Page 67 of Wilder at Heart
‘You all right, mate?’
‘Never better. Nora and I had a nice, long sleep. Didn’t we, sweetheart?’
Nora’s fingers dig into my thigh. She’s probably mortified, but this is very standard brotherly banter.
Miles and Saoirse exchange glances.
‘I can tell.’ He pops a piece of fruit in his mouth and raises his eyebrows at me.
‘Plan for today?’ I enquire perkily. I’m in such a good mood that if they told me we’d be spending the day chasing escapee sheep in the sweltering midday sun, I’d be down with it.
Nora clears her throat. ‘There’s a walk around the old town this morning for whoever wants to join. The plan is to check out the Cocteau frescoes and soak up the atmosphere.’
That sounds boring as fuck. I think I’ll just hang here with her and sleep off our fuck-fest, and maybe?—
‘I can’t wait to see them,’ she says. ‘They’re supposed to be stunning.’
FFS. Suppose I’m going to soak up some culture, then.
‘Then lunch at Paloma Beach, and we’ll spend the afternoon there,’ Saoirse offers.
A cheer goes up from the Montague and Percival men. Paloma’s an old haunt of ours. Great location with free-flowing, very cold rosé and fresh-as-fuck seafood. What more could a guy want, aside from a beautiful woman by his side to enjoy it all with? I really am a lucky fucker.
Like a needy puppywho worships its owner because she is the source of all treats, and spends all its time trying to please her (again, because she is the source of all treats), I spend the day ingratiating myself with Nora.
It’s not that I hope she’ll suddenly drag me into an alleyway and give me a blow job (though I could roll with that, and blow jobs definitely work far better to incentivise me than bones or doggie biscuits).
No.
It’s a little more complicated than that.
Because it seems my stupid puppy brain is fairly easily pleased. Now I know what it’s like to make her happy, to have her trust me, to have her smile her most open smile and scream my name and to see those gorgeous, hypnotic Disney eyes go glassy on me, I just want another fix. Everything I do is to get even a fraction of the dopamine hits she’s been shooting into my bloodstream all morning.
So, before we head into town, I beg a guidebook from the hotel’s receptionist and regale the group with Jean Cocteau trivia on the stroll.
And when we get to the Villa Santo Sospir, I’m able to tell Nora that Cocteau described his frescoes on these walls as ‘tattoos’. They are genuinely pretty cool—like fancy graffiti. It turns out Cocteau was quite good fun—he and his boyfriend ended up shacking up with the villa’s female owner and not really leaving for twelve years, during which period they shared their little menage with houseguests from the Picassos to Yves Saint Laurent.
Sounds a bit more sophisticated than the version of a threesome I managed.
‘It’s fascinating, isn’t it?’ Nora says. ‘They led such a glamorous life. You can tell this was a house for fun.’ She’s right. The stories these ‘tattooed’ walls could tell. And knowing the backstory means the villa makes far more of an impression on me than it would have if I’d sauntered in blind.
Damn her.
Still, my fake-girlfriend-with-uber-real-benefits has a dreamy smile on her face as she wanders around that I recognise as inspiration. This part of the world always inspires me. Mainly to make more money, because everyone’s so dripping in it. But it’s not hard to be moved by a place so beautiful, with such a perfect climate, the best of nature’s bounty, and an inimitable style.
We so should buy a hotel here.
What makes me really happy, though, is that it’s not just my attempts to play ball on the cultural front that seem to do the trick with Nora. My admittedly constant PDA finds a much warmer reception today than usual. Not a huge surprise, given she let me put my cock inside her earlier. But when I hold her hand, hug her, kiss her, whether in front of the others or in a quiet corner, she not only takes it, but she smiles and flops against me and looks at me with memory in her eyes and even initiates contact.
She kisses me. Grabs my hand. Leans into me like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
And I’ll take that. All of it, thank you.
The sceneat Paloma is as cracking as ever. We’ve been coming here for years, partying until the early hours with gorgeous European heiresses and socialites and models. These boards that straddle the stony beach could tell some tales. But it turns out, this visit is right up there with the best of them.
The Cote d’Azur does early summer well. A characteristic light breeze is blowing. The sky is its trademark azure. And the rosé begins to flow as soon as we arrive. The owners welcomeus with hugs and double kisses, and coo over Saoirse, leggy and gorgeous in a white mini dress. The smile on my brother’s face is so wide he may pull some cheek muscles, and for the millionth time I give silent thanks to his fiancée for transforming this grumpy fucker into someone more amenable.
Lunch, at a long, white-clothed table overlooking the sea, is a feast. Snapper and langoustines, grilled to perfection, the simplest and tastiest tomato salad, and obscene amounts of deep-fried, ricotta-stuffed courgette flowers, washed down by plenty of Rock Angel. It’s a tradition that gives me great pleasure, but the kick I get from knowing Nora is experiencing all this for the first time is something else.
