Dreaming Of You // Harry Styles

'I truly suck at love'

After we had sex we lay down for a while rolling under the sunlight. I was feeling ecstatic about Jeanne’s revelation. Knowing that every time we touched and from the very beginning I gave her something she loved was simply mesmerising. I didn’t want to be annoying but couldn’t keep my hands away from her, although she managed me quite elegantly. After all, she couldn’t complain about it. Constantly bringing peaches to her mouth I was offering her up endless summer. How could she not fall for me?

Once finally we got up she just put on a grey top with a very ample cleavage and her knickers. She sat resting one foot on a chair, her elbow on the knee, and sensually leant her head on the palm, giving me all sort of feelings as I sat in front of her, fixated on every detail. The neck of her shirt was falling from her elbow in such manner I could glimpse at her left nipple from above the garment. It didn’t make any sense… I’d already kissed and touched her breasts but to be able to see her was enough to make me sink into a perpetual state of anxiety.

Staring at each other in silence we waited for the sushi we ordered as we did the night before, brought another time by obliging Mitsuo. I’m sure he doesn’t mind climbing up the stairs as many times as needed because he knows he’ll find her dressing just like that, coquettishly leaning on the door and speaking to him in Japanese, a fact I didn’t notice the night before because of my little outburst. As I carefully watched her talking to him I felt like a fool but somehow I adored she could just do that.

As she taught me how to lay a Japanese table I was feeling increasingly curious about how she learnt all those languages. Japanese is certainly not for everybody. But ever since her first word I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy the explanation.

“Former lovers. I’ve learnt from former lovers…” She said blithely. Was that what I was for her too, a lover?

“Oh, but at least you keep something positive from them…” I mumbled casually trying not to seem too out of place.

“I keep plenty of positive things from former lovers–––she retorted frowning her eyebrows. Everyone is dear to my heart.” She was so ‘In My Life’ by The Beatles I hated the song.

“I cannot tell the same…” I muttered turning away, knowing I should drop the subject.

“That is sort of sad…” She remarked quietly.

“It is, I guess–––I said sadly. But how many languages do you speak?” I was just too intrigued.

“Besides French, I speak English, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese.” It was surely a feature she shared with Harry on ‘Bizarre Love Triangle.’

“So you had a lover from each of those countries,” I meditated staring at my plate.

“At least one, yeah…” She said glimpsing away. I knew I was staring at her in disbelief. “It’s quite easy to learn a new language once you already know two…–––she explained, chuckling. Oh, fine. It’s a pretty interesting way to learn languages. I should institutionalise it. My method is just like Berlitz but immersion is intimate,” she laughed. It killed me she felt so proud of herself because she had all the reasons to be. “Nobody has ever learnt French from me…”

“Talk to me about the Japanese fellow.”

“I met him during my Eurotrip on 2012…” She said casually.

“After me?” I snapped as out of line as you can get.

“There wasn’t a ‘you’…” She squinted at me.

“Well, not properly but you know what I mean,” I said, annoyed.

“Well, then, yeah, after ‘you’–––she stated. I went to Japan with him later on.”

“To meet his family?”

“Oh, no, nothing of the sort–––she blurted. He showed me his amazing country and I continued to work on my Japanese. After I left I continued to practice with Mitsuo. He’s very patient with me…” She grinned affectively. Oh, yes, Mitsuo.

“I can’t imagine why…” I ironised trying to act casual. She did that little grimace with her mouth. “Well, what about, I don’t know, the German guy?”

“I had three German lovers,” she pointed out. My eyes widened. “Two from Berlin and one from Mönchengladbach,” she carried on. At her last word my insides twitched. Massive sex alert.

“Where did you meet them?” I coughed to dissimulate.

“One in Berlin; other, over here in Paris, and another one, elsewhere…” Elsewhere.

“And you just learnt German…” I observed.

“It’s not that difficult when you already know English and Latin,” she shrugged.

“So you know Latin,” I asserted recalling her annotation on my photo. All seemed to connect. “But you didn’t get that from a lover…” As far as I knew Latin was a dead language and priests were celibate.

“Well, it was a whole course in college but I had an Uruguayan lecturer, Pablo…” Was she teasing me?

“I don’t want to know,” I interrupted her, looking away and deeply breathing in. “And what was the average time you were with each one of them?” I asked after a moment.

“I don’t know–––she said raising her eyebrows. The time we were on the same country, I suppose.”

“So you don’t do long distance relationships…” I stated, extremely curious but trying not to show.

“I don’t do relationships,” she answered with her eyes fixed on mine.

“Oh, I see.” Where was the alcohol? “Neither do I–––I mumbled. It’s not simple with a life as mine…”

“Your colleagues seem to manage it pretty well…” She smirked and I couldn’t help but glare at her.

“Other women seem to manage it pretty well too,” I grumbled leaning on the table.

“I don’t want the same thing as other women,” she defied me clenching her teeth.

“And I don’t want the same as my colleagues…” I said clenching mine.

“So why do you blame your lifestyle then?” She asked lightly, changing her attitude radically. Oh, she had set me up with majesty…

“Because it’s hard to admit I can’t make it work,” I sighed, defeated, falling back against the chair.

“And the reason is…” She insisted.

“In part because of my lifestyle and also because I’m too lazy,” I explained not looking at her. I truly suck at love. “And what’s your excuse?” I asked glancing at her, who was beaming.

“I’m this free,” she replied opening her arms graciously, but her gesture broke my heart. She most surely is.

“Did you always feel the same about it?” I managed to ask looking at her with the corner of my eye.

“Pretty much.”

“I didn’t–––I muttered. Before this I wanted everything… A girlfriend, get married, a family. Now I see it so far away…”

“You are so young…–––she mumbled shaking her head ‘no.’ Why would you need to put the yoke on?”

–.–.–

So confused by our conversation I began to get dressed standing by the end of the bed. At my feet was still resting her wet slip. I bent down to grab it flashed by a thousand images of Jeanne and me making love. When I touched it felt so cold. I carried it to the bath and laid it on the edge. At that moment she exited the bathroom and glanced at me, smiling. I grinned and pulled back my hair, nervous. She was wearing a white lace blouse tucked inside a blue skirt. From the chest near the door she took two helmets, a white one with blue stripes and the other one in khaki, so I understood wherever we were going we were going on two wheels. Paul wouldn’t like it at all. I grabbed the delicate flower from the kitchen worktop and we went downstairs. When I opened the door for Jeanne to go out of the building I noticed an elder lady was about to step inside. It was a neighbour, for sure. She smiled at us and spoke directly to Jeanne.

“P’tite Jeanne, t’jours accompagnée d’beaux garçons…” She grimaced when she noticed I wasn’t getting a word of what she was saying, but she seemed adorable.

“Merci, Mme. Poulbot––– Jeanne said. Mais bien sûr c’est votre mari le plus beau du quartier.” Her voice was so sensuous, almost as a purr with all those French syllables. God, could she be more perfect? I held the plant pot beneath my arm trying not to stare.

“P’être quant il était jeune, ma fille–––Mme. Poulbot said and laughed. E’ce garçon là, il est trop mignon. Il s’appelle comment ?” They glanced towards me. I was sort of engrossed in caressing the Cattleya. Jeanne giggled.

“Harry,” she replied, emphasising my name in the French mode, but I understood they were talking about me and grinned.

“Ah, moi j’dore ce Harry. Toi aussi, p’tite Jeanne ?” Mme. Poulbot asked pinching Jeanne’s chin affectively, who glimpsed down. “Soign’le bien, alors.”

“On doit s’en aller, Mme. Poulbot. À tout a l’heure,” Jeanne snickered, kissing the old lady on the cheek and quickly turning away.

There was a mint green Vespa parked on the street I vaguely remembered from the first day before I kissed her. It was Jeanne’s. She climbed in putting the striped helmet on and I did the same with the other and my sunglasses. Those moments we shared on the street the previous day felt ages away but any less moving. The first kiss she gave me… I could have died right there. I didn’t even care about the possibility of being spotted. I cautiously held the flower between us two, grabbing Jeanne by the waist.

Our ride through Paris was one of the most delightful things I’ve done in all my life, being able to see the city from an atypical perspective and led by a beautiful young woman I was mad about. Because I was mad about her and there was no way not to admit it to myself. We soon arrived to what, by appearance and Jeanne’s words, was clearly a cemetery. She told me it was called ‘Père-Lachaise’ and was a really important one because of the people who rest there. We let the Vespa near an entrance and got inside. It was truly an imposing place. She said they call it ‘City of the Dead,’ which suits it perfectly because by its dimensions it definitely looks like a gloomy, phantasmal city.

We briefly walked towards a board avenue but quickly turned right, passing through some tombs. In the plot we found a black simple grave. It had a name on the front and a date: 1871-1922. It surprised me that she had taken flowers to somebody she never actually got to meet while alive, but then I reread the name and got it. It was the grave of someone she often mentions on her writing.

“Proust,” she mumbled, glimpsing at me.

“Say it again,” I said turning to face her as I remember something from ‘Bizarre Love Triangle.’

“Proust,” she purred.

“Again.”

“Proust,” she laughed. She remembered too.

“Harry was right–––I murmured, leaning in and grabbing her chin with my index. It works. Come here,” I snickered, kissing her. As her full lips grazed mine I couldn’t help but smile amazed by that strange complicity we necessarily shared.“Why are we here?” I asked after a moment.

“We brought him this Cattleya to honour him and his best creation, Charles Swann,” she explained talking towards the grave.

“What about Swann?–––I asked turning to the grave myself. You speak a lot about him on ‘Bizarre Love Triangle.’ I’m sure nobody is getting it but it means something, right?”

“It does. Swann’s character is a rich Jew from Paris who meets a ‘cocotte,’ a woman of bad habits, called Odette De Crécy–––she said. He falls for her just because she resembles some painting he enjoys, therefore by intervention of art. She is the personification of Swann’s ideal of beauty.” I tossed my head up and down as a good student and she chuckled. “Well, he pursues her and finally wins her favour–––she carried on in a neutral tone. But as he gets her, he doesn’t want her anymore, although he finally marries her and they have a daughter together. After Swann dies she remarries and she and her daughter, ashamed by his origins, take the name of the new husband, Forcheville. ‘Très français,’” she ironised. I noticed her voice was a bit shaky at the end of her speech. That Swann guy really meant something to her and I almost couldn’t understand it.

“And why is this story of Swann so important to you?–––I muttered. Do you think that’s what happens?” Maybe she was a sceptical.

“It’s very emblematic of the poor choices we tend to make in life,” she stated. At her words I just knew the key to understand her was somewhere near.

“What about the Cattleya?” I asked, trying to dispel those thoughts.

“The day they make love for the first time Odette has a Cattleya on her dress which Swann caresses as you did before in front of Mme. Poulbot,” she chuckled, covering her mouth and glancing at me. It could be hilarious for her but barely a sexual innuendo to unlettered people. As Swann lad she seemed to see art everywhere. “By this simple gesture Cattleyas transform into a fetish of sexual intercourse, almost as a symbol–––she carried on, regaining her composure. It makes sense though–––she became serious. A flower, especially an orchid, although beautiful and appealing is fragile and ephemeral as desire.”

I watched as she solemnly laid the Cattleya near the name and bent down to grab a stone from the ground. She cleaned it out and placed it beside the plant pot. I knew why she was doing it and mimicked her actions. She smiled at me and after she mumbled some words in French I didn’t get towards the grave, we left.

–.–.–

[A/N: Thank you for reading! Don't forget to click on the lil' star :) ]