When Le Brusc sleeps, keep your voice down.

The boats doze at the quay with their noses in. Fishing nets drape over old wooden frames to dry. The scent of diesel lingers beneath vivid pine resin and sea ozone.

This fishing village is the closest I will get to a holiday. For six days, I parked the van under the pines for the cooler shade. Each morning, I walk into the village. This place has no attractions for easily bored tourists, and they do not come here for its remote beach.

I am using watercolours again, just for fun. My folios are bulging, and if I complete just one picture a day, I struggle to find space to keep it.

Île des Embiez lies flat and pale before me. It shimmers as shades of grey rock with swaths of weed and lichen. I paint the pale rocks of the Gaou before the walkers have colonised them, catching the sea's early blue in this light, before the sky steals it back.

Yet I look to the lagoon, and I want to admire its colours. It can be approached by land, but in the afternoon heat and with these sandals, that’s impossible. I can venture there by sea, but only by sail and oars.

I sigh.

I am happy.

That is the whole of it.

Yesterday, Maëlle called, and she is staying in Cap Ferret with friends. I am expected in Nice soon. To think months ago, in the Luberon, I fretted when the van left me stranded. For now, life bends to my way of thinking, not that I do too much of that.

-=- 54 -=-

As the fishermen return close to lunchtime, he brings me coffee on the hour.

Baptiste.

I know it is him before I look up. His unhurried steps match the pace of a man born here. He sets the paper cup on the low wall where I have parked my water jar.

I almost put my brush in my drink. He deflects my wrist.

“Nearly,” he grins. “Like you did yesterday.”

Of course, I did it on purpose.

“Nearly is not quite, Baptiste. I’d have stopped myself like yesterday.”

I taste my coffee. “This is sweet.”

He shrugs. “I did ask for one sugar.”

“She put in two.” I look up with a mischievous grin. “Danièle likes you. She does not like me.”

Baptiste’s cheeks flush pink. They always do at some point during our little chats. He is clean-shaven every day after my remark on Monday about his stubble. Proudly, he told me he is twenty-two on Tuesday, when I said he was as sweet as my coffee. He left school at sixteen and works hard as a fisherman. I asked if he had the body to match it.

That was Wednesday’s embarrassment.

Baptiste still has those lean edges of youth. His raven-black hair shines and ripples in the breeze. His hands have a patience with rope that I do with a brush. What I adore most are the parts of him that are older than he is. When he stands close to me, he does not say anything to fill the silence. When he speaks, I feel a natural spark that makes me shiver.

By Saturday, I might tell him that he is my muse.

He spends his afternoons reading his book in the shade of the quayside. His thumb holds the page, reminding the wind that he is its master. We have this in common - one book at a time. He does not tell you the title unless you ask. Right now, it is The Count of Monte Cristo, and even then he looks at the spine first.

I imagine him as Dantès, and I might be his hidden treasure.

What I have is a simple and honest feeling, and my flame for him burns constantly. He sees my glances, and each day, they are increasingly impolite.

Today is Thursday, and he ventures towards me.

“Under the bridge,” he gestures at my painting, and then he looks at me. “You’ve made it darker.”

“It is. People paint it turquoise and leave it at that.”

“At ten, it’s turquoise. Not now.”

“No.”

He shrugs and drinks from his own cup. “You’ve stayed longer than the others.”

He remains on me. I place a little more shadow under the bridge.

“Which others?”

“The ones who come to paint. By a few days, actually.”

“I’m slow at painting.”

He nods. “You are. Some might say you are worth the wait.”

“Touché,” I grin.

A gull lands on a capstan and tilts his head, looking at us. The quayside smells of its fresh catch, hot stone, and the crushed ice from the crates. A radio in the café plays something old, and I have forgotten its chorus.

“If you want to see different waters…” He stops.

I wait and smile, enjoying how he flushes.

“Perhaps, Elodie, we might go to the seaward side of the island?”

“Is that an invitation… Baptiste?”

“Yes,” he fumbles.

“Okay,” I do not look at him, keeping my eye on my painting, “Perhaps after lunch when that path empties?”

Now I look at him, and he glows fiercely. He looks at the cup in my hand, then at my mouth. When our eyes meet, mine say something filthy.

“Give me an hour with this light,” I ask. “Then, we’ll go and see these rocks.”

He swallows. “Alright.”

He goes back to his boat. I go back to my blockbook.

The coffee is still too sweet.

I drink it anyway.

-=- 55 -=-

His boat is smaller in the water than it looks in the quay. In green and white, its name is lettered in a script that has not been fashionable for years. I sit where he tells me to and keep my paint box on my knees. He does not talk as we clear the harbour. The lagoon falls away, still hiding its palette.

“You like it there?”

I nod. “Just look at it.”

He doesn’t, because he has many times. It is one of the things I like about him.

We run along the seaward face of the Gaou. The rock is pale and broken, with pines gripping whatever the wind has not taken up on the headland. The water under us turns from turquoise to a green glass. He cuts the engine and lets the boat drift.

“There.” The boat gently bumps the rocks.

We are on a stone shelf, low enough to step onto. Hidden from the path by a tall, almost vertical shoulder, no one is here. He holds the boat. I step across. The stone is hot through the soles of my sandals. He follows with a line and stake. He hammers it into a fissure, fastening the boat in case the tide changes its mind.

I do not set up my stool.

He notices, and says nothing.

The air here is different under this vast open sky. The hints of salt wash over the faint iodine of drying seaweed. Higher up, cicadas work the slope above us. The mainland is a distant scattering of specks and smears of colours.

“You were right,” I look at him. “Nobody comes here.”

He considers the horizon. “They want the bridge for their photos.”

Then he looks at me.

“And you, Baptiste? What do you want?”

He shrugs one shoulder. “I work here. It’s just the coastline to me.”

He misses my cue, so I look at him. A layer of his dark hair catches the wind, and he stands proud, facing it. His honey-kissed face has no lines. His story and his purpose remain unwritten, except that he is a fisherman from Le Brusc.

I remove my hat and shake my hair loose, giving it to the breeze.

“Baptiste.”

Now I pout a little and weigh my eyelids. He looks at me as I approach. I am close enough to place my hand on his chest, but I will not. Instead, I gaze into his eyes. He needs to understand what it means when a woman looks at him like this.

“I’m going to say it, because I’ll wait all afternoon if I don’t. I didn’t come out here for the rocks.”

A rash of pink rises, and I smile kindly. He deserves more than that.

“I’ve wanted you for days.”

He does not step back.

“So, Baptiste. If I’ve got this wrong, take me back and we can pretend all those coffees were just coffee.”

Looking into the gold flecks of his hazel eyes, I cannot see his answer.

Then, he shows me. “You are not wrong.”

It comes out as a low rumble. He looks faintly startled by his own words.

I step into him. “Good.”

My hands rest on the warm cotton twill of his shirt. He smells of sun, diesel and the cheap soap from the washbasin on the quayside. I give him a moment.

Then I kiss him.

He is careful at first. Then he is not. His mouth opens. His hands find my waist as if they have been waiting for a very long time. I succumb to his firm grip and let out a small whimper. His tongue reciprocates as our clinch tightens.

I break enough to see his face. “Is this alright?”

“Yes.” He nods, as if the word is not enough. “It is.”

I unbutton his shirt, checking on him as it opens. Carefully, I push it back from his shoulders. Years of hard work built him. I give in to the compulsion to glide my hands over the contours of his chest. I kiss the base of his neck, just to feel his breathing stutter.

He finds the zipper of my dress, and it slips from his grasp. My lips reassure him. When he brushes my dress off, the air caresses my body but does not cool it. I am naked. I have lived with the heat of that decision for hours. Now, I am grateful that I did.

He can look, and he no longer hides his hunger. I have no interest in being modest on a rock that no one can see. It would not bother me if they could.

“You’re…” He stops, as if the rest of the sentence was a bad idea.

“Come here.” I take him in my arms, cradle his head against me, and kiss his hair.

I spread my dress under us, seeking comfort to have more of him. We go down onto the stone. He kisses my neck, my hopeful mouth, and the upper slope of my breast. When he takes my nipple between his lips, I slide my fingers through his hair to keep him there. He learns by staying. He is inexperienced and exact at the same time. I feel him listen with his mouth.

I open his shorts. He is hard, heavy in my hand, the skin hot, a little slick already at the head. I stroke him once and watch his eyes lose their focus. I could take him in my mouth and end his anxiety. Maybe another time. Instead, I want all his nervous energy.

He kicks the rest of his clothes away. I reach for his waist, and draw his loins between my legs. Now I tilt my head, silently demanding he does not look away. I reach between us, and he holds still. I have him in hand, caught in that moment of expectation. The first press of him makes me exhale. I want him to see that moment of penetration. With my arm around his neck, I plunge to kiss him, lift my hips and slide onto him. The fill is sudden and complete. He sees my gasp and softened features. I press on, soaked for more, and he hears my pleasure. I place it against his lips and pull everything into me.

“Okay?” he asks, almost into my hair.

I pull his face to me. “Yes. I’ll tell you if it isn’t.”

He almost smiles. Then he moves, and I have to gasp again.

I am more than okay.

The rock holds the heat, and we add our own. The sea joins us, calling out nature’s rhythm a few metres away. I hook a leg over his hip and show him what I need. He follows. I have the flex of his young body beneath my hands. He moves with the stamina of a man who has been working since dawn. He is with me, adapting and moving. I pull him close. I want his strength and his heat. I want him deep.

“Don’t stop.” I whisper in his ear, kissing it.

We move in harmony with the lapping tide. He moves with limber, easy motions that belie his inexperience. He does not make this into a performance. I like him for that. I like the gasps he makes when I flex back to him. I like that he looks at my face as if the world does not exist. He drives with purpose, forcing my breath to catch. My hands do not need to direct, and I relent to the rising pleasure.

No one so young should be able to do this.

But he can.

The tension builds, and I cannot stall it. I have nothing to prove on this stone shelf. I want him to see this, and it flickers through my eyes when my grip on him tightens. He plucks at my last resistance with an unbridled kiss. I have to let go, giving myself to this intimacy. When it arrives, it peaks and falls away slowly, dragging out a long cry. I arch, and he holds me tight. It sends a pair of gulls out from the pine above us. Moving tenderly, he keeps me with him until the last shudder leaves.

The caress of him inside compels me to match him. I am wet through, open, and greedy in the sunlight. I steer him, enjoying how he discovers the variations I adore. No rising fury comes from him, as if he saves that for stormier seas. He murmurs with pleasure, deep, rough, vibrating through me. Many men have tried, and so few have done this to me.

I wish with all I have for a few moments more, but nothing this good can last forever.

“Don’t fight it,” I murmur. “Come. I want you to.”

His rhythm fails with shorter and shorter thrusts. I pull him as close as I can, and he understands.

I hold the back of his neck. “Yes, let go. I have you.”

He drives deep, stays, and pulses, his forehead against my shoulder. Then, he stabs deep, with the breath punched out of him. I feel every twitch. My restless hips and muscles squeeze. I keep him there until he is empty.

We lie with the stone under the dress and rest under the eternal sky. A drop of sweat runs from his temple onto my collarbone and dries to salt.

“I didn’t think…” He pauses again, wary of what comes next.

“I did. That’s all that matters.” I kiss him.

He laughs, properly, for the first time all week. It changes his face, and I reach out to caress it.

If we are there for minutes or an hour, I do not care. I rest against him, stirring my fingers over his dense, muscular torso. We dress, and he helps me with the zipper because I ask him to. I put my hat back on. The paint box has sat through the entire event like a discreet aunt.

I am old enough to be one for him.

He looks at the water, then at me. “Let’s head back.”

“Please.”

He nods.

“Baptiste?”

He turns from the horizon.

“I’m not leaving the village, in case you are wondering.”

I could get used to seeing that wider, inhibited smile.

-=- 56 -=-

Today, I am on the quayside again. Baptiste works, offloading crates of oysters, and I get an occasional glance. We share another coffee, and it is Friday. He blushes when I tell him that he is an incredible lover. He goes to his boat and does the small jobs that men invent so they can think about something.

I set up my easel to paint the capstan and that gull, a fixture in this village as much as Baptiste. My body is quiet and pleased. The van will still be in the pines when I walk back. I will eat fresh bread, smoked fish, and tomatoes with the last of some Bandol.

I will sleep deeply, peacefully… gratefully.

He walks past with a new coil of rope.

“Baptiste.”

He stops.

“The lagoon? When can you see the best colours?”

He waits. “Sunset.”

“How close can you get to it with your boat?”

He looks at the western quarter the way he looks at weather. “To that buoy marker.”

I track his confident finger. “Close enough, then?”

He nods once, and smiles. “I’ll take you.”

“I’ll be here.”

-=- 57 -=-

The heat drops by degrees. Back at my van, I showered myself with tepid water from my nemesis. If there were prying eyes, they could not arouse me more than I am.

The last of the light bathes the quayside in silver and bronze. The pines on the Gaou go black along their edges. I sit on the low wall in a long flowing cotton dress, letting my flaxen hair down. Months of sunshine have lightened it. Peacefully, I watch the working day tidy itself away.

Baptiste arrives as the first true pink arrives in the western sky. He has washed and shaved, too. His shirt is a different one. I enjoy his sandalwood aftershave. I do not comment.

He walks past his green-and-white boat, and I frown, confused. He must know, and he turns to look at me, grinning.

“We have another one. It is my grandfather’s.”

It is a small cabin cruiser with brass portholes, varnished dark wood, and a white hull.

Baptiste grins. I can see a hint of pride in his eyes. I tremble a little as he offers his hand to step aboard. We clear the harbour without talking. Standing next to him, I rest my hand on his shoulder and let the wind flow through my hair.

He turns us seaward, past the rock where his seed leaked from me. Embiez sits to my left. Out on the open sea, ahead of us is the line where the darkening ocean meets the slow dance of sunset.

The lagoon holds its breath as pewter and rose. Baptiste cuts the engine.

The boat rocks, silent now. The sea is calm. The sun is a low golden coin. It throws a shimmering path on the water that no painter should trust, yet every painter does.

I do not lift a brush.

He looks at me, trying to hide his expectant expression. “This is it.”

“Yes.”

The City of Nice lies east, behind my shoulder. That fact does not burden me. This light will not sit like this for me again. Not this summer, at least.

I step down into the cabin and turn to face him.

“Baptiste.”

Pulling the string around my neck, I slide my dress from me. It falls enough to step out of it. I walk up the steps. The last of the sun is a caress from a ghostly lover. I am a silhouette. He is not so shy, but there is enough trepidation to make this a sweet emotion.

He comes to me. I kiss him, bathed in the sun's fading warmth. My hands slide under the clean shirt and find the same hard body I had on the rock.

Illuminated by twilight and deeper shadows, I take him out of his shorts and stroke him. On my knees, held in my hand, I stir my tongue around him. His hands rest on my head, and I want him to press my mouth onto him. He doesn’t, but I do. Looking up, my eyes blaze for his enjoyment. Pulling on him, soft skin tightens over blood-infused muscle. I gauge his strength, dense as oak.

I guide him to the padded seating and straddle him, pressing his head to my breasts. He murmurs heavily as I take him. His lavishing tongue falters when I have it all, and its heft forces my gasps from me.

This time, with a clash of hips and determined eyes, the door to my personality is ajar. This is what I let him see. I am a collection of moving pictures, rocking back and forth on him, trapping him deep inside. My fluid hips roll. I feel all of him, and I want him to know I am taking him this deep on purpose.

His hands hold my breasts. I cover one with mine and keep it there, and his fingers know what they do to me. The sky burnishes the golden sun with burnt orange. A strip of cloud catches fire. I ride him through it. I rise and fall. I grind back and forth as our tongues slide like my body against his. Slow is enough. Slow is better. I want the last of the light on us. He will see my ascent, my hunger, and the pleasure he gives me.

When I start to tighten, I do not hide my face. My breathing flutters, my face soft and my body tensing. I climax with lost eyes and a tight jaw, the scale of it too big to be overheard. I shake against him, trembling as if suddenly cold.

I laugh once because the boat applauds us with a hearty slap of water against the hull.

“Your turn.”

At my most intense, I enjoy how he swells. He tries to last. He is twenty-two, and he fails in the most flattering way. I sit down on him fully and hold him while he comes, deep, with a sound I hope he has never made before. I embrace him tightly until the sun slips under the horizon.

We stay like that, his head cradled against my breast. My fingers run through his hair as the first early stars appear above us. A fishing lamp comes on, far away, and then another. They are small and unimpressed by the sunset we have used.

I kiss him.

“I’ll remember this,” he mutters.

“So will I.”

We dress in the blue tones of the deepening night. The air has cooled enough to raise the fine hairs on my arms. I can feel him, wet against my thigh, and I stand next to him, my hand on his shoulder as he takes us home.

As we step from the boat, under the half-lit quayside, Baptiste hesitates. “You could come to my place. If you wanted to.”

“I could.” I kiss him, briefly, on the mouth, in front of nobody in particular. “But you know I won’t.”

He believes me, and that expression suits him.

I caress his cheek. “I’ll be here in the morning. I’m not going anywhere.”

Walking up into the pines, the shade is now nighttime. The van opens on the second pull of the handle, which is as close as she comes to a welcome.

-=- 58 -=-

It is early morning. My body has that pleasant ache. I set the easel where it stood yesterday and begin again, trying to master the Gaou.

Baptiste is out fishing. Our coffee time is a few hours away.

The girl from the café approaches. It is Danièle, the woman who puts two sugars in my coffee. With her dark hair pinned up badly, she stops, looks at my blockbook, then at me.

“Good morning,” I offer.

“You’re the painter.”

“For this week. Next week, I am someone different.”

Seeing her blank expression, I will not explain myself.

“You know Baptiste, don’t you? The green and white boat.”

She is old enough for me to understand her question.

“I know him.” I rinse my brush.

I look up, pausing to take her in. Fresh-faced, with bright, untainted eyes, I know she is a daughter of Le Brusc.

“He’s shy, so you’ll need to ask him.”

She blinks, a little astonished. “Oh… Oh, I see.”

“He’s one of the good ones, too. So, I hope you are serious about him.”

Her frown melts away like the high cloud by mid-morning. “I am.”

“And I have one sugar in my coffee.”

She smiles, and so do I.

“One sugar,” she replies.

We both nod in agreement, and she heads back towards the café.

Baptiste does not bring me a cup of coffee today.

Later, I walk to the far end of the quay for supplies. They are at a table outside the café. He is talking with his hands. I have not seen him do that. Danièle is leaning in, all eyes and ears. She has taken the clip out of her hair and lets it rest naturally. That was the right decision.

He does not see me. Good.

Something in his expression is older than me, older than time. It is not the girl, as beautiful as she is. It is the way a young man looks when he has conquered his timidity.

My act of generosity settles; it glows. It is something I have not done for many years.

It is something close to virtue, and it is mine.

-=- 59 -=-

In Montmartre, we enjoyed an al fresco meal, and Martin carried a pinched look of stress all evening. He tried so hard to make me laugh, and he listened very attentively. It was a meal he could not really afford, and he refused to let me pay half. As a token, I bought a small music box as a thank-you.

I bought it so I could touch his hands. Then, in my eyes, he would see what I really wanted in exchange. I held that look until he understood it was not an accident.

Still, his reticence choked him.

I slid my fingers into his. “Let’s walk to the Sacré-Cœur.”

There we stayed, at the balustrades, looking down at Place Louise Michel. On that long June evening, the city skyline rested, bathed in pink.

If we made it as far as the funicular, he would ask to escort me back to my apartment - again. Chaste, nervous, and with stilted sentences, he would be full of regret when he left me there - again.

I turned to look at him, and when he noticed, he gazed at me. My eyes dipped to his lips, and then returned. He stepped into my world, and the painful distance between us narrowed. My blood rushed as his hands rested on my hips. Slowly, as I waited, I tilted my head, my mind filled with a honey-syrup hope. His lips met mine with the softest graze. Earnest, meaningful, and with it, I became his girlfriend. I had the boyfriend I wanted so badly.

Only a month after my twenty-second birthday, and two months before his.

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I craved another one, and another. My intense desires stirred until that hot ache yearned to be released.

He was shy in the doorway of my apartment. I was not. We kissed so much that the door remained unopened. In the hallway, we could not wait for the door to close. His hands trembled when they undid the buttons on my dress. I wanted him so much, my fingers lost their confidence too.  

We slept together that night. Slept is a polite word. His reticence met my audacity, until I provoked the feral in him. I came with my face against his neck with cries I did not know I had. I kept him there because I was not finished needing him. Even when he came inside me, it was only an interlude for more. The bed always answered us back. We questioned it many times.

That look he gave me the next day… he revealed the man inside.

I knew right there, and then, he would be the man I loved with all my heart.

And I did.

-=- 60 -=-

It is Monday in Le Brusc, and almost lunchtime. I am down to the last pages in my final blockbook. As always, I can hear his steps and know it is Baptiste. I stop, turn and look at him. That slightly gauche expression is less pronounced than usual.

On Saturday, he was someone else’s muse.

He hands me my coffee, and I take a sip.

There is one sugar in it.

I purse my lips, letting them bloom into a smile. “It was a good weekend, then?”

He nods. “Yes, it was.”

I smile. “Baptiste and Danièle. It has a nice ring to it.”

He grins back, bearing his teeth. I admire how his eyes light up.

“It does.” He sips his coffee and keeps smiling. “It does.”