Page 9 of A Life Imagined
For him, it was purely about sex—the faces and names nothing but inconsequential details.He’d been possessed by an overwhelming need for physical sensation, something to quell the gnawing hunger of a man starved.He would return to his apartment afterward and marvel at the fact that he’d once believed he could go through life without this—only to be reminded that for the rest of his life, he would have to.The pleasure he’d sought from men was not transferable to the future that had awaited him in Montreal.
In the gardens, Mathias sucked on his cigarette as the midday sun beat down overhead.Rayan shrugged off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his pale-blue shirt, revealing the lean lines of his forearms.Mathias was well-acquainted with the feel of those muscles beneath his grip—the way they tensed and released.If he’d found it difficult to reconcile the heady drive that had plagued his youth, he’d been entirely unprepared for the combination of that same desire with the disarming power of affection.With Rayan, everything he’d once considered inconsequential had become captivating.
“Where do you like to go in the city?”Rayan asked.
Mathias exhaled a stream of smoke through his nostrils.“If you want an exhaustive guide to Paris, Elise will be more than willing to oblige.”
“Not landmarks, just places.Where would you go now, for example?”
“Somewhere I can get a drink.”
“On second thought, I will ask Elise.”
As they were talking, Mathias noticed a man standing several feet away, staring at them.He wore an oversized trench coat, despite the heat, and a baseball cap pulled down low over his face.They locked eyes, and the man headed toward him, calling out something in broken French.Mathias saw him reach into his coat, and then Rayan was between them in an instant.Rayan grabbed the man’s arm, and as he yanked it back, a folded sleeve of postcards slipped to the ground at their feet.The man yelped and broke free of Rayan’s grip then bent to retrieve his fallen merchandise, mumbling incoherently.Rayan’s expression flickered from anger to confusion.He gave Mathias a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
He had put himself in front of Mathias as he’d always done, an enduring sense of duty he couldn’t seem to shake.But Mathias wasn’t his capo anymore.He’d been woken several times by Rayan yanking back the covers to scour Mathias’s body in a half-awake panic.Rayan was cagey about his dreams, but after the third instance—groggy and annoyed—Mathias had demanded he tell him what it was about.
“Believe me, if I was shot, I’d be the one waking you,” Mathias muttered after hearing Rayan’s reluctant recounting of a phantom job gone wrong.While Mathias’s tone was sharp, his hands were gentle, and he drew Rayan to him and pulled the covers back up.“According to your subconscious, I’m a pushover.”
“It’s me,” Rayan had said, his voice hollow.“I can’t get to you on time.”
They continued walking through the gardens, but a tenseness had descended that hadn’t been there before.Mathias flicked his cigarette to the ground.
“That’s a first.I’m not usually mistaken for a tourist.”
“You forget you’re with me,” Rayan said darkly.
Mathias gave him a sidelong look.He had a point.Once, back in Calais, an old man passing on the street had confused Rayan with someone from the camp.Mathias had seen the way Rayan stiffened at the slur that followed, hurled like a knife at his back.
They reached the outer edge of the gardens and emerged onto the street across from the Louvre.At the entrance to the museum, they bypassed the line of tourists and walked through the blue priority queue, where a security guard consulted a clipboard and waved them on to the staff elevator.
Elise was waiting for them in the lobby.She gave Mathias a dazzling smile.“Hope you don’t mind—I’ve already had a quick peek.”She indicated that he and Rayan should follow her through a door with a sign that read Curatorial Staff: No Entry.“You’re going to love the selection.”
He doubted that.If thirteenth-century pottery shards had the power to stir anything in him, it could only be boredom.She led them through a maze of corridors until they arrived at a small conference room.A glass display case rested on the table in the center, and a man with a shoulder-length ponytail rose from his chair to greet them.He and Elise began chatting excitedly.
Mathias stepped over to look inside the case, and Rayan sidled up beside him.He couldn’t tell whether Rayan was curious or indifferent.Knowing the man’s inexhaustible interest in most things, he assumed it was the former.
It was unusual for the Louvre to sell to private collectors.However, on occasion, less-significant items were auctioned off to fund new acquisitions.Elise had told him that the museum was looking to acquire three Egyptian papyri and had decided the excavated fragments might assist their fundraising.Mathias had a client who was a Parisian history buff and had amassed a large collection of artifacts from various periods in the city’s development.He’d reached out to Mathias to see if there was any chance of getting his hands on a few of the pieces, and Elise had used her connections to secure them a private viewing—plus first dibs on the items up for sale.
“Sometime today, Dumont,” he prodded.
Caught in mid-sentence, she snapped her head up as though emerging from a trance, eyes blinking behind her wire frames.“Right, yes.”
Elise walked him through the pieces in the display, and it was clear she’d done her homework.On the spot, he signed off on the six items she’d selected.Then the man with the ponytail disappeared and returned several minutes later with a folder of documents for Mathias to fill out.
“We’ll get these sealed up, and once the funds clear, they’ll be dispatched to you shortly,” Elise’s former colleague announced after the paperwork was complete.
On their way back from the conference room, Mathias listened as Elise told Rayan about her plan to cover all three wings of the museum that afternoon.He almost felt sorry for Rayan.The man had no idea what he’d signed up for.When they reached the lobby, Mathias hit the button on the wall to call the staff elevator.
“Wait, you’re not joining us?”Elise protested.
He gave his appraiser a scornful look.“In what world…?”Besides, there was something he had to take care of.“I’ll meet you back at the hotel.”He caught Rayan’s eye for the briefest of moments before moving to leave.
Once outside, Mathias checked his watch and walked to the main road, where he hailed a taxi.He gave the driver the address and sat back as the car sped through streets that were both strange and familiar.
“We’llskip the Denon Wing for now.The crowds should start thinning out by late afternoon.The Raft of the Medusais what you really want to see there, as well as some of the Italian Renaissance paintings, but let’s leave that for last.”Elise led Rayan into the main lobby of the museum, which was teeming with people.“I thought we’d start with Near Eastern and Egyptian Antiquities then head upstairs to the decorative art galleries.”
Rayan looked up at the giant glass pyramid that rose above their heads, each pane a perfect diamond.
