had rattled her for some reason, but did it have to do with America in France, general outrage against authority, hot policemen, or just bondage/victim/humiliation fantasies? She resolved to research a piece on the eroticism of the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité. There was a glossy Paris-based gay magazine that would die to have it—if they hadn’t done it already.
The Jean-Pierre Léaud clone swept into her space and sat down. He smiled and—of course—swept back his unruly lock of straight dark-brown hair. To her shock, he was wearing a narrow-fitting suit and a skinny tie. And a white shirt. And he was carrying a conservative dark-brown valise, which he carefully placed on the floor, propping it against the table leg. He watched her closely for a moment, then stuck his hand out across the table, weaving it neatly through the red- and yellow-tinted water glasses and the candles to reach her. She was not surprised at the tentative, intellectual’s handshake. “Hello,” he said. “You are Naomi Seberg—that’s a nice moviestar name. I’m certain you have guessed that I’m Hervé Blomqvist.” They had agreed, in the text messaging that had followed their first, relatively public, contact on the Célestine A. forum, that they would speak English. He needed the practice, he said, and would not speak French.
“I didn’t have to guess,” Naomi said, “because I’ve seen videos of you. In fact, you sent me a couple.”
He withdrew his hand, unweaving it carefully. His brow furrowed in mock intensity and his lips pouted. He knew how to work his cuteness. “I always had the illusion that I was impossible to capture on video. My essence, I mean.” He felt so young to her, even though she was only six years older than his twenty-five. He had had a precocious passage through French academia, but, as was often the case, maturity in other matters had not kept pace, had most likely been sacrificed. All this from the forum, delivered to him by well-wishing but critical friends and to any troll who cared to absorb it. Like Naomi.
“I think you’re right about your essence,” said Naomi. “I have no insight into that. But your face … I recognize that. What I don’t recognize is the suit and tie. You’re always in jeans and a T-shirt on the net. Did you dress up for me?”
“I’ve never even walked past the door of the Crillon before. I was afraid they would discover me and throw me out. I borrowed the suit from my brother. He’s an advocate. It’s unusual for a journalist to stay at the Crillon, isn’t it?”
“It would be unusual for a journalist to pay for a stay at the Crillon, yes.”
“You don’t pay?”
“Not with money.”
“With sex?”
Naomi laughed. It was her best laugh, the one she always hoped would come out when she laughed. It was husky and genuinely mirthful, and it was like that because Hervé was so appallingly, boyishly hopeful. “No, not with sex. With photography.”
“Ah, yes. Photography.” Hervé pressed fingers to his temples and closed his eyes. “Is that a coffee you’re drinking?” he asked.
“Yes. Double espresso. Do you want one?”
“I’d like just a sip of yours, if you don’t mind. I need something, but not too much.” He opened his eyes and smiled. “A touch of migraine.” He pronounced it “meegraine,” like the English.
She shrugged and pushed her cup across the table. “Be my guest.”
He picked up the cup and made a show of inhaling the fumes. “Mm. It’s dangerous. I get too hyper.” He did pronounce it “eepair,” but there was no way Naomi was going to comment, even though in his texting he had expressed enthusiasm for “ruthless linguistic corrections.” He sipped with exaggerated sensuality, his lips and tongue working overtime, looking her deeply in the eyes as he did it. Naomi closed her eyes and shook her head. She felt like his mother. When she looked up at him again, she affected a stern, flirtation-killing look. She pulled her voice recorder out of her bag, switched it on, and placed it on the table.
“Hervé,” she said, “I’m recording you now, as we agreed, and my first question to you is: Is this how you were with Célestine Arosteguy?”
He froze for a beat, then put the cup down. “How I was? I was just me, as always. I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You’re being very seductive with me. Did you seduce your professor, or did she seduce you?”
“I see,” he said. “You want to play the role of Célestine with me. You identify with her.”
“No, I’m really not playing at all. I want to know how it was with them, with the Arosteguys. From someone who knows. From you.”
“It was full of sex with them, but more than just sex. But you’re just interested in the sex, aren’t you? You want to make a sensational conversation. You want to hurt them, don’t you?”
“Why do you think that?” Naomi was genuinely thrown by this, and Hervé could see it. “We went through all that on the net. I thought you understood me.”
“I understood you,” said Hervé. “But I never believed you. How sympa you were, how you loved them, how their philosophy and their love story so inspired you.”
“Then why are you here, drinking my espresso?”
A compact Gallic shrug. “I wanted to see what a room in the Hôtel de Crillon looked like.”
THEY ENDED UP ordering room service. While they waited, Hervé agreed to pose for some stills, sitting on the chaise longue in the bedroom by the open balcony doors while Naomi squatted with the camera, shifting from side to side, trying to find the revealing angle. She was using the Nikon D300s, the cousin to Nathan’s D3. It was more compact and lighter, and she prized unobtrusiveness and mobility above all things. The muted light was soft, diffused by the pigeon netting and the trapped bounce of the courtyard, and it brought out the femininity of the boy’s face. He played the lens expertly, as Naomi expected he would, given his self-promotion on the Arosteguy forums, which involved endless videos and stills documenting the many moods and musings of Hervé Blomqvist. His general approach was coy/mysterioso, and Naomi knew just how to use the natural light and her angles, the brow, the dark, full eyebrows, the liquid brown eyes in the thin face, to make that pop.
“So, Naomi, what are you going to use these photos of me for?” He spoke between shots, timing her rhythm so that he wouldn’t be caught in an ungainly mouth move. “Are you planning an Arosteguy picture book? Maybe for the coffee table?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Hervé. Do you have any suggestions?”
“I do have a suggestion. I think you will be afraid of it.”
Naomi paused and rested her camera on her knees. She felt strange in her dress, but at least she was now in bare feet. She looked up at Hervé, who smiled down at her with benign, unfocused eyes, like a priest. Annoying.
“Go,” said Naomi. “Let’s hear it.”
Hervé stood up and began undoing his tie. “I propose a book that shows every lover that the Arosteguys ever had, starting with me. And they will all be in the nude. And they will say what their experience in fucking them was. And they will talk about the influence that Célestine and Aristide had on their lives.”
Naomi sat on the floor, her back against
