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Alexandra

Toney Dimos

    “Don’t look at me,” said Alexandra, while Hermes watched her put on her white blouse over her black silk Agent Provocateur brasserie. “I can’t believe we keep doing this.”
    Hermes said nothing, taking a dip of Champagne.
    “I could lose my job for this,” she said, slipping on her black Prada high heels, in preparation for her shift in first class of the Queen Mary II ocean liner crossing from New York to Europe. “Have you anything to say?!”

————

    Hermes first saw Alexandra days earlier on deck, while he read Proust’s Swann’s Way. At night, he would listen to Bach’s “Mache fiche, mein Herze, rein”, as he sketched Alexandra from memory.
    One evening, Hermes drew her based on images in his mind in the lounge over an Irish whiskey. “She looks familiar,” said Alexandra in a West End accent, looking over his shoulder to his surprise. Hermes chuckled and invited her to join him for a drink. “No, thank you,” she said, “but lovely drawings.” Hermes smiled, observing her lush derrière, as she walked away.
    Later that very night, a knock occurred at his cabin door just after one in the morning. Hermes got up from his bed where he was drawing and found Alexandra holding a bottle of Champagne. “Compliments of the crew,” she said.
    “It would be a shame to drink this alone” said Hermes, “may I persuade you to partake of a glass...”
    “Just one sip, and then I must go,” said Alexandra, feigning apathy bordering on contempt. “I have to work early in the morning.”
    While in bed together, post-coital, Hermes shared with her how he was fleeing the United States in exile. He had seduced his father Alcibiades’s mistress to avenge his deceased mother precipitating an excommunication from his family.

————

    Alexandra applied a fresh scent of lavender from the bottle of perfume she had been keeping inside Hermes’s cabin, which she had purchased over the summer on the island of Hydra. She was trying to ignore the engagement ring from her fiancé in London who she intended to marry in the coming weeks. The apathy Hermes demonstrated to this fact bewildered her. Upon fixing her hair for work, Hermes looked up from the volume of Proust and said, “you look magnificent.” She returned the compliment with a scowl, leaving a small envelope on the pillow.
    “Take a look at this after I leave.” said Alexandra.
    “What is it?”
    “After I leave,” she said, kissing him on the mouth. “I’ll come by after my shift is over.”
    “Deal.”
    Alexandra looked away dismissively.
    After she left, Hermes opened the envelope which contained a home pregnancy test. The first night she spent with him Alexandra had sensed to her delight that she had conceived. When he opened the test, he found a small Post-it Alexandra had placed over the blue result, reading “It’s ours, αγάπη μου!”
    Hermes smiled with satisfaction, placing the envelope on the nightstand, wondering for a moment about his other children.

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