La Bonne

by Michèle de Lully

  Something settled on my shoulders, a jacket, slipping from the hands of Petros himself. I jumped, not from surprise though I had not heard him approaching, but from guilty conscience.

  “You startled me,” I accused him.

  “You looked cold,” he replied.

  “No.” But then I held the jacket close around me. I could still feel the heat of his body in it.

  “You will be soon,” he said. “Up in the rigging the wind is blowing cool now, soon the chill will slip to the deck.”

  What a depressing way to put it. Piqued, I tried to argue with him. “Do you always see the bad things before they come?”

  “Usually.”

  An hour ago he had been witty and laughing, now that one terse word hinted at gray vistas on distant and lonely shores. And I could not pretend innocence.

  “She loves you,” I said.

  He was silent so long I thought he had not heard me. When I opened my mouth again, he spoke before I could.

  “I know this. Why would you think I do not know this?”

  “Because you don’t love her.” Then I stopped, aghast at my own indelicacy.

  “Of course I love her. Everyone loves her. How could I not love her?”

  It would be so easy to take his words at face value, to let the sincerity of his tone carry me through the straits of doubt into calm waters. But I knew what I had seen, and I had my own desires to fill my sails, however impossible or wrong they were.

  “You look at her the same way you looked at the dock when we left it. Something you depend on, but wish you could escape forever.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder and spun me around to face him with so much strength I involuntarily flinched. I had been hit before, after all. I could see the disgust on his face when he saw me recoil.

  “I am not…” he said, trying to defend himself.

  “I know. You are not going to hit me. You are not going to disappoint Amanda. You are not going to make a scene, embarrass anyone, upset any applecarts. You’ll do what is expected of you, always. Because it’s who you are.”

  “How can you be so sure?” he said, with a growl that would have sent any man I had ever known fleeing.

  But I knew better. “I’ve been with plenty of men,” I told him, flaunting my dishonor. “So many that they all seem the same to me now. But you’re different.” And it was true. He was driven by responsibility, not by desire. The richest, handsomest playboy I had ever met, and underneath it all was a knight who still believed in honor.

  “I have known my share of women. And you, too, are different.”

  This tack took me by surprise. Surely he’d had cheap sluts before. Flustered, I retreated further into his jacket.

  “You say what you think,” he continued, “and even though you want me, you hold yourself apart. Why?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I snapped. “You’re so full of yourself.”

  He stepped in close and pulled me to him. When I crashed against that tall, lean body, I melted over it like icing. But at the last minute, I turned my head away, and we did not kiss.

  “So I want you,” I confessed in a whisper, too ashamed to speak this truth louder. “But I can’t have you, and I will not betray Amanda. Not even for you.”

  “All my life,” he whispered back, “I have sought a woman who looked beyond the horizon. The prettier they are, the shallower the gaze. Like children, they are distracted by pretty lights, and I find myself bored.”

  “Men are no better,” I countered. “Hitch up your skirt an inch and suddenly they’re so stupid they can’t tell you what day it is.”

  “So here we are.” He gave a sad smile. “Two noble souls, denying each other for the sake of duty, and helplessly attracted to the only denial they have ever met.”

  There was nothing else to say. I leaned against him and tried not to cry. He put his arms around me and held me like I was a solid mast in the middle of stormy seas.

  “It’s just the moon and the sea,” he said.

  “It would never work. We’re from different worlds.”

  “In the morning light, the enchantment will be gone, and we will be glad we were not foolish.”

  “You’re a great guy, but we hardly know each other. It’s just lust.”

  Together we told the lies that would let us walk away from this moment. But my heart rebelled, and I pushed against him with a sob.

  Something hard pressed against my thigh.

  “I should go,” I whispered.

  “Yes.” His voice was only slightly strained. Nuzzling in my hair, his hands caressing me, his words were utterly incongruous. “It’s getting late.”

  “I’m going now.” I rubbed up against him.

  “I’ll see you in the morning.” I could not help but admire his restraint. His arousal was obvious, my willingness palpable, and yet he did not hold me when I stepped away.

  I stared into his eyes. Behind lust, I saw respect, behind that, duty. Now I melted inside, and I knew that if I touched him again I would beg him to take me. And I knew he would refuse, even while he wanted it as much as I did. I could not lay such a burden on him, I had to be strong enough to walk away. I had come to protect Amanda from him, but now I had to protect him from us.

  And I had to be the one who left, since he had some obvious difficulty walking at the moment.

  I took a step before remembering the jacket. I could hardly explain this to Amanda. Taking it off, I handed it to him.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he said, and then I had to run away before I completely lost it.

  I burst into our stateroom without knocking. Amanda flinched under the covers.

  “I’m sorry,” I said automatically, and began to strip.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered as I fell into bed next to her. “It wasn’t working, anyway.”

  “What?” I was too confused and miserable to really care about her problems right now.

  “It didn’t seem to work,” she repeated, and I realized she was almost in tears. “I don’t want to fail now. I can’t fail now.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You can try again in the morning.” I just wanted to go to sleep. Or more accurately, I wanted her to go to sleep so I could take care of my own problem.

  “Will you help me?” she asked, a little kitten meowing for milk.

  Like I said, I was confused, miserable, very aroused, and still a little drunk. “Fine,” I snapped, and shoved my hand between her legs.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, and moved against my hand in the most sensual way.

  “Is that better?” I asked, petting her gently.

  “Oh,” was all she said.

  “See, like that,” I said. “Here, show me.” Grabbing her hand, I directed it between my own legs.

  I was totally unprepared for the bolt of lighting that arced through me. I had only been teasing her, but when her hand touched me, I was galvanized.

  It was only natural to kiss her, like I had so many times before, and before I could think about it, we were united, connected at the groin, the mouth, and every part of our bodies that touched. Her nipples pressed into my breasts, and her warm, silky legs glided along mine. We touched each other in the most intimate places, kissed with abandon, our breath mingling together. Hungrily I slid my mouth over her face, her throat, down to her breasts. She pulled her nightgown aside with her free hand, and I took a nipple into my mouth. When she arched her chest into me and moaned, I pushed back against her hand with my hips.

  “Put your fingers inside me,” I whispered, and she did. I don’t remember much after that.

  But I remember what came after the climax, while we lay together in each other’s arms, sated and drifting into sleep.

  “I love you,” she whispered, and went to sleep without waiting for a reply.

  —

  In the morning I was embarrassed, waking up with her nightgown in disarray and her body intertwined with mine. When I tried to extricat
e myself, she sleepily hugged me, and the reaction between my thighs was automatic.

  Angrily, I leapt out of bed and stormed into the shower. I was thoroughly confused, and not a little ashamed. Never mind my sudden gender-confusion, sleeping with Amanda was hardly any more fair to Petros than sleeping with him would be to her. The things she had done to me surprised me, but the way I reacted to them terrified me. I had accepted being sent out here to relieve sexual tension. If Amanda was the one who had to be serviced instead of Petros, well, one had to have a certain amount of flexibility in these affairs.

  But what I was doing with Amanda was more than service. It felt, to me, like love.

  Speaking of which, the events of last night were somewhat muddled. I wasn’t actually quite sure what I was doing with Amanda. Specifically, I couldn’t remember if I had used my fingers on her the way she had used them on me. If I had, we had a bit of a problem.

  Going back into the room, I saw Amanda was awake and already busy, a dreamy look on her face.

  “Good grief,” I said.

  “You said twice a day,” she breathed heavily.

  “Well, stop for a minute. I have to ask you something.”

  “I don’t want to stop. I’m almost there.”

  “Amanda, this is important. Did I…”

  After it was clear I wasn’t going to continue, she asked, “Did you what? But probably, yes,” she added with a cheeky grin.

  In desperation, I bit my lip. “Amanda…is there blood on the sheets?”

  Amanda stopped at that, finally a little worried. She threw back the top sheet, revealing that stunning blond triangle in all its glory, and I could see the shine of its wetness on her and her fingers.

  The sheets were clean, and we both breathed in relief.

  Then she went back to work.

  “For crying out loud,” I snipped, but I didn’t look away. Instead, I stared, entranced. Only when I saw the invitation on her face was I jolted into movement, retreating to the shower.

  The warm water didn’t help me forget my own reactions. The readiness with which she had thrown back the covers and exposed herself to me, touched herself in front of me, invited me, pounded down on my burning body with the water from shower head. I tried touching myself but it didn’t work, it wasn’t enough. I wanted her. I tried thinking of Petros, and nothing changed. I wanted him.

  I didn’t know what I wanted.

  I leaned my head against the wall and wept in frustration. The water washed my face clean.

  Chapter Six

  The day was unimaginably beautiful. Glorious sun, sails billowing in a gentle breeze, water smooth as glass. Amanda was beautiful, too, relaxed and without the slightest fear or worry, laughing and playing. I had never realized how attractive pure happiness was.

  When we stripped down to our bathing suits to take a dip in the ocean, it was hard to not to realize how purely attractive Amanda was. I had trouble not staring. I have no idea how the crew managed. Even Petros was affected, jumping overboard so quickly I thought he was water-crazy. Until I realized he was just trying to hide how hard of a time he was having.

  Looking down at his glistening body floating in the water, his smiling face beckoning me to join him, I forgot everything else. Only when Amanda dived past me into the water did I remember my place—and my other feelings. Seeing her breasts lift as she floated on her back and paddled through the crystal blue water made me want to jump on her.

  This was insanity. I was a maid, a poor working girl, and they were aristocracy, creatures out of fairytales and fashion magazines. Rejection flooded through me, watering my eyes with its intensity, and I turned to go.

  “Come in!” Amanda cried out to me.

  “It is safe,” Petros assured me from the water.

  But it was not the vast and open ocean that I feared. Now I leapt into the water to hide the tears that I could not stop.

  When I came up from the dive, they were facing each other and giggling. I faced the boat and struggled to control my emotions.

  “Swimming with no land in sight takes some getting used to,” Petros said gently.

  Loving when there is no hope in sight is impossible to get used to, I wanted to say. But I said nothing.

  “It’s exhilarating!” exclaimed Amanda, and out of kindness she swam to my side.

  “The boat will not leave us,” comforted Petros, swimming to my other side. “I still owe the crew money.” He winked.

  Trapped between both of them, so close I could feel the warmth of their bodies in the water, my head became so full of confused but erotic images that I could not think. Sensing my distress, Amanda pushed in and kissed me on the cheek.

  The action helped, in one way, it resolved my confusion into pure lust. At that moment I wanted sharks to swim up from the sea, tear off our bathing suits, and force us to huddle tightly together for protection. The tenseness of the situation would make Petros erect, and purely out of a desire to protect Amanda’s virginity, I would impale myself on him while she hugged us close and kissed us, her arms enfolding Petros and I and holding us together.

  Yes, I imagined all of that in the two seconds it took her to kiss my cheek. I was so distracted I forgot to paddle. When I started sinking, I thrashed out with both hands to push myself up in the water.

  Each hand brushed against a groin—Amanda’s valley to my left, and Petros’s mountain to my right. I ducked and swam away from them like I had bumped into cactus. It was an accident, of course, and naturally neither of them so much as blinked, but I could not forget the memory of that brief contact. I set out for the boat in earnest.

  “Captain, the wind returns,” announced the First Mate, while leaning down to help me up the ladder on the side of the ship.

  “Maintain course, but hold her slow,” Petros ordered. “I need some exercise,” he explained to us.

  “So do I,” Amanda chimed in.

  “My dear,” began Petros, but she cut him off.

  “I’ll tell you when I am tired.”

  I wrapped myself in a towel and watched them from the railing. I didn’t need the towel for warmth. I was just feeling overexposed.

  As the sails rolled down and filled with air, the boat began to move again. Petros and Amanda kept up with it, gliding through the water with professional strokes. But soon they were both really working at it. Seven knots was a lot faster than I could swim at all, and they were going for the long haul.

  I watched this competition with a critical eye. First, it wasn’t fair. Amanda’s long golden hair was a real handicap, flowing out in the water. Beautiful, enticing, sensuous…with an effort, I forced my mind back to the topic at hand. Second, Petros was a wonderful athlete. And third, he’d done this before. Would he use these advantages to display his strength, build up his ego, defeat and humiliate her?

  It was a stupid question. These were two healthy human beings, not the broken, emotionally dysfunctional creatures I had lived my life around. After twenty minutes or so of vigorous swimming, Amanda laughed and slowed down.

  “Come on,” he encouraged her. “Another five minutes. You can do it.”

  Yes, I secretly urged her. Keep swimming. For twenty minutes I had gotten to stare at their beautiful bodies without feeling guilty or awkward. My fantasies swam with them, flooding my head in the warm hypnotic sun. I could see my nipples poking up through my bikini top, and I was thinking of arranging the towel so that I could slip a hand to my groin without anyone noticing. I was so far gone that the realization that I was trying to figure out how to masturbate in public while watching my friends swim had no effect on me.

  “You go on,” she told him, catching the rope that a sailor threw to her. “I think I’ll join the viewing deck.”

  Now, at least, I had the decency to blush.

  The sailor pulled her in and helped her up the ladder. Toweling off, she came to join me.

  “That was great,” she said, referring to the swim. But she was looking at Petros when she said i
t.

  “Yes, it is,” I murmured. I couldn’t say more because the sailor returned with a tray and two wine coolers.

  “Thank you,” Amanda told him, taking one and handing the other to me.

  I realized I was waiting for something. I was waiting for the crew to increase the speed of the boat, thus diminishing Amanda’s accomplishment, making it look like Petros had taken it easy on her. Even if he only lasted a minute or two more, it would have made the distinction between man and girl clear.

  But they didn’t. The boat stayed the same speed, and Petros swam for another twenty minutes, until he was as limp as a dishrag. After the sailor pulled him aboard, he flopped into a deck chair, drooping across it like a blanket.

  “You poor baby,” Amanda said, and began toweling him off.

  Poor baby, indeed, I thought to myself. All that work to render himself limp, and now she was hovering over him in that skimpy bikini, touching him, letting her sun-dried hair brush across him. I could almost feel his frustration growing.

  Seized by that malicious spirit Amanda always seemed to unleash in me, I did something terrible to poor Petros.

  “Amanda,” I said, “I think we should put on some sunscreen if we are going to stay out here any longer.”

  “We already did,” she said. “In the cabin.”

  “But that was before we went in the water,” I replied, pulling the bottle out from under my chair. It was just habit, not planning, that had made me bring it. I swear.

  I poured some into my hand and beckoned her over. Like a meek kitten, she knelt at my feet and pulled her hair over her shoulder so I could do her back. I rubbed the lotion onto her soft shoulders and down her spine. When I got to the strap of her bikini, I slid my fingers under it, oiling every part of her back.

  Pulling gently on her shoulder, I got her to lean back and turn her face to the sky. Now I put the lotion the front of her shoulders, making slow circles that expanded down her chest. When I touched her breasts, she made the slightest sound, so quiet you could pretend you didn’t hear it.