1 comments/ 7287 views/ 0 favorites Girl Who Was Not Called Mistral 01 By: tristantrotsky They say the imagination is the most vital erogenous zone of them all... It's late. The hour she loves most. It seems that now, Paris – with its night-veiled boulevards, is most perfectly itself. Reminding her of a sensual woman wrapped in dark cloaks, dreaming dreams of illicit lovers, the odour of bodies, the paleness of flesh, the pulse of breath, laughter and wine. And 'Les Café Des Poetès' is a plague of smoke, a void of vague green lighting in Cubist décor, the haze giving it all an ill-defined blur. The esprit of la vie bohéme. Faces reach out to touch her. She moves stylishly, with conscious hauteur. The simple black dress contouring her, concealing and revealing in exact proportions, if it was any tighter they'd see the seams of her underwear, a punctuation of neat pearl buttons down the front. She's class. They know it, and she knows it. She chooses the privacy of a table in an alcove from where she can see the movement of the clientele, hear the soft jazz drift. A short while later, the waiter brings a bottle (Tollot-Beaut's '78 Corton-Bressandes) with a crystal glass, indicating a man at a separate table. He smiles and nods. She returns the smile coolly, with reserve, but her tongue already tingles with the heat of the liquor. Unconsciously she visualises their tongues in moist embrace. And for a moment she can't breathe for the pressure of their imagined bodies clasped together. Her dreams are populated with fantasy lovers. Perhaps tonight she can take those dreams further...? She looks back at him, forcing herself to smile more openly. Indicating for him to join her. As if this is a rendezvous. A game. Something they've worked out beforehand. He bows in a mock-chivalrous gesture that has her laughing, and he sits opposite her. His eyes burn deep, layering her naked. He's as dark as a Gauloises ad, his voice smooth, soothing, intimate. She says "monsieur?" He watches her, and stage-whispers "in 'Les Café Des Poetès', men buy the girls drinks. Then they go upstairs together. Perhaps you know this? Perhaps you don't. This is the way relationships develop here. You think money can't buy you love? You've come to the wrong place." "And you imagine that is why I am here?" He inclines his head slightly. "Not necessarily. But it might be interesting to pretend." She laughs again. Finds herself talking with unaccustomed openness, things she's seldom confided to anyone else, and when it's time to leave, she already knows she'll leave with him. Tasting the forbidden fruit of strange bodies. "Two people meet without names. Without pasts. All we possess is what we have now. From that we can create all manner of possibilities. We can drive to any destination we choose. We can see a Movie. We can go to a Hotel and make dreams with our bodies and poems with our sex. I own a property where we can be alone. Where we can be naked and gorge on each other. We can be anonymous and free to do whatever we most fantasise without guilt or constraint." "You are very confident," spoken with a subtext that says 'you are a man who puts the Phallic into Gallic.' "No. The choice lies with you. The choice always lies with you." In her imagination she has become... Audrey Hepburn, while he is a character from a Jean-Luc Godard movie. He has a metallic-green Renault parked alongside 'Les Café Des Poetès'. It seems natural she should slide in beside him, sinking into the upholstery, not caring where he's taking her. The lights come up and they move out into traffic, night-time Paris swirling by though the windshield. The silhouette creatures of the dark who stroll its shadows seem detached and dreamlike. But where before, the city was melancholy in its sad grandeur, now it's excitingly alive. "Perhaps this is the point where we should introduce ourselves? What's your name?" she begins. "Mine is..." But he reaches over to clamp his hand over her mouth. "No. We have no names. You can be whoever you want to be. Madame Rècamier, Madame Pompadour, Madame Bovary, Marie Antoinette, Simone De Bevoire, Anaïs Nin. I will be whoever you want me to be. We have no past and no history. No ties or responsibilities. Tonight we shall invent everything. We shall invent each other. We shall choose names. I want to know who you are in your dreams. I want to know what you are not called." "What I'm NOT called? Well – I'm not called... Mistral." "So tonight you are Mistral. Remember, Mistral, how it was that we met last year at the Film Festival? I wanted you at first glance. You played your lines so cleverly, and never missed a cue. I pursue you with such intensity, although at first you resist me. You are a journalist working for the magazine 'L'Evènement', and are there to interview a New Wave movie director. I secure an introduction for you on condition that you come for a meal with me at 'Les Café Des Poetès', and afterwards – in my Hotel room, you play the interview tape back while I draw the shoulder-straps of your dress down so I can cup your breasts and kiss your nipples. The tape still playing, his voice and your voice interacting, as I lick deeper, down between your legs, your most secret moistures on my tongue. So rich and delicious I can taste it still. There's a line between love and an erection that's hard to tell at moments such as this. As I enter you, you call my penis the beautiful invader, the sexual intruder. And we kiss so deeply you nearly bite my tongue off as you come. Remember? – in the morning, on the pillow beside me, you look so beautifully disarrayed. Like you're emerging from a long night of absinthe... and I wonder, why are you here? Has all this just been the fulfilment of our contract? Your debt now repaid in full...? or is there more? I scarcely dared to hope. Yet there was to be nothing more. Nothing, until now..." They drive out across the Seine, out where cataracts of cars crawl around the Periferique. She melts into the curve of his arm, protected by the warmth of his body heat... she knew she was being followed, even as she left the Bistro. The laughter of small dark women still in her ears, the fumes of Gauloises that lie like a hot sweet haze across her vision – but they can't obscure from her the whisper of expensively tailored shoes close behind her. She does not slow or quicken her pace as she goes on through the Rue Fontaine. A Paris evening, warm now, growing humid. A breeze scented with tulips. A breeze blowing the sounds and smells of Europe's most exciting city through and around her, but still there's emptiness. A void inside that nothing can touch. Something unreal too, as if she's detached from it all, out of sync. A city that's surreal, dislocated... Perhaps that's to be expected. The autowreck on the autoroute. Through the windscreen? Concussion – amnesia – but no, I'm O.K. They released me from the Hospital – didn't they? I'm booked into the Hotel off the grand boulevard, I have the key-fob here, it's firm and cool. The numbness, the unreality are just after-effects. It's bound to feel a little... odd. So let's reiterate what's known. She's thirty-four, and at the terminal end of a ten-year marriage run aground. From the start it was a calculated match, she'd got material security, a level of luxury she'd rapidly come to despise – while he'd acquired an attractive pliable possession, rich olive complexion, bright dark eyes, a woman that women envy and that men desire. A useful adornment for those months he chooses to be 'home'. But love, sex, lust, passion, aren't they supposed to be part of the marital equation too? In her shoulder-bag is a flask of ampoules, and a French-language glossy magazine. The cover story concerns the terminal end of a ten-year marriage run aground, from the start, a calculated match... The sound of footfall continues behind her. She loses herself in a maze of indistinguishable alleyways and streetlets off the Left Bank. Even now, city lights must be glimmering on the dark Seine somewhere far beyond these boulevards. She'd imagined a long weekend alone in Paris would help untangle the situation in her mind, a chance to think through the confusion. But all she's discovered is a deeper sense of isolation... and, where is she now? Monmarte? – the dark ways that used to be the Bohemian artist's quarters? Here there are old buildings rich in character and gently stylish decay... yet there's still a man behind her. He stands on the street corner between a collage of ripped wall posters. He's watching her with undisguised interest. His gaze at once flattering, and a little scary. He's approaching me now. An elegant slouch practiced from the Movies. Quick – select your pseudo – Zouzou or Frou Frou, Eloise or Aline. Unconsciously she visualises tongues in wet embrace. I can't breathe for the pressure of our bodies clasped together... Walking by the Seine earlier she'd heard a strange murmuring, almost subliminally low. Eventually it separates out into a profusion of long sighs, brief intense moaning, and gasping cries. She paused. Watching the eddies of tide, listening for long moments to the sounds of Paris making love. A million couples. Maybe more. A sound distilled from all the sweet wickedness of the world. But already it's too late. The man who's followed her from 'Les Café Des Poetès' is now barring her path. "Suzette, I'd like to make a small deposit in you, if that's not inconvenient?", in a rich Marseilles accent. He's acting as though he's Alain Delon. As if this is a Movie scene, like something out of the cinema. And she's – say, Maria Schneider, hot and sexable. He's mistaken me for 'Suzette'. He's mistaken me for his whore. This must be a – what do they call it, a 'Red Light District'? And he's taken me for a prostitute. I should be offended. Do whore's dress like this, like members of the bel monde in stiletto-heeled alligator shoes? Perhaps they do. This is where the whores must peruse les homme sur la rue, taking a kir in a café. Where they call out to a stroll of potential customers 'hey lover, hey l'amour, hey Honeydick.' Oddly, she finds herself returning his gaze. He's trying to act confident, casual, but she can sense the tension in the lines of his face. He's more nervous than I am. Perhaps – somewhere deep in my most secret soul, I am a whore. Perhaps he's recognised that much within me. I married – not for love, but for security, for financial comfort, material gain. Isn't that a form of subtle whoring? Perhaps a need exists within me to be used? Her hands tremble at the perversity of the idea. Can she really go through with the suggestion that's teasing her, and say 'oui'? Or should she get the hell out of here before it's too late? The urge, the temporary insanity, is overwhelming. Any second now he's going to turn away and disappear back into the night. A warm breeze blows the scent of tulips down the alley. She can't resist the temptation. "I await your pleasure, Monsieur. Do you have a place we can go?" The tension leaves his face, and he's leading the way, his eyes scarcely leaving me. It's almost as though he's imagining the supple play of muscles beneath my clothes all the while. Like he's imagining me naked already. Well – soon this dark attractive stranger will have me naked. I'll be compelled to undress for him, and then I must do whatever he wants me to. He's smiling at me, my guts turning to water at the thought of what lies ahead. This thing I'm willing. This situation I'm willing myself into. They pass dark Bistro's, Brasserie's and black sleeping cars. She imagines she recognises something of the area. Surely if you were to walk swiftly in this direction it will bring you out eventually on St Germain des Pres? Chestnut trees fringe the boulevard. The night-black foliage is whispering. "The usual place, Suzette." They arrive at an anonymous seedy-looking apartment house. She stands back as he talks in rapid French to the concierge. She tells herself – I've still got time to get out. There's still time to turn and run. But instead I'm following him, the black crone at the door smiles a toothless smile as I pass. "Suzette" she says to me, nodding her greeting. We climb a bare white-washed stairwell to a third-landing door. The steps move beneath their tread. "The key?" For a moment 'Suzette' is confused. Then she fists the 'Hotel' key-fob from her shoulder-bag, and hands it across to him. He screws it into the lock, pushing the door open onto a small undecorated room. He hits the light switch. A single unshaded bulb which is pale and inadequate. She wonders how many girls have been brought here. How many have been fucked (and worse) on that dirty bedstead? She moves to the window bay. The louvers are closed. The air from outside is scented with night. Soon I'll be one of those girls. Just another anonymous fuck. Oddly, the idea is appealing. It makes her part of that erotic world of subterfuge, that lifestyle of tantalising danger. It draws her into a nebulously romantic underworld of debauchery and daring. It makes her a part of it all – if only for a single night. She's no longer trembling. No longer afraid. Her fear replaced by a frenzy of dark intensity. Names and identity dissolve. She's just woman, one woman with a horny man aroused by her sexuality, a universal primal archetype. At that moment, she becomes the whore. As she crosses the room, the magazine falls from her shoulder-bag. Its pages spray as it hits the floor, opening out to a text-spread concerning the 'CONFESSIONS OF A TEN-YEAR MARRIAGE RUN AGROUND'. The story reads 'from the start it was a calculated match, she'd got material security...' Beneath a photo the blurb runs 'desires I've suppressed all these years are suddenly surfacing and longing to find expression'. The photo is of a woman, a photo taken in a Bistro called 'Les Café Des Poetès'. Her clothes are Laura Ashley. She is drinking a Kir. He sits on the bed with a gesture of impatience. She sits beside him carefully. He kisses her roughly with their tongues in wet embrace. Then he watches her undress. She wants to be naked for him. She has a need for him to see her. A need to be desired. To show him that she can be even more than naked. The blouse is tugged free. The skirt, and more. Nude, she does not move. The space between them seems to be bright and burning. Neither of them stir or even seem to breathe. The pale glow paints their bodies, lean and taut with a softening of shadow. His eyes are the eyes of a man who looks upon a miracle. After long moments she crosses to him, breasts moving free with slight sensual tremors, legs parted. I set one leg on the coverlet next to him so my vagina gapes for his inspection, and he kisses deep where I'm already moist. I move with feline speed to cover him, enveloping him in tumbling black hair. He detects the sex-sharpened fragrance of my skin. The intensity of my eyes glittering like those of some strange predatory animal. Greedily, I reach down to his groin. He lies back as I release his cock. She reaches out and grasps his penis in her hand. The beautiful and deadly slimness of it, the length and perfect balance. The hilt is black with pubence, it guards the balls which fit so perfectly into the cup of her fingers. A single smoky jewel of moisture glistens from its tip. Her name is etched along his penis-length in blue veins of ancient primitive symbols, it seems to penetrate her already with its animal wisdom. He kisses and thumbs her aroused nipples to an aching intensity as she manipulates her hand up and down in his groin. Until she eels round to straddle him, holding him, targeting his fierce erection into her, sinking down onto him with a long low deep-throated moan. She fucks him with a speed, fury and abandon she feels she's denied herself for so long, her breasts quivering with the motion as his hands and his lips trap them, squeezing and teasing them. Eventually she slows her rhythm torturously. He groans "je viens." I come. She answers "je jouis." A more subtle come. Again she increases her speed gradually. Until the soft explosion of orgasms come almost too soon and he's emptying into her as she collapses down onto him. Her hair disarrayed over their faces. Her body glistening with a sheen of perspiration. The after-effects of sex are like a hot sweet haze across her vision, she moves to suck his tongue. She's lost track of the hour. Sex is a door to infinity that lies outside of time and beyond all nature. To lovers, time means nothing. Their bodies glisten together in shadows. But now he's standing beside the bed, his shorts already concealing his quiescent penis. He's counting out notes from a monogrammed black leather wallet. So the adventure is over so soon? I can't take his money – can I? Perhaps I should be grateful for small 'merci's'. The pun makes her laugh suddenly, holding her face between her hands. To take his money is to really become the whore. Should she? Can she maintain the illusion right to the end? She sits up nude, and smiles. Suzette takes the money and says "merci monsieur, merci." A pause, "but why do you call me Suzette? Why act as though we've done this before? Is it part of the game for you?" "I call you Suzette because that is your name. I bring you here because this is where we always come to make love. Your key, it fits the lock. The concierge, she greets you by your name. Why complicate what is so simple?" "You don't understand. Perhaps I should explain, my husband, my car – the accident on the autoroute, the Hospital." He looks at her strangely. Picks up the discarded magazine absently from the floor, and sits down on the bed beside her, riffling through its pages. "It is memory which inhibits our freedom. Memory is what controls our actions because it exerts patterns of expectation onto them, the knowledge that other people too have their expectations of us also shapes our actions. Without memories, without knowledge of self, we are free to build whatever new selves we please from whatever actions suggest themselves or whatever themes snag our attention. You are Suzette, my sweet whore. The accident, the confusion, these things may also be true, I don't know. But they are not true for us, not for you and I. Here is the story you're telling me now..." He passes the magazine to her. She begins to read. A strange and exotic romance about a creature of the bel monde who marries into uneasy wealth. The life-style seems increasingly strange. This bed, this man, are real. She looks up to meet his eyes. I am Suzette the whore. This is my room. He is my client. She smiles. They drive out across the Seine, out where cataracts of cars crawl around the Periferique. She melts into the curve of his arm, protected by the warmth of his body heat. Some time later she opens her eyes... There's a hiss of gravel beneath the Renault tyres. He's pulled off the boulevard. There's a darkness inhabited by strange shadows. At first she can't make out where they are. But the headlights are picking out trees, and stone monuments. Her skin crawls with odd fascination. He's brought her to a cemetery. Perè Lachaise? It's a vast forbidding place full of ornate tombs, massive stone mausoleums draped with moss and creeping vines, in which the departed rest in granite silences. Night is black and enormous. They drive through the dark, surrounded by tombs. Ahead of them a huge circular crypt looms massively. It's now he slows to a halt. She tenses in anticipation. But he indicates for her to step outside. The engine dies. There's muted jazz in the green glow of the in-car stereo. The air outside seems strangely scented, a night that's whisper-quiet. She imagines the sound of the dead breathing as a breeze stirs the foliage of ghost trees. Far away there must be lights, movement, noise, here there's only stillness. Girl Who Was Not Called Mistral 01 He's beside her. His hand moves swiftly to cover her mouth. No words. He turns her back to face the car. Gently but firmly pressing her forward. The metallic-green is cool on her hands as he bends her over. His hands slip her dress up without preamble, hooks her panties, and in one swift movement jerks them down to her knees. Obediently she steps the right foot out of them, then the left. She feels vulnerable, excited. He hasn't kissed her yet. He's treating her like a whore. Like a slut. He's fumbling behind her. She hears the sound of a zip. Then a warm and insistent hardness against her bottom. No – she wants to see him, wait! His knee prises her legs apart, searching out the fleshiness between. She flinches as he locates its softness, her legs weakening as he directs himself into her. His cock pulses like a warm heart. She gasps out loud as he slides home. This is raw and ludicrous. He's deep and penetrating deeper. He's treating her like a pétasse (slut). Her back arches like an animal. Her face goes down onto the car bonnet. He slides back, holding her, then plunges in so hard she feels the weight of his balls swaying up against her. It happens quickly. He's working furiously in and out with a rhythm that has her squirming, until – all too soon she hears him grunt low. He curses – "merde", with a guttural sound, and he explodes into her with long tremors of ejaculation. He stays embedded for a long moment. But when he withdraws she feels drained and hollow, shivering either from chill, or from sexual excess. Beads of sweat glisten on her body. As she looks up she sees the huge circular crypt. Why has he brought her here, exactly to this place? Who lies in that crypt? – a dead wife? A former lover? Has this whole encounter been staged for the benefit of its occupant? As she turns, holding onto the car for support, he's using her panties to wipe himself. Then he throws them into the night. "You won't need these from now on." She nods her acquiescence. Without a word he's back inside the car. Holding the door open for her. She smiles awkwardly. Shyly, despite his sperm oozing within her. And she climbs in beside him. The car pulls away. She finds herself sleeping intermittently as he drives. When she wakes, the wipers are ticking away, like in a movie – 'Un Homme Et La Femme' perhaps? Then morning mist is dispersing through pale countryside. The Pèage Toll-Booths on the Autoroute south from Paris? There's a Police Car watching as they pass. And Malian Rap on the in-car digital stereo. They eat croissants and drink coffee at a Routier. Then, for a moment, she's standing alone outside on the asphalt as he settles the billet. She watches slow drifts of traffic moving beyond the sliproad. Standing carefully, conscious that her dress is short and that she's no longer wearing her Janet Règer underwear. A coach draws in. Its destination board says 'PARIS'. She has time to board. Time to escape this weirdness. Who is this man? She can't believe this is happening. This is madness. She's married. He could be a pervert, a psycho-killer. He used no condom. His body-fluids could be tainted, with... anything. Then he's beside her again, grasping her shoulder with surprising tenderness. She smiles, "I like the feel of your hands on me." They kiss, sucking tongues. She wants him with a physical urgency she's not known since adolescence. "So when do I get to find out, where you are taking me?" He doesn't answer until they're back in the car. "Surely you don't expect me to tell you without some... inducement?" He changes gear and accelerates smoothly. They've left the autoroute. A long empty avenue of trees now. "What must I do?", flirtatiously. He curls his lip – as if in indecision, making a twisting motion with his free hand. There's a gold chain that trickles down as he does so. "Shall we say... uh... you must reveal to me, in this mirror," he screws the rear-view round onto her, "your right nipple." "And you will tell me if I do this?" He nods. She giggles. "I cannot. It is ridiculous." A silence for long moments. She watches trees spoke by, and beyond them the great empty expanse of fields. "I don't negotiate" she says, suddenly serious. "I don't even know where we are. You must tell me." He indicates the mirror. She pouts in mock-petulance, moves her fingers to the small pearl buttons of her dress, and unhooks the first. Then – "no, I cannot." "You remember how I stared when I first saw you at 'Les Café Des Poetès'? Perhaps you imagined I thought you to be a victim, a target for seduction. But no. I stared because I recognised you as the beautiful woman I'd made love to at the 'Ophelia Presse' Literary party. I recall you were less than shy on that occasion, on that one night we had together." He looks across at her. "Still, you remain the same. As though I'd never left you." "No, it was not me, you are deceived." "You have no memory?" She laughs. "I've caught you out. I know this dialogue. Alain Resnais. 'Last Year In Marienbad'. Next you will say 'your eyes still dream, still you look faraway'. And I will say 'ages passed as I stood still for you'." He sighs irritably, and pauses for perhaps twenty seconds. Then, "it was a bizarre party – you must remember. A grand house, in the country. Some of the guests wear elaborate Venetian masks of white or inlaid porcelain which give them the anonymity of androids, or cold statues. Some are rumoured to be politicians, diplomats. One woman has her dress cut low to arrogantly reveal her breasts, luxuriating in the attention and furtive glances she attracts. One nipple is pierced and adorned with a diamond-starred filigree ring. It quivers with a delicate tinkling sound as she moves. I'm talking to a writer from Zaire when you break in on us so suddenly. So beautifully, and you kiss me with such an exquisite tongue. You – a complete stranger, kiss me so passionately. And as you draw back you nuzzle my ear to whisper to me that the dull Englishman over there is making clumsy advances to you, and to escape his attentions you've told him I'm your lover, that I'm notoriously jealous of other men – and that I must play along with this charade. "You smell of camellias. I'm so enchanted I do as you suggest, but as the Englishman continues to haunt you I find myself monopolising your attentions throughout the evening. Until couples begin pairing off. Some in threes. There's nudity and intimacy. A naked woman crawls on all fours across the dining table between cutlery, wine glasses and bowls of fruit. A circle of men spill red wine onto her body then vie with each other to lick it off. The 'Englishman' watches us walk together up the stairs. In the corridor on the first landing two naked youths of perhaps eighteen or nineteen kiss and caress each other's faces and tousled hair with tender and loving passion. While a plain middle-aged woman in an elegant evening gown crouches to suck their inflamed penises alternately, mouthing them with desperate eagerness in a way that's both reverent, and ravenous. She's straining her lip-sticked lips wide in an attempt to accommodate both large erections simultaneously. While, totally and exclusively engrossed in each other, they kiss and suck each other's tongues seemingly oblivious to her attentions. Her make-up is smeared, her mouth distended out of shape, but I feel sure I recognise her. The dowdy wife of one of the masked politicians? "You see me watching them, and smile an invitation that promises so much. The 'Englishman' observes us, as at last we enter the empty bedroom, I'm able to lock the door, and dim the lights. You undress for me. To express your gratitude, you say, in full. We gulp wine, and exchange it mouth to mouth. Then love is the banquet on which we feed. Your lips fluttering on my penis. My tongue tunnelling deep into your vagina, worrying at your clit until my tongue is sore and your juices are moist on my chin. And although we fuck all night, you never tell me your name... and I'm left wondering, imagining. Is there really an 'Englishman' you wish to avoid? – or is he a husband or a lover, and you are both playing an elaborate game with me? But it seems I'm never to find out, and never see you again... until last night, at 'Les Café Des Poetès'." As he talks she slides the buttons open one by one down the front of her dress, slowly. Drawing the material back. No underwear. His eyes flick from the highway to the mirror. The dark erect nipple like part of a collage slotted onto the speeding asphalt, a slight tremor. "Are you satisfied? Does it please you?" He licks his lips, as though tasting her. "Yes. But you, too, must fantasise. Tell me what you dream when you masturbate, when you are alone." She makes no attempt to re-cover her breast. "You are alone" he prompts. "You are in your bedroom..." She nods. "You lie on the bed. Are you nude?" Again she nods. "The coverlets are cool and silky on my skin. I watch myself in the mirror. Holding myself as if my hands and fingers belong to an imaginary lover. I moisten my finger with saliva and run it gently around each nipple in turn until they stand out. I get up and approach the mirror. I look into the mirror. I say 'look at my breasts'. The strange woman in the mirror obediently looks possessively at my breasts. My reflection answers my desires. I press myself up against the mirror so my nipples indent into it. The mirror dissolves. It is water, and I sink into it slowly, submerging, the water rippling and shimmering over my bare stomach and between my legs. It flows into my nostrils, blinking out sound from my ears. It laps around my ankles and I breathe it deep into my lungs. And later – when I awake, I'm with my lover. Sometimes she is a dark-skinned woman... "At other times, a man who has tied my hands to the bed-head with silk ribbons, and he has me lie – legs spread wide, so I can't move. And he's licking the soles of my feet. My lover is naked and fiercely aroused. He has the kind of male hosepipe I need to douse the raging lust within me. I ache for him. But first he must earn the right of penetration. First he must prove his need. So he licks his way up my inner thigh, his tongue wet and slightly rough as it stirs my pubic hair intimately but insistently, seeking entry between my vaginal lips. His penis is tall and red, on the point of eruption, it bobs up and down, quivering with the intensity of his exertions. I look down and see his face framed between my thighs. He's already drunk on the odours of my body, and he tastes my increasing moistness as if it's the most exquisite wine. His tongue probes deeper as he sucks and teases at me. He's hungry for me. He thirsts for me, drunk on my vagina, and I thrust down into his face now because I know that – although it is me who is tethered, it is he who is in my power. His eyes are closed. His tongue slithers and flickers across my clitoris, then deeper inside me. His breathing comes harder and faster. His eyes close as his mouth feasts. His cock pulses and jerks, aroused beyond all reason by my sexuality. He grunts hopelessly and squirts a long jet of white semen he can no longer control over my leg and over the coverlet..." She hesitates. "Do you have a cigarette?" He indicates the glove compartment. She flips it open. Route maps. Gum. A crushpack of Gauloise. And a revolver. The metallic-green Renault climbs through a small village clustered along low hills. Of course she recognises it, but pretends she doesn't. Incongruously there's an advertising hoarding for 'L'Evènement' magazine. A huge face on the hoarding, a chic fashion model wearing only peacock feathers. She glances back from the hoarding, and watches his profile as he drives. "You have a gun." "I need one. It is my profession." She relaxes back into the upholstery. Sensing something. "Go on..." "Yes, I'll tell you, Mistral." "My name is not Mistral..." "It is, tonight..." She senses there will be more, much more, before these events have run their course... BY TRISTAN TROTSKY Girl Who Was Not Called Mistral 02 They say the imagination is the most vital erogenous zone of them all... "You think our meeting at 'Les Café Des Poetès' was random?" he teases. "You think it was coincidence? It was not random. It was no coincidence. I know who you are. I've known who you are for some time. I've studied you. Your past. Your desires. Your tastes. Your life-style. I tracked you to 'Les Café Des Poetès' with the intention of meeting you. As it turned out it was so much easier than I anticipated. You were easy. A push-over. After all, you are here now. With me." "So what it this profession that requires you to carry a pistol in the glove compartment?" "You don't know? You haven't guessed? My profession is women. I take them, fuck them. Then extract ransom from their families. From their husbands. I live well." She looks at him, a tiny frown between her big piscine eyes. "And now you've taken me, monsieur? I am your victim? Is this true?" He ignores her question. "All is true, all is lies. All is permitted. Nothing denied. But you were telling me... your fantasy." "No. I'm no longer in the mood." "You must tell me. Sex is easy. Eroticism is the challenge." She glances back at him in the mirror. "Love is promiscuous, but it is never unfaithful." Playful again. "But sex is always a gift of wings. Tell me now. Tell me the first time you accepted that gift of wings. Tell me quickly before we arrive at our destination. I must know." "Well... there was an incident when I was seventeen. A holiday with my parents near San Tropez. I spent most of my time on the beach, by myself, bored..." "You were topless?" A hesitation. "No. I... lacked confidence. As a teenager my breasts -- my tits, were not large. I felt gauche and awkward. I merely watch other people on the beach. There's a boy nearby, perhaps a year or two older than me. He is sunbathing. He wears only loose khaki shorts. He is dark, attractive, but also seems shy. I watch the families beneath their parasols, the movement of trees, the lovers by the sea, but my eyes keep returning to the youth. He lounges languidly, his legs apart, and it's only after some time that I realise, from where I'm lying, I can see the shadow inside the looseness of his shorts, and that within the dark tunnel of material I see the clear outline of his testicles. His balls. And once seen, I become hypnotised. I can't look away. Of course, I knew in theory about testicles, but I've never seen them before. Not like this. Eventually his eyes intercept my gaze. I'm horrified, but he just smiles. His eyes are dark. I look away in an agony of embarrassment, afraid that he's guessed the objects of my prurient interest. Yet when, agonisingly, I'm forced to glance back, he's neither altered his position or made the slightest attempt at concealment. "Eventually he stands, indicating I should follow him. Meekly I do so, without fully understanding why. Just that I feel a compulsion, a sense of mysterious intimacy that refuses to be denied. He leads me beyond the rows of parasols and cafes into the wide shaded margin of trees that rises gently from the shore into the hills behind the resort. There are pine-cones on the ground. We walk a long way, until we are some distance from the beach, with the sound of autos as muted as tide. He stops, turns to face me, indicating that I -- too, should come no further. He unfastens his shorts and shrugs them down, releasing the long lazy curve of his penis. I inhale sharply, a little afraid, but excited too. He takes his cock into his fist, begins to wank, slowly with deliberate flourish at first, then faster and more self-indulgently as his excitation grows. I watch mesmerised. The rapid jerking hand, the winking single eye set into the inflamed blunt head, the bouncing testicles beneath in the enticing dark nest of hair. A tension so thick I can taste it. Then, as his stomach flexes and his head goes back, eyes closed, he ejaculates a fierce hail of sperm, long strands of semen spraying into the grass..." "What happened then? Did he fuck you?" She shakes her head. "It was only then, at that moment, that I seemed to be shocked awake. I turned and ran." "But did you want to fuck with him? Did you want to crouch down before him and kiss the last few drops of sperm from the end of his cock...?" A long pause. "I don't know. Perhaps I did. But it wasn't like that, you're spoiling it now. You're spoiling the memory. I suppose -- yes, I was moist between the legs. But in some ways what happened between us was complete in itself. The exhibitionist, and the voyeur. Although later I certainly thought about what had occurred, and visualise it over and over again. Memorising each detail. He was so attractive, shy in a way, afraid of contact. But what happened between us, even though we never spoke, never touched, it was beautiful." There are neatly paced rows of vines set into dry rust-coloured earth, and in the distance, a single white slouch-roof farm -- an arch here, a balcony with shuttered windows there. It leans into tired outbuildings with conical spires sheltered in the spattered shade of untidy trees. Pines and areas of gorse too, with beds of lavender and scrubby garrigue. The road reduces down to little more than a dirt track. The car leaving a haze of dust blowing in its wake. "Why did you take me to the cemetery that first night?" "Why? Because women like to make love there. It is forbidden. It is erotic. It is decadent, a Gothic novel of sex and perversity." "Do you take all your women there? Is it a regular part of your seduction scenario. Then, once it is done, how long do they last? You think you're so wonderful, don't you? The man who puts the phallic into Gallic. But how will all of this end?" "Why do women always want to know the end, even at the very beginning? Isn't it enough that we are here now? Tell me more. Tell me amusing lies. Tell me about your first time." She's silent for long moments. Her eyes on the unravelling scenery. "The events I must confess to you are ones I can scarcely hope you will believe. They begin at the Grandes École. I was studying existentialism and romantic poetry. An intoxicating mixture of immediacy and sensuality. There was music in the cafés at night and revolution in the air. I have intense friendships and engage in passionate fiery discussions that extend well into the dawn hours. Then I go for what my lecturer -- Dr Dawish Dado, terms 'private tuition' to his study which is illuminated by a log-fire burning in the grate, illuminating walls lined with academic literature and philosophy tomes. He talks of the meaningless of existence, that the only truth is what we experience through the senses. That we are our own creations. Free of all outmoded moral constraints, that it is our duty to be true only to ourselves. We must live for the moment and continually re-evaluate our morality because there is no such thing as permanence. All is fluid. Everything is in a state of flux. Distrust reason, trust only what we can see, touch and feel. Sartre and Coleridge. Kierkegaard and Byron. And then I demonstrate my appreciation of his philosophy and personal tuition by raising my dress and bending forward over his document-strewn desk so that Dado can lubricate, and take me... shall I say, in the way he most preferred." "And you found this pleasurable?" "It was not... unpleasing in its way. You must understand that I was young and voracious to experience all the sensations that life has to offer. This was strange to me, and new. I was aroused by his ideas, flattered by his attentions. I needed his patronage in the end-of-term evaluations, and to object would have seemed disrespectful. It seemed an equitable arrangement, at least until I had achieved my grades. It seems that each trimestre he enjoyed such a liaison with a different favoured student, and I was merely fortunate enough to be the latest recipient of his generosity. "To be absolutely honest, I feel he would have preferred me to have been a boy, he liked my bottom, my petite derriere, he explained that his mode of entry left my state of virginity intact, eliminated the risk of pregnancy, and it didn't even matter when I have my period. 'L'école Des Beaux Arts' is the place to acquire education, c'est pas? You could say he was merely extending my education into some perverse extracurricular areas. And in all honesty my only real objection was that his mode of access meant I never get the opportunity to properly see his... you know, his cock. "One weekend when I was at a loose end, my close friend Francine invites me home with her, she suggested we could stay over with her family who own a country chateau estate. I never imagined she lives in such opulence. She has a boyfriend called Paul who was also there. A brief train journey, and I was welcomed, a little over-awed by their privileged luxurious life-style, and dined with them. Later, in her bedroom, Francine and I confide dangerous secrets. We drink wine. I confide all the details of my affair with our literature professor to her. And we try on each others clothes. I sulkily draw attention to the fact that her breasts are more fully formed than mine. I was not well-blessed in that way. Yes, my tits were small, compared to her more womanly rounded mounds, I didn't even need to wear a bra. I was curious, so we compare and evaluate each other, and she allows me to touch them. "Although I was a little jealous, she counters that she is blonde, and has only the softest sparsest downy pubic hair. Almost pre-pubescent. While me, I was brunette, and much more luxuriant down there. So we compare that also. Yes, it's true -- she fluffs up my pubes with her fingers, then uses her hairbrush to style me in different ways as I relax and enjoyed her intimacy. She laughs a delicious low laugh and says that although I might be hairier, her own state of hairlessness means that men are more encouraged to kiss her down there. I was puzzled, 'they kiss you down there? Paul kisses you down there?' 'He loves to kiss my pussy. And I love to grant him this desire.' I look at the crinkly folds of flesh so prettily visible between her parted legs, and inevitably I was induced to find out what exactly Paul finds so enjoyable. I kiss her there, nervously, a little self-consciously. 'Is that what he does?' 'Not exactly, I scarcely dare tell, he uses his tongue and goes... a little lower, to my clit.' So, a little more adventurously, I lick into the cleft. Tasting the sharp tang of her moisture, catching the aroma of pussy-juice. It seems so divinely wicked, but I know my Simone de Beauvoir, I'd read the 'Well Of Loneliness', I know what we are playfully doing. My tongue has a mind of its own. She squirms delightfully. After I've been preoccupied down there for a while, we change positions, and she reciprocates. Soon we are both moist and flushed with mutual pleasure although, despite what she'd said, I found one of her pubic hairs trapped in my teeth. Later we lie together and I confess my frustration that I've never properly examined a man as closely as I've now been intimate with her. 'You must be more assertive in articulating your needs' she suggests brightly, then 'you could examine Paul, girls must share their most precious possessions with their dearest friends.' Again there is much girlish giggling. I couldn't believe she was serious. He was in the garden, amusing himself by feeding the peacocks. We slip on chemises, and she calls for him, inviting Paul to join us. He is tall and dark. Not unhandsome, although without the bohemian intellectualism that always attracts and fascinates me. Nevertheless, Francine instructs him to drop his trousers for my benefit, and after a slight show of reluctance he does as she requests. After all, what man could possibly seriously object to being the object of such close erotic attention from not one, but two girls? I pretend to be shocked. I hide my eyes behind my hands, but I was fascinated. I was compelled to look. Even soft, he was large. He was uncircumcised. 'May I touch it?' I say to Francine. 'Please do' she urges. I sit forward on the bed and squeeze his testicles gently, raise his cock and draw the foreskin back to expose the shiny glans. Watching the gape-mouthed head responding to my touch. He stands there and allows me the freedom to do as I please, as his body reacts to my touch. I ignore him, and concentrate on just that one singular aspect of him. 'Do you like it?' says Francine. 'It is so beautiful, and yet so ugly. Surely it must hurt when it goes into you? What must it feel like?' 'You know, in England the girls call it their 'fanny'. In America, 'fanny' means butt. Don't you think that's strange? We say 'pussy'. And the pussy is elastic, it can accommodate all manner of large objects and household implements, I know, I've tried most. Purely in the interests of experiment. Why not try it yourself?' 'Would that be alright, you wouldn't object to me using it?' Again Paul has no say in the negotiations taking place. We talk around him. I was dubious, yet at the same time incapable of not taking advantage of the offered experience. After less than a moment's hesitation I shrug my chemise off and lie back, draping my parted legs over the edge of the bed. Laughing excitedly Francine sits beside me, takes his penis in her hand, the foreskin retracting from the knob as it firms, and she guides it towards me, rubbing its head up and down the length of my vulva, nuzzling my clit as I squirm appreciatively, as I moisten and open, then feeding it into me, slowly, gently, just the tip at first. 'How does that feel to you?' 'Strange. Nice.' 'Have you had enough of it, or do you want a little more?' I try to appear casual. Looking down I can see that by now I have taken less than half of its length. 'A little more, I think.' She smiles. Takes a sip of wine, then eases a little more, then more, my back arching in response, my bottom lifting off the covers, absorbing it into me until I've taken it all. We stand together for a moment. He begins a tentative fucking motion but she throws her hand up in alarm, 'stop that, what do you think you're doing? I didn't grant you leave to do that!' I was on the verge of saying it's alright, that I have no real objection to him continuing, but I can tell she's annoyed by his presumption. I had hardly spoken half a dozen words to him. I don't even particularly like him. He was not really a consideration. Francine was loaning the penis to me, for my benefit. So it was not for me to go against her wishes. Instead, he was standing perfectly still, not moving, allowing himself to be totally controlled. I lie there, luxuriating in the sensation of total impalement. Eventually Francine reaches down and withdraws it slowly, I feel it pulling out of me, extracting. I can see it in her fist, glistening with my juices. She begins to work it, up and down. He was breathing heavily. I watch. Meeting her eyes in delighted conspiracy, never meeting his eyes, my attention totally transfixed on his erection. When he comes, spurting white stuff up over my stomach and drooling and dripping into my pubic hair we both laugh and applaud with glee. 'Thank you, Paul' she says, 'you may go now'. He hastily pulls his pants up and does so. We hug each other in delight at our daring. 'It's ridiculous how absurdly proud they are about their shiny strutting erections' Francine tells me, 'as though it invests them with such invulnerability, yet it's we who take them, drain them, and leave them shrunken and limp. Then we must wait for something like twenty minutes before they recover sufficiently to pleasure us again. It is we who have the greater sexual power.' Then, in conspiratorial tones, she tells me to 'get decent', and she leads us through the house, upstairs to where her father has a library alcove with cabinets filled with books in order rows. She unlocks the shutters, moves a section aside and reaches behind for a cache of books hidden behind. 'He foolishly believes no-one knows about these' she laughs, 'I've been studying them for years, secretly, of course.' She peruses the titles, then begins flicking through the pages of one of them, an obviously rare and valued vintage tome -- of erotica, it was an 'ancient regime' book with explicit art in lavish engraved illustrations. With delighted anticipation she selects one of them, which is obviously a favourite of hers, for my attention. At first it seems to be nothing more than a tangle of limbs, I can't quite work out what is supposed to be happening. In a bedroom, there's a naked maid straddling a prostrate's man's thighs, penetrated by him but leaning forward so that a second can enter her from behind (in the manner that my Professor preferred to take me), and so that she can take a third man, who is kneeling, into her mouth. The illustration sets up strange fluttering sensations in my stomach, and yes -- a little lower than that too. 'You see' declares Francine triumphantly, 'this proves my point about the power of female sexuality, it's quite possible for a girl to accommodate three penises simultaneously, and then -- theoretically at least, once those rampant squires have played their part and retired deflated, she can straight away service three more. A woman is perfectly capable of doing that.' She seems pleased to have proved her point. I was a little more dubious. Possible perhaps, but scarcely comfortable... surely? Nevertheless, I could scarcely argue with the evidence of my eyes. And I was certainly unable to look away for long moments. The image stays with me. What would it have been like to be that maid? 'Of course, it was a fictitious work of pornography dreamed up by prurient imaginations, it was not real, but it was not difficult to imagine something very similar happening in a chateau very much like this one, two or three hundred years ago. A maid at the mercy of three aristocratic rués, yet she is portrayed as an enthusiastic participant in the erotic configuration. Maybe brightening the tedium of her domestic drudgery with a little illicit excitement? Or perhaps supplementing her meagre income, buying herself a little independence, through pleasurable afternoon whoring? After all, how a girl chooses to use her pussy for purposes of leisure or commerce is something between the two of them -- girl, and pussy, and it's nobody's business but theirs. In my imagination it was me walking down the long corridors, lured into the bedroom by inducements and innuendos, embraced and undressed by the lecherous trio, my employers, my social betters, with no power to resist or protest the invasion of their impudent fingers on my bare breasts, my bottom, questing to locate the moistness between my legs. Now they are divesting themselves of their own clothes and I am faced by three arrogant erections demanding my attention. It was a breathlessly arousing image, my thoughts circling around it. What sensations must she have experienced -- endured, enjoyed, as she was debauched? But, as I point out to Francine, what a sense of power it must give her, how flattering to know that your physical charms are so desired that they are responsible for such arousal in -- not one lover, but three! She snorts in amused derision. 'It means nothing. Their arousal is a promiscuous thing. If there's no suitable woman available they'll fuck each other, their domestic or farmyard animals, sheep, juicy fruit, anything. It has little to do with your physical charm, and more to do with blind lust.' Nevertheless, later in the day, I can't quite decide whether I'm still technically a virgin or not. Sure, I've taken a penis inside me, but I couldn't really claim to have been properly 'fucked'. I'm sure Paul would have been willing to take the situation further, but whenever I see him again during the weekend, we are in the company of others, although he leers unpleasantly at me in what I think he intends to be a secret shared intimacy. Anyway, he was an irrelevance. I'd enjoyed the experience -- despite, not because of him, and I decided that I'd do it again for real, properly, as soon as I found a suitable penis, and penis-bearer to call my own..." Girl Who Was Not Called Mistral 02 "And did you become more assertive in the articulation of your needs, as a result of these adventures?" "With my Dr Dawish Dado? Yes. After all, 'L'école Des Beaux Arts' is the place to further one's education. Back there, after the next session of 'private tuition', when it became time for me to demonstrate my appreciation, instead of bending forward over his document-strewn desk and raising my dress, I remain seated as he stands expecting my compliance. I hold up my hand to indicate both 'non' -- and 'wait'. Then reach out, and begin to unbutton his fly. This time it was his turn to be unsettled, as I reach in to extract his penis. To be honest, after my close encounter with Paul, it was disappointing, considerably smaller, less vibrantly virile, and altogether less impressive than his had been, and only semi-erect, but having taken events so far it would have been impolite to back down. Dado wasn't interested in my 'pearl'. So I recalled the expression on the face of the maid in the pornographic print, and know what I must do. Without further pause I take it into my mouth as deeply as I can, nuzzling up against the faintly musty material of his pinstripe trousers, and begin sucking. 'He was too surprised, pleasantly so, to express an opinion, or a preference. It stiffens and firms up against the roof of my mouth, easing me back, forcing me to relinquish a little of its growing length. And disappointingly, it doesn't take long. His breathing gets erratic, he grips the edge of the desk for support, dislodging a stack of documents which cascade down to shimmer across the floor. My technique was probably more enthusiastic than it was skilled, and my efforts were soon rewarded with a hasty and inadequate spurt of appreciation. He was appropriately grateful, by the end of the trimestre my marks were exceptional, I graduate with impressive grades. So the operation must be judged a success, although I was left with an anti-climatic feeling of 'is that all there is too it...? Is it that simple...? Can the male sex be so easy to manipulate...?' And yes, it's true, they can." "I don't believe any of this. Can all this really be true? Am I expected believe that these things actually happened?" "What do you think? Perhaps I'm inventing this because you asked me to. Or it might be true. You will never know. Not that I care, either way. But I do sometimes wonder what my friend Francine is doing now. Married advantageously to a well-heeled husband, no doubt. With a string of well-hung young lovers..." "While you pick up strange men in Paris bars and allow them to abduct you. Yes, but you say you were disappointed because Professor Dado had a small cock?" "Not small. I just said smaller. There's a difference." "But it's important that you wanted and expected a big cock." "You're twisting what I say. Important is the wrong word. Think of it like this. Every guy wants to have sex with a woman with big tits. Own up -- at least once, for the experience. It's shallow and superficial, but that doesn't mean it's not true. It's equally true that just because he wants sex with her, it doesn't mean he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. For that, you need other qualities as well. But just once, just for the experience, every guy wants to fuck a woman with big boobs. I can understand that. And in exactly the same way, yes, you want to get fucked by a huge cock, just for the experience, just to see what it's like. But this fascination, this obsession with penis-size, is more of a male thing. Penis-envy is what guys get when they watch each other in the shower. Don't try to deny it. Personally, I'd settle for a lover with an average-size cock, but a long clit-wise educated tongue, a lover who knows how to use it where it counts...Tell me, have you ever sucked another guy's cock? Have you ever fucked a guy's bottom, just for the experience, just for the hell of it?" "I'm human, with all the contradictions and paradoxes that involves. So yes, when I was younger. Girls were mysterious magical inaccessible creatures. How do you approach them? How do you even talk to them? They smile impenetrable smiles and giggle unknowable secrets to each other. Mocking our inept fumblings in such wonderful, distant ways. They are beings from some other plane of existence. Leaving me tongue-tied and stupid. So what else can we dull males do to express all that burning sexual energy and curiosity that drives us to distraction? We do it to ourselves, alone -- I'd done that, or we do it to each other." "And you did it how... at random? Or did you have one special, regular friend you do your grubby little furtive games with?" "Should I say? Should I tell the truth... or fabricate teasing falsehoods? Which would you prefer? If I promise to tell only what is real, is claiming to tell the truth just a way to make a lie sound more convincing? If I tell you about the auburn-haired youth who reached out while we were showering, took my cock in his hand, and began to gently toss me off, smiling as he did so? And I let him. That was a one-off. Can't even recall his name. Or the more regular encounters with John. If I tell you that, will you believe me? We furtively trade our grubby little jokes and crude fantasies. We understand each other. One warm humid evening we climb the perimeter wall of the local municipal swimming-pool, and go skinny-dipping. Unconsciously eyeing each other's genital set-up as we undress, as guys do, as we dive and cavort. His body is smoothly hairless, with a neat clean cock set in a fringe of dark pubic hair. There's much splashing and game-playing, fuelled on testosterone. And we can't help but notice each others growing arousal. Semi-horizontal now, instead of down-hung. Soon we're sat on the edge of the pool side by side, masturbating together. And where there is hard-on, there is no sense. He reaches out to take my excited cock in his fist, squeezing, feeling me up. I not only lean back to allow him access, I reciprocate. His cock fills my hand pleasantly. His eyes are playfully bright. We both spurt our loads in high arcs, so the blobby evidence floats on the surface of the pool. "Once it's done we get a little self-conscious. We dress quickly. Leave, and don't mention what's just occurred. But later we repeat it, in the privacy of his bedroom when his parents are out. In every other way we are regular hetero friends, sharing the usual passions in astronomy and weird movies. But once together we both know what's about to happen. He dares me to kiss his cock. My face is breathlessly hot. And very quickly, very lightly, I do so. Only when he returns the favour, his lips linger a little longer. My heart beating slow and steady. I suck his cock. He sucks mine. Both excited, naked and erect, we wind up sixty-nining. It seems a natural delicious progression, mutually contagious, the taste and slight aroma of him -- at moments I still recall the musk of his groin, the feel of his mouth working on me. Physically, he's similar to me. Sucking him is the closest I can ever get to sucking myself -- if that makes sense. If that explains anything. On other occasions, when we have nowhere else to go, there's a copse of trees in a hollow in the grasslands by the old weir beyond the edge of town. We can be private there and do... our dirty deeds, there..." "Do you spit, swallow or avoid?" she giggles, hiding her face behind her hands. "Funny, your words prompt some disturbing memories. You want stories? I have stories. Remind me to give you the full details. Although it never occurred to me at the time, I've wondered since. Every now and then, I've speculated. He must have done what we did together before me, with someone else. He knew what to do. Knew how to do it. To me, all that we did together was just cock-fun, without any connotations to anything more serious. We were young, it was just a way of testing out the potential of our bodies. This is the way it works. These are the pleasure centres. Compare and contrast, this with that, his body with mine. His cock. My cock. It wasn't until the sudden realisation, while chasing up definitions in a magazine, that what we were doing was not quite so innocent as I'd assumed, in the eyes of a vindictive and judgemental society, these were 'homosexual acts'. Vile and forbidden. And it wasn't what we were doing that scared me, what scared me most of all was the fact that I enjoyed it so much! "Maybe he had a little more success with girls, so the uncertainties weren't as acute for him. But I was wracked with dark forebodings. What does this mean? Was I gay? Was I doomed forever to live as some kind of twilight outsider? Shunned and exiled from the straight norms of life? Flesh should be content to be flesh. I know that now. Yet pleasure is the source of so much needless guilt and pain. Today, things are easier than they were. Then, attitudes were harder, less forgiving, more cruel, and I made a choice. I cut him dead. He must have been so confused. Males don't talk things through. They don't articulate or express their inner doubts in case it's mistaken for weakness. So I never explained. I just drop him. Sometimes now I feel, if there's some way of contacting him, that I still owe him that explanation. An apology. But things pass. Times change. Later I wondered that, if ever I fell in love, it would be with a person, not a gender. Maybe that pleasing ambiguity is a legacy..." "You're talking love now, not sex? That's not a guy thing." "But you can't really separate the two, despite assuming the best nonchalant poses. Some argue sex is just the functional way evolution conspires to pass on your genes to the next generation and those beyond. That it's just a primal reproductive mating urge. That culture, society and romantic poets invent the prettifying myth of love to give it respectability. But you can't deny attraction. For some partners it's only necessary for the liking to last long enough for a one-night stand. For others you can be obsessive over a full lifetime. Infatuation. Desire. Flirtation. Longing. Affection. Lust. We're not all 'Tristan and Isolde'. But we're all subject to it. To a greater or lesser degree. I'm not saying it's the same depth of feeling or intensity for everyone. But you can't say it's not there..." "You're killing the mood. This thing is not about guilt and pain. Come on, lighten up." "Too late. We're almost there." Beneath a bruised-purple dusk swirling with grey clouds, he pulls the Renault into the open yard of the farm. Some of the outbuildings have already given in to slow gravity, their ribs open to the sky through pale ochre tiles. But the house shows signs of recent renovation. It is deserted. He steps out of the car. She waits for less than a moment, then flips the glove compartment open and fumbles for the revolver. "Stop." He turns slowly. Sees the gun levelled at him. "Hey. What is all this? Put that thing away." "I want you naked. All mouth and no-trousers. Now. Do it." He smiles a little uncertainly. Glances at the sky, then around the confines of the dirt yard. Eventually he shrugs indulgently and kicks his shoes off. Unbuttons his shirt. Once he's dropped it to the ground he slides the zip and shoves his pants down too. His palms are sticky moist. The atmosphere working up into a kind of edginess. "Is that an erection in your shorts, or are you just glad...?" "Yes. It's a hard-on." He straightens, as if suddenly self-conscious. She waves the revolver impatiently, and the shorts go too. He's nude. Her gaze keenly appraising him without reaction. She steps out of the car with deliberate slowness, the gun never wavering. She indicates the house. He turns, aware of the heavy sway of his penis as he walks across the rough earth. The ground warm on his bare feet. She follows at a safe distance, through the kitchen. The shutters in the lounge are closed, casting the room into a cool twilight despite the heat of the evening beyond. "On your back, on the floor." He does as she instructs. Then she crouches to stir his cock with the barrel of the gun. When he half-rises to protest she shoves the pistol in his face, and he settles back. "Your profession is women, is it monsieur? And you imagine I am your victim? But here all is permitted. Nothing denied. We, who have no names, no past and no history, we can invent everything." She seizes his cock with her free hand and pulls it sharply. It stirs and stiffens, trapped in the cool grip of her fingers. His breathing comes hard and irregular as she repeats and quickens her stimulation until his balls jiggle furiously with the violence of the motion. He lies back with his eyes half-closed, his toes curling in a rage of sensation. Then, just as abruptly, she stops. A bright strand of pre-emission swells and drools from the tip of his cock. She wipes it off delicately with her finger. "See this?" She holds the gun to his temple, and extends her spermy finger to his mouth. "This is disgusting. You have no control." She presses the finger against his lips, which part reluctantly to her pressure, sliding it into his mouth. She watches as he sucks the finger clean. With a smirk of satisfaction she straddles him. She wears on underwear. Raises his cock to meet her, and sinks down onto it. He groans as she grinds down onto him, and rests there. This girl who is not called Mistral, impaled on his sex. She moves to unfasten the punctuation of neat pearl buttons down the front of her simple black dress. Opening it all the way so he can see her body, her high breasts and firm prominent nipples, the mass of dark pubence that merges with his own. Then she works herself up and down on him, slowly raping him as he lies there with the gun at his head. Slow, then faster and faster, using him. Her breasts bob and shiver, her rich bush of pubic hair matted with juices. She gives a gasp of near-terror as he throbs expectantly inside her. And when orgasm hits them her body ripples back in segments like a caterpillar moves, a week-long climax through every pore of her body. A low animal moan as his embedded cock throbs and kicks. She writhes on him, and cries out "merde, merde, you bastard, you bastard." Sheathed in sweat she sinks down onto his chest. The game is just beginning. The following morning the sun fights to get in through the window, but only succeeds in creating shadows. She looks across the bed to where her husband lies. The familiar contours of his body still curled in sleep. He lies naked on his back. She fondles him possessively with her eyes. Sitting up she reaches for a Gauloise, igniting it with a tall flame thumbed from the revolver cigarette-lighter that they'd used in their sex-play earlier. She wonders what erotic games he'll invent today for their amusement. For their mutual arousal. Already she experiences a deep frisson of anticipation. As he sleeps, she reaches down to gently kiss his penis. And her lips tarry there. For a while...