Carnal Appetites

The first thing I noticed about Chantal was the way she held her wine glass. Not by the stem, like civilized people, but by the bowl, her long fingers wrapped around the curve of it like she was already deciding whether to break it or drink from it.

She was standing in my kitchen. My kitchen. The one with the peeling linoleum and the cabinet door that never quite closed. And she looked like she'd been dropped there by mistake, some cosmic clerical error that put a goddess in a mud puddle.

"You don't talk much, do you, Matthias?"

I shrugged. A gesture that made my belly shift under my sweater. I'd worn the black one, the loosest thing I owned, and still felt like a sausage about to split its casing.

"I talk," I said. Quietly. "Just not about nothing."

She laughed. A real laugh, not the polite kind. It crinkled the corners of her green eyes and made me feel, for a second, like I'd said something clever instead of just being difficult.

"Not about nothing," she repeated, tasting the words. "I like that. Most people talk about nothing all day long. You should hear my coworkers. It's like they're being paid by the syllable."

I didn't know why she was here. That's the thing I keep coming back to. She'd shown up at my door forty minutes ago with a bottle of wine and a smile that made my chest hurt, and I'd let her in because I couldn't think of a reason not to. Because she was my wife's friend. Because saying no to someone like Chantal felt like saying no to gravity.

"Where's Diane?" I asked.

"Work thing. She said she'd be late." Chantal took a sip of wine, watching me over the rim. "She told me to keep you company."

That didn't sound like Diane. Diane didn't arrange things. Diane drifted through our marriage like a ghost who'd forgotten she was dead, occasionally bumping into furniture to remind me she existed.

"She said that?"

"Mm." Chantal set the glass down on my counter. Right on top of a water ring I'd been meaning to wipe up for three days. "She worries about you."

"I doubt that."

The words came out before I could stop them. Too honest. Too raw. I watched Chantal's expression shift, that playful mask slipping just enough for me to see something underneath. Interest. Real interest. The kind that makes my skin prickle.

"You're sharper than you look," she said.

"I look dull?"

"You look like a man who's spent a lot of time being told he's dull."

I didn't have an answer for that. She wasn't wrong. Twenty years of marriage to a woman who'd stopped seeing me somewhere around year three. Twenty years of learning to take up as little space as possible, which for a man my size was a constant, exhausting negotiation.

Chantal picked up her glass again and walked past me into the living room. I followed because what else was I going to do. She settled onto my couch, the one with the sagging cushions and the stain I couldn't identify, and crossed her legs. Her skirt rode up just an inch. Enough.

"Sit down, Matthias."

It wasn't a request. I sat.

She studied me the way you'd study a painting you weren't sure you liked. Head tilted. Eyes narrowed. I felt my face go hot and looked at the floor.

"Does she touch you?" Chantal asked.

"What?"

"Diane. Does she touch you? Ever?"

My throat closed. I could feel my pulse in my temples, in my wrists, in the soft roll of fat around my middle. Nobody asked questions like that. Nobody looked at me like that, like I was something worth examining.

"She's busy," I said.

"That's not an answer."

Why was she doing this. What did she want. I had nothing to offer a woman like her. I was forty-four years old with a body that betrayed me every day and a cock that had been the punchline of my own private jokes for as long as I could remember. Diane had stopped wanting me years ago, and honestly, I couldn't blame her. I'd stopped wanting myself too.

"Why are you here?" I asked. My voice cracked on the last word.

Chantal leaned forward. The wine glass dangled from her fingers, forgotten. Her eyes held mine and wouldn't let go, and I felt something shift in my chest. Something old and buried and desperate.

"I'm here because Diane asked me to check on you. And I'm here because I was curious." She paused. "And I'm here because I think you've been invisible for a very long time, and I want to see what happens when someone actually looks at you."

I couldn't breathe. The room felt too small, the air too thick. She was close enough now that I could smell her perfume, something floral and sharp, and underneath it the wine on her breath.

"You don't know me," I said.

"I know enough."

"You don't know anything."

"I know you're kind." Her hand landed on my knee. Light. Casual. Like she'd done it a thousand times. "I know you're smart. I know you see things other people miss. And I know you're terrified right now."

I was. God, I was. Terrified and something else. Something I hadn't felt in so long I almost didn't recognize it. Want. Raw and animal and shameful.

"Chantal," I started.

"Shh."

Her finger pressed against my lips. Just for a second. Just long enough to stop my heart.

"I'm not going to do anything you don't want," she said. "But I need you to understand something. I don't do things halfway. If you let me in, I'm going to see everything. All of it. The parts you hide. The parts you hate. I'm going to see them, and I'm not going to look away."

My eyes burned. I blinked fast, furious at myself, but a tear escaped anyway. Rolled down my cheek and disappeared into the collar of my sweater.

Chantal watched it fall. She didn't wipe it away. She didn't tell me it was okay. She just watched, and in her watching I felt something I'd never felt before. Seen. Actually seen.

"I don't know how," I whispered.

"I know." Her hand squeezed my knee. "That's why you need me."

The front door opened. Keys jangled. Diane's voice floated in from the hallway, tired and distracted.

"Matthias? You home?"

Chantal pulled back. Her hand left my knee. Her face rearranged itself into something pleasant and harmless, and by the time Diane appeared in the doorway, we were just two people sitting on a couch, a glass of wine between us.

"Hey, babe," Chantal said. "We were just talking."

Diane nodded. Didn't look at me. Never looked at me. "I'm going to bed. Long day."

She disappeared down the hall.

Chantal stood up. Straightened her skirt. Looked down at me with those green eyes that saw everything.

"Think about what I said," she told me.

Then she was gone, and I was alone on the couch, my heart pounding, my hands shaking, the ghost of her touch still burning on my knee.