Love in the Loire Read online

  Of course the French love that. Mistinguett wasn’t really a star at the Folies Bergère until she could hardly clamber down the huge staircase dragging her giant cape. “What legs!” they enthused. I saw Liliane Montevecchi at the Folies sitting in a crescent moon wearing a Pierrot costume tossing paper flowers down on the audience as she cruised above them. That, in fact, is my own dream of performing. If just once I could sit in a moon and throw flowers down on the audience I could die happy. Liliane wasn’t that far from her own death when I saw her. Although they tell me she is still trucking in San Francisco. That is sort of inevitable. When you’re too old for anyone else, you’re never too old for gay men. And the French. Who also adored the ancient Colette. The venerable Maurice Chevalier. I could add that Benjamin Franklin was a big hit here in his dotage. He told his son, “You must remember that women age from the top down. And older women, of course, are so very appreciative.”

  Well, here was Brigitte Balnéaire, just coming into her own by French theater standards. I don’t think she could ever compete with Sarah Bernhardt, who played Napoleon’s eighteen-year-old son in L’Aiglon when she was well into her sixties and had had one leg amputated. But Brigitte was trying. Certainly those legs jutting out of the car door said something about her. She still had both of them.

  She swept toward us murmuring “Enchanté, enchanté, enchanté.” Toca rushed forward and grasping both hands showered them with kisses. He did everything but fall to his knees and kiss her shoes. He surely was wetting down her rings with abandon. He led her along our row, matching her enchantés with his own murmuring of our names. Only Estelle got a full name. The rest of us were “Hugo,” “Nadia,” “Steve.” The kids got nothing but a broad wave of the hand. He then led her off across the lawn toward the terrace in front of the Abbey. She had some trouble negotiating in the deep grass in her backless spike heels, but she managed it. She was going to be put up in our little Hôtel de l’Abbeye so was going to have to be navigating the town streets pretty regularly. The townspeople would be thrilled. I felt sure she had many outfits in her luggage such as the one she was wearing. She would stun and thrill onlookers.

  The teaching staff joined Toca and Miss Balnéaire on the terrace where a table and chairs had been placed under a large umbrella. Brigitte spoke only French, so this would be a unilanguage production.

  Brigitte definitely liked men. She had a way of looking men up and down as though judging livestock. I think she knew immediately who was gay and who wasn’t. She was very friendly to me but didn’t touch me. She had nice hands, too. Rare in famous beauties I’ve noticed. Lots of them have hands like alligator claws, but Brigitte had nice long fingers and her nails weren’t overly long or painted. Under all that is a real person, I thought.

  She touched Toca quite a lot, because he was the director, I suppose. Steve she couldn’t get a handle on. Well, who can? His limited French didn’t help. The women she ignored.

  She told me she was looking forward very much to playing in Phedre with me. It would be very easy for her to imagine being in love with me, even though in the role she was much my senior. And married to my father. I imagined Brigitte married to my real father. Now there would be a pair! I hadn’t seen him in almost ten years or heard from him, but I imagined he was still chasing young men in Brazil. Brigitte soon retired to her hotel. We planned our rehearsal schedule for the next day before she left.

  On the stage the next day it became very clear that Brigitte could not act. And not only that, she either couldn’t learn her lines or had no intention of doing so. She read from the script while the rest of us were already “off book,” as they call it. Toca was playing the role of her husband and my father and actually playing it pretty well. I asked him who was going to take over the role, but he had been evasive.

  After the rehearsal Toca said to me, “I’m thinking of doing the play in mime.”

  “That bad, huh?” I said.

  “Well, Brigitte has the right physical presence, but her voice doesn’t have the necessary depth or power.”

  “Maybe you should mike her and let the rest of us work without mikes,” I said.

  “Oh, God, I can’t afford to mike anybody.”

  “You could put her lines on cards and then put them on the backs of extras. They could walk in front of her and she could read them,” I said.

  “That’s not a bad idea.” There was a silence. “You’re kidding, right? I never can tell.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I’ve got it. We’ll do it the way they do it at the Folies Bergère. We’ll prerecord everyone. I saw Liliane Montevecchi there, and she didn’t sing a word of any of her numbers. They were all prerecorded. We’ll prerecord Brigitte with someone else’s voice. Someone good. And we’ll all record. That’s just one recording session, and you can do it here. Steve can play the father in a gray beard, and you’ll bring down someone from Paris who’s a lot older to do the voice. And we won’t move around. We’ll do it like classic Greek theater. We’ll put the audience on the terrace. We’ll work down at the lower edge of the lawns so we’ll be so far away no one can tell whether our lips are matching our words or not. And you can put the kids on a kind of bleacher behind us and record some kind of Greek chorus nonsense about the drama passing before their eyes. It’s new. It’s different. It can be short. I’d try to do it in one act. In case it rains. Or those mosquitoes get completely out of hand. No matinees. It’s got to be dark. You can get those torches out again that you used in The Trojan Women. Get some of the bigger kids to accompany Brigitte everywhere with torches.

  “I’m going to work out some more so I can wear practically nothing. That way, I’ll get all of the attention and Steve will get none stuck in that gray beard. What do you think?”

  I hardly knew what I had been saying. We had been walking toward the café, and we had stopped at the gate while I had given my long speech. Toca was staring at me. Finally he said, “Brigitte has to meet Cass.”

  “But what about what I just said?”

  “Oh, of course, you’re right. It’s the only way to do it. I’ll get Fanny Ardent to do the voice. She’s great, and Philippe Noiret can do the father. You can do yourself. No, maybe we’ll get someone who speaks flawless Parisian French, maybe Thierry what’s-his-name. You won’t have any trouble matching the lip-sync because your French is great. And Steve will have that beard, so no one will see his lips anyway. That’s all fine. I just have to keep Brigitte distracted so she’ll agree to having Ardent’s voice. She can’t sing, you know. Her voice at the Folies Bergère wasn’t her own voice. Montevecchi wasn’t lip-syncing to her own voice either. I think it’s Monique Gare de Lyon that does those voices. She’s way too fat to sit on a moon, however.”

  “How can we ever maneuver Cass into her path?” I said.

  Toca was fast. “I’m going to tell her I’m thinking of buying a house here. And that I want her opinion. And I’ll have Cass come at the same time. If I know either of them at all, that will be all that is necessary. Brigitte will tell him she’s interested in a house, and does he know any? He will take her out. Probably sell her one. Get started on renovating it. And the rest will be history. What’s that song, ‘He May Be Good Fucking but He’s No Fucking Good’? Brigitte will understand that immediately. It will be interesting to see who comes out on top in that relationship, to use a figure of speech.”

  Toca, the complete rat, called Cass and asked if he could join him the next morning to look at what had been the old bicycle shop on the main street in Cornichons. I think they wanted the outrageous price of $45,000 for what was a sizable house with a view of the Abbey grounds. Which is strictly forbidden unless the house already has windows in place. Which this one has. It’s quite a buy.

  The rest was history. Brigitte never did learn her lines. She loved the idea of simply mouthing her lines and throwing herself around in a revealing Greek costume, slashed to the waist with lots of gold jewelry. Particularly for her hair. She got four costume changes wh
ile the rest of us got only one. She never asked who recorded her lines, and we never told. I had very scanty gold armor which showed practically everything I’ve got except my “zizi,” particularly my butt; I turned around a lot. Steve didn’t complain about his gray robes and beard. It went pretty well.

  We only ran for two weekends but Brigitte managed to get Cass lined up very rapidly. I think they probably made bamboola in his car before she even decided on the house. Whatever he’s got it must be magnificent because Brigitte only gave the production a minimum of her time. She seemed to be very occupied elsewhere. The posters were great. Her name was gigantic. We had sold out houses for the whole production.

  And she played her hand with Cass very well. She did not decide on a house. She indicated that she wanted something bigger and in need of more and more renovation all the time. She kept coming back to Cornichons during the season to look further. And obviously to get more and more bamboola from Cass. Oh, Cass, Cass, Cass! Who knew where all this was leading?

  All About Steve

  It was a big surprise. A shock really. We were rehearsing The Red Mill, and I had forgotten my cane in the second act. Kitty Carlisle was directing, although Toca claimed he was. She knew a lot more about theater than he did, it turns out. She wanted me to do a little dance with a cane. “Like Clark Gable did in Fool’s Paradise with Norma Shearer,” she said.

  Steve didn’t dance with me in this act. It was just the students as happy peasants and the leading lady and me. I was in good voice that day. On the break I ran back into my room to get the cane. It was only a few minutes away. I opened the door, and Steve was on his hands and knees on my bed naked and Graham was fucking him, kneeling over him with his hands down on the bed on either side of Steve. Steve’s head was down and Graham’s head was back.

  Isn’t it strange how you get a flash of something like that for only a second, but you remember every detail? I shut the door immediately. It couldn’t have been open for more than a quarter of a second. It was too important. I knew I didn’t want anyone else to know. Nina must never know. And they must never know that I saw them.

  Those two beautiful bodies. Steve’s erection was hanging down. He was really erect. It made me think of mules you see in the fields in the countryside.

  Graham was not wearing a condom. I even caught that in the flash that I was reviewing in my head over and over again as I ran back to the rehearsal. “I must have left the cane somewhere else,” I told them.

  I did an excellent rehearsal, remembered my lines, sang well, and even remembered my little dance. I used a stick I found lying on the ground for a cane. Kitty was pleased.

  But another scene was running over and over again in my head. Steve’s olive-skinned body with no bathing suit whiteness, on all fours under Graham. And Graham moving in and out rhythmically without hurrying. His paler body, a little more muscular than Steve’s, hanging over him. He had great lats and strong upper arms. His eyes were open, but he was lost in the sensations of the sex. It was like two animals mating. It was beautiful.

  After rehearsal Steve was waiting, and he wanted to fuck me. I let him. We went back to his room, and he was very eager to have at me. I took off my clothes and knelt on the bed. “Let’s do it this way,” I said. He didn’t register any surprise or say anything. He mounted me. I checked with one hand, and he was wearing a condom. So much for that anyway. He took his time, and it was very much a replay of the scene I had seen so briefly, except he was playing the Graham role. While he was fucking me I was thinking, How did that happen? How did that happen? Where were Nina and Theo? Has Graham been thinking about this for some time? It made me rethink Graham completely.

  When he was all done Steve pulled off his condom and threw it in the corner. Falling down on the bed he pulled me down against him, my back to his front, and felt for me. “You didn’t come, did you?” he said.

  “No,” I said.

  He began to masturbate me and turned my head so he could kiss me. It was something like a very capable nurse taking over and doing what had to be done.

  “Hold me very, very tightly,” I said. I realized that I loved him very much. What a pickle I was in.

  When we both came, he still held me and spoke into my ear. “I know we’re not lovers, but I still want to tell you something. I had sex with Graham this afternoon.”

  I didn’t react but said, “Where?”

  “This is probably the worst part,” he said. “On your bed.”

  I said nothing. I didn’t move away from him. He still held me against him tightly.

  “I was going to go shopping with Nina, but Theo had an earache and she had taken him to the doctor in Charlestour. I went up to your room to get the Marilyn Monroe biography you had just finished. I thought I’d go back to my room and read. Graham followed me upstairs and came into the room behind me and pushed me down onto the bed and climbed on top of me. I could feel his cock pressing against me, already hard, and you know your brain just stops working.”

  “Once he went that far you might as well just fuck,” I said. “The deed is done.”

  Steve said, “He never really talked to me. We just stood up, pulled our clothes off, and went at it. But it wasn’t entirely by chance. He had a tube of Vaseline in his pocket. He had been thinking about it.”

  “You are irresistible,” I said and started crying. I turned around and Steve held me. At least he didn’t push me away, even if we weren’t lovers.

  “Heh,” he said. “I usually don’t do that, but there didn’t seem to be any choice. And I’ve been thinking about it. With sex with men we get to see both sides of the coin. And I’m beginning to think that the one who gets fucked is the real victor. There’s something of a fight about the whole thing, isn’t there? Who’s going to be the winner? I read Aldous Huxley, and he wrote that lovemaking was like two maniacs struggling in the dark.

  “Women have the same feeling. The one who is doing the fucking is the dominant one. Imposing himself on the other body. But when he comes he collapses, and he is entirely at your mercy, if you haven’t come yet. When two people come at the same time, there isn’t a winner. That’s what’s so wonderful about you. You always manage to come at the same time so we can sort of fall down that ladder into nowhere together. Except for today. You knew, didn’t you?”

  “How could I know?” I said.

  “Because you love me. You knew it. You felt it. And you let me fuck you anyway. Because I didn’t come with Graham. And he didn’t ask. He didn’t kiss me. He just pulled out. Went to the washstand and wiped off with your towel and pulled on his shorts and T-shirt and left. He didn’t look at me. I needed you when I came downstairs. Does needing someone mean you love them?” I made a mental note not to use my towel again.

  I sat up. “I don’t think so. I think it means you need them. That’s all.”

  “Maybe I don’t have any idea what being in love is,” Steve said. We sat beside each other on the edge of the bed, both naked, without touching.

  “Maybe,” I said. “It feels different when you have sex with someone you love. One thing I can tell you. You have the feeling that you don’t want this person to be with anyone else. You don’t want to lose them.”

  “But you can never really hang onto anyone,” Steve said.

  “I think you mean that no one can really hang onto you,” I said. “You don’t want to be hung onto. You want to be free. And then you don’t want to be free. You need a parent, maybe.”

  “I do know that the more I like someone and want to be with them the less I feel like having sex with them,” Steve said.

  “I guess I’m lucky that you don’t want to stay with me,” I said.

  “Who wouldn’t want to fuck you?” Steve said. He ran his hand down my back and under my butt and left it there. One finger was moving around. I looked down. He had an erection. What do you do with a guy when his erection is telling you he doesn’t love you? I guess you get up and sit down on it facing him and put your arms ar
ound his neck and say, “This time from the front.” I let him do it without a condom.

  This time as we lay in each other’s arms Steve said in my ear, “This is a dangerous world. It’s out to destroy you. Particularly if you are beautiful. If you are not beautiful it can get around to you later. I’d like to protect you, but I can’t even protect myself.”

  I said, “It’s even more dangerous for me, Steve, because I love you. If we get really close, then you are going to stop wanting to make love to me. When we talk like this we are getting closer and closer.”

  “This kind of closeness is even better for me than sex. You can have sex with anybody,” Steve said.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  Estelle and Kitty

  “Men don’t have the same bodies these days,” Kitty said.

  “I don’t get much chance to notice,” Estelle said. I was sitting with Kitty and Estelle at our favorite café, Les Raconteurs, in Charlestour. Kitty had wanted to see some of the countryside, and Estelle had come along.

  “Imagine,” Kitty said as we settled down around our table on the terrasse, “here we are in a town of about five thousand people that has three bakeries and a confectioner’s shop, a fantastic fruit and vegetable store, a supermarket, two butchers, a fish store, at least three restaurants and five cafés, as far as I can make out, and probably lots of other things I haven’t seen. It’s remarkable.”

  “Plus they have a big street market twice a week just in case you’re not happy with the selections in the stores,” I said.

  Kitty said, “And the men look great. I love a country where there are still a lot of blue-collar men who have strong bodies from actually working physically. I don’t think anyone works physically anymore in the United States. You never have an electrician or refrigerator repairman drop in who is actually sexy.” And so the discussion started.