“Wow, that was very impassioned,” I said stupidly, because I couldn’t believe he was being so kind.
“I am not saying it to be kind or because I am your friend,” he said, reaching across the table to take hold of my hand. “Though, I am that, your very dear friend, I hope. I am saying this because you deserve the opportunity and I would be doing my other friend a favor by setting up an interview with a promising employee.”
It was hard to speak through my suddenly parched mouth so I took a long sip of water before saying, “Can I think about it? It just… It seems too good to be true.”
“Of course, you can. Talk it over with your lover and let me know. Interviews begin the first week of January, so you have time.”
I nodded, looking out at the rain slicked streets of Paris, feeling the love I had for the city and the awe I had at being presented with such an amazing chance. It would mean giving up the purity of being a full-time artist but it would also give me the ultimate in into the art world of Europe.
“Thank you, Stefan,” I said, pouring as much gratitude and love into those words as I could.
Somehow, I had landed more than just the love of a good Frenchman on my trip to Cabo. I had also secured the kind of friendships I had never really had before, with people who would always strive to take care of me. It was awesome to realize that.
Stefan smiled lovingly at me. “Anything, anytime, Giselle.”
“I hope you know you can ask the same of me,” I returned.
His smile turned into a grin. “Excellent, then I call first dibs on that new collection of yours. Send me pictures of the completed paintings and expect me to choose at least three of them for my own collection.”
I laughed at him. “Deal.”
Chapter Ten.
It was easy to forget everything but my love of Sinclair and the City of Lights. We established a schedule of sorts, where Sinclair would wake up early and work until two in the afternoon before meeting me at the tiny café around the corner from the hotel. From there, we would head out on a different adventure, reacquainting ourselves with the city we both loved but had been forced to leave. We ambled through the steep and crooked streets of Montmartre, bought charcuterie and cheese from Marché Place Monge before heading to Jardins des Arenes for a picnic among beautiful Roman ruins, and watched films at the Parc de la Villette open air theatre, tucked up in blankets with steaming cups of drinking chocolate to keep us warm.
While I waited for Sinclair every morning, I practiced the French art of being a flaneur, a person who walks through the streets with no goal in mind but observation and meditation. Sometimes, I made friends with people as I ducked into patisseries, sharing my beloved Maison Kayser chocolate chunk cookies with a family of German tourists or dancing with a young Australian couple to the music of the violinist who was a permanent fixture in front of the Sacré Coeur.
Most of the time though, I walked and sketched to my hearts content. Odile let me use her private studio whenever I wanted so I had made progress on my collection even without my usual supplies.
This included three pieces I was doing on Odile and her three delicious younger men. I was calling the trilogy The Power Of Three and each canvas depicted a different facet of the relationship, from a tangle of bodies that were barely discernable as female or male to three sets of thick male hands on a dainty female form, and finally a subtle depiction of them out on a date, the view of the men’s hands fiddling with her under the table while they dined and chatted casually above.
Even Madame Claire agreed to pose for me, using the same man, Dominic, who had been her footstool that night at her party to serve as a prop for my pictures.
I loved the audacity of French sexuality and found myself discussing it openly in a way I never would have before Sinclair. It astounded me that I had known someone like Odile for years and yet only now did I discover her polyamorous relationship. For the first time in my life, I understood the appeal of talking to one’s girlfriends about their sex life and I delighted in doing so with people like Madame Claire and Pascale who, understanding the lifestyle as they lived it themselves, did not judge me and instead, educated me over countless glasses of wine as the weeks passed. Unknowingly, we had founded some kind of Ladies Kink Club.
Before I knew it, we had been there for two and a half weeks, and it was Christmas.