Chicken Skin – Chapter II

By the time Christine passed the doorstep of Antoine’s company studies, she felt her face turn pink under the eyes of the secretary. She was a young woman of about thirty years old and, having experimented life for at least ten more years than Christine, who was only twenty, she seemed to guess all Christine was going through. It looked like she could read in her thoughts and desires, and that she was seeing the funny side of it, quite gently though.

Christine found it hard to look at her right in the eyes, and normally just couldn’t find much to tell her. So when she came and that Antoine wasn’t in, she wouldn’t spend much time with her. She usually kept herself to herself in one of the studies: actually in the one that was hers.

On that day, after having exchanged short courtesies with the secretary who let her know that Antoine would arrive about one hour later,Christine got to her study where was waiting for her a folder that Antoine had intentionally put there with a small note for her attention.

It’s with a sort of tenderness that Christine deciphered the note that yet didn’t contain more, in its lines, than very professional considerations.

For Christine, every demonstration of Antoine, even if it was purely formal and insignificant, was kind of a miracle. The faintest word, the shortest note that Antoine addressed her was of the utmost importance. She neatly kept all his notes in a drawer.

She indubitably was in love.

Of course, it was disturbing her every-day life. She found it more difficult to keep concentrated on her studies, and very often then she felt invaded by sort of a languor that drove her dreamy and that isolated her from the rest of the world.

When Antoine finally got into the study without knocking, Christine was talking on the phone with a client.

Antoine just sat on the corner of the table and waited, not without expressing some impatience, that Christine would end the friendly conversation she had started with her interlocutor.

Antoine was always in a hurry, going from an appointment to another, ending a phone conversation to begin a new one.

He was patting his fingertips on the wood of the table.

When Christine finally hang up, he smiled at her and asked her how she was. Christine smiled back at him and stood up to beg a kiss that he was never very prompt in giving her. He kissed her on the cheek, reluctantly, while surveilling out of the corner of his eye, the door that had remained half-opened.

He started to pace back and forth while telling Christine about all the last commercial projects he had imagined since they last met. Christine, who had sat back, was listening to him with a smile on her face, attentive, kindly, almost maternal.

Antoine was like a child when he was talking about his projects for his company.

Antoine, after he finished his report, invited Christine to follow him in his study. On the way, he smiled at the secretary, professing about the urgency of a work to finish to explain the presence of Christine who was following him closely.

Christine, who had understood what it was actually about, had put under her arm the folder with which she was working to put up a front.

Her cheeks gone pink because of the confusion that the young woman eyes on her didn’t miss to cause to her, Christine timidly smiled at her while falling into step behind Antoine who had just entered in his study with long strides.

Christine gently closed the door behind herself.

Christine had a boyfriend. She had met Benjamin at the beginning of the year at the University. Their relationship was more a friendship than a real love affair. Though she didn’t tell him about her affair with Antoine. She wanted to spare Benjamin’s self-esteem and yet she didn’t really know where she was going to with Antoine. Also, in few words, she was running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

Antoine, as for him, was married. He had had with his wife a son who was then four years old.

His discord with his wife was well-known in their entourage, but he still lived with her and their son.

The couple life often met storms. Though it was going its way, somehow, in the chaos of exhausting quarrels.

Antoine’s wife reproached him for his frequent and long absences, for his lacks in their son’s education, and above all, for an overrunning sexual hunger that didn’t suit her natural that had revealed itself, somewhat late, modest and discreet.

Antoine who was often exasperated by his wife’s never-ending reproaches, and her reiterated refusal when it came to complete a marriage that he was finally actually wondering if it was real, first gave in anger. Then, most of the times, he would calm down and temporize. At bottom, he married her and they had had a child. He perfectly could find elsewhere what she didn’t want to offer him anymore and he was actually doing it, without much qualms, preserving this way, in a way, the family core.

And so, Christine found herself alone with Antoine in his study. She put the folder she was carrying, before getting closer to Antoine who had sat down on one of the armchairs of the private room area he had arranged for the appointments he gave at his office. He was looking at Christine and smiling at her. All this was very clear. She perfectly knew what was to happen for she had experimented it several times before.

Antoine was sitting on the edge of the armchair, his legs apart. Christine got closer to him to the point of dominating him. He put his hands around Christine’s waist, and made her sit down on his left knee. She felt so small and fragile in his hands. The strength emanating from him striked her slender feminity.

Antoine slided his hand under Christine’s sweater and as she was wearing no bra, he began to gently caress her breasts. This time of delight didn’t last long: as somebody suddenly knocked on the door, Christine hastily got to her feet. On the run she seized the folder she had put on a furniture when coming in, and hurriedly sat down on the armchair that was just in front of the one on which Antoine was sitting.

When Antoine finally authorized the entry, the secretary, whom they had completely forgotten, probably more easily because she was usually keeping discreet when they isolated themselves in Antoine’s study, appeared holding the mail of the day.

She behaved as if she hadn’t noticed Christine’s cheeks turned pink, the move she made to pull her skirt back onto her knees and the mess of the folder contents that had just scattered on the carpet. She was smiling while handing to Antoine, who took it and thanked her, the packet of already open letters.

She went after having taken some instructions from Antoine.

The secretary intrusion had broken up Christine’s urge. Antoine, as for him, didn’t seem confused nor frustrated. He made fun of the situation by underlining that the staff had a talent for manifesting themselves at the most inappropriate moments, and, after he sat down behind his desk, he began to read the mail carefully.

Christine sat herself down again in the armchair after she had gathered the sheets of the folder that had inexorably fallen on the ground in the haste that the secretary intrusion had provoked.

She was patiently waiting for Antoine to finish his mail reading.

She was wondering wether the secretary hadn’t bothered them on purpose. She inevitably suspected that Antoine and her had an affair. Maybe she had wanted to be sure of it.

Antoine was finally overcoming his readings, when the telephone rang. He picked it up , after having casted a sorry glance at Christine. She just looked down to hide the disappointment this new setback was causing her.

Really, this morning would desperately be without any respite.

Christine, who was as patient as a heron, just put up with it without complaining or whining.

Antoine seemed to begin a lengthy conversation. Christine got up, ready to go back to her own study where she would be free to give in the kind of melancholy that was suddenly invading her.

Antoine who hadn’t stopped looking at her, nodded to her to sit back. The authority of his gesture left no alternative to Christine who obeyed without a word.