April in Montreal

Names and places are fictional.

Missed the beginning? Part 1: The Weekend That Changed Everything.

For seven weeks, Julie’s phone buzzed at all hours. Photos of Toronto in the rain. Jokes. And sometimes, late at night, a message from Sofia that made her blush alone in the kitchen: "I keep thinking about that terrace. Do you?"

Julie thought about it all the time. In the shower, at the office, on the packed orange line. The sand in the sheets. Léo’s mouth on the inside of her knee. Marc’s hoarse voice saying "I was there."

It’s different here

Down there, everything had been easy. The sea, the heat, the anonymity. But Montreal was their city. Their street. Their downstairs neighbour who said hello every morning. Their bed.

"What if someone sees us?" Julie asked the night before.

Marc shrugged, but she could tell he was thinking about it too. "We’ll say they’re friends from Toronto. Which is true, right?"

They went over their rules, one by one. We decide together. Either of us can stop everything. Lemon. And a new one, added by Julie: "Our bedroom. I decide if we go there."

Marc smiled. "Deal."

The kids left for Julie’s mother’s on Friday afternoon. The apartment had never felt so quiet.

Red

This time, Julie chose red. A satin set, deep as wine, hidden under a simple black dress. She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror for a long time. The woman looking back had something new in her eyes.

Marc came in behind her and put his hands on her hips. She let one strap of her dress slide down, just enough for him to catch a glimpse of red. He put his mouth to her bare shoulder, right there, next to the satin, and she felt his fingers tighten on her hips.

He closed his eyes for a moment. "You actually want me to survive dinner?"

Dinner

They had booked a small restaurant in Old Montreal, stone walls and candles everywhere. Sofia arrived in a cream suit, her hair pinned up. Léo followed with a bottle of wine as a gift. The hugs lasted a second too long.

Halfway through the meal, Julie felt a foot brush her ankle under the table. She looked up. Sofia, perfectly composed, was discussing the menu with the waiter. Only the corner of her mouth gave anything away. The foot slid up Julie’s calf, very slowly, and stopped just below her knee, and Julie had to put down her fork.

And then Julie saw Caroline walk in. A colleague from the office. With her husband.

Julie’s heart stopped. Caroline spotted her, smiled, came over to say hello. Julie made the introductions in a voice she hoped sounded normal: "Friends from Toronto." "Toronto?" Caroline repeated, looking at Sofia a moment too long. "Maxime and I are going in May." Under the table, Sofia’s foot hadn’t moved.

When Caroline left, she looked back at their table twice. Julie emptied her glass in one go. Léo laughed softly. Marc was looking at her with an admiration she’d never seen before.

It was terrifying. And it was the most exciting thing she’d felt since the terrace.

The way home

They walked home through the Old Port. The April air was still cool, and Léo draped his jacket over Julie’s shoulders. She left her hand on his a second longer than necessary.

In the building’s elevator, nobody spoke. Four reflections in the gold-framed mirror. Sofia took Marc’s hand. Julie felt her breath quicken.

In the living room, Marc put on music and poured drinks. But no one was really drinking. Sofia perched on the arm of the couch, right next to Marc, and ran her hand through his hair as if she’d always done it.

This time, Julie made the first move. She stood up, crossed the room to Léo, and let her black dress slide down slowly, very slowly, until it fell at her feet.

Red.

Léo held his breath. Behind her, she heard Marc set his glass down on the coffee table.

The pang

Léo put his hands on her waist. He kissed her, gently at first, then deeper, and Julie melted against him. His hands moved up her back, lingering on the satin, following the band of her bra around to just under her arms. His palms were warm and a little rough, and he kissed like a man with all the time in the world.

And this time, when Julie opened her eyes to look for Marc, it was on his face that she saw the pang. That little flash of jealousy she had felt on the terrace.

She pulled away from Léo. Reached out her hand to her husband. "Are you okay?"

Marc took her hand. He looked at Léo, then at Julie, then at the red satin. And slowly, the pang turned into something else. She saw it in his jaw unclenching, in his hand travelling up her arm to her bare shoulder. She knew that look by heart now. The one from the terrace.

"I’ve never seen anything so beautiful," he whispered.

Sofia slipped in behind him, pressed her lips to the back of his neck, her hands on his shirt, unbuttoning it. Marc closed his eyes. Julie watched. And she loved watching.

She watched Marc’s shirt come open one button at a time, Sofia’s fingers spread flat across his chest, the way he let his head fall back against Sofia’s shoulder. Then Léo’s hands came back to her hips, his mouth to her neck, and she stopped watching and started feeling.

Our bedroom

The living room had become a blur of clothes, breaths and muffled laughter. Sofia’s cream jacket over the back of the armchair. Marc’s belt on the rug. Julie had undone Léo’s shirt herself, clumsily, laughing at a button that wouldn’t give. At one point, Léo whispered in Julie’s ear: "Do we stay here?"

Julie looked down the hallway. The half-open door of their bedroom. Their bed. The one where they had fallen asleep so many nights without even touching.

It was her call.

She took Marc’s hand on one side, Léo’s on the other. Sofia followed, laughing, her heels in her hand.

She didn’t turn on the light. The streetlamp outside came through the slats of the blinds and laid pale stripes across the duvet. The room smelled of their fabric softener, of Marc’s cologne on the pillow. Julie stopped at the foot of the bed, her heart pounding, and said very quietly: "Not too loud. The neighbour’s right below us." Sofia snorted into her hands.

Julie turned to Marc. "You. You take it off."

He took his time. He unhooked the red satin the way you open a letter you’ve waited a long time for, and let the straps slide down on their own. Then he knelt, put his mouth to her stomach just below her navel, and drew the rest of the red down her thighs, inch by inch. Julie put her hands in his hair so she wouldn’t fall.

The mattress creaked when the four of them lay down, and they all laughed, very softly, like teenagers. Then nobody laughed. Léo was kissing the nape of her neck, her shoulder blades, the line of her spine down to the small of her back. Sofia had her head on Marc’s shoulder, one hand on his stomach. Marc worked his way up Julie in small kisses, hip, ribs, breast, throat, and every one made her arch a little more.

She felt Marc’s skin against hers everywhere at once, warm, familiar, and yet not quite the same. She bit the pillow to smother the sound rising in her throat. She pulled Marc against her, locked her ankles behind his back, and breathed against his mouth: "Here. In our bed."

Later, much later, the stripe of streetlight had slid all the way to the wall.

The duvet was on the floor. Sofia was asleep across the foot of the bed, one arm hanging off the edge. Léo’s watch sat on Julie’s nightstand, next to her book. Julie lay on top of Marc, her cheek on his chest, feeling his heart slow down under her ear. She had a pink mark on her neck she would have to hide at the office on Monday. She already knew it. She didn’t care.

"The neighbour," Marc murmured. "We were loud."

"You were loud." She laughed against his skin, a laugh that still shook all of her. "I had a pillow."

He stroked her hair for a long time. Then he said: "You wanted it here. Not a hotel. Here." She nodded without lifting her eyes. He had just understood something about her; she could tell by the way his hand had gone still in her hair.

By morning, something in that bed had changed. For good.

Morning

On Sunday, Marc went down to the corner bakery for croissants, like every week. The baker asked if he’d had a nice weekend. He smiled. "The best."

Around the table, the four of them talked for hours. About dinner. About Caroline. About Marc’s pang, which he described without shame. Julie took his hand under the table.

Before leaving, Sofia pulled out her phone. "There’s a night at a club in Toronto next month. A special night. You’ve never been to a club, have you?"

Julie and Marc looked at each other.

To be continued.