‘No, Yasmine,’ I say firmly.
She sighs and rolls her eyes, but silently places the soft packet of Gauloises on the table, and continues to look at the images of JP. I think back to when she first arrived, how she boasted about the bikes they used to steal.
‘You would not believe how many people leave their VTT on the street without locking them, expensive ones too,’ she’d said, using the French Vélo Tout-Terrain acronym for mountain bikes. ‘I’ve heard that all the serious road-racing bikers prefer to sleep with their bikes rather than girlfriends or wives. In any case, there is not much business in France for second-hand road bikes. People are too suspicious. Road bikers are puristes, want to know the origins of such things.’
I’d marvelled at her expertise on the bicycle black market back then.
That was in spring this year, exactly seven years since I came to Switzerland. The season of beginnings and arrivals. I can’t believe I have been in this country for that long. And I have been in prison for six months. That’s the hardest thing to understand, given my innocence. I’m 26 now. My life should be entering the next exciting phase. I once hoped I could raise my family within Switzerland’s safe society, as long as I kept my bike locked up. Its clockwork systems, true democracy and magical geography offered a dramatic but somehow tamed beauty. But in contrast, it is the rigid rules, chauvinistic values and xenophobic attitudes that have me trapped in a nightmare from which I fear I might never awake.
‘Does he look like his father? Those piercing grey eyes are not from you,’ queries Yasmine, squinting at my hazel eyes, which are now a little hot with the strain of my memories. Her eyes flick back to another photo of JP as a toddler.
‘Yes, he looks a lot like his father,’ I say, inexplicably choking up, not because of JP, but because I remember how he made me feel. JP’s father. In the resurfacing of old hatred, old blame, I’m horrified that my body still betrays me. After all that he did, after all that I have endured, he remains in control of my feelings. I recall that pooling hot sensation in my belly when Matt looked at me with his smoky eyes. He made me believe I was the only woman in his life.
I glance at Yasmine, worried she has a window to my thoughts. I swallow the tears that threaten.
I’m ashamed of my vulnerability.
* * *
Seven years ago
On the last Friday evening of the season, with the pub full of workers spending their weekly wage, the barman turned up the volume on the stereo and played a series of Latin American numbers. A few people began to move to the music.
It was then I discovered that along with his other seductive traits, Matt was a talented dancer. He gathered me into his arms, moulding me to his body with one strong hand splayed over the base of my back, applying enough pressure to claim complete control without force. With my hand on his shoulder, he pressed my other hand close to his chest, gently sweeping the backs of his fingers across my breast. His warm dry breath raised the fine hairs on my neck, and he turned his hips slightly, his leg pushing between my thighs.
Not a flutter of air passed between our bodies as we danced a grinding merengue in the crowded darkness of the bar. Our movement together was hypnotic, arousing a fervour of unreleased passion as I involuntary pressed myself to him and felt his desire against my thigh. My cheeks burned as he swung me around to the desperate fiery strumming of ‘Bomboléo’ and I could hardly breathe with the anticipation of what might follow.
We drew apart when the song had finished. He took my hand to lead me out of the door of the bar. The night air chilled my cheeks, but my body was on fire. At the side of the woodshed, he leaned in to me, the pungent smell of creosote eclipsed by the sweet, beery scent of his breath. He kissed me deeply with his hot mouth, pulling my shirt and bra up to expose my breasts to the night. The tightening of my nipples in the sudden cold craved his touch and his lips.
Clothes crumpled, zips sawed, underwear pushed to the side and I welcomed the exquisite, almost violent force of him thrusting into me. Throwing my head back, my hair caught in the splinters on the woodshed wall. We wedged our feet into a drift of packed snow under the roof overhang, jeans pooled at our feet in a tangle. I gasped from the long-awaited satisfaction and release, oblivious to the discomfort of shoving against the rough wall.
Afterwards, the sounds of the night filtered back in. The bar door screeched open; a waft of voices strained over the music. As the closing door clapped the raucous voices suddenly mute, I became aware of our stark surroundings. A weak moonlight reflected off patches of snow on the slope between a few chalets clustered in this area of the upper village. I was grateful for a copse of pines shielding a clear vision of the woodshed from the nearest house.
Two thoughts briefly crossed my mind: the sordidness of this quick bang outside the pub, and the fact that neither of us had used protection. Those thoughts were soon replaced by a blindly misguided feeling of smug possessiveness. Seduction complete, my bruised lips stretched into a satisfied smile. As the passion subsided, distinctly quicker than it had risen, the seeping cold and the worry that someone might have seen us made me hastily pull my clothes back into place. Matt gently stroked the hair off my face, drawing my worried gaze back to him.
‘You surprise me, my beautiful beach-seeker. Such passion. You have been wanting me since we met, no? I love how you give yourself, this spontaneity. I think I need to explore you more.’
He kissed me again, holding my chin. His comments, initially making me feel slightly sluttish, warmed me with the thought that he wanted me again.
This was the one.
A handful of flings through the few months I’d spent at art school, and a disappointing initiation into physical love had never aroused such savage passion as this in me. I’d given myself to him so readily, and couldn’t control myself. Thinking I had succeeded in making him mine, in reality it was Matt who had made me his. What would he be thinking? I was so easy, a conquest complete.
I hoped we would leave the bar together. Perhaps I would wake in his arms at his apartment, follow through with a sweet aftermath of that initial passion. But he led the way back inside. Music rang in my ears. Beer and sweat soured the air. Matt looked distractedly at his watch, a frown on his face, his focus no longer on me. And then suddenly: ‘I have to go.’
Abandoned, pleasure still stinging between my legs. Just like that, with a fleeting brush of his lips on mine, he was gone.
* * *
I was the first girl back to the dorm room that night, and glad for a moment alone. Anne was on a date with François. It was possible she wouldn’t even come back. She often stayed at his studio in the attic of his father’s hotel.
I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, forcing myself to stay awake and remember every rushed sensation of the lovemaking. I focused only on our time together, ignoring the abruptness of our parting, and hoped desperately it had not been a one-night stand.
The door opened and my other room-mate, Terri, one of the cleaning staff, came in. She threw her jacket on her bed.
‘Hit it lucky with Mathieu, did we?’ she said jovially.
My blush gave me away, and I was embarrassed to think anybody knew what we’d done. Terri couldn’t taint my brief moment of euphoria, and if she hadn’t seen me, I was strangely elated that Matt might have been boasting about his conquest.
‘It was pretty obvious when you came back into the bar what you’d been up to. You were like the cat who got the cream. No hiding that look.’
I narrowed my eyes. Wary of Terri’s perpetual chatter, I wondered whether she saw right through me.
‘Look, I know Matt is a catch,’ she continued. ‘He’s a good-looking, charismatic