She was bored, but still expectant. Perhaps a miracle would happen? Someone to take her out of this abysmal boredom, which made her simultaneously indolent and dissatisfied. She would even let him kiss her. Why not? He doesn’t smell bad, not even of cigarettes. To him each step was an accomplishment. To her each step was an experiment, an almost desperate attempt at breaking the magic circle. Neither of them was simply enjoying the moment.
Lips touched lips. Tongue touched tongue. His hand still inside her bra. He tried to push the other hand around her back to undo the clasp, but the twisted position they were in hindered his success. Suddenly a Citroën pulled up nearby, and a cheerful group disembarked and proceeded tumultuously right in their direction. Robby’s sister detached from him. Damn it, now he’d have to start everything from the beginning. But now she no longer excused his fumbling advances towards her treasures.
He tried being romantic. Sweet nothings, whispers, declarations. He proposed a walk on the deserted beach. There, alone, he’d be victorious. He’d undo her bra if it killed him. Maybe even more than that. The mere thought made him tremble. They strolled on the beach. The moon was shining. She took off her shoes and was suddenly plagued by a deep sadness. Why am I like this? Why can’t I just give myself up to the magic of the moment? Why does everything make me feel contempt? If I didn’t think he would get scared, I’d take all my clothes off right now and lie down on the sand for him. This whole thing is so silly.
She couldn’t help but compare them, all of them, to her father. Deep down, she felt sorry for David, never thinking to feel sorry for herself.
Suddenly she wanted to have a little fun. She whispered, “Do you want me, David?”
And then, “Do you really want me, David?”
The direct question stunned him and he had no words.
She took his hand and put it on her chest, as if saying that this thing he’d been sweating over was the simplest thing in the world. She undid one button of her blouse, to make an easy reach. Her chest moved up and down. She might even have been a bit excited. “Do you want me, David?”
“I … I’ll make you a queen! A queen.” This is how David expressed his feelings.
“I’ll be yours, David,” she said. Then she was scared. Was that it? I’ll be yours? So simple? Her breasts were cupped in his hands. The sense of pleasure alarmed her. How did such an explicit promise leave her mouth? Would she keep it, or break it come dawn? She could feel the weight of the threat to her independence, until her lips finally managed to voice that redemptive “if.” That “if” that turns the tables.
“If?” His bare feet sank into the sand. He’d been sure the path had been paved straight ahead, and suddenly he was at a crossroads. A choice. He didn’t know what to tell her. When she gave her condition, he felt an urge to slap her face. That’s what his father would have done. But he couldn’t make his hand do that. Since he’d done nothing immediately, he’d missed his chance for a violent response, and had only the path of stuttered words and prolonged silence.
“If you really love me,” she chirped, “there should be no question about it.” And she redid the buttons of her blouse. David saw her breasts disappearing behind the batiste.
“But why?” he asked. “Why? What does one have to do with the other?”
“It’s either me or racing,” she repeated, persistent. “Either me or racing either me or racing either me or racing either me or racing …”
He asked her why again and again, trying to get some answer to put his mind at ease.
“Either-me-or-racing!”
Lilly Elhadeff was prepared to accept him just as he was, while this one asked him to give up his passion, his destiny, his pride, his promising career … What would he tell his father? He might have given it all up just to get her. Why not? All those cream puffs he was missing out on, all that fat-dripping bacon he couldn’t eat because of that damn diet … If he were a clerk at an insurance company or a cotton marketing firm, or even at the stock market, as his father used to be, before being bitten by the racing bug, he could eat as much as he wanted. He might have given up horse racing and thanked her for rescuing him from the terrible stress, the draining competition, the paralyzing fear of failure — but he knew his father wouldn’t stand such a blow. How could he do that to his father?
“It’s either me or …”
And besides, why? Why?
Why? She herself didn’t know. Just a momentary impulse. Perhaps a test of his love? Or maybe just an excuse. It was obvious he could not consent to her demands, and this way she could say that he was the one to ruin their chances. And besides, if he did agree to give up this career that set him apart from the anonymous masses just because of the whim of a bored woman who didn’t even love him, her contempt would only grow stronger. Why can’t she stop comparing them to her father? Would she ever find a man like her father? Ultimately, she thought, Lilly Elhadeff will have David and I’ll remain with my yearning for the perfect man, a man who doesn’t exist … But how could she give up this independence, this wonderful, intoxicating, dizzying freedom? She enjoyed this game of femme fatale, or maybe it was merely her fear of being enslaved to a man, having to play the game for keeps, grow up and become the boring, bored other half of a “Madame et Monsieur.” Suddenly she wanted to go home, just to run home and sleep …
“Why?” he kept asking.
“Why? Because I don’t want to marry a jockey. A horse is not a stable career, you see? Horses are not a profession, not a future. Horses! Who could live with a man who loves his mare more than his wife? Who could live with a man who weighs himself three times a day? How your mother could have put up with your father, that’s her business …”
“Leave my mother out of this, you hear? Leave my mother out of this!” He shook her angrily. What he wouldn’t give to break her, she was so fragile, only a woman.
She said coolly, “You’re hurting me, Mama’s Boy.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
“That’s just it, mon ami, you didn’t mean to, but you were ready to whip me. If that’s how you’re acting now, just think what I have to look forward to once we’re married! What can I say, my friend, I want things that … you’re a nice boy, but …” Finally she gave up on trying to explain, and summed it up in words he could understand: “I want security, I want money …”
“Money?” David cried and burst out laughing. “That’s what you’re concerned about? You know how much I made today at the race? You want to know?” and he spat out the amount proudly.
The jingling of coins made a ruckus in her head. That was as much as an average clerk made in six months, she thought with a hint of bitterness and a measure of admiration. She tried to keep cool, maintaining the expression of ridicule.
He added with excitement, “My value on the jockey’s stock market, my rating, is rising daily. And my mare, Esperance, also has a high rating. People put their money on us, their savings, their lives. They trust us. They’re willing to bet on us. Their paychecks, their children’s food. They’re willing to put it all on me, and you’re still hesitating?”
He waited silently. She didn’t say a word either. She didn’t know what to say. She’d never been this close to surrendering. Had he stopped talking that moment, had he grabbed her and kissed her, taking her breath away, crushing her bones and ignoring her stuttering protests, she might have been won over by him. But he was drunk on words, on the bright future filled with money and on the woman he would marry. “If I keep winning like this, I’ll be a millionaire!”