Gorgeous East Read Free

the result of a drinking binge or because they’d run out of money to buy hash or cocaine, or because they’d never heard of any world where promises were kept; each bunch worse than the last as the years went by. They were cynical beyond all reason to be so, had no respect for tradition, no ambition, no faith, no real desire for anything except reckless sensation. No honor. His own adjutant Caporal-chef Pinard had been one of these; now he was a Legionnaire. But there existed an antidote to pointless nihilism, as simple as it was unexpected: high standards and extremely harsh discipline, impartially applied.
    “You know I could have killed myself pulling your ass out of the drink?” He sat forward suddenly, an edge in his voice. “As it is, I lost my new boots and cut my cheek”—he touched the swollen place beneath his eye—“not to mention the price of that steak. Why did you do such a stupid thing?”
    “That’s my affair!” Louise spit out. “ Fiche-moi la paix! ”
    At this, Phillipe reached over and without warning slapped her hard across the mouth. She gasped and fell against the wingbacked chair.
    “ Canaille! ” she cried, outraged. “ Espèce de merde! ” Tears began rolling down her cheeks. She leaned forward and put her face in her hands and began to sob. Phillipe watched impassively for a while. Then, he got up and wet his handkerchief in the water jug and handed it to her. She pressed the cool fabric against her eyes, against her cheeks, and her tears gradually subsided.
    “I was in a new club last night, in Paris,” she said, still gasping a little. “We waited a long time to get in, we were all pretty high. Ecstasy, some cocaine. I was there with my lover and his girlfriend—mine too, I guess, since we were both sleeping with the cheap little whore—then more of my friends came and . . .”
    “Go on,” Phillipe said gently.
    “Suddenly everything and everyone seemed horrible. Just horrible. I can’t explain it . . .”
    “An attack of misanthropy,” Phillipe suggested. “Depression. Disgust with life, with all the sordidness. Or perhaps just the drugs.”
    “I don’t know. But I fought with everyone, viciously. I fought with my lover; I slapped Chantal and she pulled my hair and I slapped her again very hard and she cried, then I couldn’t take it anymore, I just turned around and walked out. I left my purse on the bar, with everything, my papers, my keys, my coke, my money. I realized this outside when I got into a taxi—but I couldn’t go back. Mais jamais! So I told myself if I could get all the way to the coast like just that, with nothing, then I’d drown myself in the sea, and then the horribleness would be completely finished. I took the métro to the gare d’Austerlitz without a ticket and I got on the TGV without a ticket and the conductor just walked by me. It was like I was invisible, already dead. I rode all the way up to Rennes on the train, then I got on a tour bus with some Americans and no one asked me anything. No one said a word. So I reached Mont-Saint-Michel and well”—she paused—“it seemed stupid not to go through with it . . .” Her voice trailed off.
    “Then I found you”—Phillipe couldn’t keep a proprietary note out of his voice—“and I stopped you. Thank God.”
    “ Alors, c’est ça! ” Louise jerked her head up, sharply angry again. “You saved my life and that means I’m yours. Et maintenant tu veux sans doute me baiser —now you want to fuck me! Well, stand in line, asshole. They all want to fuck me, every man I ever meet and half the women! It’s the afterwards they don’t know what to do with.”
    “The thought of making love to you has occurred to me,” Phillipe admitted, amused. “For obvious reasons. Very well, I’ll say this—only if you want to. And I can assure you that I’ll know what to do afterwards.”
    The possibility of sex suddenly hung in the air between them. A ludicrous impulse—and yet somehow