ALEX

Alex’s first impression of Rob was not good at all. After they had shaken hands it took Alex about five minutes to see through the man and realize he was nothing but a smooth talker and a bragger, someone who was terribly full of himself. What on earth did Louise see in this guy, he wondered. 

They chatted over coffee for about twenty minutes, but when Alex got back to his apartment he could only come to the conclusion that almost everything about this Rob rubbed him the wrong way. Thank God he was away for work most of the time. Already he couldn’t wait for him to pack his bags again.

On Sunday Louise served lunch on the terrace. Rob was there too, but he had a stack of papers next to his plate and didn’t say much, which suited Alex fine of course. Now at least he could talk to Louise about their plan for the upcoming week. She promised to help him some days with the attic which still needed to be painted. On Tuesday or Wednesday, he was supposed to deliver a painting to a house in Saint Tropez and that was fine with him too. As far as he understood, Rob was planning to stick around for the whole week, so the less time he would have to spend with him the better.

Now Rob looked up from his papers and mentioned some football match that he wanted to watch later today. A Manchester United game, apparently. He told Alex he could come watch it too if he felt like it. 

Alex hated football. He thought it was entertainment for dumb people. Bread and circuses, as the Romans had called it. The fact that this Rob did like football said enough. It confirmed everything Alex had already concluded about him. Louise, who was so much smarter than her husband, said, ‘I don’t think Alex likes football, honey.’

‘You don’t?’ the Neanderthal asked. ‘So what do you like? Gaming?’

Alex sighed. He couldn’t help it. Football and gaming--the man had just mentioned the two dumbest things people could waste their time on.

He explained that he liked to listen to music and read books. Rob scoffed at that.

‘Books,’ he said. ‘Who still reads books?’

Louise asked Alex about music then, cleverly steering them away from what could become a heated discussion. She asked him what kind of music he liked. Alex mentioned classic rock bands like Pink Floyd and the Stones, but also blues musicians like John Lee Hooker and Robert Johnson. Louise at least tried to sound positive in her reaction, but the caveman just shook his head and said, ‘Exactly the kind of music we detest, eh, Lou?’

Louise didn’t deny it, but said that she and her husband preferred different music. Disco and electronic stuff. Chaka Khan, Cindy Lauper and Lionel Ritchie. Just nice music from the eighties. Her words echoed in Alex’s mind and bitterly disappointed him. It must have shown on his face too, because Louise laughed out loud while Rob gave him a mean look.

In the afternoon Louise asked him if he felt like playing tennis with her and Rob. The thought of physical exercise didn’t exactly appeal to him, but she asked him in a nice way and it was supposed to be the last sunny day for a while, so he agreed. 

Fifteen minutes later he found himself opposite the net from the caveman. After a quick warm-up, they began their game. Although he had played tennis as a child, it was too long ago for him to be a serious opponent for Rob. As much as he wanted to beat the guy, it was just not possible. The man wasn’t that good though, that much Alex could see. With a little more practice he was sure he would stand a chance at some point, but today was too early for that. 

He did score some nice points and felt proud when Louise complimented him, but he couldn’t win more than four games and lost 6-4. Rob walked up to the net, shook his hand and said that today’s youth was not very impressive. The remark made Alex want to hit the man over the head with his racket. Louise calmed him down though by saying that he had played much better at the end of the match than at the beginning.

‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘you will play even better against me.’

Rob, who was going back to the house to make some calls, laughed and said that he hoped she wasn’t going to let ‘her little buddy’ win. This remark seemed to annoy Louise, who told her husband not to worry about that. At the same moment though Alex said something silly that he regretted immediately. Feeling insulted and humiliated already, he assured Rob that he would have no problem winning a tennis match against a woman. 

Now Louise gave him an angry look. She got the same bossy expression on her face that he had seen before, but now it was more intense and right away he understood that he’d better focus on the game, because she might be a tougher opponent than he had expected.

For about five minutes they just hit the ball at one another, then Louise told Alex to start. He walked over to the baseline and bounced the ball, just like he had seen players on TV do. He threw it up in the air then and hit it perfectly. It was a much better service than he could have hoped for. The ball went in a straight line over the net and seemed out of her reach. He was terribly wrong though, as she did not only get to the ball, but she also hit it back at him with such speed and accuracy that he could only stare at it bouncing in the corner. 0-15 and he realized he was in serious trouble. 

He saw it in her way of walking too now. She moved like a cat, lean and strong. He tried to focus even more and again his service was good. He aimed for her backhand this time, but again the ball came back, heavy with topspin and leaving him without a chance to do something good with it. 0-30.

He lost the first game without scoring a point. What should have been a fun activity on a Saturday afternoon became a humiliating struggle. By the time they were halfway through the set, when he was 3-0 down and had only managed to score one point, he was sweating like a pig. He ran after every ball and if he got there in time, he hit it as hard as he could, but almost always the ball came back to his side. 

While he ran from left to right, Louise calmly directed the game from the baseline. As far as he could tell she wasn’t getting tired and she wasn’t sweating either. Her strokes were precise and she hit the ball harder too. How many aces did she score, he wondered, when another one of her first services flew past him. Ten, perhaps? In any case, their match was over in no time. He lost 6-0 and he scored a total of three points. 

After she had finished him off with another ace they met at the net where they shook hands. Alex, feeling terribly embarrassed now, excused himself for his silly remark before the game, but Louise told him not to worry about it.

‘I think you’ve learned your lesson,’ she said.
 

As they waited for Rob to come back they hit the ball at each other without keeping track of the score. Louise gave him some tips too and at one point she came over to his side of the net to explain to him how he could improve his service. He tried to pay attention to what she said, but it was hard because her body was so close by and her hands were touching his arms. She also told him she used to play on quite a high level when she was younger. Later, she had taught children but now she just played for fun.
 

When Rob came back he asked for the result of the game. Alex wanted to say 6-0, but Louise beat him to it and said he had played really well, but lost 6-4.

Now that she had kind of saved him from further embarrassment, Alex stayed and watched the game between Louise and her husband. The caveman didn’t do much better than him and perhaps scored eight points. He did win a game, but the superiority of Louise was impressive. While Rob ran across the court, sweating and cursing, she was light on her feet and always in control. Her ponytail danced on the collar of her shirt and her body always remained perfectly balanced. 

At first, it was mostly Rob’s imminent defeat that Alex relished, but more and more he began to admire Louise and the way she moved her curvy body, which was so much more graceful than one might expect.

As he watched her beat her husband, Alex realized that he himself had stood even less of a chance. She had sent him from one corner to the other as well and when the memory came back he understood something else: in an almost perverted way, he had enjoyed it. Losing so clearly against a woman embarrassed him, but also seemed to awaken a strange sensation in his subconscious. 

He remembered something else then, something that had happened on his first night here. The jar of olives that he hadn’t been able to open, but then when she had tried it, it had popped open right away. Remembering that and looking at her score yet another winner against her husband, he began to suspect that he wasn’t just physically attracted to her, but that he also derived a weird kind of pleasure from her getting the upper hand of him. What on earth was that about?!

***
 

After the weekend Alex’s second week in the south of France began. Although Rob was home, he hardly showed his annoying face. The man seemed obsessed with work and spent all day in his study, which of course was perfectly okay with Alex.

Louise was in Cannes on Monday, but stayed home on Tuesday. In the morning she had two patients, so he didn’t see much of her. In the afternoon she came up to the attic though to help him paint the walls.

Over the weekend Alex had thought hard about the interaction with his former neighbor. He had concluded that part of the confusion was caused by her curiosity and directness. He just wasn’t used to that. His friends never asked him any questions and adults he had always tried to avoid. So yes, it was kind of unnerving to suddenly be around a woman who asked him things and even challenged him at times. It didn’t have anything to do with sexual attraction, he had concluded, because he had felt equally confused when she had casually asked him about smoking pot. See? That was it. 

In order to avoid her questions, he had thought of a new strategy. Instead of keeping quiet and inviting her to ask him things, he could ask her questions instead. That would keep the focus on her. He bet that would also help him cope better with her voluptuous body, because if he could keep his mental balance he would also be able to stay in control of his desires.
 

So when they worked side by side in the attic that Tuesday afternoon he fired questions at her as if she were a suspect in a murder case. After ten questions in three minutes, Louise had laughed and asked him if he was feeling okay. He persisted though and slowly she had begun to talk about herself. She told him about her French mother, who died ten years ago, about her youth in Brighton and meeting Rob a year after her divorce.  

Alex noticed that what had begun as just a strategy, was in fact quite pleasant. Louise was an interesting woman, he had to admit. She had seen more of life and the world than most people. He asked her about her current activities too. She explained to him why she had chosen two different paths. She had opened an art gallery because she liked art and some elements of the artistic world, but she also needed the satisfaction and intimacy that therapeutic work gave her. 

She explained these needs in more detail and to his own surprise, he felt himself listening to every word she said. What he had found in smoking pot and listening to Pink Floyd, she seemed to be discovering in psychology. He tried to tell her this, kind of help her understand, but she didn’t see the connection as clearly as he did.

Sometimes their conversation fell silent too, but it never felt uncomfortable. They worked well together, Alex realized and he expected that she thought so too, because every now and then she smiled at him, giving him the feeling that she enjoyed having him here.

She asked him about the Bluetooth speaker at some point. He had brought it with him so he could listen to music when he was alone, but when she had joined him here he had turned it off. They switched it back on and played some music. First Pink Floyd and Dylan, then Spandau Ballet and, God forbid, disco. They argued about music then, but in a nice way. He moaned and complained like an old man about the songs she liked and she mocked the deep meanings of the lyrics he had always valued so much, saying things like, ‘I can’t wait to tell my patients that they should shine like a crazy diamond.’

She asked him about nightlife in his hometown then. Did he and his friends have any nice bars or clubs to go to? He said he didn’t like crowded places, that he preferred to be out on the street with his friends, listening to their own music on park benches. For some reason, this amused Louise immensely.

‘Let me guess, you’re all out in the park because you can’t smoke weed anywhere else, right?’

He nodded and was surprised at how easily things could evolve, how something that had been a secret for such a long time, now could be talked about so openly.

‘So what do you discuss on those park benches? Jean-Paul Sartre? Nietzsche?’

Teasing him some more, but it didn’t bother him. He asked her what it was like when she was his age. Did she go out a lot?

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘My friends and I went clubbing every weekend. Martinis, disco and boys!’

Alex shook his head in disapproval. Clubs were so noisy and superficial, he said. Louise laughed and asked him if he had ever danced.

‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Dance to Pink Floyd?’

‘You could dance to the Rolling Stones,’ she suggested. ‘You like them too, don’t you?’

He just grunted in response. The thought alone was ridiculous.

‘Perhaps you would like it,’ Louise said. ‘It might even do you some good.’

‘And why would that be?’

She put down her brush and looked at him.

‘I think you live mostly in your head,’ she said. ‘Although that can be a good thing, I also think that the physical part is important. Dancing, sports, etcetera. You’ve been here a week now and I see the difference in you already. The afternoon of tennis and the physical work you have been doing give me the impression that you’re more in touch with your body than when you first got here. Am I right?’

He thought about it and nodded. He did feel stronger than when he had just arrived.

‘It’s none of my business of course,’ she continued, ‘but you seem healthier and happier now and I wonder if the physical work plays a part in that.’

Although they were moving into his personal space again he agreed and said he did indeed enjoy the work.

‘Did you do any sports back in England?’ she asked. ‘I remember you played tennis and practiced judo too, but I have a feeling it’s been a while.’

She was right. It had been years since he had done any sports.

‘Why don’t you join me on my morning run someday?’ she said. ‘It would be good for you.’

He said he might, but couldn’t really see himself get out of bed so early. It didn’t hurt to pretend he might be up for it though.

‘Do you remember I taught you jiu-jitsu when you were little?’ Louise asked.

He looked at her, not understanding what she was saying, but then a memory came back. In the garden of his neighbor Kevin, when Louise had lived there too. He remembered she had shown him some moves. But God, that was a long time ago. He couldn’t have been older than eight. Did she still practice jiu-jitsu?

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Although I practice less than I should.’

Tennis, jiu-jitsu, running and dancing. Yes, she was definitely more physical than he was.

Steve Winwood’s ‘Higher Love’ began to play. Louise sang along with it and moved her hips. She looked at him with a dazzling smile that made him shy.

‘Shall we go dancing some time?’ she asked.

She was teasing him, of course, and not wanting to sound like an old fart he countered her question with a suggestion of his own, saying that he would prefer to get some jiu-jitsu classes from her instead. 

She stopped moving her hips and said, ‘What a good idea! That way I get to practice too.’

She picked up the rhythm again, singing along with boring Steve Winwood. While she continued to paint, Alex’s gaze went over her sensual hips and big, round bum in the tight jeans. He imagined getting self-defense classes from her, trying to grab her or even more alarming, being grabbed by her. He briefly wondered what it would be like to feel her luscious body on top of him, but then changed the picture, because there was no way he would lose against her of course. He saw himself sitting on top of her now, pinning her down, but the idea was still disturbing 'cause he would simply be too close to her. 

He cursed himself for having tried to be cool and suggesting jiu-jitsu lessons, because now that they had agreed on that, the thought of physical contact with her made him bloody nervous.

TO BE CONTINUED...