Read Online The Erotic Potential of my Wife by David Foenkinos - Free Book Online

that routine was a question of location, not bodies, illusions.

2
    It is impossible to know exactly at what moment the thing occurred. It certainly involves the vague echo of a feeling with an uncertain dawn. Besides, Hector cannot be said to have been alarmed in the early days.
    That summer was more than a promise. We knew with certainty that the sun’s rays would tickle lovers’ bodies at a time when everyone was talking about the death of the seasons, a favourite subject of those who
really
have something to tell each other; this summer was not going to betray anyone. Brigitte had put on a very nondescript outfit to do what she called her
cleaning
. Hector wanted to help (their marriage was barely a year old), but Brigitte laughed saying that his help would only make her waste time. (Ah, men.) Hector began humming some words of an old song, Brigitte loved his voice. She felt happy and secure, happy even during the Saturday afternoon cleaning. That summer, they had decided not to leave, to profit from Paris without the Parisians. They would stroll along the Seine, in the evening, with the shooting stars and lovers fixated by their happiness. Brigitte would be a princess. For the moment, she had to clean. The sun’s rays betrayed the windows’ lack of cleanliness.
    The windows’ lack of cleanliness: that is the beginning of our drama.
    The window is open. The unmistakable sound of women rushing and men rushing to catch up with them can be heard from afar. Hector is sitting reading his interior decoration magazine as usual. He thinks of his living room furniture like he would his children’s start of the new school year had he had the time to have kids. Brigitte is busy with her cleaning. Hector raises his head, he leaves the magazine. Brigitte is on a wooden stepladder, her two feet are not positioned on the same step, so that her calves are supporting different weights; in other words, the first calf on the higher step is of a flawless roundness, while the second one is marked by the vein of effort. One is naïve, the other one knows. After the vision of these two calves, Hector raises his head to kiss his wife’s hips with his eyes. A slight movement is perceptible, regular waves like the backwash of the night, and all it takes is to raise the head further to understand the reason for this movement. Brigitte is cleaning the windows. We slow down. Brigitte is cleaning the upper part of the windows. It is good work, and the sun is already profiting from the first gaps due to the cleanliness. With finesse, evident in her wrist, Brigitte cleans and hunts down the merest traces of dirt on the windows; nothing should be seen, she aims for transparency. Brigitte reties some strands of hair in her pony-tail. Hector has never seen anything as erotic as this. Certainly, his experience in erotic matters is like the charisma of a fissure. The living room is heating up in the sun. Feeling eyes locked on her, Brigitte turns to check: her Hector of a husband has his eyes glued on her. She cannot see the extent to which his throat is dry. And there, the window is clean. Hector has just been confronted with happiness; it is as simple as that. It should not, above all, be interpreted as macho. Hector is the least macho specimen there is, you know that. It’s just that happiness never gives notice. In some stories, it manifests itself at the moment when the knight saves the princess; here, it surges at the moment when the hero looks at the heroine clean the windows.
    I am happy, thought Hector.
    And this thought was not about to leave him.
    After cleaning, Brigitte went with a friend to take advantage of the July sales; she would definitely return with two dresses, a lilac cardigan, and four pairs of knickers. Hector had a rendezvous with nothing, so he stayed seated in front of the clean window. Then, suddenly, he stood up and wondered about the moment of absence he had just had. It had been half an hour since his wife had gone out.