I touched the copper rim of the basin and felt a spark jump all the way to my tailbone, sharp as a needle.
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November 1st. I am currently sitting in a flat in the 4th arrondissement that smells perpetually of old cloves and damp limestone. Back home in Savannah, the humidity is like a wet wool blanket you can’t kick off, but here in Paris, the damp is different. It’s thin. It’s a needle-sharp chill that gets into your marrow and stays there. I’m forty-one years old, I’ve been divorced for fourteen months, and I’ve spent the last three days staring at a radiator that clanks like a ghost trying to escape a radiator-shaped prison. My editor thinks a ‘change of scenery’ will help me finish the third act of my latest manuscript, but so far, the only thing I’ve written is a grocery list and a very detailed description of the grey sky. It looks like a dirty dishcloth. It’s depressing. I should be inspired by the city of light, but all I see are puddles. November 3rd. I found a shop today. It wasn’t on any of the maps I downloaded, just tucked into a little alleyway behind a bakery that smelled like burnt sugar. The sign over the door was a weathered piece of wood with one word: L’Ombre. The Shadow. Very poetic, very French. I went in mostly to get out of a sudden downpour that felt like ice water down my neck. The shop was tiny, crammed from floor to ceiling with things that didn’t make sense together. Broken clocks, jars of what looked like iridescent sand, and stacks of books with bindings made of materials I couldn’t name. It was dark inside. Not just 'the lights are off' dark, but a heavy, thick sort of shadows that seemed to pool in the corners like spilled ink. Then I saw him. He was standing behind a counter that looked like it had been carved out of a single piece of charred oak. He wasn't some young, lithe Parisian boy. He was a man. Probably mid-forties, with hair the color of woodsmoke and a face that looked like it had been sketched in charcoal by someone who didn’t believe in soft edges. He was wearing a grey sweater that looked scratchy and expensive. He didn't say anything at first. He just watched me. I felt like a bug under a microscope. 'I'm just looking,' I said, my Southern accent sounding loud and clumsy in the quiet. He smiled then, just a little, and it didn't reach his eyes. His eyes were the color of the Seine on a stormy day. 'You are looking for something you cannot find in a tourist guide, Madame,' he said. His voice was deep, a low rumble that I felt in my chest. It was the kind of voice that belongs in a dark room with a bottle of bourbon. I told him I was just avoiding the rain. He looked at the window, where the water was lashing against the glass. 'The rain in Paris is persistent,' he said. 'It likes to uncover things.' He reached out and touched a small brass bowl on the counter, and I swear, for a second, the shadows in the corner of the room moved toward him. Not like a draft. Like they were leaning in to hear a secret. I went home and drank half a bottle of wine. November 5th. I went back. I told myself it was because I needed a specific reference for my book—some 'local color'—but that’s a lie. I went back because when he looked at me, I didn't feel like a divorced woman from Georgia with a deadline. I felt like something worth observing. His name is Etienne. He doesn't sell antiques, exactly. He told me he collects 'echoes.' He explained it while he made tea in the back of the shop. He doesn't use a stove; he just held the kettle, and the air around his hands seemed to ripple, the shadows thickening until the water began to whistle. I should have been terrified. I’m a rational woman who believes in gravity and taxes. But I just sat there on a velvet stool that was losing its stuffing and watched him. 'What kind of echoes?' I asked. He poured the tea. It smelled like cedar and something metallic. 'The things people leave behind when they are too afraid to keep them,' he said. 'A regret. A secret desire. A memory that burns too bright.' He leaned across the counter, and the distance between us felt charged, like the air right before a summer thunderstorm in the South. He reached out, his fingers hovering just an inch from my wrist. I could feel the heat coming off him, a dry, intense heat that shouldn't have existed in that cold shop. 'You have many echoes, Jolene,' he whispered. He said my name like it was a spell. Nobody has ever made my name sound like that. In Savannah, it’s two syllables barked across a grocery store. He made it sound like an invitation to a sin. I felt a pull in my lower belly, a low, pulsing heat that I haven't felt in years. Not since before the marriage went sour and the sex became a chore, like folding laundry or weeding the garden. I pulled my hand away, but I didn't want to. I went back to my flat and stared at my reflection in the mirror. I looked flushed. My eyes looked darker. November 8th. The rain hasn't stopped. It’s been five days of constant, grey deluge. I spent the afternoon in the shop again. Etienne was cataloging a set of silver keys that looked like they belonged to a birdcage. We talked for hours. Not about the weather or the city, but about the things that keep us awake at night. He told me he isn't exactly human, or at least, not in the way I understand it. He’s an Umbra—a keeper of the spaces between. He showed me. He reached into a shadow under the table and pulled out a handful of darkness. It wasn't empty air; it had weight. It looked like silk smoke. He let it drift through his fingers, and it smelled like ozone and old perfume. I reached out and touched it. It was cold, then hot, then it felt like a thousand tiny needles against my palm. It was the most alive thing I’ve felt in a decade. 'Does it hurt?' I asked. He looked at me, his gaze dropping to my mouth. 'Only if you try to hold it too tight,' he said. 'Like anything else worth having.' The tension was so thick I could have carved it. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted to see if his skin felt like those shadows, if he would burn or freeze me. I stood up to leave, and he caught my arm. His hand was huge, his palm rough and warm through the sleeve of my coat. He didn't let go. He just looked at me, his thumb dragging slow and heavy over the pulse point in my wrist. I thought I was going to faint. I haven't felt this kind of frantic, desperate hunger since I was twenty. 'Tomorrow,' he said. 'When the shop is closed. Come back.' I didn't even say yes. I just nodded like a fool and ran out into the rain. November 10th. I couldn't go yesterday. I spent the whole day pacing my flat, drinking tea that went cold, and trying to write. I wrote five thousand words of absolute filth. My hero and heroine didn't even make it to dinner; they were against a wall within three pages. It’s like Etienne has unlocked some valve in my brain, and all the repressed, polite Southern womanhood is being washed away by this French rain. I keep thinking about his hands. They're the hands of a man who works, who handles heavy things. Strong, calloused, sure. I keep imagining those hands on my hips, pulling me against that scratchy grey sweater. I keep imagining what he smells like under the cedar and metal. November 12th. It is midnight. I am back at the flat, and I am a different person. I am ruined. I am buzzing. I went to the shop at six. The street was empty, the rain falling so hard it blurred the streetlamps into hazy yellow smudges. The door was unlocked. I went in, and the smell hit me—the cloves, the dust, and that sharp, electric scent of Etienne’s shadows. He was in the back, in the small room where he makes the tea. There were no lamps, only a few thick candles that flickered with a strange, violet light. He was waiting for me. He was leaning against the counter, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing forearms that were corded with muscle and marked with strange, faint lines that looked like tattoos but shifted when he moved. 'You came,' he said. 'I almost didn't,' I lied. He laughed, that low, gravelly sound, and moved toward me. He didn't stop until he was in my space, until I had to tilt my head back to look at him. He smelled like woodsmoke and the cold outside. He reached out and cupped my face, his fingers splayed across my cheeks. His skin was so hot it felt like a brand. 'You are vibrating,' he whispered. 'Like a wire under tension.' I couldn't help it. I leaned into his touch, my eyes closing. 'I feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin,' I said. 'Then let me help you out of it,' he replied. He didn't wait for an answer. He kissed me, and it wasn't a gentle, polite kiss. It was a claim. His mouth was hard and demanding, tasting of tea and something dark. I let out a sound—half-sob, half-moan—and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer. He tasted like every secret I’ve ever kept. His tongue swept into my mouth, exploration turning into an assault, and I met him stroke for stroke. I was drowning, and he was the only thing solid in the world. He backed me up against the counter, the wood pressing into my lower back, and his hands moved down my body. He didn't fumble. He knew exactly what he was doing. He found the hem of my sweater and pushed it up, his palms sliding over my ribs, his thumbs grazing the undersides of my breasts. I gasped into his mouth, my legs shaking. 'Etienne,' I breathed. He pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes glowing with that strange, violet light. 'I want to see you,' he said. He stripped my sweater off over my head, tossing it onto a pile of old rugs. He didn't stop there. He unhooked my bra, and I felt the cool air hit my skin for a split second before his hands were there, warm and heavy. He groaned, a deep sound in his throat, as he squeezed my breasts, his thumbs rolling over my nipples until they were aching points of fire. I reached for his belt, my fingers clumsy and frantic. I needed him out of those clothes. I needed to feel him. He helped me, stripping out of his sweater and trousers with a fluid, predatory grace. He was beautiful. Not like a statue, but like a storm. His body was lean and hard, his skin covered in those shifting, shadowy marks. And he was already hard, thick and heavy, pointing up toward his belly. I reached out and wrapped my hand around him, and he sucked in a sharp breath, his hips jerking forward. He felt like velvet stretched over steel. I squeezed, sliding my hand down to the base, and felt the drop of pre-cum wet my thumb. He let out a low growl and picked me up, my legs instinctively wrapping around his waist. He carried me to the velvet stool, sitting down and settling me on his lap. We were chest to chest, skin to skin, and the friction was driving me insane. I could feel his cock pressing against my soaking wet panties, the heat of him seeping through the lace. He kissed my neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin just below my ear. 'You are so wet, Jolene,' he murmured. 'I can smell you.' I buried my face in his shoulder, biting his skin to keep from screaming. He reached between us, his fingers finding the edge of my knickers and ripping them aside. He didn't care about the fabric. He wanted access. He pushed two fingers inside me, and I bucked against him, my head falling back. He was deep, stretching me, his thumb finding my clit and grinding against it with a rhythmic, merciless pressure. I was falling apart. I was a mess of honey and heat, my walls clamping down around his fingers. 'Please,' I begged. 'Etienne, please.' He withdrew his fingers, and for a second, I felt the cold return, but then he replaced them with himself. He guided his head to my opening, and I felt the massive, blunt weight of him stretching me open. He didn't go slow. He pushed upward, a long, slow thrust that filled me completely, reaching deep into my core. I screamed then, the sound echoing off the walls of the shop, but he caught it with his mouth. It was too much. It was perfect. I felt like I was being split open and put back together all at once. He began to move, his hips pumping up into me, his hands gripping my ass to hold me in place. Every time he hit the back of me, I saw sparks. The shadows in the room were swirling now, dancing around us in a frantic, violet blur, but I didn't care. I only cared about the way he felt inside me, the way his skin slid against mine, the way his breath was hot against my collarbone. I moved with him, finding the rhythm, my body remembering things I thought I’d forgotten. I was loud. I didn't care about the bakery next door or the rain outside. I was a woman from Georgia who had been starving for a long time, and I was finally being fed. 'Look at me,' he commanded, his voice strained. I opened my eyes. The room was gone. It was just him, and the violet light, and the feeling of us being fused together. I saw the marks on his skin glowing, shifting into patterns that looked like constellations. He was beautiful and terrifying, and I wanted him to never stop. He sped up, his thrusts becoming shorter, harder, more desperate. I felt the pressure building in my gut, a tight, coiled spring of tension that was about to snap. I gripped his shoulders, my nails digging into his skin, as the first wave of my orgasm hit me. It was like a dam breaking. I shook, my internal muscles pulsing around him in frantic, rhythmic waves. He let out a roar, his head snapping back, and I felt him come inside me—a hot, thick flood that seemed to go on forever. He slumped against me, his chest heaving, his heart hammering against mine. We stayed like that for a long time, tangled together on a dusty velvet stool in the back of a magic shop, while the rain drummed a steady, indifferent beat on the roof. I don't know what happens now. I don't know if I can go back to writing romance novels where the hero brings flowers and everything is resolved in three hundred pages. I don't think I can go back to Savannah and pretend that I’m the same woman who left. Etienne is still asleep in the back room. I’m sitting at the counter, wrapped in his grey sweater, writing this by the light of a single candle. The rain is still falling. It’s been falling since Tuesday, and for the first time in my life, I don’t want it to stop. I touched the copper rim of a basin on the counter just now, and I didn't feel a spark. I felt a hum. A low, steady vibration that matched the beat of my own heart. I think I’ve stopped being a collector of bad endings. I think I’m starting to like the echoes.
