Consumed Read Online Free PDF

deeply in the eyes as he did it. Naomi closed her eyes and shook her head. She felt like his mother. When she looked up at him again, she affected a stern, flirtation-killing look. She pulled her voice recorder out of her bag, switched it on, and placed it on the table.
    â€œHervé,” she said, “I’m recording you now, as we agreed, and my first question to you is: Is this how you were with Célestine Arosteguy?”
    He froze for a beat, then put the cup down. “How I was? I was just me, as always. I don’t understand what you mean.”
    â€œYou’re being very seductive with me. Did you seduce your professor, or did she seduce you?”
    â€œI see,” he said. “You want to play the role of Célestine with me. You identify with her.”
    â€œNo, I’m really not playing at all. I want to know how it was with them, with the Arosteguys. From someone who knows. From you.”
    â€œIt was full of sex with them, but more than just sex. But you’re just interested in the sex, aren’t you? You want to make a sensational conversation. You want to hurt them, don’t you?”
    â€œWhy do you think that?” Naomi was genuinely thrown by this, and Hervé could see it. “We went through all that on the net. I thought you understood me.”
    â€œI understood you,” said Hervé. “But I never believed you. How sympa you were, how you loved them, how their philosophy and their love story so inspired you.”
    â€œThen why are you here, drinking my espresso?”
    A compact Gallic shrug. “I wanted to see what a room in the Hôtel de Crillon looked like.”
    THEY ENDED UP ordering room service. While they waited, Hervé agreed to pose for some stills, sitting on the chaise longue in the bedroom by the open balcony doors while Naomi squatted with the camera, shifting from side to side, trying to find the revealing angle. She was using the Nikon D300s, the cousin to Nathan’s D3. It was more compact and lighter, and she prized unobtrusiveness and mobility above all things. The muted light was soft, diffused by the pigeon netting and the trapped bounce of the courtyard, and it brought out the femininity of the boy’s face. He played the lens expertly, as Naomi expected he would, given his self-promotion on the Arosteguy forums, which involved endless videos and stills documenting the many moods and musings of Hervé Blomqvist. His general approach was coy/mysterioso, and Naomi knew just how to use the natural light and her angles, the brow, the dark, full eyebrows, the liquid brown eyes in the thin face, to make that pop.
    â€œSo, Naomi, what are you going to use these photos of me for?” He spoke between shots, timing her rhythm so that he wouldn’t be caught in an ungainly mouth move. “Are you planning an Arosteguy picture book? Maybe for the coffee table?”
    â€œI don’t know what I’m doing, Hervé. Do you have any suggestions?”
    â€œI do have a suggestion. I think you will be afraid of it.”
    Naomi paused and rested her camera on her knees. She felt strange in her dress, but at least she was now in bare feet. She looked up at Hervé, who smiled down at her with benign, unfocused eyes, like a priest. Annoying.
    â€œGo,” said Naomi. “Let’s hear it.”
    Hervé stood up and began undoing his tie. “I propose a book that shows every lover that the Arosteguys ever had, starting with me. And they will all be in the nude. And they will say what their experience in fucking them was. And they will talk about the influence that Célestine and Aristide had on their lives.”
    Naomi sat on the floor, her back against the foot of the bed. “Are you taking your clothes off ?” she asked.
    â€œYes,” said Hervé.
    â€œYou want me to shoot pictures of you naked?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’m not going to have sex with you. Really.