Another Kind of Love (23 page)

“Of course there are. But”—she paused—“I still would appreciate it if you would move into my place while I'm gone. A change of scenery certainly wouldn't hurt you, and it won't hurt to give Phil one big chance.”

Karen laughed suddenly. “As a matter of fact, I think I rather like the idea.”

They ordered dinner and discussed the new arrangements with enthusiasm. Dee found herself vaguely considering asking Karen to stay on even after her return . . . but something stopped her. Perhaps it was because each time she thought of it, the image of Phil and Karen making love followed immediately. She didn't understand the association, but she instinctively mistrusted it.

She was trying very hard to believe she was doing the right thing by asking Karen to stay at all.

Time would tell.

H
er landing at Orly Field a day and a half later was uneventful, and even the terminal was a bit of a disappointment. Dee didn't know what she had expected, but the lack of “foreign atmosphere” was surprising. It could have been any terminal in the States. She'd gone through customs with her fingers crossed and smilingly lied about the amount of film she had with her. Her Rollei and her Leica were properly inspected and registered with the usual warning about the dangers of trying to exchange them for new ones and smuggling out the replacements.

Even though newer models of each of her cameras were out on the market—indeed had been for several years—she had a foolish superstition about her two “eyes.” They were a part of her. She might one day add to them but never replace them.

The porter was very attentive and personally selected a cab for her, haggling with the driver over the fare, then with a wonderfully candid smile informed her of the sum they had agreed upon and that she was not to pay him a cent more. Dee opened her purse to tip the porter, but he stepped back, dramatically shaking his finger at her.

“All France loves a beautiful woman,” he said in broken English. “I welcome you for Frenchmen.”

She was embarrassed yet terribly pleased. With a jolt the driver pulled away from the terminal and began the drive into Paris. As they passed the many vacant lots, run-down inns, remains of bombed buildings never rebuilt, and began to approach the city itself, Dee became more and more excited. She didn't care if the cabbie was taking her the long way around or not.

She was absorbing the texture and feel of her first moments in Paris. It was too good to worry about the fare. She hated even to blink lest she miss something.

Obviously she was going to need a lot more film than she had brought. They passed Notre Dame, continuing along the Seine, passed a railroad station on the left, then turned right over a bridge to the famous Place de la Concorde. They darted in and out of traffic like insane polo players, but she didn't care.

Dee was going to stay with Photo World's French representative. Monsieur Bizot had assured her office that he and his wife would be delighted to have her as their guest and that there was plenty of room for her, including a private entrance, since what had at one time been servants' quarters had been converted to a guest apartment.

All this and a per diem, too, Dee thought excitedly.

The cabbie stopped in front of a rather plain-looking building and thumbed to her that she had arrived. She carefully inspected the fare the meter indicated and compromised between what it said, what her porter had said, and the unhappy expression on the driver's face.

As she lifted her two valises, the high double doors opened and a short, round-faced man came rushing out to greet her and wrestled the bags from her hands. “How delightful,” he said in a surprisingly low voice. “You are here and you are welcome. Please. Come inside. My wife, Renée (I call her Pepe, though, because she looks like a Spanish orphan boy—you call her Pepe, too) is so looking forward to your stay.”

Dee liked him at once. He was sincere, frank, and had a wonderful enthusiasm.

“I want to thank you, M'sieur Bizot,” she began as they entered the building.

“Mais non!
Please. I am to call you Dee and you must call me Raoul. Please.” He smiled as she paused inside the foyer. “It is impressive, yes? It is said that before Napoleon met Josephine he maintained a mistress in these apartments. And since I am not tall, I always feel that my wife perhaps is really my mistress.... It adds such flavor.”

Dee laughed and followed him upstairs to the drawing room. She felt at home immediately. Raoul left her neither time nor silence to feel otherwise. Placing her valises at the side of the upstairs landing with a gesture that such mundane matters could wait, he led her into the drawing room with obvious pride and pleasure.

“Pepe, my beloved, this is our Dee Sanders from New York.” He waved toward Dee, and from the tone in Raoul's voice she knew this man adored his wife more than anything else in the world.

Dee felt a surge of genuine pleasure and gratitude toward this man for giving her a renewed delight with romance. She looked across the long, narrow room to the Renaissance chair across from the rich blue velvet settee.

A medium-sized woman rose and came toward her with feline precision. Her tightly fitted slacks and wraparound white blouse showed a boyishness to her body, but when she reached Dee, her face held the history of the world. Angular, deep-set dark eyes and a full, sensitive mouth made her look like a statue that had seen mankind pass by for hundreds of years and now had suddenly come to life. She was ageless. She could have been fifteen or fifty—it was impossible to tell.

Pepe extended her hand to Dee, hesitantly at first, looking intently into Dee's eyes. There was a moment's silence.

Suddenly, Pepe laughed heartily and threw her arms open and embraced Dee like an old friend she had not seen in years. “But this is Paris!” she exclaimed in soft-voiced chastisement. “We are an affectionate people who find it difficult not to show our feelings.... You Americans are always so stiff.”

Dee was a bit uncertain what she should do or say, but they were both so open, so demonstrative, that it didn't really worry her. “It is very kind of you. . . .”

“Feh!” Pepe said with another laugh. “I was dying of boredom. Your visit is a vacation for me—besides, I love to shop for clothes but am too thin to look well in them. I will enjoy going with you . . . if you will allow.”

Raoul had, in the meantime, mixed them all martinis in honor of Dee's visit. “Pepe, my darling,” he said, handing her the drink, “Dee will think we have been imprisoned here the way we are both carrying on.” He laughed at his own little joke and glanced sheepishly at Pepe.

She extended her hand to him and held it, looking all the while at Dee. “I think not,
mon cher
. Dee knows of life.... It is there in her eyes.” She squeezed his hand briefly and let it go. “But now, Raoul, a toast. We must have a toast on this occasion.”

He smiled and scratched his head slowly, plainly seeking something really original to say.

A thought came into Dee's mind, but she knew it was not her place to say anything, so instead she waited.

“Yes, Dee,” Pepe smiled at her knowingly. “What were you to say. There are no formalities here—you are now family.”

It surprised Dee, this immediate perceptiveness of Pepe's. Despite a lump that was rapidly forming in her throat, she asked, “May I suggest a toast?”

Raoul came over to her, clicked his heels without spilling a drop, and smiled patiently and approvingly at her.

Dee looked first from one to the other and took strength from their obvious zest for living. “To the birth of a lasting friendship . . . first,” she hesitated.

“And second?” Pepe asked quietly.

“To the circumstances that allowed me to find a truly happily married couple who find that life is richer for the pleasure they find in each other.” Dee felt a little melodramatic and foolish, but she meant it nonetheless.

“Charmant!”
Raoul said, and took a long swallow from his drink as if to wash down the thought.

A
s if in a dream, Dee filled the first few days with impressions and sensations. Then she discovered the shops. She hadn't ever been particularly enthused about clothes before, even though she always took great pains to dress simply and in taste. But Paris fashions! It had brought out a woman in her she did not know existed. It seemed to her that every smile she saw was directed personally at her, full of merry approval.

She also grew to adore Pepe and Raoul completely. All strangeness and reserve with them was gone—they wouldn't allow it.

In spite of all her tourist treks, she still found the necessary time to accomplish what she was there for. She arrived at Raoul's office around ten-thirty in the morning, worked furiously, to everyone's amazement, and left around three-thirty or four in the afternoon.

She knew no other city would ever hold her love as much as Paris did. Paris was her first European city. It had awakened her much as a lover might introduce a woman to sensations she never knew she could have. Dee wanted every moment to last as long as it could, to drink in her new sense of freedom.

She had never been so wide awake in the morning, never so grateful to breathe . . . French air had no distasteful associations for her. It was new, and it therefore had to be clean.

On the fifth evening, after a particularly grueling day sorting out hundreds of enlargements, Pepe had met Raoul and Dee in front of the office, waving mischievously from the small Renault parked at the curb. “So slow, you two! It is no one's funeral. Come, get in.”

Pepe's dark eyes gleamed with secret knowledge, her short hair only slightly disarranged from the breeze as she slid into the driver's seat.

“We're coming,
ma petite,”
Raoul called. It always sent a small wave of pleasure through Dee to see how he immediately straightened up and took on an air of “Now I am truly alive” whenever he was near Pepe.

He opened the rear door for Dee while she climbed in as gracefully as she could under the circumstances—foreign cars seemed to require the wearing of slacks—then hopped into the front seat next to Pepe, content to let her drive.

“What diabolical plan have you?” Dee laughed as they lurched off down the Boulevard de Courcelles.

“You have found me a mistress at last,” Raoul teased.

Pepe's eyes darted in his direction with amused tolerance.

Dee would never fully understand how they could joke so openly about these things. To be sure of each other's love is fine . . . but joking sometimes too easily disguises the truth. “Don't listen to him, Pepe,” Dee shouted over the traffic noise. “Even if he had a mistress he would spend all his time telling her she is not as marvelous as you.”

Raoul laughed uproariously. “She's quite right,
ma cherie.”

“C'mon, Pepe. Where are you taking us?” Dee asked. She caught Pepe's smiling glance in the rearview mirror.

“Tonight, my comrades . . .” She paused teasingly. “Tonight we let others amuse us. An intimate little dinner somewhere, perhaps the Folies-Bergère, or maybe the Lido later—perhaps even both. Then . . . ah . . .”

Raoul smiled and surreptitiously took out his large wallet and began counting the stiff francs quickly. “How much more ‘then' are you planning?”

Pepe laughed. “I took the liberty of removing a few francs from our vacation savings—a loan to ourselves until you can put the whole evening down on your expense account.”

Dee knew better than to offer to help pay for the evening, but she made a mental note to get them something specially nice before she left.

“I thought it would be fun,” Pepe continued, “to take in the Pigalle clubs, just to round out the evening.”

“Those . . . those cleep joints?” Raoul said in surprise.

Dee smiled at his pronunciation of the word but enjoyed it too much to correct him.

“Raoul, darling,” Pepe said with an amused sternness. “Where is your patriotism? It is all in the name of saving France's national economy! So they charge too much money—but they in turn spend more money elsewhere, and the money goes to pay someone's bills, taxes . . .”

“Halte!
Your point is clear—my duty lies before me.”

They drove to a pleasant restaurant called Le Jour et Nuit, but it was hardly what Dee would have called intimate. Unless she wanted to consider the prostitutes sitting at the bar “atmosphere.”

Over their coffee, Pepe observed that one of the girls seemed to have left and come back every fifteen to twenty minutes.

“That is because she must live nearby and does not bother to undress,” Raoul explained.

Pepe shrugged her shoulders. “How unethical!”

Dee smiled. “It does seem that if the man is paying for the service he deserves more than a raised skirt. . . .”

“In your country this is not allowed, yes?” Pepe asked.

“Not legally,” Dee answered. “But it goes on anyway.”

“You Americans,” Raoul said good-naturedly. “You deprive yourselves of everything except money and appliances!”

They discussed at length the advantages and disadvantages of organized prostitution, which somehow led to a discussion of homosexuality. Dee did her best to sound as if the subject were not foreign to her, yet that she had not really delved into it—a tactic she had long ago learned was the safest. It was an uncomfortable role, however.

And it reminded her of Rita. Where was she this minute? What was she doing? She wondered if Rita ever thought of her . . . if she had any idea of what she had done. Not likely, Dee concluded.

Pepe interrupted the conversation with the suggestion that they be on their way, admonishing them that she fully intended to get drunk that night.

They began a whirlwind of nightclub rounds, and it wasn't until they were sitting at the bar of the Lido, watching the floor show, that Dee became aware of how long it had been since she had been to bed with anyone.

Pepe commented on the ingenuity of the staging, or the scanty costumes . . . but Dee found herself staring at the loveliness of the dancers' exposed breasts. They were so very white under the stage lighting . . . and the nipples so innocently pink. One of the girls reminded her very much of Karen—she must send Karen a postcard or a letter. Karen would have breasts like that, Dee thought, and hated herself immediately. She's just a kid, a nice, sweet kid who's going to get married. Not some bull dyke you picked up in a gay nightclub downtown, Dee scolded herself.

Raoul poked her gently in the arm and whispered, “They are lovely, no?”

Her initial reaction was one of “He's guessed!” but she put it aside at once, cursing her uncontrollable guilt. She smiled at him slowly. “Very interesting,” she whispered back.

What could she say? Of course they're lovely, and how does an American lesbian go about making a date with one of them?

“Come on,” Raoul said after a moment. “The rest of the show is dull. Let's go on to Pigalle.”

Dee was as entranced by Pigalle as she was by Times Square. Everything squirmed with life and pleasure seekers. The streets were never still, and she found the spiel of the cabaret barkers masterpieces of the hard-sell. They entered one place, downed a pony of brandy, then left for another. And Pepe was holding true to her threat—she was getting quite tight. Everything was cause for a deep, throaty giggle, which Dee could not help but laugh with even though she didn't know what Pepe was amused at.

“I know where we must go!” Pepe said, leaving no room for contradiction.

“Where?” Raoul asked suspiciously.

She patted him gently on the cheek, pursing her lips with maternal concern. “It is just a few doors down. But what is a trip to Pigalle without going to a lesbian club? Eh? Tell me . . .” she giggled again.

“Sometimes, darling, I become concerned about your background.”

“Tsk!” she pouted, then turned to Dee. “Did you ever know such stuffiness? I am curious about everything which is life.... Even as a young girl I always looked on both sides of the street in search of something new, different, or exciting. I do not approve of people who close their eyes to anything which is outside their own small worlds—either out of snobbery or narrow-mindedness.”

“Bravo!” Dee exclaimed with a smile.

“But a lesbian club?” Raoul protested.

“Why not? The club is very discreet and it is run by an internationally famous lesbian. They say she has been the lover of some of the world's most beautiful and famous women.” Pepe sighed deeply. “To have such marvelous disregard for public opinion . . .”

“I don't know, Pepe,” Dee said haltingly. She did not want to appear anxious or afraid about this. “It is getting rather late. . . .”

“Late! Late! Your life lies before you and you would sleep it away . . . like a bear! How frequently do you think you'll be coming to Paris? Perhaps never again. Live today.”

“And what am I supposed to do in there?” Raoul objected. “Pretend I'm a transvestite?”

“Raoul . . .” Pepe scolded.

“And if one of those fish-eyed women makes a move toward you . . . what then?”

“Do not concern yourself, my darling. I can always pretend I came with Dee . . . that we are lovers . . .” She broke into a musical giggle that prevented both Raoul and Dee from arguing further.

They found the place, paid an exorbitant admission charge, climbed the carpeted stairs while the sounds of a small band made it clear that quality is no substitute for volume. At the landing, a short woman came forward and took them through the darkened room, weaving around the many tiny tables crowded with people. It was too dark for Dee to be able to tell what sex they were—if any.

A small stage stood illuminated at the far end of the room, with sparse props, and a young girl was doing her routine in an even sparser costume. Even without speaking French, Dee could tell it was a dance-skit about a girl talking to her lover on the telephone, placing the receiver at various points of her body as the lover's voice supposedly seduced her. Lurid—but effective.

The woman found them a tiny table to the far right of the stage, opposite the entrance. Pepe literally plopped into the spindly chair while Raoul almost slunk into his. Dee took the chair between them, careful to seem only mildly interested in her surroundings.

The girl finished her act and was followed immediately by a darkened stage while the noises of props being removed and replaced scratched over the low murmur of voices.

“Isn't this exciting?” Pepe said gleefully.

“Hmph!” Raoul replied.

The band interrupted further comment with a few introductory chords of “Autumn in New York,” and when the single blue spotlight shot out onto the entertainer on stage, Dee almost gagged.

It was Martie Thornton!