Afternoon Wednesday, January 1st, 2025
Lyrou was driving over 50 mph when she got a text from Paulo. Trying to text-and-drive, she asked where he was, and he sent his location. Without looking, she set it to her destination and followed the navigation app to him, a rest stop or travel plaza on the Garden State Parkway.
She entered, finding Paulo at a table, and she sat across from him. He had an eyebrow piercing, and his nails were painted black. Reinvention? Non, Lyrou thought, it was Ava rubbing off on him. It was Ava beginning to ruin him, and make him not himself, not Lyrou’s Paulo.
Lyrou looked at the employees behind the counter, their red polos and visor caps, their drive-thru headsets, their acne, their life-defeat. “Ava works here?”
“Yeah. But she went out.” Paulo gestured at the swinging glass doors to the food court.
“Without you?” Lyrou shrugged her right shoulder.
“She saw me texting you as she came out, took off her apron, and threw it at me. She went from flipping burgers to flipping out.” Paulo grinned, holding up Ava’s apron.
Leaning in close and looking from under her brow, Lyrou said it like it should be obvious. “Bomb bitches will blow up. Ava likes me less the more she likes you.”
“She thinks we’re serious,” Paulo explained.
Lyrou wondered how serious Paulo felt about them. “You and I aren’t so serious that she should throw her greasy apron at you, are we?”
“Ava and I,” Paulo corrected her.
He surprised Lyrou that he didn’t mean her. A cold pang ran up her neck to think she had lost her whole face to say ‘You and I’ when he meant he and Ava, and that this meeting was something different than their usual. Afraid to ask, but in need of clarification. “Are you two serious?”
“When have I ever been serious with a woman or anything besides my music, Lyrou?” Paulo denied, pointing his black-tipped fingers inward at himself.
Lyrou read the unsaid in his words, her stomach tightened, and she decided to play unbothered, playful even. She forced a grin. “Aaww?! She’s your first true love. C’est mignon que tu sois déjà pris. Tu as une copine.”
Paulo didn’t find it funny. “Nah. It’s not like that.”
There and then, Paulo and Lyrou felt the same drop of the axe blade on their connection. The quick, sharp pain of it was, in their hearts, more physical than if it had been an executioner there cleaving them apart. Lyrou gave the subtlest nod. “I… okay. Okay.”
Paulo looked down at the table and began whispering, singing a tune familiar to them both. “Avant que tuuu m’oubliiiies… Il faut que je te dise…”
Lyrou began squeezing her hands together. She did her best to suppress her best memories of Paulo, to keep from having a little meltdown. She cleared her mind only for it to rush full of all the feelings she’d developed for this one. This one. This one was the right thing to call him. Paulo was one man out of dozens she’d been intimate with. But he wasn’t them. He was Paulo. And hadn’t she recently told Ava herself that she wasn’t in love with him? That was true, wasn’t it? Was this going to hurt… badly? She fought her face muscles not to pull her expression into crumpled sobs, she battled to cancel the wobbly bottom lip and the furrowed brow, she forbade the runny nose sniffle. If she didn’t love him, and if she had felt she was becoming less and less infatuated with him, less mesmerized by his whole bag, why was this hurting much more than it should?
Paulo looked away, pretending to people watch, he smiled and tapped his snakeskin boot to the rhythm he hummed, “Hmm… hmmm… hmm.”
It was hurting because he’s him! And there is nobody else like him. The heat of her tear ducts filling prompted her to turn her face away and stand; she had to go. “Goodbye Paulo,” and she left at a brisk pace, her hard soles click-clacking echoes out of the travel plaza.
There in her car, she let it out. What was it that caused this break!? Was it their small age gap that she had once worried would undo them? No. Was it that Ava really, really captured the infamous Paulo? Memories of her times with Paulo attacked her, made her lungs heavy, made her tear and tear. She lay against the steering wheel, the center console, then against the window, then back to the wheel. She took a while to get through it; the sound of semi-trucks chugging into the gas station attached to the rest stop had a soothing effect, and she dried her face with a tissue packet she found in the overhead compartment. Starting the engine and putting it in drive. “I miss you already, be happy.”
⚜
Afternoon Tuesday, January 7th, 2025
Garin drove, Lyrou his passenger beside him. He noted sadly. “You become blue in winter.”
“I do?” Lyrou perked up, a reflex she’d developed concealing from her husband the intense feelings she brought home from her second life through all those years; it was a life hidden from him.
“Because you can’t enjoy your garden.” Garin assumed.
“I have my indoor plants,” she dismissed his concern.
Garin exhaled. “It’s not the same.”
Lyrou spoke thoughtfully. “True, but I’m OK with it for a season, without winter I can’t enjoy the germination, the sprouting, the ephemerality.”
“Lame.” Garin shook his head, eyes on the road ahead.
Lyrou pinched his arm, causing him to wince and recoil. “It’s not lame; c’est magique.”
Garin rubbed her knee. “I know. But I wish there were a way to enjoy it more in winter.”
Lyrou took the clue and guessed. “We’re going to a greenhouse?”
Garin nodded slowly. “And after that, a steakhouse.”
Lyrou smiled. “And then?”
Garin pulled up to a parking booth and yanked out a ticket, and the boom arm raised. “Our-house.”
Lyrou sat satisfied as Garin found a spot and smiled. “It’s a day.”
Garin had taken Lyrou to the arboretum in the Bronx. Walking her in through the cold, she beheld it against the white landscape and a white sky, a white Victorian indoor conservatory of steel and glass, with a high glass dome of ornament wrought-iron detailing and cast-iron columns, a cruciform plan of four wings, and a grand porte-cochère. It was so warm inside that they left their coats in lockers at the front desk before proceeding.
Therein, they found on their copy of the guest map a circuit of lush tropical rain forests, blinding deserts, serene aquatic gardens, and fragrant Mediterranean landscapes. There was the earthy scent of damp, fertile soil in the tropical section, where towering ficus trees spread their glossy leaves, and the bold, dramatic shapes of banana plants gave a soft, sweet fragrance. The hues of bird of paradise and heliconia in fiery oranges, yellows, and reds met with the perfume of flowering ginger plants. As they wandered through walls of humidity, the velvety air was punctuated by the waxy scent of tropical philodendrons and the faint, spicy aroma of cinnamon trees. In the arid desert landscape, the scent of dry, sunbaked earth conflicted with the green freshness of aloe vera and the sharp, clean notes of agave.
Lyrou turned a moment to see that Garin was watching her. She needn’t overplay her satisfaction for him here; it was genuine. The tall saguaro cacti and spiny prickly pears stood like silent sentinels, their needles casting long shadows across the rocky terrain. They found the low, dirty scent of euphorbia and yucca near the tranquil waters of the conservatory’s aquatic garden, and then the delicate scent of water lilies crossed with the fresh, dewy perfume of lotus flowers, their pale petals floating serenely atop the pond’s surface. They held one another close, looking down over the railing at their reflections together.
The tropical palms, like the majestic royal palm, swayed gently in the mist, collecting dew, their fronds releasing a faint, salty breeze, as the intoxicating scent of coconut lingered nearby. The Mediterranean garden hit their faces with a warm breeze, crisp, olive-scented air of olive trees, while lavender infused the atmosphere, and the sturdy, tall green cypress trees, their piney, resinous scent evoking memories of her youthful trip to les Montagnes du Luberon. Throughout the conservatory, Lyrou’s eyes ate up bursts of color in clusters of orchids, with their delicate, ethereal fragrance, and the bright, cheerful blooms of cyclamen.
Garin wondered to himself, were they like the first married man and woman in this sylvan vale? The spicy, almost overwhelming fragrance of poinsettias lingered, joining with the sweet, tangy scent of the Christmas cactus. Lyrou was high on this orchestra of angiosperms, gymnosperms, -phyta, and -phytes.
Garin and Lyrou walked into a final museum-like learning center portion of the conservatory. There was a timeline on the wall with screens playing educational videos, a dozen display counters with touch panels, captions, and factoids, warnings about deforestation and climate change, and such. Lyrou stood silent as Garin quietly read it all. She’d have to let him; he wouldn’t let so much info go without grabbing it in handfuls to stuff into his brain. When he’d finished, she came toe-to-toe with him, looked up into his eyes, and held his hands. “It’s perfect here. Thank you. But I’m afraid to tell you…”
Garin pulled her closer. “Afraid? What is it?”
Lyrou snuggling her face into his chest. “Now I’ve got the compulsion to fill our house with plants.”
Garin squeezed her hands, rocking gently in her embrace. “Where? Where can you put more plants in our home?”
“I can make space,” she spoke into his neck.
“If I get mauled by a tiger machete-chopping through bamboo in my own home, I swear.” They wrapped their arms around one another.
She slipped her hands under his shirt, “If there’s a tiger in our home, it’s me,” and she dug her nails into his back.
Onto his tiptoes and suppressing a squeal not to disturb staff and patrons. “Hey, hey, hey… shhhhtopp.”
That night, Garin and Lyrou synced mood-wise, and it wasn’t just the steak and cheese lobster in their bellies. Indeed, they were sexually revved up and ready to go for hours before their two kids were finally sound asleep. Lyrou made sure their bedroom doors were locked, and with Lyrou lying topless on her belly, Garin pulled her black panties down and off her ankles. Propping a pillow under her hips so that her ass was raised to him, Garin massaged her cheeks and thighs. Giving them a few light slaps. “Perfect.” He assessed.
“Oew. Oew!” she smiled and craned her neck to look at him.
“I like how it all moves,” he slapped her right cheek. “Let me show you.”
“Hein?” she wondered.
“Hand me your phone,” Garin asked.
For a nanosecond, Lyrou hesitated. In her secret former life, she didn’t give Garin her phone on a whim. But she had the presence of mind not to truly delay and spark any doubt. Almost autonomically, she reached for her phone in the bed, face ID unlocked it, and reached it back to him. “Will you film me?”
Garin poked in it for the camera and pressed record, then held it at an angle to get what it was he wanted to show her. “Ready, don’t tense up. Let it do what it do.”
And he smacked her ass, repeatedly, filming it. She put her hand over her mouth not to laugh too loudly. “Is it important to capture on film to silence the skeptics? Am I Sasquatch?”
Garin kept slapping her ass cheeks, alternating and striking them from multiple angles, open-handed, backhanded. In a British wildlife documentary accent he narrated, “Tonight we take you be-hind the behind. Here we find in its nest… the rare and beautiful Big Butt. The buttocks of this migratory European bird are adapted to harsh climatic conditions. She sustains blow after bloody blow by dissipating the strike force, like so.”
“M-mm-mm.” Lyrou buried her face in her pillow until Garin stopped slapping her butt and tapped on her shoulder.
She opened her eyes as he played for her the video he’d just recorded, but he’d set it to play in slow motion. “Look. At. That. Move.”
Lyrou hadn’t the nerve to tell Garin she’d seen her ass recorded in action before, so she watched quietly with an interested smile. “Am I so wide?”
“So wide? This width is a gift.” Garin lay the phone flat and returned to business, now parting her crack and pressing his rock-hard cock down into her hot crevice, aiming between her labia, smooshing his mons pubis into her lov’n-cushion. He squeezed on her rear as he entered, his breath heavy and enthralled.
⚜
Noon Wednesday, January 15th, 2025
Garin finished a long series of phone calls from behind his desk, isolated in his office all morning. Hanging up, he called a timeout; he needed to get a walk around outside with a hot coffee to refuel before going back at it for another several hours. It occurred to him out of the blue as he steadied to stand that he was ready. Yes, now. Go ahead and get rid of it.
He bent and opened his safe, pulling out the PI file he had on Lindz, the thorough details of her adult life. Standing and pacing around his office, he flipped through the pages once more, putting it to memory one last time. How had Lindsey’s life been since they broke up in their senior year of high school? How had Lindsey’s life been since she had married not-her-first-lover, not-Garin? How had Lindsey’s life been since… Travis? Unpaid medical bills had compounded with shot credit scores and maxed-out credit cards. Lindz took out a student loan only to drop out of her courses. Not smart or consistent. Eviction notices, her car was repossessed, one of many that broke down monthly, but it was the one Lindz’ mom helped her get, and she still couldn’t keep it. Jacked up insurance premiums after an accident caused by Travis’ traffic violation. Then neighbors called the police on them for late-night, dish-breaking, screaming arguments.” Garin breathed deeply. “An abortion.”
In those last pages was the added supplementary section on Lindsey’s husband, or ex-husband, Travis, and their daughters. Garin recommit that portion to memory also; Travis’ brother’s suicide-by-fent, the oldest girl needing extended orthodontist visits and appendicitis surgery adding to their debts, the dog getting put down young because the veterinarian’s medication was overpriced, and more. Garin closed it up. He walked to the shredder, held the file a second longer, and was poised to do it. No. He would keep it a while longer, until something changed, and he placed the Lindz file back in his safe.
⚜
Noon Friday, January 24th, 2025
Lyrou, in a grey scarf, wool cloche hat with an outsized ribbon, and a wool-blend trench coat, walked click-clack down past the cubicles to her husband’s corner office. She entered and, closing the door behind her, she saw he wasn’t in. That’s OK, she’d wait for him. She saw on display in a shadowbox by his window a long and elegant musket, but felt no desire to inspect it further. She sat in his chair and was immediately drawn to his safe. She quickly threw in guess after guess at the combination; his birthday, fail, wait no his mother’s birthday, fail, Penny’s birthday, fail, their wedding anniversary, fail, Alan’s birthday, fail, the date of the Boston Tea Party and she looked it up, fail, her own birthday, fail, random bullshit numbers, fail, the address to the building and floor, fail.
Garin came in and locked his door behind him. She was startled and sat up straight in his chair. He wasn’t surprised; a secretary had just told him his wife had come. They looked at each other, searching for one another’s moods as he walked over beside his desk. “I’ll have to lock my door when I’m out. You cut so bossy behind a desk like this. You would’ve made a phenomenal careerist.”
“What’s the range on that stick?” Lyrou blinked at the trophy weapon.
“A few inches.” Garin gently thrust his hips forward.
Lyrou winked. “I mean that much longer stick, mon pervers, behind the acrylic.”
“That number? 50 yards with practice, 75 with skill, 100 with skill and luck.” Garin reported flatly.
“Would that hit anyone… say in those towers there?” she pointed out.
“Yes. Now that you mention it, they do be trippin’, and that would send a message to friend and foe just what we mean here at this firm. I’ll run it by Ole Mel.” Garin rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
She pointed to his safe. “What’s the combo?”
“One of my worst days. My mother’s date of death.” Garin said with a sad smile that she might remember it.
Lyrou replied with no delay. “I’ve forgotten it. But you needn’t tell me the combo if you just tell me what’s inside.”
Garin turned on his heel. “I needn’t tell you the combo if nothing. But do you mean you’d take my word for it regarding what’s inside?”
Lyrou shrugged. “Absolument.”
Garin looked down onto the streets below. “Geronimo’s skull, double A batteries, the key to the musket case, my mother’s death date on a paper napkin in case I forget it. If I need to get to the napkin, I’ll load the musket, blast the lock open, and have it.”
She played along. “Oh? Rewind. But then you wouldn’t need the napkin. Never mind that you need the key to the case to get to the musket in the first place. It’s all impossible, mon agenda.”
Garin exhaled through his nose. “It is impossible, isn’t it? Knowing this, then, I won’t let my memory fail me.”
“Your ring? It’s in the safe?” Lyrou tapped the safe with her foot, ding-ding.
“That too.” Garin sat leaning against his desk, hands folded over his belt.
“Your ring isn’t just an aposematism. It’s a reminder for yourself, also.” Lyrou spoke seriously, looking up at Garin in his eyes.
Garin leaned in closer, meeting her eye-to-eye. “Knowing this, then, I won’t let my memory fail me.”
“I want you to take me to the places you’ve taken them.” Lyrou held her hands open and out at the cityscape below.
“Who is ‘them’? Aha. You mean my side chicks. No. But I might take them places I’ve taken you.” Garin knocked his knuckles against the window.
Her face reddening, eyes wet. “You should only take me places. Are you punishing me, Garin?”
“Your punishment should be that you’re in pain, having hurt the one you love. If you’re not in pain for hurting me, then what love do you have for me? None. And so then what marriage do we have? But for legality, none. And so, then what loyalty do I owe you? None.” Garin unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled them up.
Denying his premise ardently. “But I am in pain for having hurt you.”
“Then be in pain. I might rejoice in your pain as proof you love me and our marriage has stood through the night.” Garin paced his office and loosened his tie.
With a warning. “I can’t endure pain without end, night without dawn. No one can. I’ll be made to kill my love for you so I can live.”
Garin froze, fingers in his collar, coolly. “I dare you to say that again.”
“What is daring in it, to say that I’ve loved you and love you still, or to admit I can’t be tormented endlessly, my liver torn out and eaten for eternity?” Lyrou held her hands tight over her abdomen.
“The lovers die, it’s the love that is undying. If you have something for me that you can kill, then it isn’t love but something lesser and unworthy of all it has cost and inflicted on us. If you have love for me, you’ll know, however much you’re made to or however much you try, you can’t kill it, as is so of my love I have for you.” His forehead broke a sweat. Garin leaned back against the window and slid down, sitting on his office floor. He looked at his safe.
A tear breaking from her chin, Lyrou stood beside him, her forehead pressed to the glass as she looked straight down. “You’ve tried not loving me anymore?”
Garin stroked her ankle beneath her beige nylon. “As the sun tries to set only to rise again and again.”
Garin ran his hand between Lyrou’s thighs. “What were you so down about, recently, on the day we went to the arboretum?”
Lyrou sat in his office chair as he continued sliding his hand between her legs. “Paulo and I broke up.” Lyrou skootched forward in Garin’s chair and opened her legs; her skirt rode up, and she had no panties on. “It wasn’t working.”
Garin, sitting on the floor, had full sight of her open pussy, pink inside, her pubic hair neatly trimmed. “Oh? No chance of reuniting with Paulo?”
Lyrou looked down on Garin as he leaned in, his face rolling against her inner thigh, kissing it. “Non. I’ll not see him again.”
Garin enjoyed the smooth, soft warmth of her thigh on his cheeks and lips, and began to lick after her adductor longus tendon, tracing it into her femoral-groin hollows, and fully inhaled his first deep whiff of her pussy odor. “Was Paulo special to you?”
“I don’t know how to answer that.” She rested a hand on the top of his head, petting his hair like fur on a dog.
“What was it Paulo did for you again? I mean, what did he give you?” Garin gently rubbed her clit in circles with his thumb.
“In the end, nothing.” Lyrou sighed and spread her legs wider. She looked out of Garin’s office window at those towers sitting adjacent, wondering if anybody might see. Let them see her, she thought.
“Hence the breakup. But don’t say that, now. You must’ve fucked him more times than you can recall. He must’ve given a good fuck, am I right?” Garin dove in for a kiss to her crotch, kissing her pussy like it were a mouth.
“When you’re right, Garin, you’re right.” Lyrou replaced his thumb with her middle finger and gave her clit self-love to her precise liking.
Garin, catching his breath, lips wet, eyed her as she masturbated in his face. “See? And I recall now… I remember. See, Paulo was more than sex. You said Paulo fills in the gaps for you. You said he’s unlimited and bottomless in his bag of tricks. And you said they’re the kind of good tricks that never get old. You said you expect the unexpected with him, and that he delivers.”
Garin came in and this time circled his tongue inside of her, a swirling sensation that probed deeper just shy of her G-spot. “What is it to you, Garin, if I give Paulo credit for anything?”
“Well, one day we might break up, too. And I would like to think you give me credit for something, anything. It’d hurt to hear you say of me; in the end, he gave me nothing.” Now Garin used his tongue to open her, to part her inside, stretching her bulbs and getting a rich taste of her acidic tang.
Lyrou rubbed herself slowly, with intent, and came closer to orgasm. “You’ve given me everything, Garin.”
Garin spoke into her womanly hole, muffled. “Then what need was there for Paulo?”
She felt it building, and Garin’s bright eyes, briefly looking up at her from down there, all dressed up in his expensive suit in his important office, all handsome and devoted to her privates, were quickly contributing to her impending orgasm being a strong one. “I must’ve wanted more.”
“More than everything?” Garin slid his middle and ring fingers together into her, kissed her thigh, and stroked against her G-spot hard, fast, and to the loud, moist squish-squish-squish of her pussy taking it.
She resisted the urge to clap her legs together, her head rested back, her eyes rolled white, and she was just so close. “Oui. Always. And I still want more than everything. I can’t help myself. Can you help me?”
Garin pressed his fingers hard along her anterior wall, her foam collecting between them, the swivel chair creaked and wobbled, and speaking her language, he asked, “C’est bon?”
“C’est bon, c’est bon. Oh. Oh. J’en peux plus.” With a few more fast, hard finger bangs, one-two-three, she sprayed him with Skene-squirt. “Mmm-Garin, Garin.”
⚜
Noon Wednesday, February 5th, 2025
In her peregrination, Lyrou was at the mall. She had several reasons to go there today; there was always something she could buy for herself, someone in her household, some friend or neighbor, or something to ship to her maman if it were cheaper in New Jersey, plus overseas delivery fees, than in Paris.
She came to the same place, the spot where over a decade ago she gave a stranger, at his request and flattery, her phone number. Standing there and looking around, perhaps a third of the stores had changed. There was a bookstore she’d picked up novels from over the time she’d lived in the Jersey area, but there were signs in the window that it was going out of business and taking its vellichoria with it. There had been some remodeling also, refurnishing, and repeopling. Many of the people here now weren’t here then, or they were teenagers then. None of the songs playing today were playing then. Was it so long ago? Had she been doing this… thing she does… that long? Would she ever stop? Could she be any other way? None of those questions was anything near clear to her. What was undeniable was that she didn’t yet have her fill; she was as hungry as any day or night in her entire life. Hunger! And not one kind, or two, or ten, but a thousand hungers.
She walked and passed a jewelry store in a corner retail space. Stopping, she sat on a bench just adjacent and scrolled her phone aimlessly. There inside the jewelry store was a woman who, from behind and by side views, was strikingly like Lyrou in appearance; height, hair type, skin tone, and body shape, in a pair of fleece-lined jeans and slim-fit turtleneck she might also wear. But when she spoke to the gem specialist, she was so Jersey it would cause Jerseyans to object, ‘we don’t talk like that, come on, that’s a bad impersonation’ to play a recording of her. Lyrou could also see with a better angle of her face that she was younger and more faithfully African-American in her features. She’d under her nose in that velvet counter so many choices, she needed help, and was shown and explained to ring upon ring upon ring. Unable to decide between several, the gem specialist interviewed her in an auntly tone. “How long have you been engaged?”
The fiancée let out a high-pitched, undulating sigh. “H-h-h-h-h-hmmm. I have been engaged for ten months.”
The gem specialist smiled from across the glass case, light casting upward onto her cheeks and under-chin. “What kind of man is he?”
Putting her hand to her mouth to catch a half-laugh. “What kind? Oh? He’s a construction project manager. Oh? Is that bad to define him by his job?”
The gem specialist assured her. “No. It says a lot about him. He’s a man with a deadline who sees the big picture. He’s a man who won’t waste your time because he’s a man who doesn’t waste his time, and you can’t miss the important stuff with a man who’s looking at the whole. That’s husband material.”
The bride-to-be stood silent, moved. “You… you really made my day. Thank you. I think I know which ring is him.” She picked one from the selection up in the light. “This one is him.”
⚜
