The Paris Confession

The Seine carried the scent of autumn and something indefinable that Catherine had always associated with endings—wet stone, perhaps, or the particular brassy note that hung in the air when leaves began their slow surrender. She tightened her scarf against the wind coming off the river and glanced at the woman walking beside her. Forty years of this: Margot's stride matching hers without effort, the familiar way she tucked her chin when she was thinking, how she still wore her hair in that careless twist that begged to be undone.

"You're quiet," Margot said, not looking over. She'd always been the one to name things between them—grief, anger, the long silence after Catherine's mother died. As if speaking a thing aloud could tame it.

"Just watching the light." Catherine gestured toward the water where late afternoon sun fractured into copper pieces. "It makes everything look like it's burning."

Margot stopped walking. When Catherine turned, she found her oldest friend studying the same view with an expression she'd never seen before—something raw and unguarded that disappeared the instant Margot realized she'd been observed.

"Penny for your thoughts," Catherine said, the old phrase tasting of their shared girlhood in Boston, of cigarettes sneaked behind the gymnasium and secrets whispered across dormitory beds.

"Inflation," Margot replied, but her smile didn't reach her eyes. "You couldn't afford them now."

They'd come to Paris on impulse, the way they'd done everything in the decade since retirement. A museum opening in London, a vineyard tour in Tuscany, quick trips to Montreal when the weight of their separate houses in their separate states grew too heavy. Always together, never quite touching. Catherine had booked the flights after Margot's last oncology follow-up came back clean, had held her hand through the airport when they'd both had too much wine on the plane. But she'd also booked two rooms, had carried her own bag up the narrow stairs, had pretended not to notice when Margot's eyes lingered on her mouth while she spoke.

The hotel sat in the Marais, all crooked hallways and windows that opened onto airshafts. Catherine's room smelled of beeswax and old wood; Margot's looked onto a tiny courtyard where a single persimmon tree dropped its fruit onto weathered stones. They'd spent the morning in the Picasso museum, Margot standing too long before the portraits of Marie-Thérèse Walter, Catherine watching how afternoon light caught the silver in her friend's dark hair.

Now the river path narrowed, forcing them closer. Their shoulders brushed, and Catherine felt the contact like a brand. She'd spent forty years perfecting the art of not touching Margot except in the ways that friends did—quick hugs, hands linked while running through rain, that terrible week when Margot's father died and they'd slept in the same bed, Catherine holding her while she shook. But she'd never given in to the urge that came at moments like this: to cup Margot's face, to taste the corner of her mouth where her smile began, to learn whether she made the same small sounds when pleasure overtook her as she did when something struck her as funny.

"There's something," Margot began, then stopped. They'd reached the Pont des Arts, its railings stripped clean of the love locks that had been removed years before. Now it felt naked, honest. "Something I need to say."

Catherine's heart began its familiar betrayal, hammering against her ribs like it had the night they'd graduated college, when she'd almost confessed everything. Instead, she'd watched Margot kiss Daniel Richter behind the library, had swallowed her longing with cheap champagne. She'd thought time would dull it, that forty years of separate lives—Margot's professorship in Chicago, Catherine's photography studio in Portland—would transform desire into something gentler. Instead, it had calcified into a kind of beautiful ache, always present, rarely acknowledged.

"Remember when we were twenty-two?" Margot's voice carried something dangerous now. "That night in the Catskills, when we got lost on the trail?"

Catherine laughed, though the sound came out strangled. "You mean when you convinced me we could make it back before dark, then proceeded to lead us in circles until we had to sleep in that abandoned cabin?"

"We shared your sleeping bag. You kept me warm." Margot turned to face her fully now, river wind whipping color into her cheeks. "I never told you why I really got us lost."

The world narrowed to the space between them. Tourists passed speaking languages neither of them understood, but Catherine heard only her own blood rushing. "Why then?"

"I needed to know. If we were stranded, just us, would you—" Margot broke off, looking down at their feet. "Christ, I'm sixty-eight years old. You'd think I'd have learned how to say this."

Catherine reached out without thinking, her fingers finding Margot's wrist where her pulse jumped rabbit-quick. "Say what?"

"That I've spent forty years loving you wrong. That every time you dated someone, I died a little. That when you called to tell me about David, I got drunk for three days because I couldn't stand the thought of you marrying him. That I keep buying us trips because I'm terrified if we stop moving, I'll do something stupid like kiss you senseless in the middle of a Parisian street."

The words hung between them like exposed film, everything suddenly too bright, too real. Catherine's hand tightened on Margot's wrist, feeling the bones she'd admired across countless dinner tables, the skin she'd watched weather and soften with age. When she spoke, her voice came out steadier than she felt.

"David asked me to marry him in 1987. I said no because when I tried to imagine growing old with someone, it was always your face I saw." She stepped closer, close enough to smell Margot's perfume—something French and complicated that she'd worn for decades. "The trips. The way you look at me when you think I'm sleeping. The way you always order dessert for two even when you claim you're full. How long have we been doing this?"

"Forever," Margot whispered. "Since the day you sat next to me in freshman English and asked if I understood the difference between metaphor and simile."

Catherine laughed, the sound catching on something that felt like relief. "You were so insufferable. You corrected the professor when he said Sylvia Plath was overrated."

"She was a genius. You had ink on your hands from developing photographs in the darkroom. I wanted to lick it off." Margot's confession came out rushed, like she'd kept it locked behind her teeth for decades. "Catherine, I need you to know—if this isn't—if you don't—"

"Shut up," Catherine said, and kissed her.

It wasn't gentle. Forty years of wanting had taught them both hunger, and they fed on it now—Margot's mouth opening under hers with a sound that was half-sob, half-laughter. Catherine tasted coffee and the particular sweetness that belonged only to this woman, felt Margot's hands come up to frame her face with the same careful reverence she'd once used to handle museum pieces. When they broke apart, both breathing hard, Margot's eyes were bright with tears.

"The hotel," Catherine managed. "Now."

But Margot caught her hand, anchoring them to the spot. "Not yet. I need—" She gestured toward the river, the city spreading around them like a love letter written in stone and light. "I need to see you here first. In Paris. I need to know this is real."

They walked then, not touching except for their linked hands, past bouquinistes selling vintage postcards and couples arguing in fluent French. Catherine felt seventeen and seventy simultaneously, exposed and invincible. When they reached Île de la Cité, Margot pulled her into the shadow of Notre Dame's reconstruction, backing her against warm stone.

"I used to fantasize about this," she admitted, her mouth tracing Catherine's jaw. "Notre Dame. You. My mouth on your throat while tourists walked past, completely oblivious."

Catherine's knees nearly buckled. "Tell me."

"Sunday mornings. When you'd come to my apartment still smelling of darkroom chemicals. I'd imagine pushing you against my kitchen counter, tasting you while coffee grew cold. But I was too afraid of losing you, of this—" She gestured between them like it was a country they'd finally earned the right to enter. "We wasted so much time."

"We didn't waste it," Catherine said, though her hands shook as she cupped Margot's face. "We built something. This foundation. Forty years of knowing each other's rhythms. We just—" She kissed Margot's temple, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. "We just get to add this now. This layer."

But Margot was already shaking her head, her hands urgent at Catherine's waist. "No more layers. No more waiting. I want you naked and crying out my name. I want to learn every way you've imagined me touching you. I want to make up for every night we spent in separate beds, thinking about this."

They stumbled back across the bridge like teenagers, drunk on possibility. The hotel's ancient elevator felt like a confession booth, their reflections fractured in mirrored walls. Catherine watched Margot watching her, saw her own want reflected back—how her pupils had blown wide, how her mouth looked thoroughly kissed. When the doors opened onto their floor, they didn't speak. Margot simply took her hand and led her toward Catherine's room, the key already in her palm.

Inside, the afternoon had turned golden, light pooling across the wooden floor like spilled honey. Catherine barely had time to register the click of the door before Margot was on her, pressing her back against the armoire, hands already working at the buttons of her cardigan.

"Tell me to stop," Margot breathed against her throat. "Tell me if this isn't—"

"Don't you dare stop." Catherine fumbled with Margot's blouse, her fingers stupid with want. "Please, I've—God, I've wanted—"

They undressed each other between kisses, learning new geography of familiar terrain. Margot's collarbone tasted of salt and something indefinably hers. The curve of Catherine's breast fit Margot's palm like it had been waiting. When they finally tumbled onto the bed, skin to skin, Catherine felt time collapse—here was twenty-year-old Margot, bold and brilliant, and here was the woman who'd held her through every loss, every celebration. Every version of them existed in this moment.

"I need to see you," Margot whispered, settling between Catherine's thighs like coming home. "Need to watch you fall apart."

What followed was worship learned across decades of observation—Margot knowing exactly how to touch her because she'd spent forty years memorizing Catherine's tells. The way her breath caught when Margot's mouth found her nipple. How her hips rolled when Margot's fingers traced the crease of her thigh. When Margot finally, finally pressed inside her, Catherine sobbed with the relief of it, with the perfect inevitability of this woman knowing her body better than anyone ever had or would.

"Look at me," Margot commanded, her voice rough with wonder. "I need to see your eyes when you—"

Catherine came apart watching Margot watch her, her orgasm building slow and devastating like film developing in chemical bath, every moment of their history exposed and perfect. After, when she could breathe again, she pulled Margot up to kiss her, to taste herself on her tongue, to promise without words that this was only the beginning.

"My turn," she managed, rolling them so Margot lay beneath her. "Forty years I've wanted to map every inch of you."

She took her time, learning the constellation of freckles across Margot's shoulders, how she arched when Catherine's mouth found the hollow above her hip. When Catherine finally spread her open, Margot's hands fisted in her hair like prayer, like surrender. She tasted exactly as Catherine had imagined—familiar and foreign, the essence of every moment they'd almost but hadn't. When Margot came, crying out Catherine's name like scripture, Catherine stayed there, gentling her through aftershocks with soft licks and murmured love.

Later, as shadows lengthened across the room, they lay tangled together, trading easy kisses and harder truths. Margot traced the scar on Catherine's ribs from a fall they'd taken hiking in their thirties, pressed her lips to every stretch mark like they were holy.

"I kept thinking there'd be time," she admitted. "That we'd get here eventually, that I could wait."

"We got here exactly when we were supposed to." Catherine kissed her knuckles, each one. "We're going to be those terrible old ladies who scandalize everyone by holding hands in public."

"We already are." Margot's smile could power cities. "Though I draw the line at matching tracksuits."

"Never. But I'll buy you a beret if you let me photograph you naked in that courtyard tomorrow morning."

"Only if you let me take pictures of you first. I want to document this—us. The way you look when you've been thoroughly loved."

They made love again as evening fell, slower now, learning how age had softened and sharpened them. Catherine discovered that Margot's knees ached when the weather changed, worked the tension from them with careful thumbs. Margot mapped the way Catherine's neck still bent exactly so for kisses, how her breath still caught when Margot's teeth found her earlobe.

When they finally emerged, starving and gloriously disheveled, Paris had transformed into its nighttime self—all golden light and shadows that seemed to conspire in their favor. They found a bistro around the corner where the waiter didn't blink at their linked hands, where they fed each other mussels and fries, trading bites and kisses like teenagers who'd invented love.

Walking back along the Seine, full of wine and each other, Catherine stopped them beneath a streetlamp. "Ask me now," she said, knowing exactly what she meant.

Margot understood immediately, her eyes bright with tears and streetlight. "Catherine Anne Mitchell, will you spend the rest of our lives letting me love you properly? Will you wake up with me every morning and fall asleep with me every night? Will you let me pack your camera bags and carry your lenses and kiss you senseless in every city we've ever dreamed of visiting?"

"Yes," Catherine said simply. "To all of it. To everything."

They sealed it there, kissing under Parisian stars while the river carried their reflection toward whatever came next—days of museum mornings and bed-sheet afternoons, of Margot's lectures and Catherine's exhibitions, of growing old together in the way they'd always been meant to. When they finally climbed the stairs to Catherine's room, they didn't bother with separate beds. Instead, they opened the windows to let in the sound of the city and made love once more, slow and worshipful, as outside the persimmon tree dropped its fruit onto ancient stones, each one a small bright sound like yes, like finally, like always.