Paris Adrift by EJ Swift

Author:EJ Swift
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Solaris

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“YOU SHOULD HAVE been there,” I tell Léon. “It was incredible. She was incredible.”

“I will be, next time.”

“You’ll come with us?”

“Sure.”

“So… you don’t mind if people know?”

“People know already,” he says. “It’s Clichy. The Spanish Inquisition was an amateur organisation compared to the Clichy rumour mill.”

I consider this, and decide I don’t care. I have enough secrets. Being with Léon is something to celebrate.

“Although,” he adds. “Eloise might be pissed off when she finds out I’ve monopolised one of her staff.”

“Fuck Eloise,” I say. “Fuck everyone. I just want to be with you.”

Léon rolls over, looks at me straight on. That millisecond of eye contact is all that is needed. We reach for each other.

I never knew desire could be like this. It’s reflex. It’s beyond conscious thought. It’s desperation. I want to be closer than skin, closer to Léon than it is possible to be to another human being, unless we were to transition to a different state altogether, to become gas or energy. I’m beyond tiredness or hunger, beyond soreness or thirst. I need only Léon. When the rush fades, inertia sets us apart, side by side with sweat cooling our limbs, and here in these brief moments some logic returns. I must eat. I must sleep. And then I see his body, lean and muscular beside mine, his eyes running over my skin, preempting the touch that will follow, the touch that will bring me back to the living, and I know I will pursue that transcendence again, at any cost.

For the past forty-eight hours the only time either of us has got up has been to go to the shower or the fridge. I can’t imagine how I’m going to survive the next shift at Millie’s.

When we venture out hand in hand to catch the boulangerie before it closes, it’s twilight. The world looks like a different place. Passersby are no longer just people on the street, they are people who are outside us, electrons to our nucleus. Léon buys baguettes, cheese, cigarettes, wine (Brouilly, of course), passing over notes and coins, never letting go of my fingers with his other hand. As though I am something cherished. I watch the vendors for signs they have observed our transfiguration; surely it must show? We go back to Léon’s apartment, drop our purchases on the floor, and barely has the door closed than we reach for one another again.

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