I try to watch the video again—trying to be less of a prude. Trying not to tie it into how Rebecca sometimes accused me of not wanting to attempt anything too new in bed and spice things up. But Camille’s joking comment continues to give me pause. Maybe I am a bit of a prude. Maybe it’s just my nature.

When I focus on Camille only, my pulse quickens a little. I can bear the sight of my hand on her breast, but anything more of me and my arousal plummets. Maybe matters would be helped if I watched something that didn’t involve me. Two strangers going at it. If it works for Camille, perhaps it can work for me.

I type lesbians making love into Google and am instantly confronted with a barrage of naked women in variations of being all over each other. It reminds me of Rebecca suggesting we watch porn together once, a long time ago. I laughed her comment away. Christ, I really am a prude—and I wasn’t even raised Catholic. That’s what Rebecca used to say to me. “All that guilt and you’re not even a Catholic.” She would then shake her head and make a tutting sound. “Good thing you’re not Irish like me because our relationship might have remained purely platonic.”

I click on one of the videos and instantly recognize the opposite of what Camille claimed to enjoy. These women are not into this at all. That’s all I see. Two women pretending. Do men really fall for this? Is that really all it takes? It doesn’t do anything for me. Maybe I should ask Camille for advice on where to look, seeing as she’s such an expert. I might surprise her after all.

In comparison, the expression on Camille’s face while I was fucking her is much more enticing. The pure ecstasy displayed in her entire posture—and the way she looks into the camera after.

When does she wake up again? When she just returned from Australia and was suffering from a massive bout of jet lag, she would wake so early, we could chat for an hour before she had to leave for work, but as time has gone by and her body has adjusted to the French time zone, our—for her— morning chats have become shorter and shorter and have now, almost a month later, dwindled to nothing. Turns out she’s not much of a morning person after all. Something I can hardly hold against her.

I close all tabs on my computer and check my phone. No messages. She’s not awake yet. I’ll have to exercise more patience.

The next time we Skype it’s the weekend and we can luxuriate in a long chat.

“Guess where I’m going tonight?” Camille asks me after we’ve exchanged our habitual silly string of I-miss-yous and I-wish-you-were-heres.