by MP Frank
Gaëlle blushed. “It’s a bit chilly to be going out with nothing under a dress, so if you want to be so kind, I’ll accept gracefully, although I could always borrow some from Dani.”
“No good. Hers are big on me, so they wouldn’t fit you, either. Besides, I don’t want to disturb them. Come on, I’ll let you choose.”
Amélie showed Gaëlle to her room. There was still no sign of life from her parents. It seemed to entertain Amélie to display her array of knickers for Gaëlle to pick from. Gaëlle thought wryly of the contents of her own underwear drawer at age fourteen. Everything white, everything sensible, including the horrible bra she’d still been wearing when she met Jérôme.
“You aren’t a thong person, I’d have said,” Amélie pronounced. “But I’d put money on it that the white cottons you wore last night aren’t usual for you, either.” She picked out a pair of skimpy red knickers. “These, I think.”
Gaëlle took them, turned her back on the girl and put them on. She pulled her dress straight before turning to face Amélie again
“Oh, come on!” Amélie said. “Surely you’re going to let me see how they look?”
“I’m not sure I should be flashing my knickers at a fourteen year old,” Gaëlle said.
“It isn’t flashing, it’s modelling. And they aren’t yours, anyway, they’re mine! Besides, I’d like to know how they look on a real woman.”
Gaëlle turned and lifted her dress.
“Wow! They look great on you! I can see the shape of your…” Amélie paused, searching for a suitable word.
“Labia?” Gaëlle suggested.
“Yes, that. It makes you look just as sexy as when you had nothing on! I hope one day I’ll be as sexy when I flash someone,” Amélie said.
Gaëlle examined the girl. “You’ve already lost a kilo or two compared with the photos I’ve seen from last summer,” she said. “Keep at the sport and you’ll look fantastic in a few years’ time. If I’m around then, I’ll be happy for you to show me I was right.”
“I’ll hold you to that. And I will work at it. Mum is in good shape for her age, but you’d get as much attention from the boys in my group as Dad does from the girls.” Amélie paused. “Haven’t you ever had pubic hair?”
“I shave it, or have it waxed. I like the look.”
“Which do you prefer, shaving or wax?”
Gaëlle thought for a moment. “Waxing gives a better result and lasts a lot longer, but there’s something about the ritual of using a blade that is very satisfying, especially when someone else does it for you.”
“Would it suit me, do you think?”
“Maybe not just yet. In a few years’ time, you might want to try it out. Right now, it might make you look as if you’d never had any. Like a little girl.”
Amélie shook her head vigorously. “Wouldn’t want that.”
“I agree. Plenty of time to experiment later,” Gaëlle said.
Down the hallway, a door opened.
“Oops, there’s one of them now,” Amélie said. “Best if we meet them in the kitchen.”
They crept down the stairs and were finishing their coffee when David appeared, wearing pyjamas.
“Hi, Amélie,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “This is Gaëlle.”
“We already did the introductions,” Amélie said, with a straight face. “I lent her mum’s dressing gown.”
“Ah, yes. Gaëlle wasn’t expecting to spend the night here, but with the snow, you know…”
“Of course, Dad. Coffee?”
David took his coffee and a cup for Dani back to the bedroom. Soon afterwards, the rhythmic creaking of the bed told its own story.
Amélie giggled. “Don’t you want to go and join them?” she asked. “Isn’t that what you came for?”
“No, it isn’t. I came for a quiet dinner with old friends. It didn’t turn out like that, but still, your parents are entitled to privacy for what they’re doing just now, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so. I just thought you’d want to join in.”
“There are times for that and times for a couple to be together alone. You’ll find that out in due course, if you choose. Fourteen is a bit soon for you to know even as much as you do.”
Amélie pulled a face, but didn’t pursue the matter. The bedroom door opened again and Dani skipped across the landing at the top of the stairs and into the bathroom, wearing only her knickers. She emerged ten minutes later, clutching a towel to her and came down to the kitchen.
“I lent your dressing gown to Gaëlle,” Amélie informed her, deadpan. Her mother grabbed the dressing gown from the back of Gaëlle’s chair and slipped it on.
“Very generous of you. Couldn’t Gaëlle have borrowed yours?” Dani asked with an ironic smile.
“I didn’t think of that,” Amélie replied. “She’s wearing my knickers, though.” There was a silence. “I only came for some boot socks. I’m off back to my friends, now. I hope I’ll see you again,” she said, turning to Gaëlle. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Give my love to Jojo and her parents,” Dani said. “We’ll expect you back on Saturday. Behave nicely.”
“Don’t I always?” Amélie called, as she picked up her bag and left.
“Actually, she does,” Dani said to Gaëlle, taking the chair opposite her at the kitchen table. “But she’s a deep one, our Amélie.”
“Very mature for her age,” Gaëlle agreed.
“David and I were just talking about you,” Dani said.
“Before or after the morning quickie?” Gaëlle asked with a smile.
“You could hear us? So Amélie…”
“She heard, too, but wasn’t at all surprised or shocked, don’t worry.”
“We’re still learning about this house. Maybe David and I should use a different bedroom.”
“I wouldn’t bother. As I said, Amélie took it in stride, and she seemed to like the idea that you two were having fun. So what did you and David decide about me? That I need to get my head examined?”
“You don’t need a head-doctor. What you need is a friend—more than one, if possible. People you can put your trust in totally.”
“In fact, what you need is another person like yourself,” David added, coming into the kitchen.
“We know from Jérôme that you’re a caring person, and how you’re always helping out your friends. What a great listener you are, too.” Dani said. “And that’s what you need. We’d love to do it, but Strasbourg is too far for us to be effective. It needs to be someone who can be contacted in person, at a moment’s notice.”
“Can you explain to me why I need this? I thought I was managing not too badly.”
Dani sat back and thought, then began, “Last night we both sensed an element of desperation in you, Gaëlle. We’d worked out that you did some fairly extreme exploring with Jérôme, but we think you were able to do that partly because, when an experience was over, you were able to go back to life with someone who loved you and cared for you. You were working from a base of security, which allowed you to take risks. That cocoon disappeared when Jérôme died.”
“Go on, I’m listening.”
“Judging from your new piercing and the pin you put in it last night, you think you’re ready to do some more experimenting, but on your own. Are we right?” David asked. Gaëlle nodded. “But you feel very alone, and in some way you feel guilty about enjoying it, so you’re punishing your body by making yourself look, in your opinion, ugly.”
Gaëlle nodded again. It made sense. “So what do you think I should do?” she asked.
“Not should, but could,” Dani corrected her. “It’s your decision. But we think if you could find someone you trust almost as much as Jérôme, then you could explore in safety.”
“I don’t want another man in my life.”
“Who said a man? And it doesn’t have to be a lover, just a really good friend.”
“I’ll think about it.” Gaëlle looked at the
clock and stood up. “Can you take me back, please? I ought to get changed and resume my rôle as normal human being.”
Dani stood and hugged her. “You are normal, Gaëlle, wonderfully so. Listen, any time you want to come to see us, you’re welcome. If you want to join in our games, too, but that isn’t part of the deal.”
Gaëlle kissed David, and Dani drove her back to Jerome’s parents’ house. The rest of her stay drifted by in a pleasant succession of days, and when she returned to Strasbourg, she felt she’d had a good rest. She pottered round her flat, cleaning and dusting, then turned to the pile of washing she’d accumulated on holiday. Sorting through the coloured wash when it had finished, she picked out Amélie’s knickers. She’d have to return them. She put them on a radiator to dry, then ironed them, packed them neatly and sent them off. Three days later, she got a letter from Annecy. She looked at the envelope. Amélie might be mature for her age, but she still had a schoolgirl’s writing. She slit the envelope open.
Dear Gaëlle,
I hope I can say dear Gaëlle, although we’ve only met once. But I saw more of you than most people who call you dear Gaëlle, so I’m going to. Thank you for sending my knickers back. They are my favourite pair, the ones I wear when I want to feel grown-up and sexy. I shall think of you every time I put them on. Is it peculiar that I like the idea that they have been so close to you? If it is, I’m sorry but I can’t help it.
Mum has told me a little about you. Nothing too intimate, don’t worry! I didn’t let her know I’d seen you in bed with them, or that I’d seen you with no clothes on. I don’t want to make her life, or mine, more complicated! She told me about your Jérôme and what a wonderful couple you were. I’m sorry you lost him. I would have liked to meet him. Although you might not have appreciated that, because I’d most likely have flirted terribly with him! But something tells me that wouldn’t have bothered you. Am I right?
Since you told Mum that we heard her and Dad hard at it, she’s been treating me much more like an adult. They don’t hide so much now, although there’s been no mention of the ropes and other toys. They’re entitled to some secrets, I suppose.
You may be wondering why I’m writing all this stuff to you. Well, the truth is that I have nobody else. Sorry if that isn’t flattering, but I think you’ll understand. What I know about my parents can’t be told to my school friends. It would be round the town, with extras, the following day! Gaël wouldn’t want to know. Boys! As teenagers, we are so much closer to being women than they are to being men, aren’t we?
I’ve rabbited on long enough and I want to get this in the post. What I want to ask is, will you read the stuff I write? Will you give me your opinion on my thinking? I need a friend like you and I want to be your friend.
Kisses,
Amélie
Gaëlle thought deeply for a couple of days, then she picked up the phone and called Dani. “Hello, Dani, it’s Gaëlle. Listen, I got a letter of thanks from Amélie, which was nice. She says she wants me to be her confidante, for things she’d rather not discuss with you. I don’t think she means the birds and bees, but maybe for when she’s confused. How would you feel about that?”
“I’d like to think my daughter could discuss anything at all with me. But since she feels she can’t, I’d much rather it was you than anyone else. I hope you’d let us know if there was anything that became serious or threatening. The world is much more dangerous now than when we were her age.”
“I’ll tell her in advance that I won’t conceal anything from you that I think you need to know, but that I’ll always give her the chance to tell you herself first. Would that resolve the problem?”
“It would. I trust you to keep her safe, Gaëlle.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Amélie’s next note agreed to the terms. If she was unhappy that Gaëlle had told her mother of her request, she didn’t say so, just that she was relieved that Dani was okay with it.
From Gaëlle’s Journal
My life goes from complication to complication. Now I’m the mentor for an adolescent! I’ll have to be very careful how I react to Amélie’s correspondence. I don’t want to be accused of perverting a minor. However, she feels she needs to exchange ideas with someone she can trust and I appear to have been elected. Now I’m back home, I can quite see Dani’s point, that I’ve been mistreating my body to forgive myself for exploring without my darling Jérôme. I have the right to do as I please, and when I think back, Jérôme never denied me any experience that tempted me, which gave me the confidence to take risks. Now, I’ve nobody to turn to if things go wrong, unless Maya is prepared to do that for me. She’s already being the friend that David and Dani think I need. I’ll have to see if I dare ask her.
About the Author
MP Franck is the pen-name of a writer, translator and former teacher. Half-Irish, he lives mostly in France.