She shakes her head, both amused and annoyed by her own clichéd fantasy.
The four men are still busy with their card game. As she passes them, she sees it is a tarot deck, the same high numbers and cards, but something catches her attention: the images on the cards aren’t the ones she knows, the end-of-century scenes so familiar to the tarot. She imperceptibly slows down, still moving ahead though and turns back to look again, not quite brave enough to stand still. She’s right: the characters on the cards are mostly undressed, unlike the images she’s familiar with. The man nearest to her, an ebony-coloured African man, still holds four cards in his hand – two small squares as well as an eleven and a twelve: on the first one, the characters are sitting around a picnic scene imitating Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe, the woman sitting is naked, but the man lying down also is, as another who is leaning towards her as if to bite her breasts is getting undressed. She has difficulty seeing the other card, obscured as it is by the man’s thick black thumb, but again the woman in the boat is nude. On the twelve, she can only see the upper half of the card: a ball somewhere in the background, but on the right hand side the image of a man seemingly offering his cock deferentially to two sitting women whose clothes have been partly pulled open, one of the women is thrusting her peach-coloured glove-covered hand towards the imposing virile member. The man whose cock it is has grey hair, and it makes her think straight away of the silent passenger in the seat a few rows back.
The negro throws the twelve down, and another of the men adds the twenty. She just has the time to glimpse the image of four men sitting at a table playing cards, all in the buff, while a woman under the table is seemingly sucking off the player on the left. The illustrator has frozen the scene just as her mouth is about to devour his mushroom head and her cheeks are delicately deformed by the intrusion.
She shrugs her shoulders. Scenes from a brothel, she reckons, no doubt a Belle Époque set of cards.
She walks back to her seat, and distractedly watches the landscape roll by, sky moving between white and blue. The Rhone river flows heavily by, moving between nuclear power stations. At any rate, the stations do not affect the area’s luminosity.
She feels movement to her left and turns. The man with grey hair is already there, looking over her shoulder. And like earlier, he has the same distant and detached look, as if his eyes are fixed on a point some ten centimetres behind her.
“May I?” he says, sitting next to her.
He definitely has a vague English accent.
He calmly pulls up the arm separating their two seats, deliberately abolishing all distance between them, or any form of misunderstanding.
“May I . . .” These are the only words he says, and her quiet agreement, as she does not object, is all he needs as approval, as if those two words and the unspoken answer will justify all that will follow.
The man’s right hand skims by her neck while his left hand takes hold of her knee. His skin is just as she expected: warm and dry.
He allows her just a few seconds more just so she might imagine what is about to happen. His fingers tread ever so lightly across her skin, just as if he were caressing water without creating a stir across its surface.
His fragrance is both pleasant and discreet. She doesn’t know why, but his smell reminds her of Louis XV furniture, burnished wood tables and pieces.
For a short while he doesn’t move, his face just inches from hers, his hand almost motionless on her knee, his fingers delicately skimming her neck.
The dark clouds inside his grey eyes make him look like a phantom.
And he finally slowly bends over towards her and kisses her.
She holds on to him, slides her own hands under the fashionable grey jacket he is wearing, takes hold of his shirt, disturbs his tie . . .
The hand on her knee begins a slow and deliberate journey upwards along her thigh and cups her cunt, forcing itself against the already wet silk. The man pulls the thin knickers to one side of her gash, his fingers lingering against the soft and delicate lips with assurance. “With a sense of contained violence,” she thinks aloud. And the mental image of her cunt in his grasp makes her smile and hold herself even more open. She allows her hand to slip under the man’s belt, and through the thin material of his trousers grabs hold of his hardening virility, an initial contact that surprises her in its brazenness. She pulls on the zip of his flies and extricates the jutting cock now pulsing against her fingers, just as she leans her own body slightly backwards so that the man’s hands might have easier access to her stomach and, she hopes, her arse.
They caress each other for several minutes. He inserts two fingers deep into the swamp of her cunt, two very long fingers with short, invisible nails deep into the pit of her stomach, exploring her with even more avidity than his cock could, seeking what she desires with almost feminine science.
He has no need to change the pressure of his fingers against her neck. She leans over of her own accord towards the cock now surging through the folds of grey material and takes it into her mouth. It feels fresh, almost cold. First the thick, split apricot which she surrounds with her tongue, bathes in her spit, then the rest of his mast as far as she can take it. Three quarters of it almost, her mouth spread-eagled by this meat of desire, to the point of gagging against this dangerous weapon heading straight for her innards. She retreats to catch her breath and impales her mouth anew against the blood-engorged tip of his cock, torn between the need to suck him forever and forever, to fill herself with his wooden citrus flavour, and the sheer craving to feel him flow wildly inside her mouth, waves breaking against the back of her throat, and the freedom to drink all of him.
The man then pulls his fingers out of her heaving cunt and, taking advantage of her leaning back position, moves them, still coated with her vaginal secretions, towards her arse and digs them both into her sphincter. She buckles, rears against the fingers now stretching her wide and, doing so, opens herself even more to his rough caress, and when the man’s thumb at the front now starts applying pressure to her clitoris, she comes violently, feels her arsehole spasm against the fingers now burrowing deep inside her, and only the cock now embedded in her mouth prevents her from screaming.
He allows her to enjoy the moment. His fingers are still digging deep into the very fundament of her arse. His thumb is held hard, unmoving, against her inflamed clitoris. He gently pulls her by her hair and allows her face to rest against his chest, while she gasps for air.
Once the contractions slow down, he slides his fingers out of her and pulls her up against him as he moves onto the seat in front of her, between her splayed legs, and forcefully pulls her down onto him. Initially she fears she won’t be able to accommodate him, that she’s not open enough – he’s so much more larger than anything she’s had inside her before. His cock is still growing as he breaches her, his head brushing her labia aside as his shaft sinks deeply into her. Inside the hot furnace of her cunt, the man’s cock feels as cold as ice. She bites her lips to avoid screaming when she feels the cock assault her back wall and she takes hold of the top of the seat facing her and, seizing it desperately, allows herself to sway wildly, allowing his cock to plough every inch of her insides as she holds back her pain. The man, his hands gripping the sides of her rear, helps her rise and then again and again brings her down onto him, every single time deeper and deeper, as if she were a cave with no ending.
A few metres away from her, she can only glimpse the heads of the other four men every time she rises above the seat: they are still playing cards, oblivious to what is happening to her.
For a brief moment she realises she would like to feel him flow inside her stomach, mingling his sperm with all that is floating within her, then the thought is violently abolished because she comes again, ferociously, wantonly, literally screwed on to this cock that is splitting her apart, piercing her very heart.
She is gasping for breath when the man’s hands let go of her bum and move under her shirt, partly
freeing her breasts from the push-up bra, lengthily caressing her hard, sensitive nipples, enjoying himself, then pinching her breasts hard to bring her back to reality from her swoon. Through the waves of ecstasy she is also confusedly angry at him for having discovered she enjoys the combination of pain and pleasure.
The man withdraws from her, settles to her left and folds his still-bulging cock so wet from the very secretions of her stomach into his trousers. Will she ever know the taste of his sperm, or just this lingering smell of wet rosewood?
His smile is muted, almost affectionate but distant again as he moves back to his seat, and the last thing she sees of him is his straight neck and his short grey hair.
She frees herself from the wet knickers now cutting into her crotch, and shudders, face against the window pane. She watches the Rhône outside. An old piece of poetry by Victor Hugo comes into her mind: “The noisy river flows, a fast and yellow flow . . .”
The heat of the sun, the coolness of the glass against her cheeks, and the dying vibrations inside her stomach now peaceful, moving away, drying up . . .
She doesn’t wake up in Avignon, nor in Marseilles. When she opens her eyes again, she can still hear the subconscious echo in the air of the voice which has just announced their arrival in Saint Raphael. It is now evening, and only the sporadic lights of the approaching station puncture the darkness.
She had thought of going to Nice, but why not Saint Raphael; she’s never been before.
She is now alone in the compartment. She rises, still unsteady on her legs – she’d fallen asleep in an awkward position and her left foot has fallen asleep – and moves forward with a slight limp, lacking grace, towards the exit and almost topples over as she walks down the train’s steps. Blood flows back into her brain, the vertigo fades . . . She takes a few steps forward on solid ground and the dizziness returns.
“I must be hungry,” she thinks. And the act of saying so makes her hungry. She walks towards the station’s exit, reckoning that like with all stations there must be a bar, a bistro nearby, some Arab grocery.
But all there is nearby is a Rolls Royce parked close to the pavement, a very old model with the driver’s seat open to the air and the back shrouded by dark opaque windows. The chauffeur, holding his cap in hand, turns towards her.
“Mademoiselle,” he says, “we were waiting for you. Would you please . . .”
She is so surprised she allows herself to be led, just two metres of pavement between freedom and the green English leather seats of the luxury car, and the door closes silently behind her. Immediately, it’s night behind the dark windows, banishing even the glow of the street lights, allowing barely pale haloes to survive, just like the mad stars in Van Gogh’s skies.
The car is driven in total silence; it could well be stationary, just a hint of vibration betraying its motion. They travel for a long time, and the young woman who is hungry and thirsty and badly needs to pee, is now in a bad mood. They stop for a red light and she tries to get out but the doors are locked from the outside. She raps her knuckles on the glass separating her from the driver. The man’s neck doesn’t budge.
The Rolls-Royce leaves Saint Raphael and takes a small, winding road that rises above sea level and leads deep into the hinterlands. A long time. Hunger. Thirst . . .
At last, the car slows down as it runs parallel to a high wall that leads them to an intricate metal gate headed by a mess of white metal arrows. The door opens by itself, no doubt electrically controlled, unless there is an invisible caretaker in attendance . . .
Screeching across a gravel path, the car drives up to a small castle, one of the many Modern Style monstrosities that the Côte d’Azur has given birth to over the past century, and comes to a halt in front of its steps. The stylish chauffeur gets out and ceremoniously opens the door.
In a rush, the sound of the early cicadas of spring invades the Rolls Royce.
She alights, intrigued, worried, still angry. A man stands there, on the second step and, astonished, she recognizes the grey-haired stranger from the train. How in hell could he have reached this place before her?
“Please accept our apologies,” he says. “You must be quite tired?”
He ceremoniously takes her hand. He is now wearing a smoky-grey lounge suit, the same colour as his eyes.
“Come,” he says. “We’ve prepared some food for you.”
She agrees to enter the castle, although she also knows this might prove a mistake, that maybe she shouldn’t, now that the falling sun has retreated with all its elementary seduction, and the menace of night is ready to take over.
Once inside, she looks back, intuition or ultimate temptation. The moon is full, and shines over a freshly mowed lawn at the heart of which stands a white marble statue, maybe of Venus, or even Diana the Huntress without her slings and arrows, the languorous shape of the Goddess bathing in the moonlight.
The young woman turns back and, with quiet determination, enters the house.
“If you wish to freshen up,” the man says, pointing to a door.
“Yes, I’d like to spray my war paint on again,” she jokes, repressing the anxiety quickly rising inside her throat.
As she washes her hands, she gazes at the reassuring image in the mirror: she is still pretty, still looks fresh despite all those hours on the train; some would even say the darker shade below her eyes was an added bonus.
“What a face,” she says though, almost out of habit.
A snack? On a small table at the centre of the Art Deco salon with its delicate furniture, she can see all the things she likes: patisseries, fruit, finger-sized delicacies, lemonade – she is still at an age where you are allowed to enjoy sweet, sugary things. In the meantime, the stranger is busy starting a fire inside the big chimney breast, kneeling in front of the initial orange flames longer than he would normally do, exposing his slim neck to her gaze, no doubt aware she is full of questions and that he is in no hurry to supply answers.
He finally rises from his prone position, while she finishes biting into a thin slice of exquisite tarte.
“I will take you to your room,” he says. “You’ll find something you can wear for dinner. Take your time. If you want to take a bath, just tell Nora, and she will arrange it.”
With his hand, he points to a corner of the room where a young mulatto woman in a domestic’s uniform is standing, straight and silent. She has pale grey eyes, shining in the light of the nearby flames like the eyes of a cat.
She hadn’t even heard her enter the room.
“We dine at eleven,” he adds.
They walk up a wide pink marbled set of stairs, a bit too ostentatious for her liking. Then, after passing through a red vestibule, down a long corridor punctuated by doors numbered One to Nine. At the other end, there is another set of stairs probably leading up. They stop at number Seven. The maid opens, and moves back to let her go in.
The room is spacious, with tasteful furniture. Not one piece of furniture is contemporary, but every single one, from the straight geometry of the dresser, to the make up table with its crystalline mirror and the bed shrouded with delicate millinery, appears to be brand-new, although they visibly were created in the 1920s.
On the wall, a Millet-styled print: three farm labourers resting in a field, enjoying a drink, while a woman awaits them, sitting against a haystack; it’s unclear what she might be waiting for as, unlike any character in a picture by the Barbizon artist, she is fully naked and when you take a closer look, her hands though held against her knees are tied together with a thin piece of string.
This sets her thinking again of the four men who were playing cards on the train, the same sense of discontinuity between the image you would expect and the more disturbing one . . .
“Do you wish to take a bath?” the maid asks.
There is no trace of the Caribbean in her voice.
“Yes, please . . .”
The bathroom that connects to the room is huge, all green marble, all thr
ee walls covered by mirrors, as is, curiously enough, the ceiling. Exotic plants, suspended from shelves and metal stands, spread a delicate perfume of wet earth and heavy flowers throughout the the room. The bath tub, carved out of a single piece of dark marble, and held up by sphynx-like feet, is positively enormous.
The girl runs the water, pouring in perfumed oil that rises in bubbles, the strong fragrance of which blends easily with that of the green plants across the room. The perfume rising through the steam now obscuring the mirrors transports her back to that sense of dizziness she had experienced on the train, like feeling slightly drunk on an empty stomach.
The maid comes towards her, unbuttons her shirt, unhooks her bra and then the skirt. She does not remark on the fact she is wearing no knickers. The young woman allows her to do so, suddenly assaulted by tiredness, or at any rate using the tiredness as an excuse to surrender to whatever is about to happen to her.
In the water, it feels to her as if she is swimming in the immensity of the tub. Above her, she sees the shrouded reflection of a young blonde woman in the misted-up mirror, her skin ever so pale, like a white mummy floating inside a green, marble coffin, the blue grey of her eyes lost in the distance. But the steam rises and finally wipes out this lazy landscape of curves.
The maid allows her for a long period to soak in all the fragrances that the heat is now breaking up. Finally, she comes back and hands her a Japanese robe, pale green, embroidered with birds of paradise.
“Do you want me to give you a massage?” she asks. “The bath will wash the journey away, and the massage will wash the bath away. After, I shall apply your make-up. The Commander has given me very precise instructions.”
The Mammoth Book of International Erotica Page 63