And after more wine, they began playing cards. Poker, Jonny’s favorite game. He took a hundred dollars off Henry, but graciously returned it. Henry, however, wouldn’t think of taking it back.
The storm blew out to sea around midnight. Henry was still trying to clean up when Pandy was finally able to shoo him out.
Pandy could tell that Henry wasn’t as enamored of Jonny as she was. And vice versa: At one point during the evening, Jonny had pulled her aside and confessed that Henry was the strangest man he’d ever met. “It’s like he’s from another era,” he said. “Like he learned how to be a man from watching old black-and-white movies.”
Pandy had laughed.
“You know what your problem is?” Jonny whispered in her ear as the door closed behind Henry.
“What?”
“You like everyone.”
“Oh, Jonny,” Pandy said. She had a feeling he was referring to Henry, but she brushed it off. Besides, what Jonny said was true. She liked most kinds of people, although she didn’t often admit it. Jonny, she realized, was already making her see her best self.
She had been wrong about him, she thought as he laid her down on the old leather couch and began removing her clothing. He was not an evil scumbag intent on hurting women. He was the opposite: a worshipper of women who lived only for the woman’s pleasure.
And then she found out what that “never having a dissatisfied customer” comment was all about.
It wasn’t about Jonny’s penis, which was perfectly adequate. It was about the vagina. And h
ow Jonny knew exactly what to do with one.
When he stuck his tongue inside her, it felt like her soul had flown straight up into the universe.
And after that, like a little slave girl, she’d willingly done whatever he requested.
* * *
Jonny spent the night, and basically never left.
On their fourth evening, Pandy convinced him to skip out of Chou Chou early so she could make dinner for him.
“Should I have brought a doggie bag?” he asked jokingly, eyeing the ingredients she’d put out on the counter.
“Not unless you consider yourself a dog,” she replied, breaking the tips off a pile of French green beans.
“What am I having? Besides you?” he asked, coming up behind her to wriggle his hands down the front of her jeans.
She leaned back into him. “Lamb chops,” she moaned. “With mushrooms. In a heavy cream sauce.”
“Sounds French,” he murmured into her ear, turning her around to face him.
“It is. I learned it from my French roommate.”
“When did you have a French roommate?” he asked in between kisses.
“When I was in school. In Paris,” she added, as if somehow he should have known this.
“You went to school in Paris?” Jonny sounded impressed.
“Only for a couple of months,” she said, pulling his shirt over his head. “My sister was in Amsterdam, so I went to France to be near her. I learned one recipe while I was there—”
Jonny lifted her onto the counter and pushed her legs apart. Pandy fell back like a rag doll.
Fifteen minutes later, legs still slightly shaky, Pandy went back to her cooking. She browned the lamb chops, then added butter and sliced fresh mushrooms to the juices in the pan. When the mushrooms were browned, she poured in half a cup of heavy cream. She stirred briskly and poured the mushroom cream sauce over the lamb chops.
The meal was, as her Parisian roommate had guaranteed, what was known in France as “le closure.” Meaning it was the meal that closed the deal between you and your potential husband.