Saturday, May 8th, 1954
12:15 p.m.
"You know what I like?" Therese tore off a small piece of bread that sat next to her plate.
"Hmm?"
"I like sitting next to you like this. Being here. Springtime. No work. I feel spoiled."
"You are spoiled, Therese." Carol joked. "Besides, I promised you someday we'd go to France."
Even though it was a holiday, the lunch crowds hadn't shown yet when Carol and Therese arrived at the café around the corner from their Paris hotel. No crowds meant that they didn't need to sit across from one another at the small table, but could instead sit side by side, facing the street for the best people watching.
"You also promised me you'd tell me how you know Paris so well."
Carol laughed to herself, putting down her fork and taking her wine glass in her hand. "Why are you so curious?"
Therese shrugged, "I just want to know things about you."
Shifting back in her seat, Carol drank the rest of her wine and placed the glass back on the table. "My junior year of college started in 1940, so I missed out on the whole year abroad that many of my other friends had. I came here after the war in late '46, after I married Harge, before Rindy was born, just before, well, Abby. Harge didn't come, he stayed in New Jersey and worked, so it was just me and a bright studio apartment on the rue de Rivoli. I studied painting, sculpture, traveled around France and England, wherever, whenever. I stayed up late, rode the métro in endless loops, learned how to really cook - learned how to shop at a market, spent hours in museums either looking or sketching. It was my first real taste of freedom to do as I pleased.
"During the summer, Harge came to visit. We weren't - trying - to have a child, but that's what happened. I used to think he did it on purpose, poked a hole or some such because he wanted me home, but there's no use in worrying about that at this point. It was just after I got home that me and Abby opened the furniture store and …" Carol trailed off, noticing a young man sitting at a nearby table writing in a notebook, taking notes from another book in his left hand. "I had to send for my things and haven't been back until now."
There was obvious regret in Carol's voice, not about having Rindy, but leaving the freedom. Therese studied her face, somehow observing every single thing that coursed through her brain. She was distracted by the memories; nevertheless, she knew deep down that with Therese she had that freedom she had always wanted.
"If it had been any different, we wouldn't have Rindy." Therese breathed.
Carol grasped her hand underneath the round café table and held tightly. "I know."
"And you'd have never come into Frankenberg's looking for a doll on that day." Therese tenderly squeezed her hand back.
"Full circle." she reminded them both.
Therese casually gestured to their two plates of roast duck. "You also promised me you'd not let me order the same thing so we can try different menu items."
"I can't help it if you have good taste," she bragged with a twinkle in her eye, and set about finishing her meal.
Therese picked up Le Parisien libéré, thumbing through the pages. She couldn't read some of the text, although she most interested in the photography and the types of images they were publishing. The day's images were more or less grim with pictures of the fall of Dien-Bien-Phu, the day before. She no longer wanted to look and put down the paper.
"What time is your fitting?" she asked.
"At two." Carol picked up Therese's wrist to look at her watch. "We have plenty of time still."
Therese poured the remainder of the wine into their glasses and relaxed, watching the world go by.
3:15 p.m.
"Are you certain I can't get you something?" Carol looked at herself in the mirror again, smoothing the fabric down her thighs.
Therese sat back in her plush armchair, legs crossed, smoking her second cigarette while watching Carol try on suit after suit. "When would I wear something like that, Carol?"
"You never know,"Carol pursed her lips and grinned, "but I sure as hell know you'd look very lovely." Therese never admitted it, but she delighted in every opportunity Carol took to compliment her.
Therese stared, watching Carol look at herself and move around in the suit, trying to judge where alterations needed to be made. She bent at the waist, rotated her arms, swiveled her hips back and forth. Therese uncrossed her legs, then crossed them again, silently observing from the armchair. The light in the room was excellent and Therese wished she could pull out her camera, but Carol advised against it earlier.
"Well?" Carol shrugged, looking to Therese for her input. She stood with hands on her hips in the brightly lit room, eagerly awaiting her reply. Therese put out her cigarette in the nearby ashtray and wagged her finger, beckoning Carol to her side. Therese's eyes traveled down her body as Carol walked over to the chair and bent at the waist so that she was eye to eye with Therese. As she leaned forward, some strands of blonde hair came untucked from behind her ear, and she pushed it back it place.
Therese uncrossed her legs again and angled herself forward. "Turn around again." She perched her elbow on her knee and rested her head on her hand as Carol shifted her body to face the mirror once more. Therese spent a few seconds examining every facet of Carol in the couture suit before moving a hair. Carol started to move to meet Therese's gaze, but Therese promptly stopped her. "No, eyes forward." She stood up and walked directly up to Carol's back, placing herself directly behind her. From her position, Therese could readily see the door to see if anyone approached.
Therese's hands grazed over the tweed fibers, starting at Carol's hips all the way to her shoulders and down again to trail along her backside. There was a pronounced hitch in Carol's breathing as fingertips skimmed across the fabric as Therese assessed the suit, "I love how you look from behind, how the fabric pulls perfectly against these curves."
Maintaining contact with hands on her shoulders, Therese stepped to the side for a moment to see the expression on Carol's face in the mirror. She didn't intend for this suit fitting to be so arousing, but being with Carol made these types of moments frequent more often than not. Thoroughly admiring what she saw, Therese moved back behind Carol and resumed her meandering hands; however, instead of going to her shoulders, they traveled to the sides of her breasts. Standing on tiptoe and maintaining her balance by holding onto Carol, Therese whispered up into her ear, "Your breasts, on the other hand, are just exquisite in this suit and you should probably get it in a couple different colors."
Carol turned around to face Therese, capturing her lips with her own and pulling their bodies flush. Just as soon as they kissed, Carol let go with a lingering pull of her lower lip against Therese, remembering that the staff could walk in at any moment. All Therese could do was smirk, noticing the smudged lipstick, unmistakably pleased with herself with having reduced Carol to kissing her out in public, even if it was the privacy of a dressing room. Carol put one hand on her hip and pointed back to the chair where Therese had so patiently been sitting earlier. "We're going back to the hotel and you're going to put that sassy mouth of yours to good use." With the utmost alacrity, Carol started undressing, facing the mirror as before, and looking for the clothes she had worn in earlier. She paused when she saw her face, lipstick ever so slightly smeared.
"Is this that striptease you owe me?" Therese added as she returned to her seat and crossed her legs at the knee. A moment later, she reached for the cigarette case and pulled one out as Carol unbuttoned the skirt and it pooled at her feet.
"Maybe. Do you like watching me strip for you?"
"Carol, I'm a photographer," Therese said and took a drag of her newly lit cigarette, "you know how much I like to watch."
