‘Jacqueline,’ she replied, holding out her hand.
He took her hand in his and pressed his lips against it. ‘Enchanté,’ he smiled.
She couldn’t help laughing. Nobody had ever done that to her or greeted her like that, but she quickly covered up and shoved her sketch pad across the table. There was something very likeable and intriguing about him, something that stirred up deep feelings in her. After all, she hadn’t had sex since Jean-Claude, and she found herself starting to get very turned on by his presence.
He looked at her sketch for the longest time, glanced across the street at the reality, looked at the sketch again.
‘Excellent,’ he finally said. ‘You’re very talented.’
She liked him better by the minute. ‘You’re too kind,’ she smiled coquettishly.
‘What are you planning to do with it?’ Henri wanted to know.
‘I’m not sure yet,’ Jacqueline replied. ‘I’ll have to see what it looks like when I’m finished with it.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Henri said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘You’re not prying,’ Jacqueline protested. ‘I’m just not sure what I want to do with it. Some of my sketches of street scenes I take home and make them into paintings. Others I sell to the patrons. There’s always somebody there who wants to buy an original sketch with them in it.’
‘I can believe that,’ Henri acquiesced. ‘I would certainly buy it if I were in it.’
‘Why don’t you go across the street, then,’ Jacqueline suggested. ‘I’ll sketch you in, if you’d like.’
‘Would you really?’ Henri enthused. ‘I’d like that very much.’
He found an empty table across the street, waited for the waitress to bring him a cup of coffee, and struck a pose, smiling broadly at her.
She laughed gleefully. Her morning was progressing much more interestingly than she had expected.
Moving her sketch pad to her side of the table again, she finished the backdrop of the café’s façade and the other patrons on Henri’s sides, then concentrated on him and his appealing features and demeanour. She ordered another coffee to keep her going, but it didn’t take her nearly as long as she had thought it would. Or maybe she just lost track of time, being able to look at him freely across the street as much as she wanted.
Then she was done. She waved to him and he quickly came back to her table. He picked up her sketch pad before even sitting down and studied it intently. He held it up at different distances from his eyes, turned it into various positions in the sun, studied it some more. Jacqueline was getting rather impatient. She could hardly wait to find out what he thought.
Henri sat down, put the sketch pad on the table in front of her, and looked at her with his sparkling blue eyes.
‘This is just excellent!’ he finally exclaimed. ‘You really are good. And you said you sometimes make these into paintings?’
‘Sometimes,’ Jacqueline agreed. ‘But, as I said, some of them I sell as soon as they are done. Would you like to buy this? I’ll sign it and date it for you.’
‘Actually,’ Henri said, leaning across the table towards her. ‘Actually I think I would prefer to have a painting of this. Do you think that could be arranged?’
‘Anything can be arranged,’ Jacqueline replied. ‘A painting it going to be much more expensive, you realize that.’
‘I didn’t ask about the price,’ Henri simply said. ‘Where do you live?’
‘I have a studio up in Montmartre,’ Jacqueline offered.
‘That’s not very far,’ Henri stated. ‘Why don’t we go there now and I can watch you paint. I’ll pose for you some more, if you’d like, so you can get some more detail.’
She hadn’t expected this. She usually took several days to work on a painting like that, and she had never had anybody watch her doing it. Nor had any of the patrons ever offered to pose for her. Her sidewalk café paintings were more general views of the cafés with the patrons more suggestions of colour than distinct individuals. She wasn’t very sure at all about this, yet she couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be to spend the afternoon with him and working on the painting with somebody watching who seemed to know what he was talking about.
‘All right, then,’ she answered after a moment’s hesitation. ‘If that’s really what you want to do.’
‘Yes, I really do,’ Henri answered firmly. He put some money down on the table to pay for the coffees and rose from his chair.
Jacqueline packed up her things and they walked up to her flat. Henri was quite impressed with her living quarters when she led him inside. He walked around the whole place, looked out the windows with great interest, and finally came to her paintings. She was a bit embarrassed. Some of the paintings she kept around were experiments that hadn’t quite reached their final state yet. Others were half-finished because she didn’t know yet what to do with them. All her good paintings were either sold or waiting to be sold at the gallery, with the exception of the gargoyle painting from a few days ago.
Henri looked carefully at everything, nodded now and then, went back to something that seemed to have caught his eyes, ending at the gargoyle painting.
‘This is fabulous!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve never seen anything quite this powerful and persuasive. You must really like gargoyles and admire them a great deal.’
‘They mean a lot to me,’ Jacqueline admitted. ‘I’ve done several in the past, but they’ve all been sold. I think this is my best one so far.’
‘No doubt,’ Henri agreed. ‘Would you let me buy this from you?’
Jacqueline’s mouth dropped open. She’d never had an offer like that for any of her paintings. She brought them to the gallery and they looked after everything. She didn’t even know what she could ask for something like that without going through the gallery.
‘I don’t know,’ she said weakly. ‘I’ve never done this before.’
‘First time for everything,’ Henri quipped. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills, and started counting them out on the table. Jacqueline couldn’t believe her eyes. ‘Do you think this would be enough?’
‘Oh, I would definitely think so,’ she said. ‘But why this? And why me?’
‘I really like the painting,’ Henri said. ‘And I really like you.’
He stepped away from the table, walked towards her, and put his arms around her. ‘Shall we seal the deal with a kiss?’
Jacqueline was too overwhelmed by the unexpected development to say anything. She just knew that she had made a big sale, perhaps the biggest in her career, and that a very attractive and sexy man held her in his arms and wanted to kiss her. She leaned into his embrace and closed her eyes.
His lips were firm and determined against hers. She gasped, then reciprocated the pressure, opening her mouth to let his tongue slide in, and flung her arms around him in a sudden flurry of emotions. Her whole body went limp in his arms, but he kept her pressed against him and kept kissing her deeply and passionately while she rubbed herself against him and tried to keep up with his probing kiss.
When he let go of her, she led him into her bedroom. They immediately began to undress each other, very slowly and meticulously so as not to miss anything. As the garments fell to the floor one by one, they let their hands glide over their bodies, discovering each other, learning each other. Henri took her breasts into his hands and methodically, carefully, massaged them for her until they were full and round and the nipples stood straight up. He definitely knew what he was doing.
Not to be outdone, she reached for his penis and started rubbing and stroking it lightly, pulling the foreskin back and exposing the damp head. He groaned, deeply, passionately, then reached for her pussy and began to let his forefinger travel along the lips, between the lips, up to her clit, but just for a delicious moment, then down again to her opening and the freely flowing juices. He removed his hand, brought it up to his mouth, and licked her juices off his finger.
T
hen he put his finger back into the wet opening, brought his hand back up, and held his finger out to her to lick it herself. She was ecstatic. She couldn’t stop moaning and sighing from the way he played her body, found all her most sensitive spots, lingered here, lingered there, and they weren’t even in bed yet. He reached around her, took her buttocks into his strong hands, and practically lifted her off the floor in his attempt to get her body closer to his.
And then all the clothes were on the floor and they stood naked in front of each other, finding great pleasure in the visual delight of seeing each other like that.
‘You’re very beautiful,’ Henri whispered. ‘And very sexy, too.’
‘You’re very handsome,’ Jacqueline replied, whispering herself because that seemed the right thing to do. ‘And,’ she smiled, ‘very sexy yourself.’
‘Well,’ Henri said. ‘Now that we have that established and out of the way, how about going on the bed instead of standing here beside it?’
They climbed on the bed together and made themselves comfortable beside each other. Henri slid one arm under her back to hold her close to him, then put a hand on her breast to caress and titillate it some more. Tracing her contours and her lines with his fingers, he described concentric circles on her breast, working his way slowly towards the centre and her jutting nipple.
Jacqueline was just lying there, basking in the detailed attention he was paying to her body, enjoying every caress, every movement, every touch. Without letting go of her breast, he bent over her and started to kiss her soft white globe, licking her smooth skin with his tongue, working towards the nipple again. She gasped when he took it into his mouth, ran his tongue around it, and began sucking at it greedily, hungrily, until it was big and hard in his mouth.
Then he moved his hand down to her pussy again, parted her lips with his fingers, and sent them on a detailed exploration of all her wonderful, exceedingly arousing parts. She could only moan and groan as his ministrations sent currents of electricity up and down her body, into her mind, into her soul. She was flooded with the most incredible sensations, he was so good at manipulating her and managing her body. She felt reduced to a bundle of extremely sensitive nerves, floating on the wonderful rush of orgasmic delights surging through her and filling her every fibre, every nerve.
Her body was trembling uncontrollably by the time he finally let go of her, climbed on top, and slid into her effortlessly and calmly yet with purposeful force and determination. Her orgasms were still surging through her when she felt him coming inside her and she felt she would never have enough of him.
Yet it all did come to an end, amid yelling and screaming and groaning and moaning and they knew that they had satisfied each other on the deepest level of their beings, that they had touched each other in the most hidden recesses of their psyches.
They finally fell apart and stretched out on the bed, feeling luscious and satiated through and through. They didn’t talk, only gasped for breath and waited for their hearts to slow down. At one point, Henri turned on his side, put an arm around her, and took her burning breast back into his hand. She sighed contentedly as he smiled at her with a deeply satisfied look on his face.
Jacqueline briefly thought of Jean-Claude and their escapade on Notre Dame, but as satisfying and pleasurable as that had been, being with Henri was a far deeper and much more emotional experience. It was definitely better, she thought leisurely, than being with Luc. Yet she also knew she would never stop seeing him and being with him, any more than she would stop going to the gargoyles, to the sidewalk cafés, and perhaps even to Jean-Claude. All the men in her life and all of those things were integral parts of her life and contributed in no small measure to her continued growth and development along the path she had chosen for herself.
She couldn’t wait to start on the painting, with Henri sitting among the other patrons in the sidewalk café. Perhaps she would do a portrait of him as well, one she would keep for herself, to remember him. It might well take her a few days of having Henri in her studio before she would be able to complete everything. She was already delirious with anticipation, and they weren’t even out of bed yet. Life was definitely good, and progressing much to her delight.
About the Story
One of the most memorable experiences of my young adulthood, when I was still living in Switzerland, was my weeklong visit to Paris with my girlfriend. Having travelled extensively in other European countries and cities, and having heard and read so much about my latest destination, I was thrilled to finally see and experience the queen of all cities in all its splendour for myself. It was a beautiful summer, ideal for a leisurely visit, and the city was alive with tourists as well as with plenty of Parisians who chose to spend the summer in the city. We made the best use of the relatively short time we had available by visiting as many landmarks and attractions as we possibly could, including, of course, the Eiffel Tower, Montmartre, the Marché des Puces, the promenade along the Seine.
The definite highlight of one of our days in the city was the visit to Notre Dame and its famous gallery of ominous gargoyles carved of stone and surrounding the top of the cathedral. We could see the whole magnificent city spread out below us, just as the gargoyles in their infinite silence could and have for hundreds of years. Gargoyles as symbols of ancient wisdom and constant vigilance have held a special place in my life ever since and they keep creeping into my writing every now and then. I still have a black-and-white photograph I took with one of my first cameras during that visit hanging on the wall beside my computer desk. I managed to capture one of the more striking gargoyles crouched atop Notre Dame in the foreground and overlooking the Seine with two of its bridges down below and the Eiffel Tower in the distance. It was that photograph that I have kept over all these years, together with my still very vivid memories of the romantic atmosphere and the ancient monuments and buildings and streets, that inspired the setting and prompted me to write this story about the beautiful city of love and light.
Some Virgins Learn Quickly
by Toni Sands
At Le Bourget I claimed my suitcase as if greeting an old friend. The arrivals hall was an ant heap as I faced the next hurdle of the journey. My first real live gendarme walked by, dressed exactly as I’d seen in pictures, but face flushed and shiny as if he’d been somewhere he shouldn’t.
That certain smell would for the rest of my life remain the French smell: a mix of tobacco, garlic and hubbub. At the time it was exciting and also scary. I was just eighteen years of age. Teenager or young woman? I thought I was a young woman. I’d have scorned anyone who suggested anything else but now I look back I realise how gauche I was when I flew to Paris Easter ’67 to meet my pen friend.
There was no sign of Jeannine in the concourse. I’d scrutinised her photograph so many times I imagined the pretty, plump girl with dark eyes, mischievous grin, and scribble of curly black hair would be unmissable. I raked the crowds with my eyes. My hands were clammy and I was a little queasy from my first ever flight. My ears still felt stuffed with cotton wool as I searched for a scarlet jacket.
‘Mademoiselle Carr?’ A tall man approached. ‘Are you Helen Carr?’ His words were softened by a polite smile.
Then he held out a photograph. The slender teenager captured by the camera smiled back at me from beneath the lilac tree in our garden back home. Suddenly I didn’t want that person to intrude on the moment. But the anxious-not-to-look-anxious, crumpled child-woman, dressed in a trench coat and marooned in the soulless surroundings of an unfamiliar airport must have had something about her for the Frenchman to recognise. I wasn’t as fashion-conscious as Jeannine and hadn’t decided what clothes to travel in when I wrote that last letter, confirming travel details.
I smiled back at the stranger but, uncertain what was going on, made no move to greet him, shake hands or even speak. Jeannine had said she would meet me then we’d go into the city for lunch and a little exploration. She wrote of taking the Metro to her uncle and aunt�
��s apartment which was where we would stay two nights before the long train journey south. Mon oncle Emile et sa femme Adrienne, Jeannine wrote, are sympathique. I knew this meant they were likeable, pleasant people.
Her uncle was certainly patient. ‘I bring papers to identify myself.’ He handed me my own photo and fumbled in a pocket. ‘I am Emile Clement. The uncle of Jeannine.’ His passport revealed no particular likeness to my pen friend but the name fitted. I wondered why this man had my photo in his possession.
‘But where is she?’ I asked. ‘Where is Jeannine? I don’t understand how you have my photograph.’
He nodded. ‘My niece is what you English call scatter-brained. I think her parents insist she send it to us, in case of any problem.’
‘Does this mean my holiday’s off?’
‘Of course not. Jeannine missed her connection to Paris. She does not arrive until eight o’clock tonight at Gare de Lyon. I know you have journeyed from Oxford to catch your flight from Heathrow. Let me take your suitcase.’
He bent to pick it up. I caught a whiff of cologne. The unexpected fragrance hit my nostrils and I was startled by my reaction. My father always smelled of carbolic soap. My brother smelled like an apprentice mechanic unless my mother made him wash. My Latin teacher’s aura was that of old tweed and leather.
A man who smelled delicious was uncharted territory. I had read of so many things still not experienced, but this was an erotic moment. There was no mistaking the jolt I felt. It was at the same time disturbing yet exciting.
I remembered my manners. ‘Thank you, monsieur.’
‘Emile. Please call me Emile. I hope I may call you Helen?’
We walked to his car. It was my first time on French soil. Every step I took seemed to distance me further from home and closer to the throbbing heart of Paris. How many times had I read about the city? How many books by French authors had I studied? How many occasions did I wish the language would slip from my lips as effortlessly as it did from the lips of the mademoiselle attached to our school to improve our oral skills? She pronounced my name the French way, but it was the first time I’d heard it spoken by a man whose first language wasn’t English.
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