Read Curio for Free Online

shrugged.
    “Maybe,” Didier said, “you’re more afraid of being left by a man you see as your equal. So you tell yourself you’ll only ever be satisfied with one you think is better than you are, and you give yourself permission to not bother.”
    “But I don’t want to settle. I don’t want to spend my life pretending the man I’m with turns me on when he really doesn’t.”
    “What turns you on, aside from the perfect face and body?”
    I blinked. “I’m not sure. Charisma, maybe.”
    “Wit? Kindness? Talent?”
    “I guess.”
    “You like the way I look, yes?”
    I nodded. “Very much.”
    “Say we fell in love, got married.”
    “Okay.” I shifted in my chair, unnerved by the impossibility of such a notion.
    “All of this,” he said, circling his face, “will become mundane. What if you do not like anything beyond what’s on the outside?”
    “You make me sound like a man, after a trophy wife.”
    “And if we are together forty years, for maybe ten of those I might still be the object you crave. What then?”
    “Are you trying to make me feel bad?”
    He smiled. “No. I’m trying to understand why you’ve constructed these rules for yourself. Why you seem to want permission to opt out of love.”
    “It’s scary.”
    “Of course it is. That’s what makes it so exciting.”
    “Maybe.”
    “On your end,” he said, pointing at me, “you fear the rejection of a man you deem too attractive to ever want you. On my end, I might fear that what I have on the inside will only disappoint you, once my looks are gone. Put out on the pavement like a once-loved chair, after the cushions are stained and worn.”
    I frowned, a potent pang of sadness twisting my insides. “I don’t think about men that way. Really.”
    “I’m not suggesting I understand you,” he said in a kind tone. “But I’d like to. That’s why I’m asking all these questions. You’re a very extraordinary client. You interest me very much.”
    I blushed at that. “You must think I’m a sociopath. Or some female chauvinist.”
    “I don’t. I think you’re just scared. I want to know what you’re scared of.”
    “Of being left, I guess. Of not being good enough.”
    “Did that happen to you, when you were young?”
    I laughed, partly uncomfortable, partly amused. “You are a prostitute, right? Not a shrink?”
    “If I’m prying too much, tell me so.”
    “No, I don’t really mind. And I wasn’t ever really left as a kid. Both my parents were around until I was in high school, and when my mother moved out it was actually a relief. But I was a really awkward kid. I know, all children are at some point, but I was like, properly homely. I didn’t really get it together until I was out of high school.”
    “And your classmates were cruel to you?”
    “Yeah, but not just because I was weird-looking. I was mean, too. Bossy and rude when I thought I was smarter than other kids.” Why was I telling all this to the sexiest man I’d ever met, sitting open-shirted and wet-haired mere feet from me? And why precisely did it feel so good?
    “A bully?” he asked.
    “No, not quite. I didn’t go after anyone, wanting to hurt their feelings. I was just clueless and reactionary. I didn’t know how to hold back whatever I was feeling. I couldn’t separate emotions from reality, my dad used to say. Everything hit me on this intense, visceral level, and if I was angry or insulted, I couldn’t step back and calm myself down before I reacted.”
    “I could see how that would be alienating.”
    “My mother was the same way, sometimes. But she’s severely bipolar. I’m not, but I learned how to interact with people from her. It wasn’t until she left and I went to college that I really realized how not-normal it was, living that way. I’d grown up seeing that my dad always caved in the face of her mood swings, until the day he filed for divorce. So my kid brain thought, hey, that’s how you get your way.”
    “Usually