by Alix Nichols
“Work?”
“Uh-huh.” He gives me sideways look. “I won’t see you much.”
I fold my napkin and arrange the remains of the food on the tray, avoiding eye contact. He doesn’t need to know how dismayed I am at the prospect.
Raphael turns away from me and begins to fumble with the controls on his armrest. Suddenly, we are shut off from the rest of the aircraft by a felt partition. Neat. He presses another button, and my seat slides into a reclining position. A second later, so does his.
He leans over me. “We could put the next twenty minutes to good use.”
Except I can’t. My period started this morning. The problem is my upbringing won’t allow me to say this to a man. Even a man that’s intimately familiar with every inch of my body.
“That trick you did with the seats,” I say instead, “was cheesy.”
He nods. “And cheap.”
“Exactly.”
“And childish,” he adds.
“That, too.”
“And Chinese.”
I frown. “Why Chinese?”
“Because… I ran out of pertinent ch-words.”
I burst out laughing.
He unbuttons my shirt and pushes the cups of my bra under my breasts. The feel of his hand against my skin is too pleasant to resist, so I let him caress me from the waist up.
He begins to stroke my left breast, his palm scooping and kneading it. At the same time, his mouth descends on my right breast, and, after swirling his tongue around my nipple, he captures it between his lips. A shiver runs through me. His eyes on my face, Raphael draws the nipple into his mouth and sucks on it. I moan and arch my back as he rolls my other nipple between his fingers, pinching it gently.
This is so damn good.
I mean, not good.
Because he clearly doesn’t intend on stopping at my waistline. He’s just unbuttoned my jeans and is drawing the zipper down.
“I should’ve warned you to wear a skirt,” he says, sliding his hand under the lacy front of my panties.
I grab his wrist. “What if the attendant comes in to collect the trays?”
“She won’t,” he says, halting nonetheless, “as long as the partition is up.”
“What if there’s an emergency? What if we’re crashing and the pilots need to let us know?”
“If we’re crashing, we’ll know.”
As I look for another reason why we should stop, he moves his hand between my legs.
I jerk his wrist. “Stop!”
“Why? What’s wrong, baby?”
OK, to hell with good manners. “I’m on my period.”
“Oh.” He looks a little confused. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”
“No, I’m good. But I don’t want you to… you know.”
He puts his hands on my lower abdomen. “Cramps?”
“A little.”
“Poor sweetie.”
Before I can catch his wrist, his long fingers slip inside my panties and find the string of my tampon. “Wonderful invention, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Can you just… return to my breasts?”
“Here’s a deal.” He gives me a crooked smile. “My mouth returns to your lovely tits, but my hand stays where it is.”
“I don’t think—”
“Without moving.”
“You’re such a… dickkopf,” I say.
He widens his eyes. “Did Mia Stoll just use a swear word?”
“It means ‘pigheaded’ in Alsatian.”
“Phew.” He drops his head to his chest in fake relief. “For a moment there, I thought the end of the world was upon us.”
I smile, and Raphael gives me a tiny stroke down there, his touch featherlight.
I squeeze my thighs. “Your hand stays only if you can control it.”
“I promise I’ll do my best,” he says. “If I fail, slap me.”
“Oh, I will.”
He blows air across my nipples and resumes his ministrations. But I find it impossible to relax, too aware of his hand between my legs. In particular, of his fingers that begin to stir again. When he presses them against my bud, I open my mouth to cry foul, except the pleasure turns out to be stronger than my inhibitions and taboos.
Encouraged by my permissiveness, he starts to rub in earnest.
My lids grow heavy.
He applies more pressure, and soon I’m writhing under his touch. I forget I’m menstruating. I disremember I have cramps. My brain doesn’t even know what cramps are anymore.
Raphael rubs faster, whispering against my lips, “Mia, baby, you’re so beautiful.”
I peak the moment his tongue pushes into my mouth. As he kisses me hard and deep, wave after wave of sweet pleasure washes over me.
I abandon myself to it.
When I come down from the high, I realize my fingernails have dug into his back, hard.
“I’m sorry,” I say, letting go of him. “Did I hurt you?”
“A little.” That panty-dropping smile again. “But I loved it.”
I grin back. “Well, that makes two of us with self-control issues.”
“Isn’t it weird,” he says, “how I have no problem exercising control in every sphere of my life, except this?”
“It is weird.”
“I can go days, sometimes weeks without thinking about women, until I see something that tempts me. And then I’m toast.”
“Some-thing?”
“On a woman,” he explains. “Like your eyes. And lips. And neck, and boobs… Actually, every part of you.”
As he names the various parts he touches his lips to them, a little clumsy at times. What with his right hand still in my panties and his left hand splayed against my seat propping him up, the poor man is forced to use his head.
Literally.
“It’s like with Q-tips,” Raphael says.
“Pardon me?”
“Haven’t you ever caught sight of Q-tips in a bathroom drawer, and suddenly your ears felt itchy?”
I smile and nod. Just hearing the word makes my ears itchy.
He trails his tongue up my neck and over my chin. “It’s like once you see them, you simply must grab one to scratch your itch! You know?”
“Yeeeah…” I draw it out.
The truth is I don’t know if I know. The real Q-tip situation is something I can definitely relate to, but we’re no longer talking about Q-tips, are we? Raphael is describing his relationship with the opposite sex.
Scratch the itch, huh?
I’m struck by how insensitive his comparison is. And even more by the fact that he doesn’t realize it.
Or doesn’t care.
For heaven’s sake, Mia, walk away from this man!
He’ll get you addicted to his lovemaking and rakish charm and then discard you like a used Q-tip.
“Baby, is something wrong?” he asks.
I shake my head. “All’s well.”
“I doubt it.” He searches my face. “Did I bite your lip too hard, or is it what I just said?”
How can a man be so blunt and so sensitive at the same time? He says the most outrageous things without caring about their effect, yet he’s capable of noticing the slightest change in the way my body reacts to him. Why isn’t he just a regular entitled jerk? Things would have been so much easier!
I would’ve dumped him by now.
No, scratch that, I would’ve never hooked up with him in the first place.
“It’s not something you did,” I say.
He nods. “It’s what I said about Q-tips, right?”
“Not a very flattering comparison.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
I tug at his wrist, and he pulls his hand out of my panties.
“At least it was honest,” I say, sitting up. “I’ll get over it.”
He pulls himself up, too, and then puts the backs of our seats into an upright position.
I sort myself out and decide this is
a good time to talk about my colleague Sandro, whom my lover is about to sack.
“You’re letting Sandro Marnier go,” I say.
Raphael gives me a slightly surprised look. “I am, indeed.”
“Is he bad at his job?”
“Why do you care?” His expression hardens. “Is he a friend of yours? Or more than a friend?”
“He’s a friend of Barbara’s,” I say. “We sometimes eat lunch together.”
Raphael nods, his jaw relaxing.
“So, is he bad?” I ask again.
“No. But he showed up to work drunk three times over two weeks.”
“His boyfriend of three years dumped him out of the blue.”
“Not my problem.” Raphael’s lips flatten.
My jaw clenches.
“I must act before his probationary period ends,” Raphael explains. “If I don’t, he’ll get an open-ended contract, join the staff union, and continue drinking. And then it’ll definitely be my problem.”
“He won’t continue drinking,” I say. “I can vouch for him. He loves his job, and he needs to work. It was just a glitch.”
Raphael shakes his head. “If things are the way you describe them, he would’ve never allowed the glitch to happen in the first place.”
“Haven’t you ever lost your way?” I ask. “Haven’t you made misguided decisions and done stupid things you regretted bitterly later?”
He surveys my face.
“Please, will you give Sandro a chance?”
He stares out the window for a long moment. “Yes, there was a time when I lost my way,” he says, turning to me. “Many years ago, back in my teens.”
“But you got your act together, and I’m sure you didn’t do it alone. Someone—your parents, most likely—was there to help you.”
He gives me a humorless smile. “Someone was, indeed, only it wasn’t my parents. Maman was running her charity in Nepal, and Papa… Anyway, the person who had my back was Seb. I may have never cleaned up my act if it weren’t for him.”
I gaze into his eyes.
He stares back. “I’ll take another look at Sandro’s file.”
“Thank you.”
The corners of Raphael’s mouth curl up. “You should apply for sainthood with that heart of yours.”
Ha! The irony of it.
I’m not championing Sandro out of the goodness of my heart. My motives are more complex and somewhat less altruistic. The main one is a ludicrous wish. I hope that if my sex tape ever hits the Internet, the universe will return the favor. I hope the people who know me won’t see it, or if they do, they won’t judge me too harshly.
And, above all, I hope the people who matter most won’t cast me off.
Chapter 10
I’m stretching my legs in the airy foyer of the Pompidou Center, fighting the temptation to check out its Dadaism exhibit. But the purpose of my being here isn’t art. It’s work.
My main work, that is.
I’m at the Pompidou Center tonight—just as I was last night and I will be tomorrow night—because its well-provisioned library is open until ten p.m. That means I can come here straight from the office and toil on my thesis for full three hours.
Tonight, I’ve been particularly inspired. Not only did I manage to track down an elusive thirteenth-century source, I also did quite a bit of writing. Oh, to hell with false modesty. I did a huge amount of writing and—wait for it—finished Part II of my thesis.
Go Mia!
As of today, exactly half of my dissertation is done, ready to be shown to my supervisor, and used for conference papers and journal articles. On top of that, I’m a whole month ahead of the deadline Professor Guyot and I had agreed on.
What can I say?
Mia Stoll rocks.
Some day she’ll be a recognized authority on the harlots of medieval Paris. No, think bigger! She’ll be the world’s biggest expert on women in medieval France.
I turn around to head back to the library and collide with someone’s broad chest.
A very familiar chest.
“Hey, Rudy,” Raphael says, putting his arms around me and planting a kiss on my mouth.
My lids fall as I savor the scent of him and the feel of his lips against mine.
Wait… what is he doing here?
I draw away. “Weren’t you supposed to be in Rio?”
“I came back two days early.” He shrugs. “The work was done so there was no point in lingering.”
“No point in lingering in Rio?” Man, he’s jaded. “Didn’t you say you wanted to explore the city?”
“I did. And I was planning to… but then…” He gives me a crooked smile. “I realized I missed my Ferrari.”
I stare at him in incredulity. “Let me get this straight. You left Rio two days early because you missed your car.”
He nods.
“Poor lovesick man.” I give his upper arm a sympathetic squeeze. “Does your Ferrari feel the same way about you?”
“She won’t say—seeing as she can’t talk—but she lit up when she saw me earlier.” He beams.
I beam back. “That’s a good sign.”
“So, how’s the study coming along?”
“I just finished part two.”
“Madame Stoll.” He takes an imaginary hat off. “That deserves a celebratory dinner.”
I just grin, feeling ridiculously proud of myself.
“Speaking of dinner, have you eaten yet?” Raphael asks. “I’m starving—came here straight from the airport.”
“I grabbed a sandwich on the way from the office.”
Hang on a sec…
Did he just say he came here straight from the airport? I thought he’d gone home first to check on his Ferrari, which “lit up” for him?
Raphael pulls a face. “A sandwich doesn’t count as dinner. How about that place on rue Rambuteau we went to last week?”
The place that serves Kobe steaks for the price of my monthly rent and swarms with movie stars, some of whom greet Raphael with a “Hi, baby, we should get together sometime.”?
No, thanks.
“You go ahead,” I say. “I’m in this crazy productive flow tonight. I want to write some more.”
“Not even George’s at the top floor of this building?”
I shake my head.
He looks around and takes a step toward the escalator. “Follow me.”
Intrigued, I do as requested.
Turns out he’s leading me to the mezzanine café.
“Unless you have serious and well-justified objections,” he says, motioning me to a table by the balustrade, “I’ll order your favorite brownie and chai latte and something more substantial for myself.”
He spins around and heads to the counter before I get a chance to utter my objections.
Honestly. Men.
When he returns with an overflowing tray and I sink my teeth into the brownie, I feel a lot less peeved at his unceremonious ways.
“Do you have your laptop?” he asks.
“Of course.” I point at my backpack on the floor. “I’m not crazy enough to leave it in a public library unattended.”
“Will you show me an interesting passage from your new chapters?”
Every time he asks me to do that, I get inexplicably excited.
So I pretend to be miffed. “Are you suggesting my thesis has passages that are boring?”
“Yes,” he says, unfazed. “If it didn’t have any, it would be a Stephen King novel.”
He does have a point.
I open my laptop and scroll through my new chapters.
Hmm…. All of it looks interesting to me…. OK, how about this one?
I turn my screen toward him and point. “Read this bit.”
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the sex worker had no legal status and wasn’t even allowed to speak for herself in court. But her right to be paid for her services was firmly established and protected in Norman laws. The influential English canonist T
homas of Chobham, who had studied in Paris in the 1180s, wrote: “It is wrong for a woman to be a prostitute, but if she is such, it is not wrong for her to receive a wage. But if she prostitutes herself for pleasure and hires out her body for this purpose, then the wage is as evil as the act itself.”
“Ha!” he says, looking up at me. “So this Thomas is basically saying it’s a mild sin if a woman has sex for money, but it’s a really nasty sin if she does it for pleasure. Right?”
“That’s not exactly what he says, but you aren’t far off the mark.”
“Well, I’m glad medieval canons are dead and buried now, at least in this part of the world.”
“I’m not so sure.” I narrow my eyes. “What do you pay an average male auditor versus an average female auditor?”
“At DCA,” he says with visible pride, “male and female auditors get equal pay for equal work.”
“OK, then how about male and female staff, all categories included?”
He runs his hand through his hair. “That wouldn’t be a fair comparison.”
“No? Why?”
“Because…” He hesitates for a second. “OK, I’m going to be blunt about this. We don’t have any women in the top management. And we don’t have many male assistants.”
I nod. “Still a long way to go even for this part of the world, huh?”
He chews his sandwich in silence.
I study his serious face. “You’re suspiciously thoughtful.”
“I’m trying to picture myself living in medieval France where all pretty young things who don’t sell their bodies are chaste.”
“And?”
“It’s terrifying.” He widens his eyes in mock despair. “As a man who’s not interested in marriage, I’d have to either grin and bear it or pay for sex.”
“Something tells me you’d go with the second option.”
He smirks. “I’d probably have loyalty cards from brothels all over the country.”
“What if you were a medieval woman and you weren’t interested in marriage?”
“I’d become a harlot,” he says without hesitation.
Of course.
“What about you?” he asks.
I don’t hesitate either. “I’d become a nun.”
“Really? I didn’t realize you shared your mother’s passion for Jesus.”
“I don’t, even though I do think he was an admirable individual.”