Note: I promise 'The Challenge' is not abandoned, and I'm not shirking my duties to write this, either: this was abandoned on my hard drive for ever.
Alfredo Linguini sighed contentedly, sitting next to Colette with his back against a tree, her shoulder pressed up close against his. In the light from the bonfire, the outlines of her body glowed faintly in the firelight, long, tanned legs stretched out before her glowing with a fire of their own. Their second date was drawing to a close, the forest dark and rustling as the flickering bonfire cast long shadows about them. He shyly averted his eyes from the Wiccans dancing naked around it, with the excuse that of course he wanted to look, but that Colette might mind, even if they were her friends…
She looked up into his face. "You're curious, aren't you?"
Linguini started. With an effort he dragged his gaze away from her legs to try and make out her expression. Her eyes, made dark and mysterious by the night, looked steadily up at him. She'd read his mind, but he wouldn't let her know that. He turned and looked at her instead. "A-about what?" he stuttered, evasively.
"My secret. Every cook has a secret. I told you about Lalo, Pompidou, Horst, Francois… you must want to know mine."
"N-not really." One thing about being raised by a woman, you knew when to lie barefacedly. "I… I'd like to know about Skinner."
Her eyes darkened further. "Ah, no-one knows about that one. I should trust him… I do, I suppose… but there is something that makes me, I don't know, a little leery. A little cautious." She rolled her head back and forth on his shoulder, cracked open a packet of gum. "Want one?" He took it gratefully as she continued, in a lighter tone. " François once told us, if you can believe the rumors, that he is having a passionate affaire du coeur with la belle Marie Sagan, one of the most famous authors in Paris, who is secretly in love with him."
"Skinner?!"
"That is what François says. He goes to her appartement every night."
" François?"
"Non," she shuffed a laugh in exasperation, "Skinner!"
"Mm." With the feeling of having dodged a bullet, he settled his head more comfortably against hers, feeling the muscles in his jaw rasp along the hairs on her scalp as he worked his gum.
"So have you? Wondered about me, I mean?"
Linguini swallowed. This was one of those feminine 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' questions. If he had, he was invading her privacy; if he hadn't, he didn't care. "Uh…"
His hesitancy rescued him, for she started to talk again. "Of course I have a secret," she said airily, snuggling more comfortably against him. "And I know you are curious. So ask me about it. Ask me about it and I will tell you."
"Uh…"
"Who knows? Perhaps I used to be a thief and reformed when I found my calling. Perhaps I was recruited by the Sûreté at a young age for my amazing sense of smell and powers of deductive reasoning, and left them when I felt they were using me. Perhaps I confronted a rapist when I was a child and killed him in self-defense."
Alfredo gaped. "Really?"
Colette continued on, relentless. "Perhaps I was a knife-thrower in the circus. Perhaps I was raised by a single mother and my father abandoned us to marry a millionairess. Perhaps I come from a high-class politician family who disowned me when they found out I wanted to be a cook. Perhaps I had a passionate love affair with a murderer until I found out. There are a lot of possibilities. I could have been anything, done anything. But you will never find out unless you ask."
Linguini considered a moment, then shook his head. These were waters he didn't want to tread in. "No," he said slowly. The single word sank into the silence and from the stiffening of Colette's shoulder, he deduced he'd better fix things fast. "I-uh…" he searched for words. "Your past's your past. It, uh, doesn't matter who you knew or what you've—uh, you wanna tell me about it, that's your choice. I'm not gonna hassle you to tell me your secrets."
Judging by the way Colette flung her arms around him and kissed him thoroughly, it had been the right thing to say. "Oh, mon cheri," she murmured. "Never before have I met a man who respected my privacy!"
Not so much about privacy as the fear of you biting my head off, he thought. He was afraid of opening his mouth again lest he put his foot in it, so he sat there and quietly glowed, basking in her admiration. In another moment, she spoke again, drawing a little way back and turning serene, yet expectant eyes upon him. "And here I was hoping to find out your secret."
"What?" A cold sweat suddenly broke out upon his brow, and he wiped his face with his sleeve.
"You know," Colette said, her tone light, yet with an undertone of eagerness. "Your story. What brought you here. Your secret."
"Sussussecret? What secret could I possibly have?"
"Oh, I don't know," she said airily. "But I was hoping for an exchange of secrets. I show you mine, you show me yours. That sort of thing."
Ignoring the double entendre, he remained resolutely silent. He'd heard women liked the strong, silent type.
"Okay, let me guess," she began. "You were in a circus." He neither nodded nor shook his head. "You are a painter." He gave nothing away. "You were a thief?" Her questions came faster now. "A hippie? Perhaps a banker and you left the job to pursue your real love? A wanderer? You climbed Everest? You are fleeing some mysterious tragedy?"
Alfredo closed his eyes and sighed. He was none of those. He was boring, dull, a loser—Why did he have to get a girl who had to know his secrets? Only now did he realize that he could never be close to her, that he would always have to live a double life, that he could never really confide in her—but hey, he didn't have to confide everything to her, right? Nobody told everybody everything; there were parts of her life she had the right to keep private, surely he had the same rights as well… but no, this was something important, fundamental to the basis of their relationship. She thought he was something he wasn't; he ought to tell her, but he couldn't tell her, he'd been about to tell her that day when the rat had stepped in and ruined everything, well, not ruined, this could hardly be classified as 'ruined', but still, he couldn't tell her now when she thought he was this great chef and everything, and he couldn't lose her, not now when he was falling in love with her, and why did things have to be so complicated and—
"Je te blesse, Alfredo?"
"Hm?" He'd spiraled so deep into despair he hadn't even noticed when she'd stopped talking to him.
"Am I hurting you with my questions? I'm sorry." Unbelievably, in the firelight, the glow in her eyes wasn't angry, as usual, but soft, solicitous, and even a little regretful. "I hadn't meant to push you so hard, so fast. It is just that…" her eyes dropped. "I care for you. I want to know more about you. I don't mean to pry."
"No!" Astonished, he reached out and grabbed her hands. "You could never pry, it's just that…" He racked his brains. "Per—perhaps I have a secret, only I haven't found out about it yet."
"Perhaps." Her eyes were knowing and a little sad. "And perhaps you have a secret and aren't ready to talk about it yet."
He leaned back against the tree, exhausted, and she took the hint and settled in beside him again. A little relieved she could no longer see his face, Alfredo half-sighed, "Yeah, perhaps."