FROM RIGA TO PARIS

I.

The second night Kate came over she brought with her half a watermelon wrapped in plastic. She had been lugging it around all day, from the pop up farmer's market where she had bought it to Jūrmala where she met a friend for drinks on the beach, and then finally up the stairs to the Airbnb I was renting, on the 4th and final floor of a typical Eastern European apartment building: crumbling and old on the outside, new and modern on the inside. She wore comfy, worn-in sneakers, denim shorts, and a burnt red long sleeve button up. She was still warm from the August sun, her natural face all smiles as she sat the watermelon down on the kitchen counter. She had been here once before. Things were more familiar now, like the apartment's high art nouveau ceilings, stocked bookshelves (the Airbnb owner was an architect or someone who simply loved beautiful buildings), and large windows that openly faced the neighbors across the street who spent most evenings smoking cigarettes on their balconies. I had to draw the curtains for privacy. Kate posed naked on the couch, the reading chair, and at the dining room table, before we moved to the bedroom, leaving the camera behind.

II.

The first night she came over, Kate had walked up those same cement stairs in heels, nervously balancing herself with the handrail, looking like the kind of woman I'd be too insecure to approach at a bar back in the States. She wore a sparkly top that was hardly there at all; a gust of wind would have lifted it up and further revealed her pale and muscular back. She had on tight black pants that hugged her butt and choked her skinny calves. Every blemish and blotch on her skin had been covered up in some type of cream that she was careful not to smudge off on my bed's pillows when we were making love and I was taking her from behind.

That night was the first night of our two-night affair. I was nervous. I had spent the day cleaning; washing the floors, shower, toilet, and wiping down all the countertops with a vinegar-water solution and then lighting candles to burn the sting of vinegar out from the air. I prepared a 7-layer salad (a creamy dish that my mother made on hot summer days in Arizona) and baked mac & cheese. Neither dish was romantic nor sexy. There were chunks of garlic and diced pickled jalapeños in the mac and cheese and thick slices of red onions in the salad, but I had wanted to make her dinner. It had been some time since I had been anything — lover, boyfriend, friend — to anyone, and years since I had a place to call home. Of course, Riga wasn't home either and I couldn't say for sure what Kate and I were to each other. That's what I was trying to figure out. I had only a week left in that quiet, sleepy city before going back to Paris, where I was struggling to belong, and of course Kate too would leave in her own way: going back to being someone's wife. While she had once filled that role naturally, she was starting to forget her lines and miss her cues. Once, in between bouts of sex, she described marriage as having a dress in the closet that you sometimes loved wearing, but other times putting it on felt like wearing a stranger's clothing.

I had wanted her to stay the night that first night. For two overlapping selfish reasons.

First, I wanted to have as much as sex with her as possible, in every position, in every way, to every tempo; with her heels on and feet up in the air; with her heels off and her legs wrapped around me; short bursts of intimacy, followed by a long, gradual rise in motion; a round where her dainty hands and wrists were cuffed, a round where I was blindfolded, her lips touching every part of my shivering body; my come in her mouth, on her chest, streaks of pearl along her backside, and then deep inside her; my face buried between her cream-white thighs, while my hands massage her perfectly palm-sized breasts; sex where we don't say a word, where I fuck her hard and firm and rough, pushing the mattress across the room as I thrust deeply into her, and sex where we can't shut up, where we laugh, our lips close together, but not quite touching, her warm breath on my face. I wanted to count every mole on her speckled body, to hear her orgasm, to watch her tighten, then loosen, see her toes curl and then stretch.

Second, I wanted to know her in the moments between and after intimacy. To fall asleep next to her and see her face in the morning, first on the pillow — does she drool? or talk in her sleep? — then in the bathroom mirror brushing her teeth and splashing water across her face. I wanted to see how her face changed when enclosed by a head of wet hair — we always look different then, more vulnerable somehow — as she stepped out of the shower, a towel wrapped around her body.

But she had plans to see friends at Old Town and couldn't stay long. We had sex on the mattress on the floor of the bedroom. First me on top, then I flipped her over and pulled her hips up and pushed her upper back down, giving her a perfect arch. She stretched out, her arms in front of her, grabbing the edge of the mattress. Moonlight came in from the bedroom window, where I hadn't drawn the curtain, as the bed was so low no one could see us. In the moonlight you see another version of Kate, like how a cathedral becomes new and even more beautiful when covered in the first snow. I paused before inserting myself back into her. Slowly, slowly, slowly, then quickly, reaching down and grabbing her shoulders. Then I got on my back and she rode me, her thick hair falling over her body, sometimes obscuring her breasts. She bent down to kiss me and her hair fell against my face. I kissed her breasts and her nipple slid inside my mouth, open in a static pleasure, as she rode me steadily and with a rhythm and excitement that I still feel, often at the most random times like riding the metro or when a plane takes off. She used lubricant in those days, a side effect of the anti-depressants she was on. The little gel tube was on the ground next to the bed, along with her heels, pants, and top. After I orgasmed I pulled off the condom, tossed it to the side, and laid down next to her. She showed me how to make her come: two fingers inside her, pull out and push back in, not curved but straight, gentle yet firm, keep the momentum consistent, mechanical, like pistons on an engine. She laid on her back, her eyes closed. I scanned from the top of her head down to her toes, her naked body and mine on top of the sheets. Her body slowly tightened and when she came it was a low, steady closed-lipped moan, her long feet spread out, her knees buckled, she made a fist with her hands, and then she sunk into herself, quiet and reserved.

III.

The second night, the night with the watermelon, we had more time. Kate likes sex, but she loves to be photographed. Here I began to understand who I was to her. The man with the camera, the man who could see her in ways others could not. I had bought the camera — an overpriced Fujifilm that took me 3 months to pay off — when I was living in Portugal. I had taken it with me around the world, from Berlin to Seoul and back, photographing hundreds of people, but none of them in the way that I photographed Kate.

A good photo always reveals more than even the photographer initially sees. I still sometimes look over the photos I took of her on that night; they surprise and excite me to this day. Photos of her wrapped in a towel — we had sex immediately when she came in, casually stripping her naked like we had known each other for years — eating the watermelon she brought, scooping out the wet red melon with a spoon; there's a photo of her bending over and slurping up the juice; there's one of her standing naked, her long thick hair down her back, and then pushed to the side; now she's bent over a reading chair, zoom in and you can see the lips of her vagina peeking out, a smiling invitation; now she's sitting on the couch, her long, bony feet on the coffee table, looking like a woman on a beach somewhere, where the sun is setting in a beautiful orange-red glow just for her.

She stayed longer that night, yes, but not the entire night. I still have not seen her wet-haired in the morning. I still do not know how she sleeps or so many other things about her, just like to her I must be something of a mystery. The right kind of man to come at the right time, as if taking stage directions to enter and then exit her life.

When she called a cab to go home I took her phone and canceled the ride. Not yet, I said. There were more photos to take. She stepped out of her clothes again and got on her knees. In the apartment hallway there's a large standing mirror — one you use to check yourself before going out — where I watched Kate go down on me, her head bobbing back and forth, her hands on my legs and hips to brace herself. Eventually she moved me to the bed where I laid down and she continued to go down on me, her lips wet, her tongue warm, her hand stroking me, until I came. After a few seconds, she opened her mouth and let my cum pour down over me — I couldn't help but laugh, a deep laugh rooted in pure joy, exactly how I reacted when I first moved to Paris and one night accidentally stumbled upon the Eiffel Tower, sparkling as it does after sunset every 5 minutes on the hour. A moment where I could not believe the life I was leading was real, a moment where the joy I experienced startled me.

IV.

After I left Riga I re-started my efforts to build a life in Paris. I knew a few people, some of whom, like Kate, I had met on dating apps, others that I had met at the climbing gym or the co-working space where I spent most evenings, typing on my computer long past sundown. Some of them lovers, some friends, but most of them hardly anything at all: just people to fill the time.

These new people were naturally curious about my life. How is it that a boy from Arizona came to live in Paris? Sometimes I gave them the short answer: I had left the US in 2021 to travel and write and after visiting several countries I settled on France.

Sometimes the longer answer where I go into the difficulties and joys of solo travel, of leaving behind one life and pursuing another, of not feeling at home anywhere.

The longer answer leads to more questions. I was an open book even to strangers. The older I get, the less I believe in keeping secrets, not out of some desire to be truthful, but out of a refusal to hide what has happened to me. I told several people about Kate, who I called "the Russian wife," in short hand, protecting her name as if the name Kate was only for me and her. Often those I told laughed. Sometimes they were offended (they saw me differently, as someone with low morals). Sometimes they were worried about me. Don't you want something more?, they'd ask me, something permanent? I tried to explain what I knew could not be explained — I myself didn't have the words — and eventually I stopped trying.

V.

I saw Kate again eight months later on the Pont de Bir-Hakeim, the Eiffel Tower and all the tourists lined up to photograph it were a mere backdrop in our reunion. She was visiting a friend and we had a few hours for an afternoon together. Lunch, drinks, book shopping for a novel in French. We both want to speak French more confidently, to express ourselves in that foreign language. I tell her if we ever see each other again we’ll leave English behind and speak in our mutually borrowed tongue. The weather was perfect. Cool enough for a light jacket, but warm enough to lie comfortably on the grass. Of course, I took some photos of her. This time she’s clothed in them. She posed for me in the Jardin du Luxembourg, her bony knee showing through thin stockings. And there’s one pic of us. A selfie that Kate herself took as we were walking. She held her phone below, facing upwards — there’s a row of green trees over our heads — and there we are, the two of us side by side, looking like people who belong.