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Frenchie has always been a light sleeper. And yet he doesn’t stir when the door opens. He doesn’t hear the soft footfalls across the floor. It’s not until a small, cool hand slides across his sheets and touches his own does he wake.
His eyes fly open and his fingers wrap around a deceptively delicate wrist. It takes a moment to make out her shape in the dark, gently backlit by the neon red glow of street lights. Kimiko.
He bolts up, scanning her body and face. He registers that she’s wearing one of his t-shirts and little else, the hem of it brushing the tops of her bare thighs. He didn’t know this is what she slept in. The thought is quickly replaced by a more urgent need to look for any signs of distress, but there’s no blood. She doesn’t appear to be hurt. But in the shadows, he can’t see her expression clearly.
“What’s wrong?”
He takes her hand in both of his, but he keeps his grasp relaxed so she can sign to him. It’s unusual for her to be in his room. It’s an unspoken thing. They’ve been living together for months but rarely do they enter each other’s rooms. He wouldn’t mind, of course. It’s the opposite, really. But he senses that she needs her space and he knows not to push.
“What do you need? Tell me, please.”
She traces the line of his jaw. He swallows. A slow languid finger along his chin, across his bottom lip.
What is she playing at? She’s never touched him like this before. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness and he scans her face for any signs of intoxication. No alcohol, just her normal scent. Maybe she took something? Her eyes are clouded, in a haze almost. The look is…unmistakable. But no… That can’t be right. The thought occurs to him that she may be sleepwalking. She’s never done that before, but he needs to stop…whatever this is before it gets out of hand.
“Mon coeur, are you dreaming?”
She shakes her head. Then she takes his hand and gives it a squeeze.
He watches as she slowly draws his hand down lower and lower. Soft. Bare skin. He takes in a sharp breath. There’s nothing between them, not even a scrap of cloth.
She watches his face, a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes.
“Touch me,” she whispers, her voice soft and breathless.
He swallows.
“Mon coeur…”
It’s like a prayer, Kimiko’s voice in his ear. Touch me…touch me…touch me… Her voice in his ear? And then it’s shattered by the blare of an ambulance, jolting him from sleep.
He blinks at the warm sunlight now creeping through the drapes. Putain.
He just can’t escape her—she occupies his every waking thought and she’s penetrated his dreams now too. He looks down at his cock, standing proudly at attention. He starts his morning the way he starts most mornings these days, with a mixture of guilt, self-loathing, and olust as he takes himself in hand.
They aren’t in the habit of checking in with each other. Frenchie doesn’t ask where she’s going or when she’s coming home because he knows it irritates her. And maybe he doesn’t ask because he doesn’t want to know.
But on the nights he disappears off to…she’s not sure where…or with whom… Kimiko always finds herself wide awake. And when he comes stumbling home in the small hours of the morning—always alone—he’s usually the worse for wear, with what seems like a whole bottle of Stolichnaya emanating from his pores.
Tonight she hears his heavy boots on the stairs. And then the jangle of keys, a heavy hand fumbling to get the key in the lock. There’s the sound of his phone hitting the ground and a low “Merde!”
When she opens the door, Frenchie nearly falls inside but catches himself just in time.
“Mon coeur,” he stage whispers, “did I wake you?”
She shuts the door and locks it before the neighbors can complain. He’s looking rough, swaying lightly, a heavy-lidded smile on his face. He’s pretty far gone, but has the presence of mind to try to unlace his boots. She had one rule she insisted on when they moved in together. No shoes in the apartment. He looks like he might topple over though, so she stills him with a hand on his shoulder.
She gently pushes him to sit and he complies. She watches with amusement as he tries and fails to get his boot off. How did he even get home?
How much vodka did you drink?
“None! Zero!” he slurs.
She arches a single eyebrow at him.
He offers a sweet, dreamy smile. “Cognac. I drank Cognac. A lot of it.”
He finally gets the boots off, a triumphant grin.
Come on, let’s get you to bed.
“I’m not that easy, mon coeur . You’re going to have to at least buy me dinner first.”
She tugs on his ear.
Tomorrow. I’ll take you out.
“D’accord. If you insist.”
He sways, half leaning against her as she walks him to his room and deposits him on his bed.
Leaning into her, he whispers conspiratorially, “You know, you don’t actually have to buy me dinner, mon coeur. For you, I’m a cheap date.”
He winks and Kimiko laughs silently. She digs around in his coat pocket until she finds his phone, the screen miraculously uncracked, and puts it on the pile of paperbacks that serve as a makeshift nightstand. And then she pulls his army jacket off and hangs it in the closet. It smells of him—Gauloises and cologne.
You’re going to have a terrible hangover tomorrow.
He waves her off. “Non, non, you don’t get hangovers from good Cognac.”
She leaves him to find some aspirin and a glass of water. It takes her a while because although there are all manner of pills and painkillers scattered around the apartment, the aspirin is surprisingly hard to come by. When she gets back to his bedroom, he’s passed out.
She sits down on the bed next to him, unsure what to do. It’s funny, they’ve been living here for months but she thinks this is only the second time she’s been in his room. It’s fairly sparse, mostly dominated by the bed. There’s a pile of old paperbacks on the floor. She picks up the first novel, something in French, she can’t read the title, and idly flips to the section he has bookmarked. She smiles when she sees what he’s using to hold his place—pictures they’d taken a few months ago. There’d been an old fashioned photo booth in the back of a dive bar. She’d never seen one in real life, just in the movies. And when she mentioned that to him, he took her hand and pulled her inside. They made goofy faces for the camera, but in the last one, she’s laughing and he's got his arms around her in a big bear hug. She can still remember the feel of his arms around her, the scruff of his beard on her cheek.
She turns back to the real Frenchie, passed out on the bed. He looks so peaceful and she debates whether or not to disturb him. But she decides good Cognac or not, he’s going to feel like shit in the morning if he doesn’t drink some water.
She puts the glass down and gently shakes him. It takes a bit but his dark lashes slowly flutter open.
“Et voila. There she is.”
He offers up a smile, but somehow he looks so sad. He takes her hand and kisses it softly. She’s so surprised she doesn’t pull back. It was nothing, the faintest brush of his lips and yet she’s immediately flushed.
He sits up. And then he does the most surprising thing—he tucks her hair behind her ears. Serge has always been free with his affection. Hell, she’s seen him kiss Hughie on the mouth more times than she can count. And yet with her… He is closer to her than any man, any person really, has been, but there’s always been this invisible line that she’s hyper-conscious of but never dared to examine too closely.
The way he’s looking at her… This is…not new exactly, maybe it’s just the intensity of his gaze.
“You know Talking Heads?”
She shakes her head. She has no idea what he’s talking about. Now he’s lightly stroking her cheek. She’s frozen to the spot, not sure what to do. Part of her is screaming that she should run, and the other part wants to lean into his touch.
“There’s this song, This must be the place. I always love this song, it’s very…” His eyes drift over her.
“I don’t know what I’m saying.” He scrubs his face in frustration.
“This,” he waved at the air between them, “is…wonderful. But it’s a…like an exquisite torture. I can’t escape, you know? Every day… Every night… You’re the first thing I see when I wake up and now you’re here in my dreams.”
He’s holding her face in both his hands now. He brushes his thumb along her lower lip. And she watches him, a mixture of fear and fascination all at once. He thinks this is a dream. If he was in his right mind he wouldn’t be saying these things. He wouldn’t be touching her like this.
She knows. Of course she’s known all along. How could she not. But it was this unspoken thing between them that as long as it remained unsaid, she could pretend it wasn’t there.
Kimiko ducks her head, gently shrugging him off. She grabs the glass of water and pushes it toward him. He takes the two pills in her hand and pops them in his mouth like they are candy, swallowing them expertly.
You should get some rest.
He nods and lays back down. She puts the glass on the floor.
Maybe it’s because it feels like a dream. It won’t count because he won’t remember in the morning. And there’s something about the way he looks in the glow of the lamplight. Sloppy drunk, long eyelashes, his sweet little mouth. She leans over and kisses him softly on the forehead.
“Bonne nuit, mon coeur,” he murmurs. She turns off the light and slips out silently.
Frenchie is torn. His throat is dry, in desperate need of a drink. But he knows that if he moves his head, the inevitable splitting headache that one gets after consuming three-quarters of a bottle of Cognac in one sitting will make its presence known. And so he keeps his eyes closed a little longer, hoping he’ll drift back to sleep and perhaps skip the whole hangover entirely.
A younger version of himself would have just kept the party going. Swallowed a handful of pills or snorted something. But non, he’s trying to be good. Clean. Well, clean-ish. No hard drugs. Nothing too fun. He’s gone through bouts of sobriety before, dabbling in veganism, and green juice, and even spin classes. But he’s far too French for all of that. So for now, he’s mostly sober.
His phone pings. A text. Then a few moments later, the alert goes off again. Giving up on sleeping the day away, he picks up his phone.
Come eat
Kimiko. It’s nearly noon. Gingerly, he drags himself up to sitting. He’s still in the clothes from last night. His head is not nearly as bad as he’d expected. And miraculously, there’s a nearly full glass of water on his makeshift nightstand. What an angel. How did she know? And when did she slip in here without waking him?
He emerges a while later, freshly showered and feeling human again.
“Bonjour.”
She smiles at him from her spot at the kitchen counter.
She continues working on her book, sneaking glances at him when he’s not looking. He doesn’t remember what happened last night. Or, he’s a really good liar. Well, that one she knows is true. But Kimiko doesn’t think Frenchie would lie to her.
There is the third option. He does remember but he doesn’t think it was real. She’s been puzzling over something that he said. It sounded like…like he’d been having these dreams every night. Dreams with her…doing what, she doesn’t know for sure but she can imagine. And Kimiko is still trying to wrap her head around how she feels about that.
As he moves around the kitchen, her eyes keep getting drawn back to the sliver of tanned skin, the thin trail of hair that disappears into the waistband of his underwear. He’s got this habit of cutting off the hems of his shirts. She’s always liked this about him, how he doesn’t dress like any man she’s ever known. He’s not like any man she’s ever known.
How’s your head? She asks.
“Fantastique,” he says, giving her a slightly crooked grin.
When she takes his hand and places two aspirin pills in his palm, he looks up quickly at her and in that split second he remembers everything and he knows it was real, he didn’t dream her in his room last night, just like all the other nights. And then the panic sets in as more details come rushing back... Touching her face. Almost kissing her. Saying too much.
Frenchie swallows the pills dry. When he looks up, she’s watching him. Is it all coming back to her too?
Sometimes in his dreams she’s nearly feral. A blur of hands and mouth and tongue. And then Frenchie wakes up drenched in sweat and rock hard. Tonight Kimiko sits perched on the edge of his bed. In this dream she’s almost shy, her eyes wide and questioning.
“Mon coeur,” he says, sitting up. “Ca va?”
She nods.
Do you dream about me a lot?
Frenchie laughs. “This is incredibly meta, no? My dream Kimiko asking how often I dream about her.”
She gives him a questioning look.
“Every night.”
How long?
He scrubs his face and lets out a long breath.
“Since we moved in together? Maybe before that? The basement?” He shakes his head. “I know, I know…I shouldn’t. But I don’t know how to stop.”
Why?
“Because, because… what we have is perfect, pure…” he takes her hand and places a soft kiss on it. “I’m a disgusting, depraved pervert for even… thinking of you like this—“
Is it just that…you want to have sex with me?
He laughs, ruefully. “The things I would do to you, mon coeur…” Frenchie’s eyes slowly drift down the length of her body. “I want to taste every inch of your body, fill every inch of you…”
Dream Kimiko looks flushed. She swallows.
And it’s just that? Sex?
“Non. Of course not. Sex? I know sex. It’s easy. It’s cheap. But this?” He gestures between the two of them. “I am at a loss when it comes to you, mon coeur. This is all brand new territory for me and if I—”
Before he can finish his sentence, she leans in and kisses Frenchie on the mouth, softly, slowly at first. It’s so vivid tonight, it feels so good, so much like the real thing.
There’s something different about this dream. Something…more. It feels too good…
And then Frenchie breaks away suddenly, his eyes wide with shock.
“Mon coeur?”
She opens her eyes slowly, looking dazed, mouth slightly parted.
“Is this real? Are you real? Ceci n’est pas un rêve?” he demands, a hint of panic in his voice.
Slowly, she nods. She gives his hand a squeeze and smiles.
It’s okay.
“Vraiment?”
I’m real. I’m not going anywhere. Kiss me.
He leans in and kisses her again. But this time he can feel the heat of her skin and her racing pulse, hear the breathy moans that escape her as he runs his teeth lightly along her neck.
And in the morning when Frenchie wakes up, somehow Kimiko is still there, curled up in his arms. She’s his dream girl, his miracle, his heart.