and inserted the key.

Entering Lyrou and Finlay found two women about her age, the sisters Camille et Manon, lounging away on their phones and petting their fat, lazy cats. They stood to greet her, and at Finlay's nonverbal prompting, she pretended her French fluency was too broken so that they stuck to English. As promised, Finlay cooked a Louisiana dinner. By that time, his hosts had guessed Lyrou wasn't American-born, nor American-raised, but a Parisian like them. Amused, she had masked it so long, they toasted “to the Louisiana Purchase!”

Before surrendering, Finlay demanded, "How did you ladies sniff her out as one of your own, then? Out with it."

Camille impersonating Lyrou, "Beside her clothes, it's her mannerisms; gesturing with her fingers pinched, crossing her legs at her ankles, all of it, even how she touches her utensils."

Manon added, "Americans are always saying thank you, sorry, fake laughing, fake smiling, complimenting the food while they shovel it all down, and taking up as much space as they possibly can. You don't at all. And then the final clue for me was your facial features. I can recognize a French woman's face at rest; as if nothing matters and yet everything matters too much."

Camille stood, “Ah! I have been reading this book about America. One moment.”

Manon looked to Finlay and Lyrou, “I think I know which book it is.”

Camille returned and held it for them to see,  Lyrou read the cover: ‘Apocalypse sexuelle : comment l’Amérique du XXᵉ siècle a presque sauvé — puis tué — le sexe.’

Lyrou scoffed, “Histoire? I should introduce you to my husband if he were here; he loves history more than he loves me.”

Finlay looked to Lyrou with feigned shock, “The Americans killed… you mean to tell me they killed sex? Sex itself? I’ve heard things, but what’ll they kill next? Games? Purple? The number 9?”

Manon chuckled along with him, “They’ve killed walking and vacation time.”

Finlay nodded, “That explains why her Yank better half isn’t here then. What was it, Camille, Puritanism? Christian Great Awakenings?”

Camille, more seriously, “The authors explain how after 1905, Freud and Jung became jokes, des références un peu ridicules, the Comstock Laws clamped everyone up in public, and demobilization after the wars came too fast. The GI Bill, Levittown, and the suburban nuclear family arrived trop vite. Marriage was burdened with repairing the nation. Fidelity became patriotic. Sexual containment became un devoir civique.”

Finlay scratched his chin, “What’d the wars have to do with it? Not enough men to go around?”

Camille wagging her book in her hand, “There’s that, bien sûr, and enlisted men with local girlfriends they’d leave behind, and lonely military wives unsure if their husbands would come home alive ont produit, ensemble, a brief sexual renaissance, vite refermée.”

Finlay snapped his fingers, “Norm suspension, anonymity effect, tourist disinhibition? What’s it called?”

Manon supplied more applicable terms: “Shore leave mentality, sailor’s license.”

Camille continued, “By Mencken’s influence, et plus tard, through the Warren Court’s broader privacy jurisprudence, the state stopped adjudicating sex. Adultery ceased to function as leverage. Marriage became explicitement volontaire; the law stepped back.”

Finlay recalled, “Mencken became an author because as a boy, Twain blew him away.”

Camille, pointing in agreement, “Ironic, d’ailleurs, given that Twain lost his shit upon learning his daughter was fucking a married man. But then there’s the fourth hinge, HIV. HIV fused sex to death, littéralement. Falwell and Bryant exploded. Sexual culture froze just as it had begun to loosen in the wake of the free love era. A single affair became synonymous with the reaper, la mort qui rode; there were tearful TV dramas and tabloid talk shows aired about cheaters infecting their spouses.”

Manon offered what had been turning in her head as she had listened, “To be fair, the French have also attempted to murder sex; the cardigan Catholics, the burkini Muslims, blazer féministes abolitionnistes, radical, moraliste.”

Lyrou took Camille’s book and turned pages at random, skimming, “No offense to the authors, Camille, but if America killed sex, nobody informed the Americans of it.”

Finlay quipped, doing the sign of the cross, “Sex has died, sex has risen, sex will come again.”

Camille rested her face in her palm as Lyrou handed back her book, “Merci.”

Lyrou reminded Finlay, “Keep your end of the bargain and then come again.”

With a big jolly sigh Finlay retreated to the bathtub “to shave my legs!” while Lyrou and his hosts went full Francophone, discussing why she moved to America, why she was visiting home now, how the city had changed since she left; less vehicular traffic, more bikes and pedestrian ways, rent outpacing wages, the creative-scene drying up, militarized police and security barriers, les Gilets jaunes et Nuit Debout, Charlie Hebdo et Bataclan, l’incendie de Notre-Dame et COVID-19, and just as their conversation had become too grim and low, and their wine glasses emptied, Finlay appeared with his silly handsome face, standing proud on his smooth shining white shaven legs. The three chuckled and came forward to rub his legs, "Ces jambes, elles ont un petit truc…" Manon praised,

"Franchement, sans les poils, ces mollets sont plutôt sexy, tu ne trouves pas." Camille added.

Lyrou was petting his leg up past his knee, daringly so, when her phone buzzed. She stood straight to check it and then put it away. The sisters took Finlay by the hands and moved to the sofa, shooing the cats off the cushions, sitting on either side of him. Finlay asked, "Is it important?"

Lyrou watched the sisters as they undid his shirt buttons and ran their hands underneath the fabric across his chest and abdomen. She answered, "My husband."

Finlay nodded, "You've got to be off now, aye?"

Manon pouted, “Oh non… pars pas tout de suite."

Camille squeezed Finlay’s cheeks together so that his lips puckered out and gave him a kiss, “Tu peux pas manger ce que Finlay nous a préparé… sans goûter au dessert."

Lyrou thought for a short moment, and then it occurred to her what Garin would like her to do now, to use this moment to prove to him that by now she fully got it. She pulled her phone back out from her purse and texted Garin, "I'm with a man." hit send, turned off the volume and vibration, dropped it back into her bag, and approached the trio as they undressed.

Finlay grinned widely and said, "Here kitty-kitty." and the sisters laughed, consuming his neck and arms. Lyrou peeled her blouse off over her head, unhooked and dropped her bra; slither-wiggled out of her panties, and joined them in loving Finlay.

Six female hands at once explored Finlay’s body, pulling his pants off, six lips, uppers and lowers, mouthed his arms, thighs, and face, six eyes took in sight of him and his dick standing free, red and tall. Lyrou took him by his shaft, Camille palmed his sac, and Manon briefly tickled the tip with her pinky nail.

Camille frowned and giggled, “I’ll be sad when you go home, Finlay.”

Manon seconded, “You’ve been our guest, but you’ve treated us like we’re your guests.”

Lyrou suppressed a laugh and came in, knees bent and back arched on the sofa, for a nonnegotiable kiss, “Mmmmm, they’re going to miss you?”

Still kissing Lyrou, he playfully gestured that he was wiping a tear from his eye. Camille and Manon reared back in loud, slutty laughter, “Ah non, là tu joues un rôle!”

Lyrou lifted a leg and straddled Finlay as his fingers found and entered his hosts between their legs. Reaching down between them, Lyrou guided him in and rocked her breasts in his face, combing her fingers through his hair. "Un rôle."

Camille and Manon each groped Lyrou's ass. Camille commented, "This is what they call cake."

Finlay's eyebrows raised, "We're having cake, too?"

Manon and Camille took him by his wrists, giggling, and guided his hands around Lyrou's waist and onto her ass, "Maybe Lyrou will let you eat cake, Finlay." To which he grinned, the appearance of his dimple beckoning Lyrou's thumb to his cheek.

Lyrou enjoyed the handsy fascination with her ass, these three pairs of hands rubbing and squeezing over her posterior as she rocked and pressed herself on Finlay's lap. The four of them locked lips and kissed altogether, their tongues slipping between mouths. Lyrou turned her gaze upward as their mouths moved down her neck, over her collarbones, and to her breasts and nipples, sucking and licking under and around her fully exposed chest and shoulders, air cooling the saliva streaks they left across her skin and raising bumps. She closed her eyes in building orgasmic bliss, "Un rôle."

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