Page 19 of Soft Limits

“Day off,” I explain as she pulls up a stool and sits at the counter. “Oeufs en cocotte pour la petite mademoiselle et Christine?” There’s some hoarseness to my voice but I don’t know how noticeable it is to anyone but me. Evie doesn’t seem to mark it.

“Oeufs. That means eggs, doesn’t it?” She surveys the mess of scattered parsley and eggshells on the countertop. “Good lord, Frederic, you’re using your fabulous kitchen.”

In the evenings we’ve had food sent up from the local restaurants or Evie’s gone to the market to buy fish and vegetables, despite my protests that it’s not her job to feed us. But she says she likes to cook and it’s part of her Parisian adventure, and I hear her practicing phrases like deux filets under her breath as she heads out the door.

“Café?” I ask, holding up the cafetière.

“Oui. Blanc, or au lait or however you say it. It’s too early for French.” She points at Christine in her lap. “There was an interloper in my room last night.”

I wonder if she’s annoyed with me. It was late when I got up from the piano and saw Christine lying on the sofa, and I took her into Evie without thinking. I just felt Evie needed her, and though she was fast asleep she cuddled right up to the doll as soon as I put her into her arms. It made my heart ache sweetly to see it. “She looked lonely on the sofa.”

“Gentleman callers in my boudoir, Christine,” she says to the doll, but she’s smiling.

I pass her a mug of milky coffee, the way she likes it, and ask, “What do you have planned for the day?”

“Nothing planned, actually. I thought I’d take a break today. You?”

She says this with a questioning lift of her eyebrows, and some of the anxiety I didn’t know I was carrying eases. We’ve spent an uneasy few days and I wouldn’t blame her if she told me to leave her alone so she can work. I got carried away when she was over my knee. She asked several times for me to continue, and I wasn’t brutal, though by then I had guessed she’d never experienced what she was asking for.

But that was part of the enjoyment for you, wasn’t it? You couldn’t believe your luck when this sweet thing said she hadn’t had enough of you spanking her. Seeing a few tears on her pretty face and then kissing them away was such an arousing thought. Maybe even her saying, Oh, but Frederic, I feel s

o confused and turned on at the same time, what’s happening to me? But you misjudged things and actually upset her, you idiot.

I’ll make it up to her, and I’ll leave her alone in that way. She’s had enough bad sexual experiences without me adding to them. Though I could make her feel good in ways she doesn’t know she needs. Think about that.

No, don’t think about that. “Good, neither have I. Would you like to do some sightseeing with me, perhaps stroll along the Seine to the Eiffel Tower?”

She smiles. “That would be perfect, yes please. Do I have time to shower and get ready before breakfast?”

I check the oven timer. “If you’re quick.”

Evie comes back just as the timer pings, looking fresh and happy in a sundress and plaiting her hair over one shoulder. There hasn’t been a woman in the flat for months, smiling and pretty and driving away my gloom, and I’ve found myself watching her as she nibbles on her lower lip while reading and sings show tunes under her breath as she cooks. A lot of them are songs that I have sung, and that I’m recording right now. I want to tell her about this project of mine, to record my very best version of these tracks, once and for all. This is my version of an autobiography. My way to say goodbye. But I’m afraid that if I tell Evie what I’m doing she’ll figure out all the things I don’t want anyone to know.

“Careful, it’s hot,” I say, placing a plate and spoon before her.

She exclaims over the little ramekin. “This is so cute! What is this oeufs thingy?”

“Eggs baked in cream and cheese,” I say, watching her dip a toast soldier into the runny egg yolk and cream. The strap of the sundress she’s wearing is sliding off one shoulder and I find my eyes following the curve of her neck, remembering how she looked half-naked and draped across my lap—how embarrassed but eager she was for me to spank her. Keen but inexperienced, and just begging to be taken in hand.

Stop it, Frederic.

While we eat she tells me about the ghastly shared kitchen she uses at college, with its inadequate oven and toaster that’s always on the blink. “And I only have Sainsbury’s to shop in, not all the amazing produce you have here.” Christine is clutched against her belly with one arm and she’s playing with her plait between bites of toast. Sweet girl.

When we finish breakfast we step out into the sunshine, and find it’s a beautiful day to stroll about Paris. There’s a cool breeze blowing off the Seine and dozens of people are out and about, chic locals that Evie eyes with interest. She has a disconcerting British habit of looking the wrong way before crossing the road and I have to stop her from stepping out into traffic by grabbing her hand several times.

“Are you sure you want to go to the Eiffel Tower?” I ask. “If it’s too cliché we can go up to Montmartre instead, or anywhere you like.”

She turns away from examining a boulangerie window filled with pastries and tarts. “No, I would love to see the tower. I’ve passed it several times in cabs this week with my nose pressed against the glass like an urchin.”

Of course, the interviews will have sent her all over Paris. I’ve barely thought about what people must be saying about me, but it seems I’m not above a little vain curiosity as I ask her what she’s learned.

Tugging on the end of her braid, she says, “Well, there are those directors who said you were impossibly bossy, which you thought was so funny. But everyone else pretty much says you’re great to work with. Ideas, talent, yada yada. Where are the people who can tell me what you’re really like?”

“Haha. What, everyone says that?” I name some people who I am certain would have happily excoriated my character for her. She hasn’t mentioned Marion so perhaps she hasn’t talked to her yet.

“A few mentioned your tedious perfectionism, but even the people you annoyed tell me nice things about you. Pedro Salazar said you made everyone rehearse until they were nearly falling down from exhaustion, but that you also helped him through a nasty bout of stage fright without telling another soul about it. Marie Fontelle has ordered me to include an anecdote about how you gave a director a bollocking when he called her fat in front of the whole cast.”

I wonder if Marie also told Evie about the time I reduced her to tears for being sloppy about warming up. “Well, well. I’ll have to put them back on my Christmas card list.” And they don’t even know I’m done for. As far as they’re concerned I’m rolling along as ever, a fitting target to be lambasted.

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