Engulfed

Cadmus unzipped the back of her dress, and his hand lingered at the small of her back. Mathilde felt his hand there like a wanted weight and it soothed her. He slipped the dress down over her shoulders.

“What did you say to her, what happened?” she asked him because she needed to know. He had been in Cleo’s hotel room, and she needed to know what he had said to her.

What had happened in her room.

“Cleo is mad at me, she is mad at me what else is new?” Cadmus sighed, and pulled her dress down more roughly over her shoulders.

Mathilde shrugged roughly, matching his rough pulling down of her dress.

“How long were you with her? As a couple?”

He caressed his shoulders, and kissed her neck.

“On and off for several years…I just started sleeping with her again, but then I saw you…” He caressed the small of her back, as she stepped out of the dress.

“I have a question for you,” he said. 

Mathilde stiffened.

“What?”

“When were you going to tell me?”

His hand lingered over her hip, and she bit her lip.

“What?” she repeated, a bit indignant this time.

He spun her around like a carousel, and she looked at him. His face was so close to hers, it looked like a caricature.

“Do you think I don’t remember your body? Do you think that all men are such dogs that they do not remember? I remember this mole Zara, I remember…”

Mathilde looked at him with wide eyes.

“Do you want a medal for remembering?” she said, naked and indignant. “I remember a lot too…”

“I know,” he said, his hand on both of her hips and the way he looked at her made her burn with desire and she hated him for that. Why did he always do that? Her burning in this hotel room, and Cleo burning in another? “I remember I did not treat you the best Zara…I remember…I am going to spend the rest of my life making it up to you…”
He bent before her and kissed her just where she was burning, and she was engulfed.

 

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Lockdown

Cleo could not keep her eyes off of Mathilde. Usually it was Cadmus that had her undivided attention — if he was in the room, she could not notice anything else but Mathilde was riveting. She could see why he wanted her, and it made her hurt all the more. She was going to need an emotional lockdown in the hotel room after this, so she could process her thoughts.

For now, she sat at the table watching the other woman and sipping her wine. Cadmus of course had selected something amazing for them to drink.

When she got to the bar, they were fucking as much as two people can fuck without actually fucking in public. They kept touching around each other like their hands were butterflies, and looking at each other awed expressions like they could not believe that the other person was with them. When she walked up to them they, both looked at her with dazed expressions like she was an unexpected cloud on a sunny day.

Mathilde was polite to her, but that was another thing about her. She was cosmopolitan and elegant, but there was a lot of reserve. Cleo caught herself when she almost touched her hand, while she was talking but she did not think that that was something that she should do. Cadmus barely looked at her, and when he did it was fleeting.

It was after when he went to her hotel room, where she had planned her lockdown that he looked at her. She looked at him confused because she was not sure why he was there.

“Where is Mathilde?” she asked, after she let him in and wrapped her arms about herself. She could feel the heat of his body, and saw him follow her out of the corner of her eye in the mirror.

“In our hotel room Cleo, you’ve seen us — I wanted you to see that this was not a fling.”

Cleo turned and looked at him.

“I came and I saw Cad–ironic no?”

He looked at her with his lips in a downward curve.

“Cleo…”

“I don’t need your words Cad, I don’t need your words!”

She looked at him with tears in her eyes, and her emotional lockdown began even though she was not alone.

 

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Foreign Places

Cadmus out of bed was even more intoxicating than he was in bed. She had memorized his scent after all of these years, sitting close beside him at the bar where he had picked her up.

Again.

Returning to the scene of the crime, even the jaded bartender was moved because it was obvious that something was between them. She touched his face as if she was fussing with him—but there was nothing to fuss with. He did the same to her, they could not stop fussing with their air, their auras.

He raised his glass of wine to her lips, and the graze of the glass against her lips was electric. But before she could sip, he pulled the glass away.

Mathilde smiled, but her smile was wan. It was hard to feel all of this again for him. And remember everything she had thought she had risen above.

There was no rising above any of it.

He placed his hand on her knee, and she fussed with nothing. Tugging at his tie, the skin of his throat warm and she was submerged in her thoughts of what was this? 

He placed his glass to her lips again, and the electricity returned at her lips between her legs. Mathilde for the first time would not run, she was in Paris with this man and she was not going to run away.

A woman walked into the bar, and up to the both of them. Cadmus looked cautious.

Cleo, this was the woman he had told her about that was in New York.

New York was foreign to Mathilde now, the only thing she knew was Cadmus beside her and this woman who stood beside them.

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Hot Mess

What was it about the love of, or the lack of love from a man that turned the strongest woman into a hot mess?

Cleo’s brain was on fire since Cadmus told her he wanted to be back with his long abandoned ex.

Did you treat her like you treated me? she texted like a slur against his character. She saw the bubbles on her phone like an effervescent drink rising to the surface as he replied to her.

I never abandoned you Cleo, I NEVER abandoned you! he texted back in a stream of defensiveness. And she had to admit that he had never abandoned her in the sense he had always been there for her even when they were not together. He was with her now as he was with another woman and she threw her phone to the side. Lying on her side in the Parisian hotel that was the one he was staying at—he paid for it, he wanted her to meet Mathilde.

Her name was Mathilde, and he showed her a picture he snuck of her while she was on her side like she was now. Her face was covered with her long, dark hair and you could not really see her face but everything else indicated that she was gorgeous and that she had Cadmus. The photo he took was obviously after an intimate moment.

Isn’t she going to mind? Isn’t she going to wonder why she has to meet me? she texted, biting her lower lip.

You are my best friend…he reply texted.

Is that what they call it these days?

They had had sex a couple of times in the last few months, and now she was just a friend? Cleo flung her phone across the room, and cried. She was a fetal-positioned mess on the edge of the bed…

…and at the edge of her sanity.

 

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Naked and Shivering

Naked and shivering, the sweat from both of their bodies cooled on hers after…Mathilde pulled her hair to one side, it was stuck to her face and below her shoulder. She looked at him, and then around at his hotel room. 

That was another thing about him, she never expected that he would not rise to the top of his field. He was always very focused, and that additionally made her feel silly around him because she was going to school too but she was much more into the fun part of the college experience. 

He even told her that she was not serious, like she was a bit of fluff.

But he had been serious about her in the moments past. He wanted her on top because he wanted to see her body move, and he touched every part that he wanted to see…

…move.

He made her feel like a goddess—like he never had when she was younger. His hands on her breasts, her hips and thighs. She moved so that she would drive him mad because she was very good at sex and she knew how to do that.

He looked wrecked beneath her, and it made her smile. She wished that she could be evolved and have sex with him and let him go. But everything old was brought up now that they had renewed their intimacy.

Mathilde turned on her side, and she felt him follow her as she did. Her smile tasted like tears because she did not know what she wanted.

Almost sounding like he was talking to himself, Cadmus said,

“I used to be in love with a girl you remind me of…”

“Tell me about her?” she said hoping she did not sound too interested. She had been playing it so cool all along.

“She was beautiful, and I wasted it all.”

Her bottom lip saltier with the tears now, Mathilde closed her eyes.

 

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image via House of Eclipse

Like Something From The Twenties

Cadmus could not keep his eyes off of her…

She reminded him so much of Fianna, that he was not able to see anything but Fianna so many years ago.

He saw her smiling at him in that adoring way that she did.

He felt her arms and legs and hair about him and the way that she would wrap herself about him. 

He remembered tensing at her touch—he was not ready to be loved like that. Even now after therapy, and after Cleo he was not sure he was ready.

There was a 1920s photo above the bar, Cadmus let his eyes linger there at its reflection of the Fianna lookalike. Her slender neck was not unlike the neck of the photo of the woman above the bar.

“Do you want another drink?” he asked, and he knew she didn’t even before she answered.

She shook her head.

He placed his hand on her knee, and she looked down at his hand.

“What do you really want to ask me if I want?” she said looking into his eyes, and he swallowed roughly.

He circled his finger around her thigh like he was a lost navigator. They leaned in closer together, as his finger wandered on her thigh. He could hear their breath mingle. It was so intimate, like he never even allowed himself to be with Fianna.

Fianna had wanted this so much—his attention and closeness. It was so hard for him to give it to her then, but it was so easy for him to give it to this stranger.

He looked up at the photo again to distract himself.

“I am waiting for your answer,” she said.

He looked into her eyes, and thought out his answer. Then looked back down at her thigh. This moment felt like something from the Twenties that he wanted to preserve. That intimacy that did not have to escalate like in modern times.

But he wanted her now—

 

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Blue

Eliza was startled when she saw Cleo in her office. She was walking by the other woman’s office when she saw Cleo in a blue dress, looking deeper blue than the deep blue dress she was wearing.

“Cleo?” Eliza walked in, and Cleo wiped her face and nose with the back of her hand. It was clear that she wanted to hide her private moment, but it was not private anymore. “Are you okay?” 

Cleo shook her head.

“Well I am a mess, so obviously not! If I told you yes you would know that is not true.” Cleo sniffed.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Eliza…” Cleo looked at Eliza, and swallowed.

“Yes?”

“You are my friend as well as Oscar’s, but if I tell you this…” Cleo looked at her and her eyes shimmered with tears about to spill. “If I tell you this can it be between us?”

“I would never come between you and Oscar, that is not my business.”

“No,” Cleo shook her head. “I know you would not. My ex…”

Eliza froze, did Cleo know she knew about her ex? Composing herself, she nodded.

“He came back into my life, and he — we — are codependent to put it mildly. He has never left my life, and when he came back…” Eliza watched her like a train wreck, Cleo continued. “He made it very confusing for me. He wanted to get back together, I did not know what I wanted. I’ve been torn, and he went to Paris on business and met a woman who reminded him of his ex, a woman he dated years ago and treated badly. He wants penance with this woman, they have been together and he wants to see where things go…”

Cleo burst into tears, and Eliza moved to close the door behind her.

“He always does this to me Eliza, when am I going to learn to stay away. I can’t!”

Eliza drew Cleo close to her, tears like sweat covered her, and Eliza remembered what it was like to be jealous of another woman.

“Oscar and I have an open relationship,” Cleo started. “But I wanted to know if Cadmus wanted to be with just me…”

“Shhhhh,” Eliza soothed, holding a trembling Cleo to her chest like she was sure she would one day have to hold her own daughter because of heartbreak…

 

More Wicked Wednesday here:

picasso via wikipedia

Justify My Love

Mathilde watched him look right through her, and she was shaken a bit because she never imagined that he would react to her like that. She never imagined that he would be so blase about seeing her, they had been together for a little while…it had not seemed insignificant to her.

Then she remembered that she was incognito, and looked nothing like she had looked when he knew her. Her grip on the stem of her wine glass loosened a bit with that thought, and she looked at the bartender with a small smile. He had been looking at her since she had arrived breathlessly at his bar, looking like she had been attacked.

No one would have guessed that quite the reverse had happened, and that she had been ignored by the man who had been the love of her life she guessed they would call it. No one had made Mathilde feel like he had. Her entire body was on fire from the memory of him, and from anticipation.

When she turned on the stool, there he was.

His forehead crinkled with thought, as he looked down at his phone. His suit looked expensive and tailored, and he looked nothing less than the man that she had always wanted to straddle his thighs facing him and …

His forehead smoothed as he noticed her looking at him. A smile lifted his lips, and he gestured to her empty glass.

“What were you drinking?” he asked.

That was the hook—his approach. His confidence, his invitation that no one could resist.

Mathilde stared at him until her eyes watered.

“The house red,” she replied, licking her bottom lip and she bit it to not smile when his eyes followed her tongue.

She had a hook too.

He lifted his chin at the bartender and her glass was refilled. The bartender had a dark look on his face as he realized their flirtation was over.

“I saw you outside, and I am not the kind of man who stops every pretty lady I see but I almost stopped for you. And no here you are…”


Did he not see anything in her eyes, was there nothing about her gestures that reminded him of her before? Something like deja vu?

“So now what?” she asked like the line in “Justify My Love” by Madonna, and took a sip of her wine without ever taking her piercing gaze off of him even for a second.

 

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justify my love still via imdb

Surrounded

Eliza wrapped her arms about Cleo as soon as she sat down at the table, and then looked away from her. She could tell even from her periphery view of Cleo, that she knew her goose was cooked. There was nothing for her to say, but she knew that Cleo knew…

All Eliza could see when she had her arms about the other woman was the way that Cleo had hugged Cadmus. The way her arms dangled about his upper body and the way that she pressed her body to his with instinct, not intention. Her emotions for him were so clear, and Eliza was confused because she had thought that Cleo was completely in love with Oscar.

Oscar was sitting next to Cleo, and looked happy. But his eyes were on her as well, and Eliza hid her emotions for him as well as she possibly could. There was so much history between her and Oscar at this point, that they spoke volumes without a word or even a look.

Maybe that was the same thing that was between Cleo and Cadmus, because as she settled next to Oscar Cleo looked at ease and infatuated. Her body again moving instinctually.

Relationships were so complicated, what had she witnessed between Cleo and Cadmus? Now even though Cleo looked at her wearily, Eliza made as if she was oblivious to anything.

Eliza nearly choked on her wine, as Cleo’s phone was dressed with Cadmus’ name, and Cleo grabbed her phone to speak into it.

In French.

Oscar looked unconcerned, Eliza smiled at him.

Cleo looked between them even as she continued her conversation in rapid French.

“Ciao, ciao,” she said and leaned back into Oscar. “It was Cadmus.”

“I figured,” Oscar smiled, and took her hand to kiss it.

Cleo’s weary eyes remained on her, and Eliza was happy to be swept up in the embrace of her husband. His hug felt like a security blanket surrounding her with his arrival.

Hugs all around again, and Eliza mused at the dramatic turn her life had suddenly taken.

 

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Hallucination

With the current state of things and the regular trajectory of Mathilde, it would be easy for me to marry both for this week’s Masturbation Monday. But I am not going to do that.

There was once a comment about Anais Nin that she was living through WWII, and there was no mention of it in her journal. She was being criticized for not speaking of the war in her journals.

 

es·cap·ism

/əˈskāpˌizəm/

noun

the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy.

 

Maybe Anais’ diary was a refuge from what she was living day to day—it is not fair to judge her for that. I certainly do not, and I have always understood escapism—now more than ever. So this week, I will escape into my own fiction and for those of you who can appreciate that or desire it this is especially for you…

 

Mathilde got off on her stop.

Literally.

The rocking of the metro, and the thoughts in her head made her feel such a heaviness between her legs that the quick movement to exit the train made her feel the release that was needed there.

She was ashamed, as she placed her hand over her mouth.

She had been thinking of him.

The man who had made her into what she was, who had made her never want to be vulnerable. Heavy eyes along with the heaviness between her legs, and she remembered how she had ached for him.

How she wanted anything that he would do to her.

Anything.

When he was rough, when he was super tender with her she wanted it all. She wanted it when he did not want it sometimes, and she couldn’t help herself. Surrounding him like a venomous snake so that he had to surrender to her, Mathilde would wrap her arms and legs about him and kiss his neck. 

He would fuck her hard then, and that was what she wanted. But she did not realize that it was a give her what the fuck she wants fuck so she will leave you alone. It was years before she realized it was not that she was too much for him, but that he did not love her the way she loved him. A man who loved her would not have had the same experience with her, and maybe she wouldn’t have felt so desperate with another man.

Deep inside she probably knew that she was fighting a losing game like the Amy Winehouse song with him. But the way he made her feel had been sublime, and she had craved it.

She still craved it sometimes.

When she walked down the street, she thought she was hallucinating. Here in Paris?

Him…

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