H is for Heat

Martinique 1795

His breath was warm on her belly. Ordinarily, this feeling would have been decadent, welcome even. But it was already a humid night and his panting made it worse. Hey eyes traced the lace of her canopy, it was French, made by nuns and imported by Jérôme. There were stories hidden between the stitches, but she’d never been close enough to see them. When she lay in bed with insomnia (or a poor lover) she’d imagine the fables and tales. She’d imagined the nuns sitting around a bed, secretly whispering these tales to each other. 

She tensed her belly, his tongue felt rough like Bijou, her pet cat. “Arrêtez, arrêtez.” His doe eyes and sly grin were rough cotton on her skin. His nose and chin glistened in the dim light of the room. His hair was slightly matted from the friction against her bed sheets and he had acquired a slanted middle parting from her fingers in his hair.

“Roselyne, ma chérie?”

Her saliva soured.

“Je suis fatiguée.” She feigned a yawn. 

He didn’t believe her. She didn’t believe her. 

Gérard was hit or miss, depending on her mood. His tentative touches and gentle caress was not what she was in the mood for. Her belly grumbled, louder than it should have.

He quirked an eyebrow. It was dark and bushy, like the hair on the rest of his head, the rest of his body was more hairless than Bijou. “I’ve worked up your appetite?” The sour taste in her mouth grew rancid. “Ma chérie-”

“Gérard. Partez.”

It slipped out. She had meant to kick him out. She always did. Eventually. Jérôme would always call for dinner and her duty was to be a doting wife by his side. She just hadn’t meant to make it sound so harsh. She’d blame it on the vomit creeping up her throat and the nausea wringing her neck. The nail marks in her neck were from Louis and Chantal the night before, not from the nausea but her point remained. 

Jérôme looked down at Élodie. Her curly hair was a mess, covering her face and brushing his belly. It seemed messy. Roselyne’s hair was tight curls, twisted to perfection. She’d style it  into big bouffants and elaborate styles every morning. He liked it better at night. Even when he’d run his fingers through it (as far as he could before ultimately getting stuck) and they’d toss and turn, her messy afro still framed her head like a halo. 

Élodie was still pretty though. Her skin was sandy brown and her eyes matched the mahogany furniture in his room. It was like she belonged there as an ornament. A pretty ornament. Her voice was pretty too. It was light, refreshing like coconut water after a long day. Roselyne’s voice was decadent and aromatic like rhum.

More of Élodie’s curls fell as her head moved. Each clump on his belly felt like fire. The room was far too hot. The squelches sounded like a marsh. 

Jérôme needed to go down to check on the plantation. The floods had wiped out a decent amount of crops and it was too waterlogged for the sugarcane to survive. Roselyne managed the estate when he was away, which was most of the time. But there was nothing much to do when he was back in town. Other than Roselyne, who was engaging in her own endeavours there was nothing much to do at La Pagerie.

Élodie looked up at him and smiled. Her lips were wide, plump and a little red. Her breaths reminded him of the gentle tide whenever he approached home. Months away came with tempestuous seas and choppy waters; as soon as home was near, the waters calmed.

“What’s that?”

“A corset.”

Élodie’s smile dropped. Surely she knew she wasn’t the only mistress. Everyone on the island knew Jérôme filled his freetime with frivolities. “Jérôme”

“Tu dois partir.” Jérôme shifted his body and shifted his gaze. The corset on the floor was tan brown and looked just as marvellous on a body as it looked off. He couldn’t recall her name. He didn’t care. His morning frivolities looked like a few different women. He remembered their bodies, their shades of pinks and the browns. But anything else was of little importance to him.  

He didn’t disdain his various lovers. They were wonderful lovers. He considered them new quests for the night. A new body to explore, the dips, the curves, the crevices were pleasure hid. He thoroughly enjoyed them. 

When it came to conversation after, he’d prefer them escorted out before any could start. He knew it was a sign of poor breeding but he had a headache when any of them tried to talk to him. Even Élodie, his longest standing concubine, was dreary. Conversations with her were like a squash game, she was the wall reflecting all his opinions and thoughts. This blind, unrelenting agreement made him queasy. Of course he knew there was a power dynamic. She was a worker and he was the landlord. But she made his ears ring and he hated it. If not for the plushness of her hips and lips, he probably would not call upon her so often.

The room smelled saline. He opened the mahogany red shutters to let in some fresh air. “My shirt, my shirt.” He mumbled to himself. Absent-mindedly, he dressed himself. The brass buttons cooled him down. Roselyne would have complained about his buttons, she called them “oppressive”. Her eyes were feline as she’d watch him button and unbutton himself. He grabbed a robe and made himself to her quarters. 

Under the door he saw a warm yellow glow. Certainly her candles were on and oil lamps were off, that meant there was somebody else in her bed. He stopped asking questions a long time ago. Was it a man or a woman? Was it one lover or several? As long as she didn’t question him, he didn’t question her.

The staff shifted in their feet uneasily. The silence grew heavier the longer Roselyne took to arrive for dinner. From time to time, she’d make him wait, only to spite him more. Her blatant hedonism had already caused the seams of their marriage to fray. Jérôme’s lovers were retaliation but Roselyne’s lovers were gratification. 

Jérôme remembered his first lover. Not her name, her body. He had watched it react to him, intently. It was a few months after their wedding, he had gone on another excursion to export goods and they needed to dock for food. Azores was always the first choice, not for its resources but for the women. Many of the sailors wanted companionship for the night, so they’d stay there.

He’d heard them talking about the exotic women with hair that flowed straight like sugarcane and with lips that were slim like a stream. He’d ignored them all. He’d preferred Roselyne’s untamable crown and full lips but when she told him her plans to find ‘warmth’ in another man’s arms, he decided to retaliate as well. 

She ran her tongue against the film on the roof of her mouth. “Je suis ici Jérôme.”
She’d smoothed her hair up, out of her face. He told himself she was making an effort for him and it was nothing to do with the way her hair clung to her face when she had sweat. The colourful  jewellery adorning her neck made it all the more inviting. He knew she was covering it up on purpose, perhaps it was bruises or maybe it was scratches this time. Her robe was magnificent, the fabric draped intricately over her skin.

“Mon amour.” 

She picked up the spoon. Its handle was embellished with designs. She stirred. He wasn’t paying attention to the food or what she was stirring. He watched her delicate wrist and slender fingers. She tapped the edge of the spoon on the china bowl then brought it to her lips. She pulled the spoon out of her mouth with an unceremonious plop. “So, my dear husband. Tell me what you have been doing today?” Who  he had been doing was a better question but she had learned not to ask questions as well.

Jérôme stiffened. The room smelled like vanilla whenever she walked in. “Nothing much my dear, and you?”

“Nothing much.”

He paused to inspect his plate. The meat and vegetables were entirely uninteresting. Her face was the only thing he wanted to spend his time watching.

“No apetite, husband?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

Apart from a few grapes, Jérôme had not eaten all day. At home he couldn’t bring himself to eat because he was always vomitting. It started after his first escapade  in Azores. He’d spoken to a physician with no avail. Father Pière suggested confession would help but nothing changed. The idea of Roselyne with anyone else was too much to stomach.

“Let’s go on a walk for fresh air.”

Jérôme walked to her side of the table to pull out her chair.

“On y va?” He planted a kiss on her temple. He let himself linger there, taking in all her sweet vanilla and the heat of her body. 

They all ignored the sulphurous stench from the bay. Everyone knew it was from the monthly sacrifices from the quimbois mamas. Nobody spoke about it. About the way the stench permeated most of the island for a whole weekend every month. About the way the animals squealed and shrieked under the white light of the moon. About any of it, because it was better that way, left unsaid.

He looked over the field, out at the water but it was too dark for him to see anything. The moonlight highlighted obvious things like rocks and trees. Tiny details, like the animal scratches on the side of rocks and the scored markings on trees were hidden by the moonlight. That’s what Roselyne loved about her, the secrets she hid under her light.

“Are you ok?”

“I’ve been feeling sick all day.”

“Are you pregnant?”

“Jérôme.”

The moonlight could only hide Roselyne’s tears, not the pain in her voice. 

“Roselyne it’s almost full moon, we can make a sacrifice and you-”

“I cannot have children Jérôme, you know this.”

Her cheeks burned red hot but the cool night air wasn’t enough to cool her temperature. “I have slept with so many men and my womb stays dry and empty.”

“Rosy.”

“No, don’t Rosy me. Maybe it’s you, are any of your mistresses with child?”

The sound of the locust quietened. The long blades of grass stood still, the whole island stopped in anticipation.

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Don’t tell me it’s the young one?”

“Élodie is scared, Rosy.”

“Don’t Rosy me. You use my barrenness as an excuse but you never loved me. You’ve had concubine’s since the honeymoon”

He looked at her, crying.

“No.”

“Don’t lie.”

“No. You say this but it’s not true.”

He stepped closer to her.

“It is.”

“You don’t love me.”

“I do.”

“How can you say that when you’re in bed with so many women?”

“How can you say you love me in bed with so many men?”

“I don’t love you Jérôme.”

“I want a child, Roselyne.” 

“And now you have one with that whore.”

“Rosy.’’

He watched her walk away, not in the direction of La Pagerie. 

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, alert from the cold. It was already a long night.

“Where is your wife?”

“With her family, her mother is sick.”

“And the children?”

“They went with her.”

“So you are alone?”

“No, you are here.”

He watched her body, how the fabric of her robe looked on her chest as it fell and rose. He saw the way her body reacted to the cold air of the night and how her eyelash clumped, probably from crying. Shrugging her shoulders, she tugged desperately at the strings of her robe. The falling layers were lace and silk and imported fabrics he couldn’t name. He didn’t have to name what went on between them. Intelligible speech was seldom a possibility for them. She stood there, under the moonlight, slightly panting from her frenzy.

The shadows showed her rib cage and clavicle, she had lost weight. 

His eyes were never on hers. Her eyes were never on him either. They were on the muddy brown, wood chairs, one for him, another for his wife and some for his children. The children’s chairs weren’t as worn as his chair. She had straddled him on that chair, watching his muscles flex, taut under his golden skin. The fire animal skin rug, in the corner of the room had its own memories too. It was rough on her skin, it made her burn and left her flesh raw. The next day Jérôme had questioned her; she hadn’t cared. Even the porch behind her had its memories. The soft, worn wood under her palms with his palms lodged in her hair. The gentle creek of the wood and the smell of the leaves were reminiscent of her pleasure. 

“ Why did you come, Roselyne?”

“I needed to cool down from this heat.”

THE END