Foreign Affairs

by Antonia Adams

  I loved how he said my name. There were four more kisses that made my stomach burn up despite the sub-zero air temperature, and an invitation to his New Year’s party.

  ‘Nice bloke,’ Jake said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed, glad he hadn’t noticed the effect Mathieu had on me.

  Up to now, I’d always considered myself the faithful type. I was about to be put to the test.

  That night, Mathieu wore loose-fitting dark jeans and a black silk shirt instead of his red and yellow resort uniform. We were the first to arrive. There was wine for me and beer for Jake and a tour of the small wooden chalet.

  ‘I built it,’ Mathieu told us proudly.

  ‘No way!’ Jake exclaimed.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said.

  Mathieu smiled. ‘I lived all my life in this valley and I’ll never leave it.’

  I sucked in a little breath when he led us down the pine-panelled corridor to his bedroom. What exactly did he intend here? Menage a Trois was a French term, after all.

  The covers of his double bed were drawn back invitingly. I wanted to jump right in.

  The two men stood by the window. As Mathieu pointed out at the snow-dusted fir trees that glowed in the light of the moon, his shirt rode up to reveal a glimpse of bare midriff. His other hand rested on Jake’s shoulder, a move I could tell Jake wasn’t altogether comfortable with.

  Physically the two men couldn’t have looked more different. Jake was lean and blond - a metro man, if you know what I mean. I could see how other men (if they were that way inclined) might get the wrong idea about him. He got his bum pinched in nightclubs on a regular basis.

  Did Mathieu want to fuck my boyfriend? I imagined him groaning away on top of Jake and my knees went weak. But sadly there was little chance of this happening. Jake was staunchly hetero; there was no way he would even kiss another guy.

  Perhaps Mathieu hoped he and Jake could share me? I’d never had two guys at the same time, although I’d fantasised about it. Jake fucked me in the arse occasionally, when he was in the mood for it. Yet after five years, his dirty side came out less and less often. Which of them would I take up the arse this time? Presuming of course that Jake was OK with the idea … which I very much doubted. I felt a mixture of disappointment and relief when Mathieu led us back to the living room.

  ‘More wine?’ he asked.

  In front of a roaring log fire, he told us stories of winter storms and avalanches. I sat between him and Jake, translating. Every time our eyes met, I felt butterflies. And our eyes seemed to meet a lot. But I was with Jake and Mathieu clearly respected that.

  One by one his friends arrived. Mathieu introduced Jake and me as though we were guests of honour. ‘‘appy New Year, Rachel,’ he said at midnight, bending his head to kiss me. I got a blast of his spicy aftershave and couldn’t help myself; I turned my cheek and met his lips with mine.

  He jolted but didn’t pull away. Perhaps I thought it would get him out my system, yet when I pressed my tongue into his mouth and tasted him, I realised immediately that it wouldn’t. It only made me long for more.

  Afterwards, we just stood there looking at each other. Wrong place; wrong time. I felt guilty and torn. Luckily nobody had noticed – Jake was dancing in the corner.

  ‘Really nice bloke,’ Jake said as we staggered back through the snow to our hotel.

  I shoved him to the bed the moment we got to our room.

  ‘What’s brought this on?’ Jake asked as I ripped off his clothes.

  ‘Shut up and fuck me,’ I demanded.

  I lay on my stomach, my face buried in the pillow. When he entered me, I moaned in delight. Poor Jake. As he pumped his cock into me, he had no way of knowing what I was imagining.

  For the rest of the week, I steered clear of Mathieu’s ski lift. I didn’t trust myself. Yet we couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. So on our last day we returned to his little chalet and Mathieu scribbled down his contact details in ornate French handwriting.

  He gave Jake a warm embrace. ‘Take care of Rachel for me.’ Then he kissed me and said: ‘Au revoir.’

  Until we meet again. I so wondered if we would.

  There was a lump in my throat as we loaded our bags onto the coach. Every fir tree, every metre of descent took me further away from him. Too soon I was home and back at work. Life returned to normal and the mountains seemed a whole world away.

  Yet I couldn’t get him out my head. Jake and I began to argue, worse than we’d ever done previously. When we broke up a few months later, I suspected that Mathieu had a lot to do with it.

  I spent the summer moping and my mood only picked up in autumn. A friend of mine was working in France as a chalet girl that winter, so I arranged a trip out to visit her, knowing in the back of my mind that Mathieu’s resort wasn’t far away.

  I hesitated over whether to call him. It had been nearly a year after all. Then I remembered his kisses. And as soon as I heard his voice, I knew I’d made the right decision. He sounded delighted to hear from me.

  ‘I’m visiting a friend in Tignes,’ I told him.

  ‘Oh, but you’re very near. You must come and see me.’

  As my train chugged and screeched its way across the Alps, I pictured his liquid brown eyes and wondered if they would still hold the same magic. I reminded myself not to get my hopes up – I barely knew the guy.

  It was mid January. Four o’clock, and the sun had long since sunk behind the mountains. A lone figure waited on the poorly lit platform. He was there!

  He took me in his arms for his customary four-kiss greeting. ‘Salut, Rachel! So good to see you.’

  ‘And you,’ I said breathlessly.

  A chunky white flake floated from the sky.

  I cupped my hand to the heavens. ‘It’s snowing!’

  ‘There’ll be a storm tonight. We must hurry or the road will be blocked. Come.’

  Slipping his gloved hand into mine, he led me to his car. He jammed my snowboard between the seats, cleared the windscreen with his sleeve and climbed in.

  The snowflakes flew at the glass as we drove up the valley. The road surface was covered already. I squeaked and gripped the dashboard when the wheels skidded around the first of the hairpins.

  Mathieu covered my fingers with his larger ones. ‘Don’t worry, Rachel.’

  ‘Keep your hands on the wheel!’

  He chuckled. ‘Is normal for me, this snow.’

  Further up it was several inches deep, and on the track to his chalet deeper still. I clung to his fingers as we bumped along, expecting at any moment to have to get out and push.

  When he turned off the engine there was a strange silence. We looked at each other shyly.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked. ‘Run!’

  Dragging my suitcase and snowboard bag between us, we rushed inside. I breathed in the familiar smell of wood smoke and felt like I’d come home. It seemed only yesterday that I’d been there. The place hadn’t changed at all. But had he?

  He tugged off his boots and crouched in front of the fire. Soon he had a flickering flame which grew stronger when he fed it with kindling. I felt its warmth on my forehead.

  Looking satisfied, he stood up. ‘You are hungry?’

  I noticed the table was set for dinner. ‘Wow, have you cooked for me?’

  ‘Of course. Would you like some wine? No – sit down, relax.’

  Expertly, he uncorked a bottle of red. The wine added to the heat in my stomach. From the sofa, with the fire crackling in the background, I watched him at the stove.

  His rich tomato and ham pasta was accompanied by a fresh green salad.

  ‘You’ve gone to so much effort,’ I said, touched.

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  Our eyes met.

  He reached across to top up my wine. ‘How’s Jake?’

  ‘He’s fine, as far as I know. Actually, he’s engaged to a girl he works with. We broke up.’ I couldn’t read his expression. ‘How about you?’

 
; ‘I dated a Parisienne for a while.’ He shrugged and smiled. ‘They’re complique, les Parisiennes. And she wanted me to move to Paris.’

  ‘You didn’t want to?’

  ‘I belong here in the mountains.’

  ‘Right.’ I certainly couldn’t imagine him in a city. He’d be a fish out of water; too big, too alive to be confined by concrete.

  Outside the window, the snow gave off a ghostly orange glow. The glass had steamed over, so I wiped it clear. ‘It’s still snowing.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We might be snowed in all day tomorrow.’

  ‘Really?’

  Again our eyes met.

  He put his wine glass down. ‘Shall we go outside to watch the snow?’

  ‘Sure.’

  The icy blast when he opened the balcony door made me shiver.

  He unfolded a blanket and held it out to me. ‘Come here.’

  I stepped towards him and then we were kissing. We stood at the railing with the blanket wrapped around us, exploring the insides of each other’s mouths with our tongues. French kissing. And he was the most amazing kisser.

  ‘Rachel,’ he breathed when he finally came up for air.

  I blinked, dazed.

  ‘I wanted to do that for so long,’ he said.

  ‘Me too. It was just bad timing before.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You are here now.’

  I nodded. I had the strongest feeling that this was meant to be. Events had lined up to bring us together, halfway up a mountainside in the middle of a snowstorm. I touched his lips with my finger and his mouth descended on mine.

  The tip of his tongue swirled and probed. I imagined how it would feel elsewhere and our kiss became frenzied.

  He pulled away. ‘You want?’ he asked in English.

  My stomach flipped. I knew exactly what he was asking. ‘I want.’

  Wordlessly he picked me up and carried me down the corridor. Inside his bedroom, he kicked back the bedclothes, deposited me on the mattress and stripped me to my knickers.

  I loved his urgency. The wait was over. I was his for the night and he was mine. Once he’d pulled off his sweater and stepped out of his jeans, he climbed into bed with me, pulling the duvet over our heads. His tongue found its way back into my mouth. Against my belly I felt the cool silk of his boxer-shorts. Inside them he was hard already.

  His hand slid into my knickers. Whenever Jake had touched me, it always felt like he was fumbling for the light switch. But Mathieu knew exactly where my switch was and how to work it as well. He looked down with his big dark eyes as he slicked his finger back and forth.

  When he pressed the finger into me, I arched my back and closed my eyes, aware of nothing except his finger. He added a second finger, making me twist and writhe. Then his thumb got in on the act, rubbing in tiny circles. He kissed my open mouth and I came in a short sharp blast.

  Still quaking with aftershocks, I ripped down his boxers and burrowed under the covers to take his swollen cock into my mouth. He tasted soapy sweet and I couldn’t get enough. His hands stroked my hair while I sucked him deep into my throat.

  Now he was the one gasping for breath. He caught me by the shoulders. ‘I want you, Rachel.’

  In the darkness, I saw him holding a condom. When I nodded, he ripped it open. His expression was serious as he lowered himself over me. He pushed my hands to the bed, level with my head, his fingers entwined with mine. His eyes searched my face as his cock nosed into place. It was as though he feared, even at this late stage, that I might change my mind.

  I shifted my hips to accept him. Inch by inch he slid in. I was so wet that I squelched. He bit his lip and held himself still inside me for a moment. I bucked my hips, desperate for more, but he shook his head in warning and drew back.

  Only when I relaxed, did he begin slowly fucking me. His lips parted, his eyes closed. I wriggled my hands free so I could hold his hips as he moved. His movements became more urgent. He buried his face in the pillow and panted into it as he thrust away. I dug my fingernails into his buttocks to urge him on.

  He muttered something under his breath and came to a stop. Eleven months ago we’d had to hold back. We didn’t have to hold back any longer. I wrestled him over so that I was on top of him, pressed his shoulders to the bed and rode his cock, hard as I could. He lost it and thrust upwards to meet me, biting into the side of my neck as he did so. With a groan, he made one last deep movement and his body spasmed.

  He pulled me to his chest and we lay there, his cock still jerking away inside me.

  A while later, I raised my head to look at him. ‘Remember when we came to your New Year’s party?’

  ‘Yes?’ He cupped my breasts in his hands.

  ‘You brought us into this room and I thought …’

  He squeezed my breasts gently. ‘What?’

  ‘Well, for a start I wanted you to throw me down in bed and take me.’

  He smiled. ‘You don’t know how badly I wanted to do just that.’

  ‘But I was trying to work out where Jake would come into it. Like, you and Jake doing me at the same time?’ The thought was still enough to make me hot.

  ‘I admit I thought about that. But I didn’t get the feeling Jake would be into it.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘How about you, Rachel? Did you like the idea?’

  He could tell from my face that I did. He laughed and pinched my nipples. ‘Naughty girl.’

  I squeaked and rolled off him.

  He gripped hold of my waist and pressed himself up against my back. ‘Now you’ve made me hard again.’

  I felt his cock pressing against my buttocks.

  ‘The other thing was,’ he said gruffly, ‘I didn’t want to share you.’

  I pushed my bottom into his groin.

  He groaned. ‘I want you, Rachel.’

  ‘Then take me.’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Now,’ I begged.

  He shook his head. ‘You make me too crazy. I won’t be able to hold, so first …’

  He slid under the covers and showed me another form of French kissing. The tongue that had been so expert in my mouth proved equally adept on my clit. As he dragged my folds this way and that, I decided then and there that I could quite happily marry the man.

  After he’d made me scream, he hauled me out of bed and plonked me on top of his chest of drawers, before turning away to put on another condom. I saw the wild look in his eyes when he turned back round. Roughly he spread my thighs; I braced myself. He shoved his cock in and pumped away in a frenzy. I wrapped my legs around his waist and clung to him until he came.

  In the morning, I sat at his kitchen table dressed in one of his thick woollen jumpers while he prepared breakfast. Coffee mixed with the smell of wood smoke. I watched him squeeze oranges and spoon jam into a bowl. My mountain man was actually quite domesticated.

  He placed a plate of croissants in front of me. ‘Happy, Rachel?’

  ‘Very.’

  Over breakfast we talked of our lives, carefully picking our way around the idea of a possible future. I hadn’t told him as much yet, but the prospect of me moving to France wasn’t out of the question. One weekend clearly wasn’t going to be enough. I had a feeling I’d be coming over here on a fairly regular basis for some more French kissing.

  The snow on his balcony was several feet deep and it was still coming down hard.

  He saw me looking at it. ‘I think we’re stuck here,’ he said.

  ‘So what will we do all day?’

  His eyes sparkled. ‘I don’t know. Do you have any suggestions?’

  I had a lot of suggestions. In fact the prospects seemed endless. I leant across and kissed him urgently.

  He gave a soft laugh. ‘Encore?’ Then he turned off the coffee maker and led me back to bed.

  An Argentinean Tango by Troy Seate

  Jacob Smiley sat at a small table in the heart of Buenos Aires. Before him, men and women twirled an
d whirled to the heartfelt rhythms of the Tango. He found the exotic Argentinean dance only a step away from fucking. As far as earthly pleasures, there was almost nothing like the sight of bare, shapely legs in high heels to shovel more coal into his boiler. Those little Latin bastards can do a seduction number that Gringos could take a lesson from, he mused, doing everything he could to take his mind off his problem, trying to succumb to the seductive music and the bare thighs whipping around the legs of male partners.

  Only a few days earlier he had celebrated the moon landing touch-down in the manner that he liked to celebrate all aerospace accomplishments: He had fucked a secretary on his boss’s desk.

  ‘Your lift-off was fab,’ the secretary had told him. ‘And your rocket propulsion packed plenty of thrust per square inch.’

  ‘That’s what they pay us for – to get our ships off the launching pad and into the unknown.’

  Janice had climbed off the desk and straightened her skirt. ‘You can shoot your rocket off in my direction any time, Smiley.’

  Smiley watched her wiggle toward the door. ‘Don’t forget these, sugar.’ He held up her bikini panties and twirled them around his finger.

  ‘Keep them to remind you of me,’ Janice said. ‘They’re the first I’ve given away since I threw a pair at Elvis. See you around, JS.’ She left the room wearing a coquettish smile instead of underwear.

  ‘Same bat-time, same bat-channel,’ Jake called to her.

  God, but these were great times. It had taken two years, but the summer of love – in attitude if not in dress – had finally infiltrated even a tight-ass outfit like NASA. It was as close to a James Bond lifestyle as Smiley would ever get and he savoured the rewards. Space launches, security clearances, cool cars, and hot chicks. You didn’t have to be an astronaut to get plenty of action. In his high-profile position, he sometimes even fancied himself as James Bond’s Yankee cousin, particularly when there were women who practically pulled up their skirts and said, ‘Here it is,’ like Janice. Once, he’d been the recipient of a masterful blowjob at his open workspace without detection from a hot little number who worked in Security. But an office provided less risk, and what better office than the one belonging to the big cheese. Hugh Hefner might have his mansion full of bunnies, but those in the space program had nothing to complain about. The celebrity of being a part of Mission Control in Houston brought the local girls bunny-hopping.