by MP Frank
Very little alteration was needed to get the dress to fit Gaëlle, and she modelled it for Jérôme a day or so later. “Actually, you’re right,” he said. “It suits you. Those little puff sleeves hide your mighty shoulders. It makes you look almost feminine.”
Gaëlle biffed him casually with the nearest thing to hand, which happened to be the telephone directory. It made a satisfying thunk on Jérôme’s head. He grinned, and said, “And if you were to open a few of those buttons, it could become quite sexy.” Gaëlle unfastened several of the buttons and spun round. The skirt of the dress flared out, showing most of her thighs. Jérôme applauded.
“Told you so,” he said.
Gaëlle arrived at the captain’s house the following week wearing the dress. As she walked into the room, she was nervous, hoping he wouldn’t be offended. She needn’t have worried. His eyes lit up and he nodded vigorously.
Lovely, he wrote. Suits you.
The session passed quickly. As she was gathering her things to leave, he wrote again.
Same dress another time?
“If it makes you happy,” Gaëlle said, and smiled. She kissed him on the forehead again before she left. She wore the dress for him several times after that. Eventually, though, the time had come when Gaëlle was ready to get a job and she signed up with an agency. She’d already told the captain that the coming week would be her last session with him. She dressed with special care, wearing thigh-high stockings. She put on more makeup than usual, basing it on a Rogers and Astaire film she’d watched on television. She felt good as she walked into the sitting room at the captain’s house. She looked at the pad in front of him. He had already written—
I will miss you.
“I have to earn money!” Gaëlle joked. “Do you like my final performance?”
He nodded and smiled. She sat down and read the newspaper to him. When she’d finished, he picked up his pen.
Walk for me? You walk well.
“Like this?” Gaëlle asked. She stood and walked around the room. The dress made her feel as though she should swing her hips, so she did, allowing the material to swirl around her legs. She sketched a dance step, holding the dress out wide, then curtseyed to the captain.
He laughed and banged his hand on the table in appreciation.
Gaëlle unbuttoned the dress to just above her knees and looked at him, a question in her eyes.
He nodded.
She unfastened the dress further, revealing more of her thighs. The appreciation in his eyes was obvious. Should she do more? She let go of the hem of the dress and saw disappointment in his face. She pulled a dining chair over and sat down facing him. Slowly, she allowed the front panels of the dress to fall apart, revealing first her knees, then her thighs, then the tops of her stockings.
The captain looked her in the eye and nodded again.
Gaëlle unfastened one more button and showed her underwear to him. In the spirit of the dress, she had chosen to wear cream silk French knickers. She pulled the dress back together, draping it decorously over her knees.
The captain pulled a face.
Gaëlle let the dress fall apart again, taking her time to reveal her legs. When the dress was hanging open on either side of her thighs, she moved closer to his wheelchair.
He reached out his hand and plucked at the elastic of Gaëlle’s knickers.
“Would you like me to take them off?” Gaëlle asked. His nod was emphatic. “I have a better idea,” she said. “You can take them off for me.”
He waved his single hand and grimaced.
“Don’t you want to try?” she asked. She slid forward on her chair, thighs apart, so that she was within reach.
The captain stretched and slipped his fingers under the elastic. He tugged, and the knickers slid down a little.
Gaëlle decided she’d have to help him, so, as he pulled them down at one side, she imitated the movement on the other hip. Gradually, her knickers slipped off her. Once they were round her thighs, he was able to ease them off entirely. Gaëlle unhooked her feet and parted her legs more widely.
The captain reached out his hand again, and Gaëlle boosted her pelvis towards him, to allow him to touch. He stroked her sex and raised his hand to his nose. He nodded and picked up his pen.
Wonderful perfume. Thank you. Please go now.
Gaëlle stood up, letting the dress drop to restore her decency. She gathered her coat and retrieved her knickers, putting them into her handbag. She leaned over and kissed his forehead. The captain took hold of her hand and bowed over it, in a formal kiss. He waved his hand in farewell and Gaëlle went home.
Gaëlle sat back. That dress, along with much of her early erotic wardrobe, had gone up in flames in the house fire just before they’d left England. She’d been a couple of times more to see the captain, but neither of them had referred back to the dress or to the events of her final visit. Just before Jérôme and Gaëlle had returned to France, she’d gone to visit the old man, but the house was empty and a neighbour told her that the man’s family had shunted him off to a nursing home.
Gaëlle sighed. There had been so many little erotic outings in her life with Jérôme. That one had slipped her mind entirely until Maya had triggered the memory. However, she thought, it had been her own decision to show to the captain and to have him pull her knickers down. Unlike Emmanuelle, she didn’t need anyone to tell her what to do. Jérôme had approved thoroughly. Gaëlle smiled to herself and went to wash the coffee cups.
Chapter Twenty-four
Gaëlle returned to see Maurice a fortnight later. This time, she went alone, feeling that it wasn’t fair to assume that Madeleine would want to see the piercing taking place. She rang the bell and waited. Maurice opened the door and inhaled deeply.
“Ah, it’s Madeleine’s friend Gaëlle, isn’t it?” he said.
“Do I smell so bad?” Gaëlle asked, as she sat down on the sofa where Maurice indicated. He took an upright chair.
“Absolutely not! But I recognized your eau de toilette from last time. It’s Azzaro, isn’t it? Quite an old-style scent.”
“Yes, it is. I’ve been using it for a good ten years.”
“It suits you. Not too flowery, but definitely feminine, rather than girly.”
“Thank you. That’s just as well, because that’s pretty much how I see myself. Girly doesn’t sit too well with a forty-three year old body.”
“Forty-three? I would have said more like thirty-three, from the texture of your skin.”
Gaëlle laughed. “I can see that I should come here more often,” she said. “It’s always nice to be flattered.”
“It only counts as flattery when it isn’t true,” Maurice told her. “I would have put you as well-maintained mid-thirties, from your skin and muscle tone.”
“Thank you again, then. Now, I’ve thought about it carefully, and I’d like you to do me a triangle piercing, Maurice. Do I have to make an appointment?”
“I’m no longer in the profession, so no appointment. Madeleine brought you and that’s good enough for me.” Maurice waved his hand in the direction of the massage table. “Shall we?”
Gaëlle had dressed for the occasion in a short skirt. She took it off and laid it aside, then pulled her knickers down and off. She climbed onto the table and lay back as she had on the previous occasion, soles of feet together and knees apart. Maurice had organized his needles by then. He cleaned her sex carefully and eased her clitoris hood out from the cleft of her sex.
“I said about here, last time, didn’t I?” Maurice asked. He was touching exactly the point he had marked the week before, in behind the shaft of Gaëlle’s clitoris. She was surprised and pleased that he could be so accurate about something he couldn’t see.
“Yes, if that’s where you think it should be,” she answered.
“Try to stay relaxed, then,” he instructed her. Gaëlle breathed out and loosened her abdominal muscles. Even as she was doing so, a sharp stabbing sensation told her that t
he deed was done. “Ouf!” she said. “That was quick!”
“No point in wasting time. I’ll put a temporary horseshoe through it for the moment.”
“A horseshoe?”
“The technical term is circular barbell, but I’ve always thought of it as a horseshoe, because that’s what its shape is most like. I imagine that you already have some suitable jewellery at home. Leave this in overnight, keep it clean and don’t forget to turn it.”
Gaëlle sat up and bent over to examine her new piercing. She had to part her inner labia to see it properly. Maurice’s horseshoe was hooked through her clitoris hood, in behind the clitoris itself. The open ends sat neatly on either side of her clitoris hood. When she touched it, she could feel how the metal rubbed, stimulating her gently. “That’s lovely,” she said. “I know how much it would cost to have this done at a tattooing parlour, so I must pay you properly.”
“Absolutely not!” Maurice said. “I get my reward from doing a good job and being allowed to keep my hand in at piercing. I don’t need your money.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you,” Gaëlle said. “If you won’t take it, is there a charity that you’d like me to contribute to? I can’t just leave it at that.”
They agreed that Gaëlle would make a suitable gift to a charity for the blind, appropriately enough. She said goodbye and left, thinking that suitable in this case would mean significant. She could afford it.
The following few weeks were largely non-sexual for Gaëlle, as she waited impatiently for the piercing to heal. She concentrated on the gym, toning her body to make herself feel even more physically prepared. Already, though, she was enjoying the new feeling. It took even less stimulation now to give her a buzz. As soon as her clitoris was woken up by something she saw, or even just a sexy thought, she was aware of the piercing. Eventually she was able to take out the horseshoe and see how she felt and looked with some of her own rings. She quickly realised that most of them were not suitable. They twisted sideways too easily, and that could be quite painful. She would have to get some new decorations. First, though, she had to see whether Jérôme’s little pin would work. One evening, unable to wait any longer, she stripped off, sat on her bed and took the pin out of its case. As usual, she would have to contort herself to see what she was doing, even with the aid of the mirror, which she had positioned and balanced carefully.
It would look better when she was waxed, she thought. She’d last shaved her pubic hair some weeks before and it was growing again. Looking at herself in the mirror, she felt a little ashamed that she’d let Maurice see her with hairs starting to peep through, but she’d been so keen to get the piercing done that she hadn’t got round to shaving again. Then she remembered he couldn’t see her anyway, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She eased the horseshoe out of the piercing and stretched her clitoris hood as much as she could. Fumbling slightly, she picked up the thicker part of Jérôme’s gift and worked it through the hole. Her fingers were soon slippery from her juices and it wasn’t easy to see exactly where it should go, but she persevered. The next part was even more finicky, as she screwed the other half of the pin into the first part. Up to this point, Gaëlle had kept the pin parallel with the axis of her sex. Now it was in place, she was facing the moment of truth. She pulled on it and turned it through ninety degrees, to lie across the cleft of her sex. There! It was done! She examined herself in the little mirror.
From the time that Jérôme had first shaved her sex, Gaëlle had always been pleased with its neat, bare outline. When she’d worn the pin before, it had drawn her clitoris hood out just enough to make her inner labia visible between the outer lips. With the new piercing, however, it was the whole of the hood that was dragged outside the cleft of her sex. As she’d anticipated, inserting the pin had stimulated her clitoris, which was now peeping out from its hood. It was becoming engorged now, and the pressure on the pin, which was in behind it, was increasing too. That, in turn, excited Gaëlle even more. She realized that she was holding her breath. It was just as arousing but also just as physically challenging as she’d anticipated. If she was honest, on this first trial, it was painful. She could only hope that as the piercing healed, she would be able to tolerate the discomfort.
Satisfied that it would be just about possible to wear the pin under the right circumstances, Gaëlle took it out. Where the pin had pressed into the skin on either side of her labia, it left an indentation. Gaëlle replaced the horseshoe. Now she could relax. She could still feel the stimulation, but it was nowhere near as powerful nor as excruciating as with Jérôme’s pin. She lay back and pondered. When and where could she wear the pin? For how long could she tolerate it, also? Could she arrange to let it be seen? She knew it didn’t make her sex look prettier, quite the reverse, in fact. When she’d worn a ring in her earlier piercing, it had drawn attention to her depilated state, while still maintaining the neat contour of her sex. Now, however, her clitoris hood and inner labia would be trapped in position, dragged outside the cleft and held in place. It spoiled the clean lines of her lower abdomen. She decided she looked indecent or lewd, pretty much as she’d hoped.
Gaëlle had seen many women who, in their natural state, looked as she appeared with the pin in place. Magda, from her first ever trio with Jérôme, had been like that. Gaëlle recalled sucking hard on Magda’s hanging inner labia. Her mouth watered with the memory. The thought that someone could now do the same for herself led her to have a quick, finger-powered orgasm. She rolled off the bed, determined not to let her new toy become an obsession. She cooked for herself and went to bed with Fred Vargas, as she so often did when she wanted a distraction from erotic thoughts.
Chapter Twenty-five
Gaëlle had accepted an invitation to spend the end of year holiday with Jérôme’s parents just outside Annecy. In fact, she had chosen the date for her piercing with Christmas in mind. She was fond of her parents-in-law, who were an active pair, although well into their seventies. Her stay at their *home would be a hiatus in her resumption of erotic activity. Gaëlle was looking forward to that, as well as to letting her piercing heal quietly. She drove down the third week of December and was made very welcome. The house was already decorated, since Jérôme’s brother Léon and his family were also expected. Gaëlle spent the following week enjoying a family Christmas. A few days later, she was reading in the sitting room when the doorbell rang, and Léon led in Danièle and David, old friends of Jérôme’s, and whom she also knew.
“Hello, stranger,” Danièle said, kissing Gaëlle.
“What a surprise!” Gaëlle said. “What on earth are you doing here? I thought you lived in Belfort.”
“We moved back six months ago,” David said. “And we’d no idea you were here, either, until I bumped into Léon yesterday. And don’t complain that we didn’t tell you we’d moved! If there’s a worse correspondent than you in the whole world, I’ve yet to hear of them. Isn’t that true, Dani?” His wife nodded.
“By the way,” she said, “everyone here calls me Dani, so you must too.”
“Dani it is, then.”
Gaëlle felt guilty. She hadn’t contacted anybody at that awful time, except to thank them formally for their expressions of sorrow on Jérôme’s death. Faced with hiring something the size of Strasbourg cathedral, since hundreds of people wanted to give Jérôme a good send-off, she’d opted for just herself as a witness, wanting to be alone one last time with him. She apologised profusely.
“Would you like to come for supper on Saturday?” David asked her.
“Of course I’ll come,” Gaëlle said. “Very willingly!”
On the Saturday, Gaëlle dressed to go to David and Dani’s house. She hadn’t been planning a wild social life in Annecy, so she had only brought one black dress, which was almost knee-length. It was angora wool, soft and warm. She’d shaved before leaving home, and was still feeling the remarkable difference that always made to the temperature of her lower abdomen. She’d been
very conscious of the cold reaching up under her skirt when she’d gone into the town to complete her shopping a few days earlier. She allowed herself thigh-high stockings, though—it was an article of faith that she never wore tights. Snow was falling thickly, so knickers seemed a sensible idea. Showing her bare bottom was a lovely sensation, she reflected, but she preferred not to do so as the result of falling flat on her back on an icy pavement. Not that it would have mattered, though, as Danièle came to collect her in her large and comfortable car.
“It must be ten years since we last met, but you’d never know it to look at you. Have David and I changed a lot?” Dani asked.
“David hasn’t at all, and you’ve lost weight since the last time we met,” Gaëlle said. “You look good.”
“I couldn’t go on carrying all that fat once I’d seen you,” Dani confessed. “That afternoon I swore to myself that I’d get back in shape.
“You’ve succeeded very satisfactorily, very trim,” Gaëlle responded. “Have you tried any more experiments, since then?”
“Not like that, no.”
Gaëlle waited, but it seemed Dani wasn’t going to say more, so Gaëlle left it at that. They arrived at the house and hurried in out of the snow. Inside, it was warm, and Gaëlle was pleased to shed her overcoat and scarf. Dani took her into the sitting room, and brought coffee and cakes.
“Gaël and Amélie are away,” she said. “Gaël’s off skiing and Amélie is staying with friends for the whole of the holiday. It’s the first time we’ve had just the two of us for years. It’s lovely and peaceful.”
“I’d have liked to meet your children,” Gaëlle said. “Another time, I hope.”
There was a loud battering on the front door, followed by equally loud and cheerful voices in the hall. A small round man burst into the room and hugged Gaëlle. He was followed by an equally round blonde woman.
“Michel!” Gaëlle cried. “And Claire!” She hadn’t seen them since the night at the Blue Parrot, when she’d danced topless for the first time in public. They chatted while Michel demolished the plate of cakes, with very little assistance from the others.