Rebecca
“Give me the key,” she says, sprawled out on the couch.
I go to my special place, retrieve it and put it in her hand. She clasps it in front of her face, pursing her lips as though preparing to kiss it.
“Don't do that! It's not clean.”
Defiantly, she slowly slides the key down the fabric stretched around her body, down towards her thighs. Uses it to pluck at the hem of her nightdress, pulls it revealingly back, holds the moment, gives me a mischievous, teasing smile.
I retrieve the key and retreat to the kitchen.
How does she always do this to me?
Her flat is in the Marais, 4th arrondissement - high ceiling, wood floorboards, strewn carpets... stuff. You see aspects of Notre Dame from the window. How does Rebecca afford it?
It's her relations, I think. When she returned from the north (Surely not Lille? But we are not encouraged to ask) she was set up in this apartment which she's furnished as 'boho antique’. A leather couch dominates the centre of the room, facing the fire, lit by its flickering flames. A couch on which she sprawls languidly in her nightwear.
She's compact and curvy, black ringlets cascade around her shoulders. She had business after work, came in late and showered. Now she's settled, her head against a small cushion by the armrest. One heel's dug into a gap between the cushions, her knee resting casually against the back, her other foot randomly taps at the carpet.
Her legs are dappled by firelight.
I consider her nightdress. The way she's lying it's pulled pretty tight, almost like a second skin around her breasts. The material hugs her stomach, is taut around her thighs. If it were not so skimpy, she’d surely have trouble walking.
In the kitchen I focus. Rebecca may have finished for the day but I've got a shift ahead, RER maintenance with a team of overqualified, under-documented north-Africans and a few native-born ne'er-do-wells.
I need the money.
I don't actually live here, I have a flat somewhere east but I've been spending more time here since Rebecca chose me. We met at a comrade's house, a party, soon after she came down from the north.
“I'd decided already it was going to be the Paris organiser or you,” she'd told me.
Like the leader of our Paris organisation, I was also on the comité central - in charge of the groupe d'action directe. We did street theatre and agitprop, thirty second occupations of Rue de Rivoli shops implicated in this or that oppression. Bank offices, retail outlets and airline agencies were also frequently visited - we'd be away with action-photos for our newspaper well before les flics arrived. But we were also the go-to people for more serious and less legal affairs.
Genuinely perplexed, I once asked a comrade on the comité politique, “Why me? I'm not aggressive, I don't like to fight, I have no military training. Why would you want me to lead the GAD?”
“Have you ever considered that's precisely the reason you were chosen?”
I remained mystified and unconvinced.
I didn't know why Rebecca had chosen me, but here I was in her kitchen, just got up and padding around in my dressing gown. Soon I'd be changing into heavy work clothes, packing my overalls and my plastic box of sandwiches. Eleven to six thirty am, my nightly stint with the working class, none of whom were interested in the slightest in my politics.
I took the key to the sink and began to scrub furiously. Who knew where this key had been?
Something you know and something you have. Entry to the Centre was controlled by a six digit passcode and this key. We don't man the Centre overnight but some people need access 24/7.
Like me.
I stand at the foot of the couch looking up at Rebecca. She's relaxed as a cat. I offer the newly-cleansed key, the back of my hand deliberately brushes against the inside of her knee. I'm expectant and nervous.
A complicit smile. She takes the key and presses it against her lips. The tip of her tongue touches it but she's not looking there, she's staring intently at me.
“Why do you want it, anyway?” I ask, casually.
She waves a dismissive hand.
“I had a meeting there after work. Left my handbag. It's got my pass and everything.”
I nod. Rebecca found a position with the Ministère des Armées soon after arriving here. Remarkably quickly. I assumed we had comrades in place who facilitated. It's not policy to ask. In any event, Rebecca is considered a high-value asset by the Party leadership.
“You know the password?”
“Lenin's birthday,” she mutters petulantly.
She continues to observe me closely, slides the key slowly across her stomach, down to the hem of her nightdress. Tucks it under and back, then scrunches the material up in her other hand. Her eyes defocus, parted lips give a little gasp (some part of me thinks that key would surely be rather cold). My hand moves spontaneously to cover hers and she draws me forward and over her (some part of me sees the key being carefully tucked under the cushion beneath her head).
Sex, with someone you love who loves you back.
After some wriggling her nightdress ends up around her shoulders.
The poet was right. Communion with a girl who dotes on you is the most wonderful thing in the world.
She dotes on me, right?
Over the next month the groupe d'action directe gets more than its share of bad luck. Operations are mysteriously rumbled by the cops, key targets unaccountably well guarded. We decide the root cause is penetration; the GAD must have a mole. A decision is taken at the highest level to disband it.
The secretary of the comité politique has a word. I'm now under-occupied and they need cadre support up north. I discuss it with Rebecca.
“We're bored with Paris, aren't we? There'll be new challenges in Lille. What do you say?”
She dumps me.
As instructed, I move to Hauts-de-France where I am beside myself with grief. I blame myself. She was way out of my league, I tell myself.
I am unworthy, desolated.
I completely blame myself.
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