So, he had poured himself more wine, taken it steadier with the second glass and gradually felt himself relax. The evening had gone on like that, with few words but plenty of proximity. Kimo had started a fire in her outdoor fireplace long before he arrived, and its warmth took the chill off the autumn air, which tended to set in as soon as the sun went down.
They had cooked the fish in the embers together, a touch too close. He had caught the occasional glimpse of her athlete’s body through that jumpsuit of hers that seemed like it would be so easy to undo. He had caught himself thinking that the thin film of perspiration on her skin must smell – and taste – just like a campfire.
They had savoured the fish unseasoned with nothing on the side, their fingers touching as they ate from the same foil plate with a here, taste this bit here and an oh, that’s so good there, him opening his mouth and her pressing the warm, sticky flesh of the fish and the tips of her fingers to his lips. ‘Do you like it?’ she had asked, and it had been all he could do to keep a lid on his urges as the lapping of the waves on the shore whispered that the sea was within reach, that the horizon could take shape in a woman’s curves and murmur a breath of permission.
They had rinsed their hands, and she had told him she was going inside to fetch the dessert she had made. That had been his cue to put some more wood on the fire. When she returned with the chocolate mousse, he put a Celia Cruz song on. She handed him a bottle of rum, and he took a swig. She said she liked the music and asked him if it was time for a dance class. She turned her back and leaned into him, like she had the other night at the bar. She reached for his left arm and wrapped it around her shoulders and neck, so he would hold her tight. Then she took his right hand and slid it down her waist, until he could feel the hip bone, the place where, with the right pressure, he knew he could tip her forward. She snuggled her shoulder blades into his chest, and her buttocks into his crotch. There was no hiding his desire now.
‘Dance with me, Sébastien,’ she purred, and he dutifully obeyed.
He spun her around, in that jumpsuit that clung to her every curve, held in place by a knot, just a single knot that teased his hand and stoked his fire. He pulled away, pretending he’d had enough, and that was when she decided to stop playing and started to kiss him.
She tasted like chocolate, rum and a lick of salty sweat. Her tongue was supple and sultry, and she went easy with the teeth. Sébastien pulled her close and let his hands tease their way from her hips to her buttocks, then lower, grasping her by the tops of her inner thighs and lifting her onto him. She locked her legs around his waist, and all he could feel, all he could think about, as he kissed her, was her warmth, her wetness, pressing tantalisingly close to him.
On the shore behind them was a sun lounger as big as a bed, complete with a mattress-like cushion and ample pillows for him to raise her hips and enter her, smooth and deep. He wanted her. He lowered her feet to the ground. She guided his hand to the knot holding her jumpsuit together. He tugged the ends undone and watched the garment billow open around her lithe body in the fiery glow of the flames. He took a step back to feast his eyes on her toned muscles and gymnast’s breasts, nipples dark in the starlight. Sans underwear, she was naked in a flash. As his eyes were drawn down to her small, velvety blonde triangle, Sébastien knew he was playing with fire.
He leaned closer, slid his hand between her thighs and heard her moan. Right there, right then, she was perfect, this was perfect, he told himself. The whole day, the fishing and now this woman offering herself to him. He could hear the sea pounding on the shore. Oh, Maude, he thought – no, Kimo, he reminded himself. He swallowed, buried his nose in her neck and inhaled the scent of her, teased a finger down her inner thigh, then up again. She clung to his shoulders and threw her mouth open with a gasp and a whimper that clashed with the music of the sea. It wasn’t the same kind of moan as Maude’s. Sébastien suddenly felt a shiver across his upper back. He teased his hand away again, as he tried in vain to chase the thought of Maude away. All he could think about was her laugh, her voice, her whole body. Her eyes, the scent of her. The other men.
Sébastien Moralès withdrew his hand and took a step away from Kimo. Clumsily, he tugged at the jumpsuit to cover her up, tried to close the flaps at the front and mumbled an apology. Then, leaving his chocolate mousse untouched, he abandoned his car outside her house and retreated to the auberge on foot.
Tuesday 2nd October
Sébastien’s car wasn’t parked outside when Joaquin got up that morning. He wondered where his son had spent the night. He had suspected for a while – since he’d seen him dancing with Joannie Robichaud – that Sébastien had cheated on Maude, but had been trying not to think about it.
Did that bother him?
Moralès took a sip of his coffee.
Yes, it did bother him. It wasn’t so much his son’s infidelity, but being an accessory to it. He didn’t want to know about Sébastien’s troubles or judge his behaviour, or have to lie to Maude if it came to it. And Lefebvre was right, anyway: when you loved a woman, you had to focus your gaze on her. As soon as your eye started to wander, it would never return.
That brought him back to Sarah. He’d been thinking about her less and less. The silence between them seemed to stretch on and on. Maybe it had been building for years. His friend Doiron had told him what was happening. A simple, subtle bit of private investigating was all it had taken for him to learn she’d bought a condo in Longueuil. Joaquin knew a divorce was coming. Before long, he’d be finding a lawyer, getting the papers drawn up, signing disclosures, dividing assets. The separation agreement would have to go down in writing, be signed four times over and filed with the court with dues paid for their story to be duly consigned to the official records with the letters E, N and D at the bottom of the page. Was that really how thirty years of a life together and two children had to end? Thirty years of everyday life, washed and hung out to dry time after time, the challenges they had tackled together, the emotions they had ridden out and the nights of passion they had shared – how could all that be eclipsed by sulking and resentment? What if he was overreacting, though, and she was simply intending the condo to be a pied-à-terre in the city? Perhaps she was still planning to come out here to join him.
He was suddenly struck by the curious impression he had lived his life on mute, silenced his youth in Mexico and only ever spoken in hushed tones about the crime scenes he had investigated, stifling the inner turmoil that surfaced when he encountered the dead, washing away the blood before he went home so nothing would show, sheltering his family from what he had witnessed. Burying the seed of human suffering deep inside himself, only for it to sprout, take hold of the silence he’d created, and grow into a tree of solitude.
Again he looked out to the parking space where he was now accustomed to seeing his son’s car. Was he envious of Sébastien? Of his freedom, his youth? Of him being in the arms of a woman other than his partner? Joaquin washed his breakfast dishes, then went back up to the apartment. No. That wasn’t the issue. It was just that he had raised his sons with the values he believed in, and he was surprised by his eldest’s disloyalty.
When he pushed the door open, he was startled to see his son standing there in the kitchenette, wearing jeans and rubbing his eyes.