Page 38 of The Perfect Ingredient
* * *
We wake in a tangle of limbs and blankets. Jean’s hair is a mess, and I bite his shoulder just to hear him moan. Hessou drags him into the shower. I hear laughter, so I decide to follow the scent of skin and soap.
Today we buy art books, exotic fruits, and more shoes Jean insists he doesn’t need. He protests, but he tries on every single pair. Naturally, he loves the ones I hate. I pretend to sulk. He kisses me in secret. I forget what we were arguing about.
* * *
By the third night, Hessou whispers in my ear while Jean is distracted with a jar of candied violets.
“We should take him somewhere to drink.”
“Jazz club?”
“No.Ourkind of place.”
I smile.
Jean had barely caught his breath from the last days, and now we are already leading him by the hand down narrow alleys that rarely appear on the maps.
The streets narrow as we walk. Not abruptly. It’s a gradual narrowing, where the buildings start leaning toward each other, the lamps thin out, and the old stones rise unevenly under our soles, as if we’re being funneled somewhere the cityrespectablepeople pretend not to know.
Jean walks between us. He’s cleaned up beautifully in his new clothes, freshly shaven, a touch of cologne at his throat—a bright citrus-and-herb water Hessou composed just for him. Yet I can feel the tension in his shoulders. The way his gaze skims the gaps between buildings like he expects something to lurch out.
“You said we were going to a bar,” he mutters. “This… doesn’t look like where people drink.”
Hessou chuckles. “It’s where the beautiful people come to drink.”
I glance at the side of Jean’s neck. He’s flushed. Whether from the wine at dinner or the thrill of being led somewhere he shouldn’t, I can’t tell.
“Places like this don’t have signs,” I say, looping my arm through his. “You only reach them when someone who belongs brings you inside.”
Jean swallows.
“Is it… forbidden?” he asks, voice hushed, like he’s afraid to be overheard.
Hessou smiles. “No.”
I brush a kiss against Jean’s cheek.
“Sodomy stopped being a crime in France long before our grandparents were born, Jean. You’re not going to prison just for being here.”
“But you could lose your job,” Hessou adds. “Whispers could follow you. A man in a soutane, committing sins under it, could damn you to hell. But forbidden? No.”
Jean’s throat bobs as he swallows again, this time with more weight behind it. His grip on my arm tightens slightly.
“Don’t worry, chéri,” Hessou says, “when we take you to Paris, you’ll see men like us on every street.”
I laugh under my breath. “In Paris, he’d have three admirers offering him a cigarette before he crossed a boulevard. I’m not sure if I want to take him to Paris anymore.”
Jean smiles. “I won’t accept it.”
God, I want to devour him.
We take a turn that leads us down a passage barely wide enough for three. The smell changes—more tobacco, metal, a faint trace of piss and lavender. There’s a door ahead, made of thick wood with an iron knocker shaped like a lion’s head.
Hessou knocks. Three beats, then two.
The door opens to a man in suspenders with a thin mustache. He nods, and we slip inside.
