Afternoon Friday, May 9th, 2025

Lyrou met Marc in the subway station, as planned. She saw him first, adjusting his collar in the reflection of an ad. Freezing still, hands on his collar, he spotted her also in the reflection. Turning, he laughed and approached, a fine smile forming at the sight of her in her long white dress, a cut down the side of the right leg from just above the knee to the knot of her ankle in its white heels.

“Lyrou?” His hair was impressively feathered, parted neatly down the middle, a better, more luscious look than he sported in his profile pictures. He was taller and longer-limbed than he looked in his pictures, also, and his skinny black jeans accentuated this lanky impression. For his height, he was no spiry beanstalk, but he had a competitive swimmer’s shoulder-width-to-height proportions.

Lyrou greeted him with a coy smile. “Bonjour, Marc,” she said with her bright teeth on display, her accent leaping over the auditory cacophony of the station. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Presenting her hand, sans ring, he took it up and gave a light kiss, “Mine, all mine. You’re so lovely. Shall we embark?” His breath was as if he’d just gobbled up three mints. Marc turned to lead the way onto the subway train as it pulled into the station and let out its passengers just as they met. He held out his hand again to take hers.

She gave him her hand into his, smooth and long-fingered. “Bien sûr,” she said loudly. She followed him, her hips swaying with a mesmerizing rhythm that drew the eyes of other passengers. “The comedy show is soon… oui?”

“That’s right. But we’ll make it, no worries. Would you like me to tell you something about it as we ride?” Marc and Lyrou took hold of the grab rails, standing toe-to-toe and face-to-face.

With curiosity, Lyrou said, “Oh, please do. I’ve been looking forward to it all week. And, by the way, you look better in-person than in your profile pictures. I believe you did have a modeling stint.”

“You say a modeling stint, but I recall a self-starving stint.” The two stood chatting in the subway car, their bodies gently touching and touching again as the subway car swayed along its rail. Marc smiled broadly at Lyrou’s compliment. “Maybe I chose my worst photos so you wouldn’t be underwhelmed when we met. The show is kind of a half-impromptu narrative comedy in which the actors freely break character now and then to interact with the audience. You can shout things from your seat sparingly, as the show progresses and the actors respond, changing up the script in silly ways. It can get disordered in a fun way. Ah… the title is ‘Les Faux Amis’.”

Lyrou’s initial attraction to Marc, with the nerves of her impending fun, she took a moment to appreciate the man before her, his dark hair and inviting hazel eyes, so different from Garin’s boyish, younger-than-his-age charm. “Yes, it sounds like a fiasco. I like it.” Inhaling the faint scent of his cologne, feeling a rush of adrenaline at the thought of the night ahead. "I haven’t had much to laugh at.”

“That’s not just you, Lyrou. That’s our whole world in this era: news, movies, books, songs, ceaselessly sad and serious themes. I can’t handle it, can you?” Marc furrowed his brow.

“No, but I wasn’t given a choice.” Lyrou puffed a strand of hair from her face.

“Precisely, no choice was given, so we have to just bust out and say no! I’ll not be sad and serious tonight. I’m going to have a good time!” Marc became animated; others on the train were listening in and silently agreeing. He was likable without trying.

Lyrou nodded, “You don’t strike me as one to have come to this outlook just recently.”

Marc, with his hands on his collar, said, “Well... I’ve done... standup comedy. I know some of the actors we’ll watch tonight professionally.” Marc raised his hands as if to defend himself playfully, “Some dates hate that I do standup; some like it. I hope you’re in the latter.”

The subway car rocked and bumped gently, pushing Lyrou into Marc. “The latter,” she said, raising her voice amidst the metallic banging and screeching of the subway car. “I’m all yours to entertain.” She drifted into him, her breasts pressing against his arm, her hand finding his, her thumb tracing small circles on the back of his hand through tiny coppery hairs, looking up into his eyes, the height difference she deserved and needed. They were there together, a picture of sexual dimorphism. The warmth of his skin sent a release of hormones through her. “Tell me more about your comedy,” she pulled close, her eyes directed up into his, her long eyelashes and thin black eyeliner hypnotizing him like an Indian cobra.

“I do really dark humor; sometimes the best reaction is when the audience doesn’t laugh, not out loud anyway, because my joke is that dark, but they’re looking at each other, amused. I sometimes do self-deprecating jokes, which get the loud laughs.” Marc looked at his and Lyrou’s reflection in the window of the subway car, and Lyrou also looked. “We look good together, Lyrou.” Leaning in close to her ear,  “I wish your marriage all the worst.” As if to demonstrate the bold dark humor, he claimed his signature.

Feigning a frown, then smirking with amusement, she played into the unhappy wife role she’d taken on for this round, “Mon amour, it can’t get worse.” At their stop, Marc led the way; they ascended the stairs together and soon departed the subway.

Surfacing in the frenetic, busy street, a night full of lights and people, he looked about and then walked her to the venue. Showing his phone to a podium attendant with a scanner, they entered. Marc and Lyrou found their seats at a round table not far from the stage. Marc pulled out Lyrou’s seat as she sat, before taking his. Some strangers, also couples, took seats next to them and filled the space. Waiters brought out appetizers and asked for orders. Lyrou said, “I’d like œufs en meurette, and that’s all for now.” Marc looked over the menu, and the actors prepared the stage as they’d soon begin. Lights dimmed.

Marc took in the sight of Lyrou now in the well-lit hall, his heart set on their shared night. He was sure they already had a burgeoning connection. As the lights dimmed and the comedy show began, he reached for her hand, feeling the electricity crackle between them. His thumb traced gentle circles on her palm, a pinch of intimacy. The performers took the stage, their banter a backdrop. Marc ducked in and said, “I can’t wait to see you laugh.” His voice was warm and deep.

Marc glanced over the menu, lingering on the French cuisine options. “What do you recommend?” he asked, his eyes reading then meeting hers. He’d picked this place for its authentic love of the culture and for her.

She inched closer, her voice soft, reading in the dimly lit hall. “The bouillabaisse,” she suggested, her eyes dancing with the memory of her whilom childhood holidays in the Caribbean territory. “It’s a kind of fish stew, a taste of the sea. And for dessert, perhaps the crème brûlée?” The rich flavors of her France, the thought of sharing this experience with someone who understood her, who appreciated her, made her heart flutter.

Marc studied the menu with a nod. “Ah, the bouillabaisse, an unassailable classic,” he said, his eyes smiling with the same enthusiasm as Lyrou’s. “And for dessert, I also think the crème brûlée sounds just as good.” He raised his hand to signal the waiter, his grip on Lyrou’s hand tightening for a brief moment before releasing it. His smiling eyes examined her face as he ordered, his voice smooth and confident. The scent of the garlic and herbs from the kitchen wafted over to them, making Lyrou’s stomach grumble happily. The room was alive with the hum of conversation and the clinking of silverware, a symphony that heightened her awareness of the man beside her.

The show started with a bang, the actors weaving in and out of the audience, improvising jokes that had the room in stitches. They mixed their French and English liberally, against everything she and all French children learn in school, and a few of the actors spoke in thick Quebecois, Occitan, and Haitian dialects. The writing and improvisation were creative. Lyrou indeed laughed. Marc sat back in his chair, a smug smile on his face as he watched the show unfold. As one of the comedians had a brief silence in the script, he took his chance to tease an actor. It was the portly, greedy, bald antagonist who was too certain of himself and demanded the pretty Parisian protagonist look at him straight when he talked to her, “Look me in the eye, why don’t you damn it?”

To which Marc heckled, “The glare off your dome blinds her as it does us all!”

The antagonist took the bait as some in the audience laughed but also quieted to hear the back and forth, “Now why don’t you come at me up here and talk your smack eye-to-eye, bastard? Have at you!” The audience began exhorting Marc to go on-stage, and he leapt from his seat with an enormous smile, Lyrou’s mouth and eyes wide with entertained shock, he bolted up the stairs to the stage and grabbed the antagonist, manhandling him against his feigned protests and cursing,

“Shit, unhand me!” tumbling over set furniture until the audience and other actors had laughed themselves very good. Marc hopped down from the stage and returned to his seat by Lyrou, a bit red-faced and contented.

The actors fluidly continued on with their show, the antagonist remarking to the pretty Parisian actress as he dusted himself off, “Now that I’ve handled him... back to you!”

Lyrou’s eyes sparkled with mirth as she wiped away tears of laughter. “Oh, Marc,” she giggled, her hand fluttering to her chest. “You’re a hero, chéri.” She leaned into him, her lips warm against his cheek. “You have the gallant flair of a swashbuckler.”

Marc shrugged and grinned, “It would take three baldies for me to keep my butt in my seat.”

The show went on until there came a point in the script that the comedian solicited the audience, “We need a 10/10 man-magnet Miss Looksmaxxer for this next scene. No but-her-faces, no fatties, no plastic surgery experiments, no chicks who look like fellas in drag, inclusive as we are. Now we need a real beauty, la plus belle femme.”

The audience giggled at the rude humor of the request. Many boyfriends and husbands realized that this was when they were supposed to volunteer their ladies lest they be thought to regard them unfit for the role... and have accidentally made a reservation for an argument with a salty woman later. All at once, several dozen women were blushingly and awkwardly refusing their men’s obligatory encouragement, a few drunkenly and confidently gestured and nodded that they would accept the role. One woman sitting adjacent to Lyrou loudly and with a slight slur, jabbing her finger into the air, “I have 200,000 likes on just one of my pics! That’s... that’s posted under 24 hours ago! Ok? Pick me. I am the pick-me!”

The portly actor shot back, “No Dubai porta-potty hotties!”

The influencer’s date was stone-faced, unsure if he should be angrier or roll with his woman getting roasted. She recoiled in her seat, hand over her mouth, and gave the stage her middle finger with the opposite hand, “That’s small d energy!”

The actor, hands on his hips, nodding, “Oh yeah, the finger, but if I ask you how many times you’ve been on expense-paid flights to the Emirates, you’ll show me more fingers, won’t you?”

The woman, turning red, silently raised her index and middle fingers to signal she’d been on such a trip twice. The audience burst into laughter, letting out long ews and ohs at the 4th degree burn. Her date held only a mask of good cheer; he was growing bitterly embarrassed in his seat next to her. With gay sass, the comedian nodded slowly and hard, “Yo! Twice? Don’t get up, shitty-titties; stay there and console your man with a brick of the dirty dirhams you earned catching bricks.”

At that, the influencer’s date shouted back, “Lame! That’s your only trick, name-calling?” The influencer herself, emotional now that she saw her date was ashamed, directed her ire at the comedian, “Jerk!”

The actor wagged his finger in the negative, with crude cadence, he dropped bars, “Forsooth! I rhyme shit name-calling, slut. I’m spit-balling but.. is the shrimp-dicked hater schmuck’s simp trick to betabux a post-wall roastie maw scat gyatt thot that done gone got shat on, son?” The audience took on the tempo of a crowd at a rap battle, bobbing their heads to a beat.

The couple stood, gathering their belongings, and made their way for the exit as the audience jeered. The rotund actor raised his arms pleading, “Can we please get a lady up here who has less in common with a roll of two-ply?”

Under a canopy of laughter, Marc said nothing, but only looked at Lyrou, slowly taking her wrist and raising her arm. Lyrou didn’t resist. Her heart swelled, the determination in his eyes unmistakable. A thrill at his audacity, his confidence in her beauty. Her cheeks flushed as the hall quieted and the room’s eyes fell upon her, embarrassment and exhilaration coursing through her veins. The spotlight was too potent. The laughter and applause of the audience washed over her like a wave, but she registered only the heat of his touch. She yanked her arm down, “Garin, no..” not realizing at all she’d called Marc by her husband’s name.

It was too late; the comedian, the spotlight, and the gaze of the entire audience found her, ”Tough guy’s lady! You’re coming up here. If not, then the whole cast marches down there, grabs you, and carries you up here screaming and kicking; we don’t give a damn, girlfriend... we’re marauders like that. Tough guy can’t stop all of us. Come now!”

Marc had heard her call him Garin, but he didn’t blink at it. “Go on, Lyrou, go!” Marc urged, and she nervously stood.

Her heart thumping, Lyrou allowed Marc to lead her to the stage, her legs trembling. Her face reddened deeper; the spotlights were blinding, and the audience’s attention was upon her. As she took her place on the makeshift set, the comedian’s eyes lit up with mischief. “Yes, sista, sumptuous... when feminists bitch about unrealistic beauty standards, they mean you! You were born for this role. You were assembled in a doll factory for us sickos to play with.”

The cast came out of nowhere with a rubber horse-head mask and placed it on her, only her hair and laughing face poking out of it after some trouble fitting it on. Then another effervescent cast member pinned a horsetail to the back of her waist. “Repeat after me, “Hiii!” To which Lyrou was too embarrassed to obey. The bald man said, “Honey, you said nay so now you must neigh!” he snapped his fingers about and bobbed his head.

Marc shouted out for Lyrou, doing his best “Hiii!” and she found the courage to mimic the horse sound.

“Hiii!” she neighed.

The comedian approved with a thumbs-up. “That’s it! Your only line, say it a lot.” The audience loved it, a man spitting up into his wine glass, a woman giggling at everything said and done, and Marc sat back, arms folded, grinning and shaking his head.

The lady protagonist loaded bags of pots and pans onto Lyrou’s back as if she were a load-bearing horse and walked her in circles on the stage, performing a scene in which she was running away from home, taking the long road, and had packed all her belongings on her horse. “It’s just you and me now, my maned mare...” stroking Lyrou’s long, coiled black hair, to which Lyrou blushed and called out “Hiii!”.

An actor hunched in a hooded shawl appeared from behind a prop tree with a red object and one orange in either hand, “Carrot or apple?”

Lyrou’s owner said, “Spare it the carrot. My mare eats fruit!” and exchanged a coin for the apple.

“La pomme pour la belle bombshell.” The roadside huckster character then fake-limped off.

“Merci.” The actress turned and pulled up Lyrou’s horse mask enough to both blind her and expose her mouth to feed her by hand. Lyrou bit with a crunch at the sensation of the apple against her lips. Her owner asked, “La pomme est-elle délicieuse?” and also took a bite.

The crowd was silent. Lyrou swallowed and answered, “Hiii!” She heard, among the rest, Marc’s loud chuckling as the actress pulled her horse mask back down to her shoulders.

The laughter and applause grew with each stupid “line” she delivered, and she found herself losing herself in the moment, forgetting the weight of her secret, forgetting almost everything.  When the scene ended, the actors and Lyrou took a bow, and they removed her horse costume. As she went down the stage stairs for a second, she involuntarily searched the audience for Garin’s face, but of course, he wasn’t there.

As they left the drama theater, they met several people in Marc’s circle. He gently pressed her through, intuiting she didn’t want to be bogged down in a pulling thread of nice-to-meet-yous, though a few did steal introductory banalities. She didn’t care to make their acquaintance anyway; they were just characters in a dream who’d vanish when she woke. Having given Marc a kiss of enchantment and departing at the same subway station they’d met, their night was over.

⚜

Evening Friday, May 9th, 2025

Lyrou came home just before midnight. She found Garin an autodidact languidly watching what looked to be a documentary on ancient Egypt and Nubia in the living room. She worried he might be in a bad mood because of her, but he greeted her in a normal, happy enough tone with no sign of negativity in his face. “Tired, babe?” he asked.

With relief and guilt in her voice, she replied, “Oui, un peu.” She moved in to kiss him. She had a sudden urge to confess, to tell him about the way Marc had made her feel, how his touch had been more than just physical, how his understanding of her had seemed to reach into the core of her being. But she held back, the words catching in her throat like a secret too sweet to share. “The show was... enthralling,” she said instead, her eyes flickering with the fresh memory of the laughter and the lights of the stage. The weight of her lie of omission, but she wasn’t ready to unburden herself. Not yet. “How was your night?”

Garin furrowed his eyebrow; he could sense that she’d say more if the date had been lackluster. “I unwound right here. It was needed.”

That she said so little told him that it was a very good date. Though he was deep in thought, his eyes were on the television, and so Lyrou also watched, and misrecognized the Black host of the documentary: “They have the singing contest host in Giza now?”

“No, babe, you’re thinking of Terrance Brown. This is Isaiah Robinson.” He corrected her, as if it were an important distinction.

Confused, she tilted her head to the side and looked again. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, they were in a couple of movies together, probably why you’re mixing them up.” Garin smiled.

“That’s Terrance Brown, there. Isn’t he?” Lyrou pointed to the screen.

“You can’t just insist they all look the same. Please.” Garin put on a serious, disappointed face.

Lyrou’s mouth popped open. “I. Am. Black. They’re just doppelgangers.”

Garin shook his head low, using quote-fingers, “Babe, babe, ‘doppelgangers’ is an antiquated and bigoted term.”

Play-slapping his chest, Lyrou smiled and scooted up closer, face-to-face, “Shut up now.”

“You had a great time,” he said confidently, with a grin.

Lyrou nodded, her eyes avoiding his. “It was... different,” she murmured, her voice cautious. “Un bel homme érudit, sophistiqué, un peu tordu. He’s unlike anyone I’ve met before.”

Garin took a nanosecond to defuse the internal impulse to ask in a scream if he wasn’t also those qualities. He spoke securely, “You’ve fallen for him that quickly. I wonder if it’s because he really is different or because you went into it with such intent… to find the one… that the stick becomes the sword,” Garin said with genuine curiosity, a long shot from the tone of an invested and jealous spouse, and more the tone of a cold, detached observer. 

Lyrou composed her plasmic fear and something she couldn’t quite name. “Marc... he’s more than just a fling, ma vie,” her lip quivering, her confession. “He makes me feel happy. I don’t know if I should tell you this, but he makes me question everything.” She bit her bottom lip, waiting for his reaction, her heart in her throat.

“Pursue it as far as it can go,” Garin said, like a command. “Are we playing soulmate chicken, hoping the other will swerve first, or are we explorers like you once said we are?”

Lyrou sat silent; she suppressed the sadness of Garin, just not caring. Instead, she focused on absorbing this profound sense of liberation.  She had his blessing, the widening boundaries of their marriage allowing her this freedom. “Merci, chéri.” She curled into him, her body seeking comfort and reassurance.

Garin’s arms wrapped around her, holding her tightly, his heart kicking in rhythm with hers. “You’re letting yourself go unchained. I’ll do so, too.” He spoke into her hair, his voice strong despite the ache in his chest.

She nodded, her eyes shimmering. She meshed fully into him, her body molding against his, feeling the comfort of his embrace. The scent of the garden outside found them. “We agreed.”

“Yes, we’ll learn a lot soon. How couldn’t I have known for over a decade?” Garin turned inquisitive, reflective. He began walking his two fingers like legs up and down her thigh.

She stayed silent, thinking and watching his finger-legs play, then answered, “You weren’t suspicious. Once you were suspicious, I was easily uncovered.” Lyrou admitted.

“Something should’ve made me suspicious sooner.” It was clear Garin had been thinking about this today, while she was out.

Lyrou tried to make it simple, “I was careful.”

“It must have been difficult to be so careful, for so long.” Garin sounded almost sympathetic to her previous life.

“At first, but then it becomes a habit. Follow a few don’ts, and it becomes surprisingly difficult to leave any evidence.” Lyrou now took the poise of a veteran criminal.

“What don’ts?” Garin wanted to learn.

“I made no unusual credit or debit card purchases. I kept no unusual receipts. I never met or messaged a man you or anybody you know... knows. That is the most common way a cheater is caught. I sent and received no texts or phone calls, except through the fling site and leaving messages in drafts in dedicated email accounts that my paramour and I both had the credentials to access. That is the easiest way a cheater is caught. You could check with everyone you know, dig through my phone records and my charges, and never find a thing.”

“You’ve allowed me into your phone for honest reasons, like watching slideshows you made of the kids and us, and you seemed totally at ease,” Garin recalled.

“I never kept naughty recordings or photos or contacts in my phone. Not in hidden files or under false names.” Lyrou seemed to take a sort of pride in it, her craft.

“I should’ve seen the app.” Garin shrugged.

“In the end, you discovered I was using the app. But you would’ve known immediately if I had the app installed on my phone. I never searched, installed, or used the fling app-proper. I used the browser site. What’s more, I used a VPN whenever I visited the site. You couldn’t find I’d visited the site or searched for it in a search engine if you’d gotten my browsing history directly from the internet provider.” Lyrou expertly added. “If you’d ever snooped in my browser history, then you’d find the endless history of sites I visited, online shopping, news articles, and such. No fling sites. I never deleted my entire history; that would be suspect, but I deleted only the notations of the fling site, and after every single time I visited it.” Lyrou gestured as though she were tapping on a phone with each word she articulated.

“If you’d snooped in my email account too? I made an email account you never knew about and used it only to register my account on the fling site. I deleted the email site from my history, also. I saved no passwords or usernames but memorized them, so that even if you'd visited either the fling site or the email site, my username and password wouldn’t populate in the login boxes, and you couldn’t select ‘forgot username or password’ and enter any emails of mine that you know, except to get an ‘unrecognized email’ response. It would appear just as if I’d no account, if you ever thought to check that is.” Lyrou explained thoroughly.

“I never caught you in the act of using it.” Garin was approaching disbelief.

Lyrou came so completely clean, “I never used it when we were under the same roof unless I was in the restroom with the door locked, pretending only to use the toilet or tub.”

“I recently read a story of a centenarian Sardinian who discovered another man’s dusty old, yellowed love letters to his wife hidden deep in her closet,” Garin recalled.

“I didn’t keep any of their letters or cards when I received them. I might’ve liked to save a few, as mementos or souvenirs, but after reading them once, or twice in the same sitting, I tore them up and threw them away. I disposed of them all lest they expose me, and never in a bin at home where they could be found and reassembled.” Her honesty was total, and Garin devoured it.

“What did they say?” he still wondered what special ordering of words won her over.

“Many ridiculous pronouncements of love and longing. I recall one... I’d teased him several times that he was unoriginal. So he wrote he’d shoot the president and cut off his ear for me. I liked that. What did the extra-elderly Sardo do?”

“By and by, he divorced her on principle, and they both died soon after. You had a lot to remember, I think. Did you ever misplace your ring?” Garin looked at her finger, the ring he gave her on it.

She held up her hand, “My ring? It’s remained where you last put it. I didn’t take it off often. You might be surprised how poorly it serves as a man-deterrent.”

“When you look like you, that’s little surprise.” Garin sighed, “I could’ve caught you by calling you at an inconvenient time and demanding you accept my video call request.”

Quickly, Lyrou retorted, “And if you did, I’d not answer unless I could make my paramour hide or quickly get myself away. And I’d not be with someone otherwise unless I could reasonably ignore your call, should it ring, with a sound alibi for not answering.”

“I must have called you when you couldn’t answer.” Garin looked into Lyrou’s eyes to receive the truth.

“Yes, a few times, and I didn’t answer. I told you I was in a meeting, talking to someone, that I was asleep, that I was driving, and my phone was lost down in my bag. But I never had to make those excuses often enough to be suspicious because you were never an incessant caller,” Lyrou said with the same relief she’d once taken for granted that Garin wasn’t close behind on her trail.

“Did I ever call you when you were with another man?” Garin rubbed Lyrou’s knee.

Lyrou took a moment, hesitant that this might hurt him, then answered, “Yes.” 

Stroking Lyrou’s calf, Garin asked, “Did you answer and talk to me while another man was there with you?”

“Yes. Are you angry?” Lyrou worried.

“A little.” Garin shook his head.

Locking fingers with his, she said, “I’m sorry.”

“What was the closest I came to catching you?” Garin hoped he’d come very close.

“I got too comfortable going out in daylight. I once saw you driving by when I was meeting Paulo. I couldn’t believe you didn’t see the two of us, but somehow you didn’t. You must’ve unconsciously overlooked me as another pedestrian, perhaps too deep in your thoughts as you drove. That was scary enough, but nothing compared to when I was again with Paulo, and I ran into you. Do you remember where? It was a café downtown.” Lyrou hoped he could.

It came back to him quickly, “You mean... when I found you by serendipity in the café?”

“Yes. He was sitting at the table, on a footsie intermission, as I went up to order. Then you walked in. When I saw you, I pretended I was alone, just getting coffee to go.” Lyrou watched Garin’s face for his reaction.

With a hint of anger, “And he must’ve kept his inconspicuous ass seated and mouth shut as he watched you play that you were happily surprised to see your husband. We decided to take a table. I was so glad to run into you that day.” Garin remembered it vividly.

“I’m sorry.” Lyrou sounded as if she meant it.

Garin let out a silent, single laugh at a thought, “Do you think telling me these minutiae will assure me I won’t fall for your same sleights of hand, and that’ll make a second try between us palatable?”

Lyrou gave a quick, sad smile, “You said it, not me.”

“How did you think you’d be caught?” Garin wanted to hear how she imagined it would go.

“A few ways, one especially. You decided to put location sharing on the kids’ phones. I thought you would want us to put location sharing on our phones, too. I was relieved you didn’t mention it because I’d have no sound excuse to decline. I looked into ways to trick the location-sharing feature in case you did. Other than that, I feared a fling might become too attached and try to blow up my marriage. There was one man, Brian, who was cloying but then joked, or maybe didn’t joke, that he’d find my husband and tell on me, ‘I’ll end your ruse,’ he told me.” Lyrou remembered her terror then, “I told him I’d cry calumny and if that failed I’d stab him. He didn’t play with me again. I can say he was my only lover I hated.”

Garin sat quietly for a minute, his attention somewhat returning to the history documentary. Lyrou snuggled on him, “Garin, tell me about Amina," she whispered into his chest.

“I don’t know much, she's been busy in court or it'd would've been sooner. But we’ll have our date very soon, your turn to stay home,” Garin said, his eyes on the images of tombs and hieroglyphs from antiquity.

Lyrou pressed her ear to his chest, listening for a hint of his trepidation. "What should I expect, mon roi?” she asked, the beat of his heart against her cheek.

“What do you mean... expect?” Garin asked, bewildered.

Lyrou didn’t want to pry, but she also didn’t want to be left in the dark. “Just... tell me what she’s like, chéri,” her fingers playing with the hem of his shirt. “What drew you to her?” She wanted to avoid making too much of a comparison, but rather quench a thirst to understand the woman’s allure. 

Garin watched the TV a moment, seemingly impressed by the inventive engineering methods archaeologists unearthed at a lost burial site, then he gave thought to her question, “She looks great, her skin, her hair, she smells great, her voice is great, her body is great.. perfectly shaped and curved with all the right stuff, narrow waist, wide hips, long legs, such a pretty face, beautiful lips, big black eyes, and she responded positively to my flirting. I suppose those are all such surface, physical attributes to be drawn to a woman, but it’s easy to covet a shimmering jewel such as that. On our date, I’ll get to know the person behind that gorgeous face. I hope there isn’t anything to disqualify her by my standards. Personality matters too, this round. If she’s a lunatic, disrespectful, or simply doesn’t show the kind of interest in me that I want my help-meet to have, then it’s a dead-end.”

“I understand, mon amour,” she said. “Personality really does matter most this round.” She inhaled, “But what if she does have all of those nice qualities? What if she’s everything you’ve ever wanted?” Her heart jolted at the thought, their delicate balance swaying precariously. Yet she had to try to trust him, to allow him this experience, just as he’d allowed her with Marc. “Promise me, no matter what happens, we’ll talk about it.”

“I’ll tell you even if I fall deeply in love with Amina. Especially if that happens, I’ll tell you.” Garin stroked Lyrou’s hair as she lay on his chest.

“And what if I do the same with Marc?” she asked, a soft echo of the breezy night outside. “What if I find in him what I never knew I was missing?” Lyrou undid Garin’s pants zipper and poked her fingers inside, fishing around for his cock.

He hardened to feel her nails run along and then under his shaft. “Then sadly we find that our love wasn’t the real thing, our marriage was a misfire, or maybe just a blazing fire that burned out and dimmed. Happily... at least one of us... maybe both of us... will find a better and lasting love. Because of our arrangement, we can test if what we have really is our destined, true romance, and not have to wonder if… with our one life to live… we didn’t taste true romance at all. I’m afraid too, Lyrou.” Garin was so hard in his pants that he had to unbutton himself to get some space.

Lyrou rolled his underwear band down and, with her face in his lap, tugged his cock free.

She spoke to his cock as it bobbed and erected itself, her lips almost touching it. “J’aime bien ta bite. The only thing that might ruin Marc for me is if he has a little disappointment in his briefs.”

“You haven’t seen it yet?” Garin imagined Lyrou in exactly this same position, on another man’s sofa, face on another man’s lap, with another man’s cock bobbing back and forth at her lips.

“Of course not, I came home, and I’m here before you now, oui? I want him to take me seriously. I can’t give him all of this woman on our first date.” Lyrou stuck her tongue out as far as it could poke, touching the tip of it to Garin’s midshaft, strumming along the ribbed, veiny length of him.

“Don’t make him wait too long, honey; it’s not as if you can tell him you’re saving yourself for your wedding night.” Garin pressed his thumb to his cock, angling and aiming it directly into Lyrou’s mouth.

Lyrou swirled her tongue around his glans, but only once, then spoke to his dick. “Ta bite, ta bite. You were so pure and mine not long ago. But since you have been in des touffes, you’re such a dirty bite. I don't know which women you've been inside, not anymore. You say you didn't fuck the topless whores on the client's yacht, but I can't really know that. Maybe you did. I think you did. Such a dirty bite."

Garin memorized her French, repeating to himself, "Des touffes, des touffes."

Lyrou kissed his cock like a pet, "Be a good bite for this Mademoiselle Amina. I want you to be as good for her as you were for me. You can wait for her longer than you waited for me. Maybe you can be the best bite she has known.”

“It’s no use talking to this dick of mine. He only cares about fucking around and letting me find out.” Garin stroked Lyrou’s hair and gyrated his hips, again angling to enter her mouth.

Lyrou turned her head, not to allow him entry to her mouth just yet. With his cock mashing against her lips as she spoke, she agreed with him. “You’re right, chéri. This is our chance to find out. But you’re so much to me, Garin. I can’t express how much you are to me.” A lump in her throat had formed. But something caught her eye, something on his dick. She stopped and squinted at it, a black crosshatch marking. It was faded but clear enough; 佳 with a dash-line marking his shaft. “Garin, what is that?”

Garin smiled, “Do you want to promise we’ll remain friends? In that event, I mean.”

Lyrou’s face slackened, dire, as she considered his words. ‘Friend’ was such a demotion, so far below them. The silence stretched, filled only by the hum of the TV. Lyrou raised into him, her breasts pressing against his chest, her hands sliding up his arms to rest on his shoulders. “We’re more than just friends or just lovers; we’re partners, we’re parents, we’re each other’s foundation.” Her voice grew stronger, her eyes narrowed with conviction. “If we become friends?” she kissed him, “I would hate to be your friend.” At last, she closed her eyes, opened her mouth wide, and sucked Garin’s cock as deep and hard against the back of her throat as she could go. Her lips slid down to the line, and then with some force, down past it.

As Lyrou opened her eyes and looked up at Garin, his dick in her mouth, she saw that he had her phone and was facing it at her, “Unlock it. Show me the guy.”

With Garin holding her phone for her, and she still sucking his cock, she slid her finger over the number pad and then opened her album that she kept the 10 or 12 Marc had sent her, and she’d saved. Garin scrolled through them while he enjoyed her tongue swirling around his glans and her lips tightening on his shaft. Garin’s abs and core tightened with a little laugh. He commented, “That’s him on a runway in slim-tailored rock chic, huh?”

Lyrou weaned herself off Garin’s dick to take a breath and explain. “He was roped into doing fashion shows by a scout during his Paris days.”

Garin set her phone aside as Lyrou gave his dick a two-handed crank. He added, “Then, too smart to just be a really, ridiculously good-looking panties prince, he made the transition to hunk-nerd.” He handed Lyrou his phone, opened to his own album of photos Amina had sent him of herself.

Lyrou scrolled, examining Amina with the same concerned indifference Garin had scrolled through her photos of Marc. Or so she tried. At her first look at this new woman, Lyrou unconsciously stopped stroking Garin. Amina was stunning to behold. She zoomed in to see Amina’s face more clearly. “Garin?”

Garin pulled his phone from his hand and kissed her, his precum still mixed in her saliva. Around and about the couch, more items of their clothes were scattered. Face-to-face, stomach-to-stomach, groin-to-groin, they rocked against each other. Cushions fell off over the armrests; Lyrou’s bouncing, wobbling foot knocked something off the coffee table. Garin’s dick dug impossibly hard into her G-spot with his thrust, she felt his nuts pressed against her ass crack, and she ran her fingers over his back, dipping them into his many hard divots, lines, furrows, and striations she loved. She placed both hands over and atop the mounds formed by his flexing, working glutes, pulling him into her as he plowed. The sensation of him on top of her, pinned by him against the backrest of the couch, having her pussy mercilessly, persistently rammed built her climax faster than she could get in front of it. It occurred to her to ask Garin if he might be imagining Amina as he fucked her, in place of her. That would be too scary. But if he answered yes, that he was thinking of Amina right then… she gasped, she bit her lip. And there it went, no stopping it, and she was sent to that place beyond places, a true and total woman’s orgasm.

⚜

Evening Sunday, May 11th, 2025

Lyrou read Alan’s and then, because it was shorter than last year’s and she was sure she could handle it without sniffle-tearing in public, Garin’s Mother’s Day cards at the table at the Cantonese Buffet. They were lovely, and she thanked them before Alan nudged his little sister, “Penny, give Mom your card.”

Penny looked angrily at him, then sadly to Lyrou, “I don’t have it; I left it in my desk.”

“At school?” Garin rubbed her shoulder.

“Uh, yes.” Penny quickly replied, stuffing a spoonful of shrimp rice in her mouth.

Alan smirked, “I saw her writing the card in her room before we left to come here.”

Penny swiveled her head and gave a death stare into her big brother’s forehead. Lyrou interrupted, “Alan, assez, arrêtez. I’m more than content with my flowers Penny chose for me. There might be a card or there might not be a card… it’s up to her if she’d like to do that. In this country, they mandate sentimentalities, and that just misses the point. Penny, I’m thinking about having the mango pudding for dessert. May I have your plate and get you some also?”

Penny nodded hungrily; her attitude softened.

Later at home, just before midnight, Lyrou was alone in the guestroom reading a novel, fairies and elves, that she didn’t care for but which was getting better as the plot complicated. She sensed that she was being watched and looked up at the door, peeking around the frame stood a pajama elf.  “Penny come in here. It’s late, mon elfe domestique.”

Penny moved like a fox around the frame and into the room, coming up to Lyrou with a one-arm hug around mom’s waist, placing a card into her hand, “Je t'aime, maman,” and then whisking away, out the door, down the hallway, and back to her bedroom.

“Dear Mom,

Happy Mother’s Day!

I think when I get older, I used to want to be like Maribel Soto-Perez, or I also used to like Mylee Lynn Myers and Ashlie Rae Benson.”

Lyrou got the first couple, but took a moment on her phone to search who Ashlie Rae Benson was, finding she was a screamo viral cover singer whose smoky black-and-white makeup face she knew but had only heard her referred to by Penny and her friends by her internet handle ‘HiGnoats’.

She returned to reading Penny’s card, “But I also want to be like you. The thing I want to be like you is that you are very crazy smart. You always know what people are talking about and what to say. You always make people understand you, and you say whatever you want. Not whatever you want, but you know what I mean. So, number 1, you’re smart; number 2, you’re pretty; and number 3, because I’m your daughter, it makes me think that if you do something good or great, then I can do it too.

From Penny

PS, thank you for taking care of me every day.”

⚜