Without warning, we were in the tunnel, and the car darkened dramatically. A mild case of claustrophobia kicked in. I took a deep breath and tried not to think about being under the English Channel for the next half hour or so. I was suddenly aware that it was particularly dark right where I was sitting. I glanced up and noticed for the first time that the wall sconce nearest me was burned out.
During that momentary distraction, she appeared beside me.
“Je peux me joindre à vous?” she asked with an amused expression. I stared up at her, transfixed, letting her rich, fluid voice wash over me, understanding not a word and never more frustrated to be lingually deprived.
When I didn’t answer, she frowned and said, “J’ai fait une erreur?”
“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t speak French,” I said. It must have been clear from my desperate tone of voice that I didn’t want her to leave.
Her frown disappeared and that rakish smile returned. “Oh, ça va être amusant,” she said, almost to herself. And then, gesturing toward the seat beside me, added, “J’ai demandé si je pouvais me joindre à toi.”
It was at least clear now that she was asking if she could sit with me, so I nodded like an idiot and got up to let her in, fumbling with the tea tray.
She paused briefly in front of me and brought her hand up to lightly stroke my cheek. “Et polie avec ça! C’est mignon,” she purred seductively.
Speaking French to me was like pouring gasoline on a fire. Every time she opened her mouth, I got hotter. On the other hand, it would be nice to know what the hell she was saying. “Do you speak English?” I sputtered as she withdrew her hand and we took our seats. “Par-lay voo ang-lay?” It was the one phrase I had learned.
“Non,” she answered, shaking her head. “Désolée.” Those luscious full lips of hers stuck out in a disappointed pout.
“Damn,” I muttered under my breath, and she understood that well enough to laugh—a throaty, rich peal of delight that broke the language barrier and made both our intentions clear.
Her dark eyes bored into mine as she moistened her lips provocatively with the tip of her tongue. I could feel my heartbeat pick up. “Fini?” she inquired, tilting her head toward my tea.
I nodded.
She picked up the tray and rose to set it on the seat in front of us; then she folded my table back out of the way and very deliberately raised the cushioned armrest that separated us. When she sat back down, she turned to face me, tucking one leg up beneath the other, and I did the same.
“Tu es belle,” she said, her eyes falling to my breasts and lingering there. “Très belle. Et très sexy.” That last word was clear enough. I wondered for a moment whether I really was dreaming, but she reassured me I was very much awake when she leaned forward and placed her hand lightly on my thigh. I swear I could feel the warmth of her hand through the thick denim of my jeans.
Restraint slipped away. I didn’t care where we were or who might be watching. I wanted her, as I’d not wanted anything in a very long while. My heart was hammering in my chest, and I was finding it a little difficult to breathe. I couldn’t contain a soft moan of pleasure.
She smiled again, obviously pleased at the encouragement. “Je t’excite?” she murmured as her hand began to move, fingertips tracing an excruciatingly slow path up my thigh.
Excite. Okay, I got that one. She’s asking whether I’m getting excited, I think. No problem there. I nodded mutely as my mind willed her hand to continue its teasing path of exploration.
She didn’t disappoint. Her fingertips skimmed the fly of my jeans, danced across the soft plane of my stomach, and then grazed my painfully erect nipple. “Mmm,” she purred. “Délicieux.”
Delicious. Got that one, too. Suddenly I was feeling pretty bilingual after all. My body leaned toward her of its own accord. I was on fire. “Please,” I groaned.
Her lips curled upward in a satisfied smirk. “Non.” She shook her head, correcting me. “S’il te plaît,” she instructed, grazing my nipple again with a fingertip. A promise.
“S’il te plaît,” I dutifully repeated, my voice unrecognizable.
“Très bien, chérie,” she said, rewarding me with a firm pinch of my nipple. It sent a jolt of desire through me and ratcheted up my arousal to a fevered pitch.
“S’il te plaît,” I begged again. “Oh God, you’re making me crazy…”
She silenced me then with a scorching kiss, thrusting her tongue into my mouth, claiming me with searing intensity. Her hand slid around my waist and she pulled me tight against her body.
If all the blood in my brain hadn’t fled to the lower regions of my anatomy, I might have been grateful I’d splurged for the roomy seats of first class and that the premium car was so blissfully empty. But I was beyond rational thought by then, immersed in the overwhelming sensations of her hands on me, her warm breath on my face, her body pressing mine against the seat back.
“Touche moi,” she whispered as she unzipped her jacket and led my hand to her breast. She was wearing a thin, silky top and no bra, and her nipples were already rigid and sensitive, too. I pinched one lightly between my fingertips, then the other, and she groaned, reclaiming my mouth in another kiss as she shifted her weight to straddle me in the oversized seat.
She tasted like chocolate and espresso, and she kissed me hard and long, as though she, too, had fantasized about an encounter such as this.
I was lost in her, oblivious to all but the sensations roaring through me. I cupped her breasts in my hands, fondling the weight of them, caressing the nipples roughly with my thumbs. She moaned into my mouth and pressed her body more firmly against me, grinding against my stomach. My hips rose to meet her, and we rocked together, both seeking greater contact.
She broke the kiss. She was breathing hard, and so was I. “C’est fou ce que tu m’excites,” she whispered next to my ear as her hand slipped between our bodies, seeking the fly on my jeans. I didn’t need to know what she said. We were speaking the same language now.
She was only fractionally faster getting into my pants than I was getting into hers—our hands found each other at almost the same moment. I’m not sure which one of us was wetter—it was probably too close to call.
We stroked each other in unison, working in an unspoken, teasing tandem to prolong the experience. When I felt her nearing her peak, I would back away—lighten my touch just enough—just as she kept me on the edge of my precipice, until both our bodies screamed for relief.
“Please,” she begged in a ragged voice, her face pressed against my neck, and we came together then, in a shattering burst of frenzied strokes. We collapsed against each other, gasping for air. I had not yet regained my wits or my strength when a burst of light filled the car. We were out of the tunnel.
My companion gave a disappointed sigh and gently extricated herself from my embrace, smiling at me mischievously as she straightened her clothes and sank into the seat beside me.
I managed to zip up my fly just before the steward reappeared. He tried to hide it, but the trace of a smile on his face as he addressed us suggested he was probably well aware of what we’d been up to and had timed his entrance accordingly. “Are you ladies ready for brunch?” he asked.
Since I was blushing profusely and hadn’t yet regained my ability to form a coherent sentence, I was rather glad my companion spoke up.
“Quelques fruits et croissants, s’il vous plaît,” she told him. “J’ai des projets pour elle à Paris, mieux vaut s’assurer qu’elle garde toute sa vigueur.”
Whatever she said made the man smile. The fruit and croissants part I understood. But I didn’t get the rest.
“Comme vous le désirez,” the steward replied and turned to go.
I hadn’t considered that the train staff would be bilingual, though it made perfect sense. “Wait!” I called after him.
He turned back around with a puzzled expression.
“I got the fruit and croissants part. What else did she s
ay?” I asked him.
He chuckled. “She said she has plans for you when you get to Paris, and she wants to make sure you keep your strength up.”
I had a feeling that by the end of the week, my French would be perfect.
Long Road Home
LC Jordan
“Whaddayagive, whaddayagive, gimme forty, forty dollar, now fifty…”
The auctioneer’s voice droned on, competing with the chorus of cicadas perched somewhere high in the maple trees on this September afternoon. There was a decent crowd milling about, numbered paddles in hand, rising and falling in some random dance set to the cadence of the bidding.
My parents were having a belated midlife crisis. At least that was my theory. In truth, they were tired of the Midwest winters and had decided to become nomads, buying a motor home and following the sun with the seasons. Most of the contents of my childhood home were being auctioned, but my parents were leasing the house and not selling. I suspected that was an insurance policy of sorts in case their new lifestyle didn’t agree with them and the wanderlust only lasted a year or so. As for the liquidation of the furniture, I would bet a year’s salary that my mother agreed because it would be the only way to get my father to part with the living-room couch and chair and provide the possibility of getting new ones.
I had flown in for the weekend to be on hand for the auction and stick around until Monday when the new tenants would arrive. Friday night I saw my parents off, waving as they maneuvered their RV out of the drive and feeling very much left behind even though I had moved out years ago. It is a sobering thing to realize that you are old enough for your parents to be retired, much less to have them run away from home. The fact that they had me later in life didn’t help any with my complex about aging.
My one contribution to the whole affair was a ’65 Ford Galaxy in good condition. It was my first car, a gift from my parents my junior year of high school. Most kids that age want something new and fast and foreign, but not me. I fell in love with the burgundy body, white top, and fender skirts. The same fuzzy white dice were still hanging from the rearview mirror.
So many bittersweet memories were tied up in that car. I lost my innocence right there on the front seat, but not exactly in the usual way that comes to mind. When I left for college, my father agreed to store it for me, and I’d kept it all these years as some sort of connection to a part of my life that I had carefully locked away otherwise.
Now, with everything else moving forward, I reasoned it was as good a time as any for me to stop looking back. I had told my father to consign it to the auction with a minimum price of seven thousand dollars. It was the last thing to be sold, and the crowd had gathered around it in the driveway, waiting for the bidding to start.
I leaned back against one of the rack wagons parked in the yard, a glass of iced tea in my hand. The chilly condensation dripped onto my jean-clad leg, soaking through the denim and leaving a dark spot. Reaching down to try and brush it off, I heard a soft voice speak from directly in front of me.
“Cat?”
I froze. No one had called me that in years. The blood pounded in my ears from bending over and I slowly straightened. Everything in the background faded as I faced the woman standing two feet away. With the exception of a very few more pounds and a small scattering of early gray in her chestnut hair, she looked exactly the same as she did the last time I saw her. We were eighteen then and she had just bolted from both my arms and my car.
“Cat?” she repeated. I still hadn’t spoken. I never expected to see her here, today, or ever, for that matter.
Not waiting any longer for me to confirm my identity, she hesitantly continued. “I thought it was you.” With a wave of her hand, she indicated the yard filled with people. “I saw a flyer and couldn’t believe it.”
Finally finding my voice, I spoke more harshly than I intended. “Couldn’t believe what, Ashley?”
Pausing a moment before answering, she replied, “I couldn’t believe your parents were leaving. They’ve just always been here, you know? After I saw the advertisement last week I called your mom and she told me about their plans. And I couldn’t believe you were selling the car.” The last sentence trailed off as she looked away. “I knew you’d kept it. I’ve seen your dad driving it from time to time.”
Everything was instantly just too close to the surface; the old pain, the disappointment in both Ash and myself, the effort spent trying to forget and remember. “I held on to it too long as it is,” I answered flatly.
Taking a deep breath and meeting my eyes, Ashley spoke with determination. “We need to talk, Cat.”
“Stop calling me that, and no, we don’t,” I shot back immediately.
“Stop calling you what?” Ashley asked, confused.
“Cat. Nobody calls me that now. My name is Catherine.” In truth, everything about me became longer as the years passed; my name, my hair, my regrets.
A little glimpse of Ashley’s rarely seen temper was beginning to show. “Fine. Catherine, we need to talk,” she clipped out.
“We have nothing to talk about,” I stubbornly replied.
Just then, the auctioneer announced that bidding on the Galaxy was about to start. Abruptly, Ashley turned her back on me and walked toward the driveway. My traitorous eyes watched her retreating form, and it was then that I spotted the paddle in her hand. Something in my stomach did a little flip, and I quickly sat my glass down on the wagon and made my way toward the crowd.
The auctioneer began his chant, starting the bidding at seven thousand. Several numbered paddles went up, but I was only interested in one in particular. When the bid increased to eight thousand, the paddles decreased by a third. At nine, only half were left and as I scanned the group I saw Ashley holding hers up, staring straight at me.
It was already a warm day, but I swear my body temperature rose ten degrees with the look she gave me. Waving my arm wildly, I shouted, “Ten thousand!”
The auctioneer stopped his chant and patiently explained, “You don’t have a number; you aren’t registered. You can’t bid.”
It took a second for that to sink in, then I shouted, “It’s my car! Like hell I can’t!”
His round face becoming red, the auctioneer peered down at me from below the rim of his straw cowboy hat. “The car is consigned and bidding already started. The minimum selling price has been met.” Pointing with his gavel to the small trailer hitched to his pickup truck, he yelled back, “If you want to bid, get a number.”
At this point the crowd was far more interested in the crazy woman who was shouting than in bidding. All of them except Ashley, that is. In the brief silence that followed, she held up her paddle and sweetly said, “Ten thousand.”
That damned chant resumed and I made a mad dash for the trailer. In the space of time it took me to produce my driver’s license for identification and wait for the infuriating man’s wife to register me, I heard him shout, “Sold to the lady for twelve thousand!”
As I exited the trailer, the crowd was slowly dispersing. I could see Ashley standing by my Galaxy, waiting. I stopped a few feet away and asked, “Why?”
“You tell me,” she retorted. “Why keep this car all these years if it meant nothing?”
Ignoring her question, I countered, “I can refuse to let you have it.”
“I can call my lawyer,” she said, not backing down an inch.
Suddenly too tired to fight, I brushed past Ashley and leaned in the driver’s side open window. Reaching in, I grabbed the black-and-white fuzzy dice from the rearview mirror.
“Take it,” I said as I walked toward the house and closed the front door.
*
I sat on one of the stools at the bar in the kitchen until the evening sun slanted low in the west windows above the sink, bathing the room in a pale coral glow. The auction company had left after distributing all the sold items and collecting the fees. The two rack wagons, the crowd, and my Galaxy were gone. The only evidence left of the
entire afternoon’s events was the trampled grass in the yard and the license plates that Ashley had evidently removed from the car and laid on the front porch step. They were on the counter now, and I traced my finger along the raised letters and numbers. One last time I let the memory replay of the final drive Ashley and I had taken over ten years ago.
It was our senior year of high school and our volleyball team had finally won the state championship. Everything had been golden that year; perfect grades, perfect win record, perfect friendship. Graduation night we flipped our tassels and posed with our diplomas for what seemed like a hundred photographs for our families. Deciding to skip the usual parties, Ashley and I took the Galaxy out on Highway 45 and just drove, singing loudly and off key with every song that came on the radio. We were still a little wound up from the euphoria of passing that first major milestone in life, but we were also starving, so we decided to head back to Ashley’s house and raid the kitchen.
I pulled into her folks’ driveway and cut the engine. We sat there a few minutes, talking about what we were going to do that summer and what college would be like. Somewhere between listening to Ashley’s laughter and watching the happiness radiate from her face, I thought to myself how beautiful she was. She was the embodiment of strength and innocence and she made me feel so alive. There was no way I could help falling in love with her, right then, right there.
Dimly I realized she had stopped talking and was just quietly sitting there, looking at me. My hand reached out of its own volition and brushed back a strand of dark hair that had escaped her tie. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for me to lean over and kiss her.
To say I was unprepared for the jolt of electricity that touching her lips with mine caused would be a vast understatement. I pulled back suddenly, afraid of what I would see in Ashley’s eyes. They were closed, and when she slowly opened them, a myriad of emotions swirled around in their dark blue depths. Desire, love, and panic were there, and not necessarily in that order.
Lessons in Love Page 26