Four

… After kissing Victoire goodbye and leaving her in the middle of the night street, Romain and I enter his building and climb up to the fourth floor. Incidentally, I live on the fourth floor too. So does Victoire. As it happens, most of my friends have ended up on this floor, without meaning to. Is there something magical about this even natural number? One, two, three, four.

Romain’s small apartment, tucked away in the heart of the 18th arrondissement, with windows overlooking a cake-shaped church, leaves a sweet taste in my mouth. I always feel comfortable in this snug studio. I tell him it feels very cosy, even though the word isn’t French. By the way, neither Romain nor I are French by origin.

He pours me a glass of red wine to make up for my lack of alcohol and fiddles with his turntable to play the vinyl he bought last week. I take a sip: the liquid straight from the fridge floods my mouth with bitterness. “I love the whisper of record players,” I say, before realizing that whisper isn’t the right word, it’s more of a rustle. But as the words spill out of my mouth at the same time as the wine flows in, I completely forget the French equivalent of the Russian word шуршание. In fact, I’m not even sure шуршание is the best word to describe all those enigmatic sounds a turntable produces.

The right words often slip away from me, I make linguistic mistakes all the time. Do I really have the right to communicate in a language that isn’t mine? On top of that, I often say foolish things: I wrap my fragmented thoughts in words the way stuffing is wrapped in dough in Italian cooking. Do I have the right to communicate in any language at all? Do I have the right to speak, full stop?

Romain seems amused when he listens to me. The small imperfections in my speech loosen us up and allow a dialogue to emerge, even though it is doomed from the start: it ends the moment the sound begins to skip. The turntable turns out to be badly adjusted, even though everything seemed fine that morning. Is my presence what causes the stylus to fail? Isn’t it strange that all it takes is one tiny, sharp needle breaking to throw everything into disorder?

Romain switches off the turntable — there will be nothing authentic tonight — and plays music from his computer instead. He dims the lights and lies down on the bed beside me. The staging is complete. Everything is ready for sex. I already know I won’t feel anything tonight. And yet, a faint glimmer of hope still flickers deep inside me.

Is my inability to reach orgasm with him deeply tied to my inability to live in a real world not built out of my fantasies? Or is it due to the presence of a “plastic bag” that prevents us from “breaking solitude,” as the Russian postmodern writer Victor Pelevin puts it? This small latex sheath stands between us like a materialization of fear, separating us, detaching us, cutting us off from absolute pleasure.

How I wish he would shed his modesty and take off his fucking condom. Turn on all the lights and look straight into my eyes. Spit in my mouth and fuck me in the ass. But since I can barely articulate my thoughts into words, all my desires are bound to remain forever nailed to the realm of fantasy.

Romain comes and pulls his penis out of my vagina, making room for guilt, embarrassment, and shame to gnaw at me from inside my sex. I know this feeling well. I first experienced it ten years ago, back when I was nothing but a whore, sleeping with men I didn’t love, just to avoid going home, just to avoid witnessing yet another scandal between my parents.

Before falling into the arms of Morpheus, I think again of my father’s image, then of César’s, my virtual lover, onto whom I project all the traits of that beloved parent. There’s nothing to explain to him; he already knows everything. He knows me by heart, as he likes to say. Perhaps it is thanks to this fatal knowledge that he remains only in the space of dreams, that his presence in my life is limited to the small red dot in the corner of WhatsApp’s green square. What madness. I am very attached to my phone. I am obsessed with my dreams. I am sick, very sick. A classic case of female hysteria.

In the morning, I open my eyes and sink into reflections about my life that hardly matches my expectations. Only my imaginary world attracts me; I feel far more at ease there than in this barbed reality. I wish I could be nothing but a spirit, freed from the prison of my body. Yet carnal desires run through me, crawl inside me like earthworms fertilizing humus, then take hold of me and guide me. I feel wetness running between my thighs and place my hand on Romain’s sex to wake him.

We fuck again. Another attempt to reach what lies beyond my capacities. Pleasure keeps slipping away. My eyes fill with tears. How can I expose myself to a man I do not love, who does not love me either? Why do I allow myself to be swallowed by the total indifference that reigns between us? My nose buried in the nape of Romain’s neck, I cry quietly. I’m afraid he’ll sense my pain, turn around, and ask why I’m sad. I wouldn’t know what to answer.

César’s image pierces my thoughts again when Romain brings me breakfast in bed. How can César accept that someone else enjoys my body in his place? Why does his physical absence make me so miserable, pushing me to act against my own will? Because our passion belongs only to the virtual world. Because our connection is nothing but fantasy. Because illusion has no material form until it becomes art.

Romain kisses me before letting me leave and suggests going to the movies on Sunday. I nod, then slam the door. Fourth, third, second, first, ground floor: I step out into the street and finally check my phone. César sent me a message an hour ago, exactly when tears were streaming down my face. He asks what I’m doing this weekend and wonders if Sunday would work for the cinema. A peaceful smile spreads across my face: I already know that on Sunday I’ll be going to the movies alone.

The sun hides my sudden happiness behind the clouds, and I head for the first bar-tabac to buy a pack of cigarettes. Smoke wraps itself around me, heightening the presence of particles one can see but not touch. The answer to why we don’t see each other is already inside me. Fear of reality overwhelms me: fear of destroying my fantasy, fear that the real César won’t match the image I keep in my head, fear of being disappointed by him and, above all, by myself. How could I have chosen such an inappropriate ground on which to lay the foundations of my most beautiful dream? This encounter would reduce my small universe to ruins: all my dreams, hopes, and desires would be demolished by the crane of reality.

I turn onto my street and discover scaffolding erected on my building, right outside my windows. Apparently, my last fifteen days in the apartment where I lived for four years will unfold under the sound of a drill. Reality asserts itself so that my desire to leave intensifies, so that I don’t drown in memories, so that I feel no regret, so that I finally free myself from this four‑link chain.

I already know that this move will open new doors for me and purge the toxins of the past. I already know that the poisonous chain binding me to César will eventually break. Intimacy between two people is not manna falling from the sky, like that abrupt encounter with César nearly a year ago. I will never understand what goes on in his head: he avoids me and refuses any real interaction. How can I believe in someone who doesn’t trust me? How can I communicate with someone who prefers self‑centered monologue to dialogue between two beings? The only thing left for me to do is to write a critique, or a eulogy.

A few days ago, Romain texted me saying he wanted to talk. Talk about what? His intention frightened me, and once again I locked myself inside the shell of my imagination. This armor protects me, but it leaves me mute and paralyzed; it deprives me of my right to perceive reality and to live freely. After all, maybe it would be good to talk to Romain. He will never understand what’s going on in my head if I don’t speak. And even if I do, he may not be able to decipher my language, which is almost foreign to him. But sometimes, all it takes is a slight shift in interpretation for the music to resume. A glimmer of hope still flickers at the very core of my being.