One never forgets their first love. I guess that is what it was--love. It began as an arrangement of convenience, I suppose. Her husband left after her fifth miscarriage. She was beautiful, lonely, barren...bereft. She lived next door and was my mother's best friend. She babysat me until I was eleven years old and watched me endure the awkward stage of puberty. Vivienne Laurent was like family to me, until my 19th birthday. Then, we became lovers. I thought I knew her--until I didn't.
When our affair began, she was paradoxically sexually rabid and full of sorrow. A miasma of grief permeated the air long after her climax did. After we had sex, she softened. I caress her body while she got lost in reverie, spilling out words without a filter. Sometimes, I'd fuck her only to spend those tender moments with her, listening to her thoughts. She'd recall memories from her childhood, from her father's peculiar food combinations--sardines and escargots sauteed in olive oil and topped with Roquefort cheese--and, her memory of longing for a sibling who never came. Reminiscing about her childhood, inevitably, reminded her that she wants children.
"Do you want kids, Max?" She asked me that constantly, in an almost whisper, as her eyes peered into the distance. I always thought she wasn't really asking me, it was rhetorical. "No, I don't want to have children. I wouldn't want to bring kids into this horrific world." I always responded with a 'no' and some explanation for why not. I said that for her because to say otherwise would break open a wound that still seeps and oozes. Truthfully, I wanted nothing more than to give Vivienne children, to have children with her, to be more than her clandestine lover.
Over time, what began as a purely sexual affair was replaced with companionship; then, dare I say, love, or it felt that way to me. She rejected the notion of us being together and insisted we continue hiding our relationship. "It wouldn't work," she'd say, "What would we say to your mother?" All those years of hiding our relationship took a toll. She was a master at hiding herself and I soon discovered the many faces of Vivienne Laurent. Maybe it was being young and inexperienced at life, or lacking a duplicitous nature, but hiding my feelings, hiding the truth, was a malignancy that spread in the crevasses between us. Her way of dealing with whatever was happening between us was to deny its existence.
Soon after my 21st birthday, I muscled the courage to say I love you. "Max, I am flattered but what you think is love, it's only lust. You're young. Go have fun with someone your age," she said, dismissively. Or, "Let's not make this into something it's not. You and I could never work. Your mother is my best friend," she'd say. Other times it was some version of, "I have too many wounds, too much baggage, you don't want me." But, I did only want her.
---
It's been nine months and fifteen days since I last saw her. Somehow, I recall our last encounter with eidetic memory, playing in my head like a film. No...real life. Crystal clear. As if I knew it would be our last encounter, my mind and body recorded it all to commemorate our affair.
Her text read, 'Happy 23rd Birthday! Cum over'. It was the 27th of July, the hottest day of the year. It was that overwhelming sense of summer's crescendo-- the feeling of urgency, carnal desire, and metamorphosis. The scent of heated asphalt and warmed peonies blanketed the moonlit sky--thick and heavy. We hadn't been together in twelve days. My cock pulsated at the thought of being inside her, devouring every inch of her, making her mine.
When I close my eyes, I remember that night. I can feel her, smell her. Black strands of long silk cover her head--Our Lady of Guadalupe. Vivienne's gaze tells me everything I need to know. Our words are spare. Summer crickets and faint wasps of hot air seep through the open windows. I caress her hair, still damp from the shower, then lean down and taste her neck. Her 42-year-old flesh, sweet caramel cream, perfectly ripe, slowly melting on my tongue. She's wearing a cobalt blue dress: Puritan collar, five buttons, linen fabric...maybe, tickling below her knees. A small golden dahlia necklace tucked in between her collarbones.
