A Good Peace

by Troy Conway

  “Is there any other way?”

  “Mais non, my sweet one. Ah, so prime, so delicious, so grand an instrument of desire. 1 love it so. . . .”

  She showed me how much, lying between my thighs, as I lay back, trying to see the ceiling. My busy little fingers were carefully finessing her curves, working gradually, real snail’s-pace stuff. I had to bring her back by degrees. Her hot mouth had already taken me soaring into the stratosphere. But she didn’t complain or say anything. She just licked away. The Arabesses and the native women of all the pagan cultures get high cards from sex experts when it comes to fellatio but I have never agreed. Any Frenchwoman worth her salt, can match the best of the lip service crowd. Like Brigitte Lebeau, who by design or naturellement knew that slowly scouring the scrotum, tenderly laving the penis head and sliding smoothly along the structure of the phallus makes for great joy and fine growth. Nor did she turn away when the golden gates opened and flooded.

  I let her do that for about an overly long hour and all I did was gain added vitamins. As for her, her yearning grew apace and her vitality returned, ebb tide at first, then quickly gathering into a monumental eagerness that doubled her efforts, making her scramble above me, searching to find the lost chord. When she found it, she sighed with all the happiness in the world that there is for a woman and softly subsided upon me, widening her limber legs as she did. Finally she began to move, to undulate and wriggle and in that sinuous direction, lay Paradise. Paradise enow.

  My fingers had arced her into a wide dark V of lush surrender. Still I waited, letting her salve her battered wound in her own personal way. The healing fluids of our bodies merged and she sighed again, warm and vibrant and fresh as a daisy again. The moment held and she began to sob softly.

  I kissed the nipples of her wondrous breasts as she straddled above me. They were prime and fine, a tribute to her grace and class. In a world of thirty-scven-year-old broads, she was all by herself on top of the hill.

  “Oh, Rod, my pet. . . my desire . . .”

  “Better now?”

  “Better? Best! I am the queen of France . . . ah, you homme . . . I could eat you . . .”

  “Again?”

  “Tease!” She put her thumb against my nose. “My body is healed. You were so soft, so tres sweet . . . now we must begin in earnest. Yes? I am hungry for you. On fire. You must show me all the things you know, the things you do. I am no longer afraid. You must—how do they say it in your country—ball me, baby!”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Sure! What do you wish to do?”

  “Follow me!”

  With a quick movement I reversed her, and forgetting Yankowski, I applied some straight Damon to the situation. The down-from-the-ceiling ploy with the lady’s legs firmly athwart the man’s shoulders. Brigitte didn’t say a word. She simply cooperated and as soon as I dive-bombed into her interior, there was no more holding her. We became two writhing, pumping dynamos, who somewhere in the process managed to fall off the bed, reach the floor and end up near the windows. In the glare of the neon, I showed her how to do The Crab, The Snake and The Monkey’s Uncle, rather animalistic little excercises which are enjoyed by the lower classes all over the spectrum. Still, they have a lot going for them. There are no other positions in all the manuals and secret doctrines that allow for greater proximity between the male and female. Old Arabs and ancient Egyptians had finely different names for these postures but modern technology has reduced them to simpler terms.

  The Crab, particularly, drove Brigitte Lebeau wild.

  “Oh, Rod—I do not complain, you see—but what in the name of heaven are you doing to me?”

  “Scuttling, just scuttling.”

  “Why does it feel so insanely good and different?”

  “Well,” I said, breathing hard, for it calls for an inordinate amount of thrusting, “you see, on the floor like this, with you in front of me, and your derriere plastered to me, as we go around in semicircles in the sideways scuttle, every fibre of your body and mine are trying to mesh while still in movement. See how it feels? Like turning to jelly, like—oh, hell, as long as it feels good!”

  “Ah, that it does. Scuttle some more, cherie!”

  So we scuttled and snaked and finally did The Monkey’s Uncle. I’d need a diagram to tell you how that goes, but Brigitte caught on right away. She had no trouble at all straddling me, face to face, as we jumped around the room. The idea of this ploy is to see how long you can keep it up without going wild. Sort of a reverse on the monkey-on-my-back situation. Anyhow, Brigitte reveled in it.

  She reveled all night and as the wee small hours entered the narrow windows, we finally made our weary happy journey back to the bed, damp with lover’s dew, limp with well-done revelry. She subsided against my chest, dozing off to sleep. I hugged her to me, feeling all of her splendid muscalature welded to me like a silhouette. She was indeed built like a brick building.

  “Sleep now,” I suggested. “In the morning, we have much to do.”

  “In the morning,” she mumbled, “we will begin again.”

  I laughed. “Okay. Sleep, and that’s an order.”

  “Rod, cherie . . . .”

  “Yes, Brigitte?”

  “I am . . . all cured. I am reborn . . . not even Gaspard’s wiggle—”

  “Madame, it was a pleasure.”

  “I will bet . . . you say that . . . to all your Madames . . .”

  She fell asleep before I could make a comeback to that. Her warm as toast body made the bed a delicious oven of pleasure.

  What could I say after I said I wasn’t sorry?

  I went to sleep too, watching the dawn come up like a gray fog while a jet plane made a helluva racket in the sky over the hill house. I was trying to make some sense out of Les Deuces and thinking of Walrus-moustache’s Paris phone number. Maybe it was time to call him.

  The peace talks were still going strong, but nowhere did anybody seem to be interested in the knife that had killed Danielle Lebeau. An oriental knife, Walrus-moustache had said. . . .

  I was thinking about that when sleep whammed me in the eye and put me out for the count. That dark lady who loves us all.

  I never did find out if Madame Brigitte Lebeau snored or not.

  Maybe I do too.

  Nobody’s ever told me.

  Small wonder.

  When I’m not alone in the sack, I seldom waste my time sleeping. I’m one guy who doesn’t believe in sleeping his life away. Shakespeare, notwithstanding.

  You can sleep all you want to after you’re dead and gone.

  What’s goner than that?

  A cock crowed at sunrise. I woke up.

  To find Brigitte Lebeau sitting up in bed next to me, her lovely face propped on her right hand as she stared wistfully down at my raison d’etre. Her pink body glowed in the gloom.

  “You called?” I yawned.

  She shook her head admiringly.

  “An hour or two is enough to refresh me. I have just been sitting here doing two things. One of which you see—regarding that fantastique! of yours. Is it always so, ah, prepared?”

  “More or less.”

  “Much more and you would be a freak. Did you sleep well, mon cherie?”

  “The sleep of drunks, babies and well-hung men. What’s the second thing you were doing?”

  She folded her hands. Since she was still as nude as a peeled grape, her breasts arched beautifully. The areolas were rosy red.

  “I am thinking of my dear departed dead. And the awful place we went to last night. You recall?”

  “I recall. I should think you’d want to forget that queer factory as soon as possible.”

  “I cannot. I feel as if we missed a clue there . . .”

  “Maybe but we didn’t miss any bets. Look, I hate to impose, but how’s the food in this place? I am famished. I think I got through nearly all of yesterday without a decent meal except for all that minor nibbling we did in the bistros where we checked on Danielle
’s address book. Which reminds me. It’s gone.”

  “Gone?” Her eyes popped. “How can that be?”

  “Lost, strayed or stolen. Take your pick.”

  “I pick stolen,” she vowed triumphantly, “at Les Deuces!”

  “So do I. But feed me first before I eat you raw and chew you into little pieces. . . .”

  “I would like that,” she confessed. “I am shameless.”

  “Ain’t we all? Food, Madame, please.”

  She laughed. “With ketchup on?”

  “Anything. Only hurry, woman, hurry!”

  The morning light revealed no telltale signs on her face. Not so much as a wrinkle. For thirty-seven, she was holding down the fort better than Custer had.

  She fed me. A loaf of pumpernickel, three cups of coffee to wash it down and generous slabs of Camembert cheese as well as an apple or two. It wasn’t a blue-plate special but it was food. I devoured it all as if it was pheasant-under-glass. I skipped the cognac. The coffee would have to do me and it did me fine.

  Brigitte didn’t eat at all. She was far too happy having rediscovered her femininity. In fact, she got downright coquettish. She kept on eyeing the four-poster. Longingly.

  “Later, Brigitte. We have too much to do. Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.”

  “With you it seems so,” she laughed again. “What will we do this morning?”

  I was about to come up with something brilliant when my eye suddenly caught a reflected gleam of light from the far side of the apartment. For a moment, I blinked and then I got up slowly from the table. Brigitte’s eyes followed me with curiosity, for I must have had a strange expression on my face. I hadn’t noticed before but one of the light fixtures on the wall which faced the bed was flickering, glowing strangely. I looked at the windows. There was no sunlight. Which didn’t make sense.

  Quickly, I skipped to the wall and studied the light fixture. It was just about six inches above my head and I had never seen a light fixture like it. It was a huge bracket affair about six inches square with a mirrored insert. Above this was the light bulb poking from its socket. I stared at the mirror. It was a curious place for a mirror. How many six feet six people are there? I looked back at Brigitte Lebeau.

  “How long has this been here?”

  “What?”

  “The mirror? This bulb?”

  “Eons. Since I have lived here. Why?”

  “Crazy place for a mirror, isn’t it?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Architecturally these homes are not all they should be. But come—why is it so important?”

  I couldn’t be sure but I’ve seen two-way mirrors in my time. There was no other explanation. This one was set in the wall. The bulb and its bracket was poking out on an elbow of metal. I took the gamble, risking being thought a maniac.

  I got a stool, stood on it and spoke directly into the mirror. Brigitte thought I’d lost all my marbles but I did what I wanted to do all the same. A gamble but some of them do pay off.

  “If you can read my lips or hear my voice, you’re a dirty peeping Tom. Or Thomasina. Which is it?”

  I waited. There was no answer.

  “Come on. I know you’re in there and you watched us make love all night. Okay. You don’t come out or answer, I’ll come next door and pull you out by the ear. What’s it going to be?”

  Again I waited. This time there was an answer. A woman’s low voice, reedy, probably funneling through the light fixture, said with a low laugh, “ You are a great lover, Mr. Damon. Can you blame us for watching?”

  “Us? You’re not alone?”

  “No. Francoise is with me. We live here.”

  I looked at Brigitte and the utter amazement in her face convinced me that she was no part of this scheme. It seemed that the mother of Danielle Lebeau had been watched for a long time. As well as her beautiful visiting Académie daughter. The plot was thickening around the curves. Two-way mirrors yet!

  I wasn’t going to talk to a light fixture all day. I rapped on the wal. Just hard enough to sound like I meant business.

  “Come in here. I want to talk to you.”

  There was a pregnant pause. No kidding.

  “Only if you agree to allow Francoise and I to sample your delicious self.”

  “Okay, okay. Let’s see what you have to offer. I’ll give you ten seconds to arrive.” I got down off the stool and smiled at Brigitte Lebeau. “You see? You and your daughter have been under surveillance for all the time you were here. Or at least, since Danielle came back and forth.”

  “But why? To what end?”

  “Isn’t that what we’re trying to find out? Hush up, now. Guess who’s coming to dinner? Hello . . . who have we here?”

  I should have known. The door swung open and in marched the lanky, slant-eyed Chinese woman and the dame with the size fifty headlamps. They both came in, smiling, almost tiptoeing. Obviously they had no hard feelings about the night before. Slant-Eyes bowed and rubbed her jaw with a grin and Miss 50’s placed her hands against her formidable chest. Brigitte Lebeau glowered but I held her back.

  “Easy, Madame. These two never laid a man in their lives. All they want is to taste the sizzle but not the steak. Right, mademoiselles’?” They almost bowed and started to circle me.

  “Francoise and I will help you,” the Oriental long drink of ink said. “It is time you realized, Madame Lebeau, that Dany was one of us. That she worked at the club. Les Deuces. When you came last night, I was startled to see you. Dany did not want you to know but obviously you did know.”

  “Mais non,” Brigittc shrilled. “I didn’t know! You lie! My daughter was not like you.”

  The bosomy one giggled and reached out to touch me. The Chinese impaled her with an inscrutable look. Then she got back to me.

  “Dear Mr. Damon. Francoise and I, as you, are not interested in coition. Therefore if you will allow us to kiss you, we well might tell you what you may like to know about Les Deuces.”

  “And you are—?”

  “Mei Ling High.” She pointed at Francoise. “This is my friend, Francoise Marnay. Allow us now to satisfy our curiosity. Through the mirror, we found you hard to believe.”

  “You hoydens!” Brigitte cried, reaching out. “Get out of my house! He is mine, all mine——“

  “Brigitte, please,” I begged. “A taste won’t kill me nor spoil it for you. Anything that will help find Danielle’s murderer—”

  She deflated, eyes moist. Sighing, she turned and walked over to an ottoman and sat down. The latent lesbianism in her had once more won the day. And also her true motherly instincts.

  “Very well. But only five minutes apiece shall you have with them. Then we will get to the bottom of this mystery. I wash my hands of it!”

  “Good.” I walked over to the bed and kicked out of my trousers. The miracle whip snaked out and Francoise and Mei Ling High did a double-take. They started to breathe in a funny way but they came a little closer to it. Until they could reach down and touch it. “Don’t crowd now,” I warned. “There’s enough for both of you, but don’t get too greedy. We have a business deal to transact, right? A kissing spree for information.”

  “Yes,” Mei Ling High said and lowered her mouth. “But first let me taste they wares, man of the West.”

  “At your service, lady of the East.”

  She began to lick. A long, hungry, almost greedy suckling that could have milked a thousand cows. But she was punctual and precise. When Brigitte angrily called time, she bowed, bit me once more and removed herself. Francoise filled the gap. Coming on with low oaths, big red mouth and trying to squeeze some extras in by mashing her mammaries around me. It was ten minutes of pleasure, all in all, and I enjoyed every second of it but I must confess I was thinking about the Danielle Lebeau mystery. It was getting deeper and wider than an aged whore’s port of call.

  Satisfied, the woman moved back. I re-zippered my fly and got off the bed. The dolls were real pros. I was hard as a rock.
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br />   “Not bad,” I admitted. “You two could plaster cement. Now, down to business.” I was very much aware that Brigitte Lebeau had very much enjoyed her role of spectator. She looked glassy-eyed and her thighs had squirmed apart uneasily. But there was no more time for that either. “What’s with this Les Deuces club and Danielle Lebeau? Her mother and I just don’t believe she was your kind of a girl. No offense intended.”

  Mei Ling High bowed again. She was gaunt but she was real juicy tenderloin. Exotic and Oriental and downright scrutable. Francoise, the bovine blonde, simpered at her side. You couldn’t insult her with a dictionary. She looked like the downright dumb blonde species.

  “For you answer, Mr. Damon, we will take you to the club. You will meet Annette. Annette will explain all. She is our, ah, employer. A remarkable woman. We can tell you nothing until you see Annette. It was she who sent us to spy on you this time. Annette wants you to whip her.”

  “Who? Me?’

  “Yes. She wishes the great Damon to torture and torment her. As only he could and can. That is the arrangement. You must agree to it. Do you agree?”

  What a weird pickle this was. Queers on all sides and murder to boot. Obviously, whatever answers there were to the Lebeau enigma rested in that underground, manhole-covered paradise for perverts. I took a deep breath. Brigitte Lebeau was on her feet, her face pleading with me to say Yes. She liked living at ninety miles an hour.

  “All right,” I said. “‘Let’s go. The sooner the better. I would like to get back to the States in time for the World Series.”

  “Baseball cannot match what you will find at Les Deuces,” Mei Ling High said in a faraway voice. Frangoisc Marnay giggled again.

  Which is how we all got back to where we started. At the Les Deuces. Only this time in broad daylight. Fully dressed and in our right minds. I hadn’t had a chance to call Walrus-moustache, nor had I even read a newspaper. But I was hot on the trail and I had the acute feeling that I was getting someplace fast.

  Maybe the graveyard.

  Maybe not.

  But anyhow, I was on the right sadistic track. Any time a lovely doll is murdered with a knife, always look for a twisted mind. Nobody else would ever dream of wasting a prime specimen like Danielle Lebeau that way unless he or she was off the rails.