The First Love

by Erinne Bates

  “It wasn’t half bad,” I said. “Next time, it’s my pick.”

  In my room, I got ready for bed and was about to look at some notes I had made earlier when there was a tap at the door.

  “Entrez Vous,” I sang out in my best attempt at a French accent. Fenne’s head peeked in before opening the door fully. She was carrying a cup with steam coming from it.

  “It’s just Entrez,” she said as she entered. “I thought you could use this,” she handed me the cup of hot clear liquid. A single purple flower lay in it, and I could easily smell both lemon and lavender. “To soothe your nerves after watching that terrible movie.”

  “You made this?” I asked, taking a sip. It tasted of fresh lavender with a hint of lemon. I had not had a tea so perfectly infused, I was tempted to ask if there was any more.

  “I had to put cotton in my ears to drown out the screaming, so I went downstairs and took some herbs from the garden to make this for you. I saw you looking at them earlier. The lavender is my favorite. I wasn’t sure if you’d like the lemon, but it’s mild.”

  “It’s really delicious, thank you,” I said. I was more than moved by her thoughtful action. I’ll admit, I felt an attraction to her. I watched her as she was looking at me. I knew I was too old for her, but I wondered how she’d respond if I moved a loose curl away from her face.

  “Are you going to work now?” she asked. I stepped backward, away from her, even though I had not actually reached for her face, and gulped the remaining tea which had cooled.

  “I was thinking about it. Why?”

  “Can I read – some?” It was as though she choked and had to clear her throat right in the middle of asking me. I nodded and handed her printed pages of the first two chapters I had brought from home.

  “This is still in need of revising,” I said, feeling the need to justify the quality of the content.

  “Don’t apologize for your work. A draft is not the final work.”

  I thought she would take it back to her own room, but she remained standing in the same place as her eyes moved over the first page. I watched her expression become focused. She looked pretty standing in the soft light of the table lamp next to my bed. I would need the ceiling lamp to see, but youthful eyes are not affected by dim lighting. When I realized I was staring for too long, I turned away and took my notes to my desk, switching on another lamp.

  “Why does she do this?” Fenne insisted, the papers slapping against her leg as her hand dropped when she looked up from them.

  “She believes she has been called,”

  “Called? How can this be? How can she know this is what she should do?”

  “I don’t understand what you are referring to,” I swiveled around in my chair to face her.

  “You start with this woman already in a meeting with these officials. She is posing as a man? She puts herself in this danger?”

  I nodded.

  “And then“-she flipped through two more pages- “here is she having dinner with this man and his wife. How did nobody not know?”

  I smiled and approached her. “You’ll just have to read it and find out,” I said.

  “This is why I stick to factual events. These lies are too complicated.”

  Fenne was frustrated. I thought she was going to march out of my room, but she sat on my bed instead and continued reading. I liked that my writing had caused a reaction. I decided trying to work was going to be pointless and took out a book I had brought from home.

  “You know, this stuff did happen during the war. There are documentaries about actual women who posed as men in order to fight and even spy. My story just happens to be made up, but it’s not entirely make-believe.”

  While Fenne sat on one side of my bed with her legs stretched out, I sat next to her and read from Orlando, by Virginia Woolf.

  “Calli – Calli,” Fenne whispered urgently while shaking me from my sleep. Orlando fell to the floor as I sat up and looked around the room. Fenne was still next to me on the bed.

  “What is it?” The digital clock read 00:09. It was just after midnight and I had only been asleep an hour.

  “Let’s go to the Palace.” The earnestness in her voice made it sound incredibly alluring.

  “It’s closed, Fenne. Are you dreaming right now?” I searched her eyes but they were definitely alert and looking directly at mine.

  “Do you think I don’t know what time it is?” she said with exasperation, though I doubt she meant it rhetorically. I sat for a moment, listening to my body, expecting it to reject the idea, but instead, I felt excited at the thought of partaking in Fenne’s crazy invitation. I dressed then met Fenne in the hall and tip-toed down the stairs together.

  In the cool night air, we raced toward the direction of the Palace on the bikes we had ridden before. I half-expected the sidewalks would be empty at that hour, but they were just filling with others engaged in their own adventures. Instead of staying on the paved road as we approached the main entrance of the Versailles Palace, Fenne turned onto a path that was no longer lit and eventually no longer paved. I could barely see the dark ground while I felt the bicycle bounce and heard its parts rattle beneath me.

  “Is this the right way?” I called to Fenne who was getting farther ahead.

  “Yes, don’t stop!” she shouted back. The distance between us continued to grow. I peddled faster to try to keep up but I was not making any gains on her. The darkness felt like it was closing in as I struggled to see her ahead of me. I could see the lights from the Palace, but we did not seem to be riding toward them. Breathless and with panic rising, tears formed, blurring my already strained vision. I started to feel angry and silly and afraid all at the same time. What was I doing in the middle of the night on a bike in pitch darkness? I felt lost. Left behind.

  “Over here!”

  I looked up to see a tiny flashlight waving just off to the right.

  “I did not enjoy that,” I grumbled when I reached Fenne who was not even slightly winded.

  “Are you crying?” she looked at my eyes as though she was inspecting them for debris. I wiped whatever wetness remained.

  “I got scared,” I said, walking my bike past her with indignance.

  “Oh.” She stayed silently beside me for a few steps, “I thought you were right behind me.”

  “Sorry, just forget it,” I said, still marching forward, “I forgot I’m not twenty anymore.”

  As we walked our bikes along a dark narrow worn path Fenne whistled loudly like a bird. Suddenly a bright yellow light flashed on and off in the distance.

  “What are we doing?” I asked.

  “Keep quiet, I want to surprise you a little bit,” she whispered back. When we reached a man holding the flashlight, Fenne spoke in Dutch to him. “This is my good friend, Noah,” she said to me. “He works here.”

  “Just remember, do not go anywhere you would not go during the day when it is open,” he said to us as we followed him along a new path that opened into a garden. “You have your flashlights, yes?”

  “Yeah, we are set,” Fenne answered and handed me a tiny flashlight from the nylon backpack she had strapped to her back.

  “Good. You are in the Queen’s Grove,” he said and left us. We stood still in the dark silence for a few moments.

  “This is where the Queen spent many questionable evenings,” Fenne said to me, her light scanning the grounds.

  “What did he mean by ‘don’t go anywhere you wouldn’t go during the day’?”

  “Well, one time they found me in the King’s quarters…” her eyes turned sheepish, “On his bed.” Even I could guess that was critically off limits. We left the bicycles resting against thick hedges and made our way along what felt like a maze to me, but Fenne appeared to know well. Some of the path was lit while other parts were so dark I had to grab Fenne’s arm for guidance.

  We entered a building where enormous paintings lined the walls.

  “We are in the south wing of the Palace now,
” Fenne said in a near whisper. “The Gallery of Battles.”

  “I’ve read about this,” I said. “Thirty-three paintings, all to commemorate France’s victories in war.” We walked steadily from one end to the other. I followed closely behind Fenne trying to take in as much as I could. When we exited the Gallery, she led me hurriedly through a series of dark halls and doors until one of them opened into a large courtyard.

  “This is the Royal Courtyard,” she said. “From here you can enter most any part of the Palace.” Fenne walked ahead of me while I absorbed the towering walls with countless windows and large pillars and sculptures facing the court.

  “I like to sit here.” She had walked to where the stone bricks became marble and sat cross-legged with her palms flat against the ground. I walked along the courtyard, listening to the soles of my shoes against the stone. Everything, including the air, was still. The sound of a pigeon’s flapping wing echoed periodically as it situated itself in its nest. Finally, I joined Fenne in the middle of it all and laid back against the cool marble to stare at the universe above us.

  “This is amazing,” I said.

  “Mm,” she took her pack off and used it to rest her head on as she laid back next to me. “There are many brilliant things to see tonight but I want to take you to one place in particular.”

  We laid there together until my body could no longer fight the cool ground and I began to shiver. I sat up and looked at Fenne who remained still with her eyes closed. She looked so peaceful, I wondered if she had fallen asleep. I studied the fullness of her lips, her smooth skin. She was lucky to be young and able to experience so much, I thought to myself. I wanted to know so much more about her. I wanted to know more about the things that captivated her and why. What was beneath the serious analytic exterior? What made her lose control with laughter? What made her… lose control?

  “It’s getting chilly,” she said. I looked away, embarrassed to have been caught studying her the way that I was, though her eyes had remained closed when she spoke. “We don’t have too much time left, let’s go to the next place.”

  When we entered the Royal Chapel, I gasped and laughed at the same time. I don’t know why I laughed, really, I was just instantly overcome with veneration.

  “I know,” she said. “The finest baroque architecture in all of France.” I followed her down the center of the elaborate polychrome marble floor that was the main level. I lost count of the massive pillars that stood freely on the level above us.

  “No one is permitted in here,” she whispered as we stopped before the majestic altar.

  “Should we go?” I said, feeling a surge of panic.

  “Not yet,” she replied calmly. “Don’t worry, I come here all the time.”

  I lifted my eyes to the pipes of a spectacular organ located on the level above us, followed by ceremonial paintings that covered all parts of the ceiling as well as the upper parts of the walls.

  “God the Father, in His glory, by Antoine Coypel,” Fenne said pointing her finger upward toward the center of the vaulted ceiling. “Over there is where the king would sit.”

  My eyes followed her upstretched hand behind us toward the second level gallery.

  “Above his seat is the Descent of the Holy Ghost, by Jean Jouvenet.” When she dropped her hand, I felt her fingers brush against mine.

  With the opposite hand, she then pointed toward the apse just above us as her index finger gently hooked around mine. “The Resurrection of Christ by Charles de La Fosse.”

  Startled by her touch, I tensed for just a moment, then opened my fingers to twine with hers.

  As I stood before the high altar, beneath the magnificent organ, feeling as though I should fall to my knees and repent before the God I had long ago decided was not real, Fenne silently watched me, while her delicate fingers held mine.

  “How can one not believe in a divine power while standing in such a holy place?” I said softly, finally having the courage to turn to her.

  “Don’t you?” she asked.

  I shook my head and looked into her eyes for a sign of concurrence or otherwise. There was neither, but a look of longing as she began to lean towards me. Sensing what was about to happen I put my hand up.

  “Wait – “ She has to be making a mistake, I thought. She was caught in a moment as was I. I was a lot older than she was and if she thought about it, she probably didn’t want to do what she was about to do.

  I couldn’t deflect the intense seduction of her gaze, however. Her hand lightly touched my face as I watched her lips draw nearer to mine again. “Are you sure?” I quietly murmured before giving into them.

  Her lips were tender, not forceful and eager as mine were at that age. She was patient and gave me time to let go of my inhibition before cupping my face with both of her hands and letting her own passion come forth. Electricity coursed through my thighs instantly. I pulled her closer, gripping her slender waist in my hands. She stepped back and looked at me. A slight up-turn formed in the corners of her mouth.

  Taking me by the hand we left the chapel then raced across the royal courtyard, then back through the gallery until we were back in the Queen’s Grove. I felt alive and fearless beside her. Backless sculptured benches bordered a small pond where we stopped to catch our breath. Fenne produced a short container of boxed wine from her pack and twisted the plastic lid.

  “I cannot believe it – boxed wine in France,” I teased.

  “I am a poor student but one day will have only the best wine,” she said theatrically, laughing.

  She took a sip then handed it to me. We made out on that bench in the Queen’s Grove in the Palace of Versailles. Then we made love back in my room.

  When the morning sunlight crept in, I tip-toed down the stairs and into the kitchen to prepare a plate of pastries and boiled water for the coffee press. Several times I caught myself smiling as I filled a small tray with bread and whatever looked like breakfast food from the fridge. I didn’t even know if Fenne drank coffee, but I took heavy cream from the refrigerator and poured it into a tiny ceramic cup then tried to balance all of it on the tray while it clattered as I climbed the stairs back to my room. She was still sleeping when I set the tray at the foot of the bed. I could not bring myself to wake her. Inside I was giddy, as my mind retraced the moment her hand reached for mine and the way she kissed me beneath the frescos of the vaulted ceiling in the Palace’s most sacred building. I moved the tray from the bed to my desk and slid beneath the covers, wrapping my arm around Fenne’s waist to pull her closer to me. Within a moment of closing my eyes, I had fallen back to sleep.

  Chapter 16

  When I awoke the second time Fenne was sitting cross-legged next to me holding a coffee in one hand and my book, Orlando, in the other.

  “You do drink coffee,” I said, sitting upright.

  “Well, not usually, but since you made it I thought it would be rude not to at least try it.”

  “It must have gotten cold though-“

  “It was, but I keep a microwave in my room, so I heated it.”

  I chuckled because I could only imagine how awful it must have tasted to someone who preferred the lighter taste of tea.

  “Do you have any thoughts on it?”

  “Both are addictive and harmful if consumed in large amounts.”

  I smiled and took the cup from her hand, setting on the nightstand next to the bed. I pushed a strand of hair behind her ears before I kissed her mouth.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “So, it wasn’t a dream,” she said taking my hand. I shook my head. “I’d like to have coffee with you again, then.”

  “There are ways to make it taste better,” I said. “Where I live, we pour lots of sugar and steamed milk in it and then dip our bread which is completely toasted with butter. Fenne’s expression only changed by the crease in her brow.

  “That would cause pieces of the bread to fall away and remain with the coffee.”

  “Doesn’t tha
t happen when you dip your biscuits- or whatever they’re called, in your tea?”

  Fenne’s dark eyes stayed glued on mine, which distracted me from the seriousness of the conversation, albeit only one of us was being serious. While she spent her split-second processing cookie crumbs in her tea, I replayed the image her eyes amid the peak of her orgasm.

  “I don’t dip anything in my tea,” she said, then, “but sweet milky coffee sounds good.”

  “And the book?” I asked which was still between her fingers now resting on the bed.

  “This is a dilemma, I can see it already,” she only half-mused.

  I could see part of her worried for poor Orlando. I kissed her again as I took the book from her fingers and set it aside. I now knew why she choked when she asked to read my story. Why she wasn’t lying when she said she preferred to stick to non-fiction. She pulled me beneath her so that she lay over me. “Tell me again it wasn’t a dream and I will return to my room to begin my studies.”

  “Why would I want you to leave?” I teased caressing her face.

  She smiled but remained over me, waiting for the words. “Why me?” I asked instead.

  “You get me.”

  “I’m older,” I said, finally releasing my concern.

  “Calli, do you actually think someone my age would be a better fit? Come on, I’m older than you even.” She smiled but I could see in her eyes she needed to know that I cared. I was startled at how her response dispelled my own insecurity and I hesitated.

  “Please, say it.”

  “It wasn’t a dream,” I said, then added, “I promise.”

  Outside the door, we could hear someone stomping up the stairs and banging on the walls as they approached.

  “You had better come out of there before I eat every last bit of lunch our lady of the house has prepared!” Sofie called from the other side of the door. She knocked, “If you don’t answer I am coming in there anyway.” Fenne opened the door for Sofie who ran straight for the bed, throwing herself across the middle which included my legs.