Arrival at the Gare de Lyon
One hour before the train’s scheduled arrival from Toulon, Etienne was sitting at the café facing la Gare de Lyon. Etienne was always happy to visit the station, one of the six large mainline railway terminals in Paris. With ninety million passengers every year, it is one of the busiest stations in Europe and the northern terminus of the Paris-Marseille connection. The station was built for the 1900 World Exhibition. It is a classic example of the architecture of its time. Most notable is the large clock tower atop one corner of the station, similar in style to Big Ben, that of the British parliament building. The station houses a five star restaurant, le Train Bleu, a favorite of Etienne, which has served guests since 1901 in an ornately decorated setting.
Justine had met with her potential associate in Toulon, to explain that she would not take the representation job in Cairo. Etienne was sipping at a cappuccino. Even the Express, reporting the final day of the World Cup, could not retain his attention. He left the café precipitously, only to hear the garçon chasing him in the middle of the street to collect the bill. He paced the arrival ramp for more than half an hour and looked at his watch continuously. “Still another half hour before the train’s arrival,” he blurted out, surprising a clochard sleeping against a post.
“Le train en provenance de Toulon entre en gare,” he heard the announcement and wondered, for a moment, if she would be on board. Minutes went by, while the crowd rushed from the wagons but no sight of Justine. The passenger line was thinning and he began to wonder if he misunderstood her explanations. This first meeting at a train station taught him of Justine’s habit to be the last passenger to leave the train. From the farthest wagon, he saw her, pulling what had to be a large segment of her wardrobe on wheels. Wrapped in a long Givenchy blue dress reaching her ankles, she appeared, her hips swaying graciously to the beat of a departing engine. Getting closer toward her, he could see the same wide smile of joy, his last memory, when departing from the Hilton in Cairo. He could not move fast enough to take her in his arms. She began choking, whispering that he was taking her breath away. He became aware that she was unable to take pressure on her lungs. The package was to be handled with care. The deep kiss that followed, left little doubt about a shared emergency for a live connection and would have lasted forever, if the chauffeur had not interrupted.
Hotel St-Michel
The life of Celine, Dostoyevsky, and even Rabelais centuries before, inspired Henry Miller to declare:
“Paris attracts the tortured, the hallucinated, the great maniacs of love. I understood why it is that here, at the very hub of the wheel, one can embrace the most fantastic, the most impossible theories, without finding them in the least bit strange, it is here that one reads again the books of his youth and the enigmas take on new meanings, one for every white hair. One walks the streets knowing that he is mad, possessed, because it is only too obvious that these cold, indifferent faces are the visages of one’s keepers. Here all boundaries fade away and the world reveals itself for the mad slaughterhouse that it is.”
Such was the stage for Isis and Osiris’s return to earthly living. The limousine stopped on boulevard St-Michel and Justine followed Etienne through the hall of the small three stars hotel. Grander hotels would soon follow to cater to the goddess, but Etienne wanted to bring Justine’s lovely nose closer to the level of earthly grounding and even closer to the odors of its earthly people. Etienne had selected the hotel because of a special fondness for the setting and a memory of an unusually warm January morning. He had been sitting on the Brasserie terrace at Place de la Fontaine nearby, sipping a café au lait in the spring of 1968, when a horde of students from la Sorbonne, demonstrating their anger at the government, emerged to fill the fountain with soap. There were bubbles floating over Paris for hours. Just as notorious, during 1871, the Hôtel St-Michel became the meeting place of the Vilains Bonhommes, a horde of revolutionary French poets. Their ghosts, including Verlaine and Rimbaud, to this day, haunt the old building and Etienne’s soul.
After the long kiss that lasted the entire trip from the station, they remained silent, in a meditative trance. She followed Etienne through the main hall and through a small doorway opening in a large room, curiously furnished by three beds, leaving little room for anything else. “What a perfect playroom,” thought Etienne when he opened the door to let her in. He promptly returned to the lobby to fetch the luggage.
Etienne reentered the room and placed the suitcase near the door. He turned from the window, adjusting his eyes to the semi darkness of the bedroom. In the far corner, he saw Justine completely nude as she removed her G-string. She stood still in front of him proudly exposing her daring nudity. Her long golden treads coming forward so lightly over her shoulders, surrounding her pointed breasts to glide down, caressing her all the way to her belly. Perfect hips were innocuously revealing a golden triangle defying him, perched between thighs and legs that seemed to end in heavenly bliss. She was offering a vision of beauty that was choking Etienne. This vision of Justine would never leave him for as long as he lived. She was for a moment Botticelli’s Venus emerging from a seashell. The satiny golden whiteness of her body was glowing, exposing every pore singing to his soul, like a choir of enchantresses calling to capture him. Their song was so troubling, yet irresistible. Unlike Ulysses, Etienne would not resort to plugging his ears to escape.
Etienne was struggling with feelings, pulling him from gentleness to violence. He would have swallowed her whole, to have her closer to his heart, to satisfy the impulse to have her completely inside of him.
He came to her side and laid her down on the nearest bed. His lips took control of him determined to kiss and brush every single part of her body. With great restraint, aiming to ignite her passion to an unreachable level, he kneeled at the base of the bed and began the torture of delaying to satisfy her expectations. He began addressing a little toe brushing his lips on the tip so gently as to avoid tickling. Expecting her surprise and her instinctive reaction to withdraw, he took the little toe in a firm grip between his lips and took hold of her hands in his, to keep her still. She surrendered, overtaken by a growing ripple of pleasure, when he began sucking the defenseless victim. There followed a second toe and a third. Although determined to leave no orphan, it took an eternity to complete the manoeuver. His progress was often halted, when Justine would lift her body in a sitting position and begin licking his face until he could no more resist grabbing her tongue between his teeth and following with a long penetration. With a determination difficult to explain, he would keep defying her demands and return to the next toe, only to feel these invading hands pull his face once more toward the torture of her tongue, when he would concede another kiss. Etienne became enthralled with Maman’s manicured love objects, neglecting no affection until the last big toe was satisfied, despite the constant interruption from the owner. When his lips moved to her foot, he understood that he would not be allowed to kiss the sensitive under part. He kissed both feet and his lips began their ascension centimeter by centimeter alternating between her legs, spending long minutes sucking on each calf, and then giving special attention around the tender inside of her knees.
Justine continued to interfere with his progress, insisting he lift his face to kiss her. When he completed the knees evaluation and began moving his lips inside the lower part of her thighs, her breathing began to accelerate sending gentle palpitations along her body. For his part Etienne was drawn by the perfume of flowers and honey that was trickling his way. He was progressing inside her thighs and as the aroma became insistent inside his nostrils, he felt compelled to accelerate his climb. His mouth met with her opened vulva, glistening in wetness. She was jolting with delight, while his hands were pressing her hips down to pursue his degustation. His nose had filled with her honey juices and he had to withdraw a moment to escape drowning. Not that death would be a concern, overwhelmed as he was to share her pleasure. His tongue, lips and nose were taking turns in
side her in sequence, attempting to swallow every droplet. With each jolt of her body came a new wave of her nectar lubricating his ardor.
Etienne reveled at her pussy for a long time, feeling that he would never have enough of her. He resolved to continue his ascent moving to her belly, licking her button. He lifted his head only to land between her breasts. He was licking between the two mounds, when his ear brushed a nipple hard as rock. He had to pause for a moment to retain an ejaculation. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed a nipple between his teeth and began nibbling with enough force to bring her renewed pleasure. Her breathing accelerated when he moved to the second. Moving quickly over her neck, his tongue drilled through her lips while his organ was sliding gracefully inside her belly. They paused again to retain orgasm, holding each other in one body. Their stillness brought an invasion of pleasure. Justine and Etienne were totally lost in sharing each other’s pleasure, welcoming the occasional short respite from unrelenting bliss. Simultaneously four lips began to seek each other with great success, followed by two tongues charging, ready for attack. In a sudden determined roll, Justine found herself on top of Etienne, when she began rocking her body back and fro pressing over his crutch with all her weight. Within second, they were breathing and moaning in unison. For years to come there would be very few days when the heavenly lovers would not let themselves be captured by the unique moments of such long passionate lovemaking sessions.
For a long time, they remained still, locked into each other. Etienne opened his eyes to find that the night had fallen over Paris. A bell from the nearby Pantheon announced that their first love marathon had lasted over eight hours. She rolled on her side eyes closed, but within seconds they were back in each other’s arm in a panic, as if they feared to lose each other again.
In the Paris sky, out of the reach of human eyes Isis and Osiris were consumed in love, unaware that Horus was also keeping an eye on the lovers from the dark side.
Etienne went to the bathroom and coming back, he left the light on which diffused softly into the room through the partly opened door. He approached her, fixing the glare reflecting from her wide blue eyes. They were holding each other, touching, gently talking for hours about anything and everything and enjoying the caresses of their words, their silences and the sweet contact of their bodies. They went on loving each other, in every word, every move, often without their bodies touching, but their souls blended deep in love.
And such was the first encounter in Paris. Justine, considering the hotel slightly below her standards at first, began to grow a liking for it, or at least for what it began to represent to her. They strolled the avenues and Luxembourg Park in the vicinity. On occasion they had to resort to an outing for a quick meal, but most of their time was spent in bed in each other’s arms.
One day, Justine began her morning a bit moody. They were returning to the room after a morning stroll and a chocolatine at the corner brasserie, He noticed that she was staying away from him, and she began to write. “I am writing a poem,” she said, pouting. He was coming from behind attempting to lift her towards the bed. He was kissing her neck, when she turned to him, “I am so sorry Etienne, but we cannot make love. I am having my period.” Without a word, Etienne pulled her in his arms and began a long kiss.
When she regained her senses, she was lying over him in an embrace. She could not utter a single word, when she felt her bra being removed and her panties moving down her legs. She could not resist the agility and dexterity of these fingers moving about casually inside her. She did not hurt anymore. A surge of pleasure invaded her. Eyes closed, she was savoring pure delight, to her surprise to find her hands pressing his head over the less and less forbidden fruit. He surfaced, blood streaking down his nose and cheeks. She did not miss a beat and pushing Etienne aside, she saddled him in a gallop until she fell asleep. Her monthly periods became less and less painful and annoying with Etienne’s assiduous therapy.
Convergence
After a few weeks of travel, Etienne was becoming restless, missing Justine’s presence at his side. Cedrik Collin, a colleague director on the board of the Jeanne Ebory Hospital in Libreville, called for an urgent meeting. An important part of Etienne’s career was spent developing modern hospitals in Africa and the Middle East. Many of these hospitals became leaders in their field, supporting the development of native hospital personnel and specialists in emerging nations and not the least, providing affordable medical care for the needy populations.
Cedrik had left Libreville to meet Etienne in Paris, splitting the trip halfway. The following day, they had lunch at the Arab League penthouse restaurant, just a block from Austerlitz to settle business. After the meeting, Cedrik took the train for his residence in Angers. Etienne had a few hours to spend, before Justine would arrive from Perigord at the Austerlitz train station. Justine had returned to live with her family during Etienne’s absence. Gare d’Austerlitz, named after the great Napoleon victory in Czechoslovakia, was built in 1840 to link Bordeaux in the South West and Paris. Etienne settled in the train station lounge, to catch up on reading his favorite weeklies.
As he expected, Justine was the last passenger to leave the last wagon. She ran, dropping her suitcase and jumped in his open arms offering her wide smile to his hungry lips. In line for a taxi, his impatience was soothed by the sound of her voice confirming her excitement to be back with him. They entered the room at the Hilton Suffren. He led her to the floor length mirror, pressing her body against the glass. Without any resistance in her part, his hands were moving up and down over her body with more and more fury, attempting to touch everything at the same time. He began a long deep kiss, while his hands were undoing with impatience each button of her long tunic and anything that obstructed his observation of her nudity. She was facing the mirror, her body shivering. He pressing her breasts and kept her belly pinned against the icy glass of the mirror while his hands kneaded and opened her lovely round buttocks to the limit of separation. Seeing her nipples growing hard, her surrender let him suspect that she was not entirely adverse to the protocol. On this third encounter, Etienne began feeling a mischievous excitement at taking advantage of her., though his gentle abuses would never exceed the barrier of controlled sadism. He was learning that they secretly shared an insatiable thirst for stimulation and that they were prepared to explore some unaccustomed avenues on the pathway to bliss. They would play with fire, but never without the precaution of avoiding for each other the discomfort of burning. Biting her neck with sustained attention, he separated her ass cheeks and his penis invaded her pussy, reassured by the quick, wet confirmation of her excitement. Lying on the bed, they smiled while pleasure evolved in an unending conversation. Captive to the soft music of their words, they never thought of eating, until they realized the late hour.
They were sharing a sandwich from room service, when Justine mentioned casually that she would leave him, early in the morning, to visit dear old friends Marcello and Paolo, in a village in the vicinity of Genoa. While she was telling Etienne a sterilized version of her meeting with the brothers in Corsica, where all shared a summer vacation with their families, as she talked she could not stop from imagining that she could force them to repeat the naughty incident on the beach. Her body responded to the thought and began rubbing her lover’s penis. Fortunately, Etienne would only learn much later about the Corsican summer, yet in a premonition, he was assaulted by mixed emotion quickly forgotten when she engulfed his organ in her mouth.
After she fell asleep with a mouthful of him, he remained awake for some time wondering. “Could it be the sadness of her sudden unannounced departure, of having had so little of her or was he experiencing a twinge of jealousy for sharing her with others? She is not your exclusive property,” he thought, “she is only arriving in your life! Or is she?”
A love bout
Returning to business travel, Etienne began hoping that his activities would bring him to France more frequently. Even at this early stage of the new rela
tionship, he was finding unbearable the mere thought that they could be separated for lengthy periods of time. There could not have been a more welcomed coincidence, when a business associate announced the possibility of a new project in Paris. He would have used magic or sorcery, whatever was required, to insure the successful start-up of the project. He returned promptly to Paris to evaluate the opportunities and requirements. The plan would include extending an invitation to his new lover.
Entering the room at l’Hotel St-Michel from a lightning fast trip from Austerlitz, shirts, pants, and underwear were soon flying in every direction. As if they had never left, they returned to drown into each other, for hours of continuous pleasure. Etienne must have fallen asleep from exhaustion, when he realized that she had escaped his arms. He saw her sitting at the other end of the room. Tears were dripping from her cheeks to her breasts. Etienne, overcome by her sadness stood silent, when she began in a faint whisper. “You should know my love that I come from a leading bourgeois family in Perigord. I was brought up with high standards and moral principles that I admit I did not always apply to the letter. I was not exactly a saint in my early years yet I am uneasy to reveal to my family a relationship with a man of my father’s age. This is in opposition to the values of my upbringing.”
Her blue eyes appeared to enlarge fixing into his. “My growing years became increasingly difficult because of the aggressive behavior of my father. He never provided the soothing of love to my mother, to my sisters and to me. I cannot remember a tender moment in his presence. Maybe, I am seeking in you, my dearest, the fulfillment of the immense void of male affection that for so long has frozen my soul. But I am totally infatuated by you and I cannot consider the thought of ever leaving you.”
The Labyrinth of Passion (romantic experiences) Page 17