Sabine Deschamps is displeased, and my phone vibrates, increasing my anxiety.
The timing could not be worse; it is Pascal, and I will not answer it.
It is Thursday, and I sit outside my boss's office. This meeting with Sabine is crucial. Lisette is concerned that Raphaël will share that attachment more widely. We need his discretion and obligation for our plan to work. I should rehearse my lines, but the revelations from Tuesday night are too powerful. I see everything with fresh eyes, and my mind floats on a sea of honey. Snapshots seared into my mind are constant daydreams, and I want to swim through the memories.
Holding her hand, Lisette beamed as I led her to my bedroom. From the expectation in her sultry eyes, she looked to me as her guide. I did not reveal my inexperience; it would break the spell.
We kissed as if struck down by amnesia, and our reticence was a victim of temptation. Our unfamiliar instinct was a perverse guide. We giggled in a tangle of limbs when we found a dead end. Silky fingers led, lips followed, and poetry flowed in our movements. In an endless give and take, with murmurs of approval, we assumed nothing; everything was tentative. All that mattered was this intense passion for more.
The drip-drip of need became a flood, washing away our inhibitions. We folded into a never-ending embrace, engrossed in the sensual swish of skin against skin. Lisette lay prone with helpless eyes, and she writhed until I brought her to climax on my fingers.
Tempting fingers enticed copious juices from my breeched sex. Naked and overwrought, I trembled with excitement as a slippery pressure teased my clit. She honoured me for the first time between my legs. Patient, always gazing into my eyes, from supine to an intoxicating stare of determination. Bewitched as she sucked on my clit, helpless to her nascent skill, she bore witness to my little death.
She roused this long-forgotten and dormant woman who craved sensuality and fulfilment. A woman ravenous for the joys of passion. Lisette’s intuition bridged the gap. She found a stranger and welcomed her with the familiarity of a seasoned lover.
Lisette wriggled on top of me. Holding her thighs, I goaded her sex with my tongue, and she devoured mine in a languid soixante-neuf. She pitched up as I licked along her taint, flicking the tight rosebud of her ass.
Rubbing on her clit, it shook her body to its foundations, and she bawled my apartment down.
-=-
“Mademoiselle Bouchet!”
Sabine Deschamps is a jolt to reality. Walking into her office, the pane of frosted glass in the door rattles when I close it.
“Hello, Anaïs.”
This warmer tone is reassuring.
“Sabine. I trust you are keeping well?”
Reclined in her chair, she demurs, holding a cigarette; its fumes rise as tall wisps of grey smoke. Relaxed, bohemian and chic, Sabine stabs it into a half-full ashtray and gestures for me to sit. She bears the decades of academic toil on her world-weary face. Rake thin, with sunken cheeks and silver short, tousled hair; she is sharper than a tack.
I sit upright with clasped hands in my lap, yet my deviant mind rejoices. I ate out Lisette on her desk.
“So, Anaïs, I do not have long. Raphaël Valery?”
“Yes, he is a problem.”
Sabine leans forward and peers over her half-moon glasses. “More so than the other ‘men’ here?”
If that is a euphemism, she is a wise owl.
“It is his remarks in lectures. He calls me Madame. He knows my fiancé dumped me.”
Pursed lips dismiss my complaint. “His amorous attentions make me uncomfortable. Some of the female students feel the same way. Then there is an e-mail he sent me.”
“An e-mail?” Removing her glasses is the hallmark of her concern.
“Yes,” and I find my poise again, “It was sexual in nature.”
Sabine’s eyes narrow. “It was unwelcome?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Were you meant to be the recipient of this e-mail?”
What! She knows.
“Erm… no.”
Leaning back in her chair, she ponders my words. “Anaïs, your tenure is coming to an end, yes?”
“I… I hope to obtain a full-time associate position.”
Sabine wields power wearing velvet gloves.
She waves her glasses in my direction. “You are the recipient of the Deveraux Award, and the Deverauxs are some of our most prestigious patrons.”
“Yes… but… why is that relevant to this?”
“You are an excellent professor in the making, and your position here is assured. I will see to that.”
It sounds like a faintly concealed threat. “Is there a condition attached?”
She concurs with a sickly grin. “Monsieur Valery is a gifted student. His mother cares little as a trustee of this award, and Raphaël can do no wrong in her eyes. It is her brother who takes a keener interest.”
“Sorry, you have lost me. Madame Valery’s brother?”
“Pascal Deveraux.”
“Pascal Deveraux?”
Sabine’s expression conveys an abject pity. “He invited you to dinner in the University bookshop.”
“But… erm.” I am dumbfounded.
The wise owl has prey in her sights. “The staff gossip as much as the students.”
And the truth hangs there, as pungent as recent tobacco smoke.
She waves her spectacles, and the chrome swishes like a steel blade. “Raphaël is jealous. You have spurned his amorous intentions in favour of his uncle.”
“Err… of course, and… Pascal Deveraux is married, too. I… I did not know this. It will not continue.”
“Oh, dear child,” Sabine sighs. “Then, this matter has resolved itself. It will pass.”
I am numb, and my mind is vacant. She is already moving on to her next appointment.
“Anaïs, receiving the e-mail was a mistake… we all make mistakes. A mistake he will not repeat. Yes, Raphaël is indiscreet, and we are adults responsible for our choices.” She raises an eyebrow. “Will that be all?”
I rise from my chair, thank Sabine, and close the door behind me.
The pane of glass rattles like my nerves.
-=-
Blackmail is a dirty business, and obligation is easy to obtain when there is something to lose. That indebtedness is on me, not Raphaël.
I sit on a park bench away from the asylum. Mild and sunny, it is lunchtime, and I chew on a Salade Niçoise without an appetite. Someone got to Sabine before me, my career is at risk, and my private life is exposed. I fucked a Deveraux, and our plan is in tatters.
I am too stunned to find answers and rage with anger: lies… so many lies.
Pascal said he is involved in administration, and his surname is not Dubois. I doubt he spoke to Sabine because infidelity requires some discretion. It was Madame Valery, so her precious son could do what he liked. Sabine did not need to tell me anything. It is either her way of addressing the balance or a friendly warning.
Fuck that. I have a scrap of self-worth left, and someone is relying on me.
Lisette’s plan is now my plan. So I fucked Pascal Deveraux, might as well bang the fuck out of his nephew. It will be fun to compare the two and put Raphaël’s indiscretion to good use. I am sure Pascal will be delighted when he finds out.
Lisette and I are not pawns on a chessboard.
We are the chessboard and the pieces; our game, our rules.
-=-
Lisette and I sat in bed, laughing at life's situations. It is easy to forget she is nineteen, such is her dry wit. Turning to more salacious matters, her needs and desires flowed with a typical Gallic bluntness. Revived by chilled white wine, it was late, but what grew dim still burned bright.
She poured some on my breasts, and I was more concerned about the bedsheets until she licked it from them. Lisette rolled onto me, her determined eyes shrouded by a curtain of fiery hair. A slender leg rested between mine, and my thigh laid between hers.
“I want to try this,” Lisette whispered, punctuating it with a sucking kiss.
“Then try.”
A muscular appendage did not bludgeon me; instead, wet velvet grazed my sex. Above me, Lisette melted. Sweeping her hair back, engrossed in her beauty, the zephyr breeze of her gasps caressed my face. Following her sultry eyes, those full lips latched onto my breast, and she flicked its erect nipple. Tentatively, we communicated with encouraging words as my hands squeezed soft flesh, trying to guide her. I had doubts; it was too much for us; we were novices.
It was hit-and-miss, and we could not find a rhythm.
“Anaïs. I do this by grinding on my hand.”
Looking into her solemn eyes, she would not fail. “Then do that for me now.”
We shared this new experience, teasing her and matching her undulations. Lisette found it again, then again, weighing her eyelids. Simpering, the epitome of angelic beauty, I would not sully her lips.
“Anaïs,” she whimpered.
“Keep going, do it against me.”
Tasting my fingers, I fed them to her, too. The addictive sensations and the insanity of this tactile pressure gathered pace and strength. The sensuality of her soft mouth with its delicate contact was an assault by hot velvet. Sucking on her tongue, flicking it like her clit, she swooped against me. Wonder, need, hunger, it was a lie to say I was confident and self-assured. Maintaining this rhythm and guiding our bodies, we kept time.
It captured us, and we lingered eye-to-eye in this beautiful moment.
“God, this feels amazing, Lisette. See if you can go faster.”
With the tang of her juices on my lips, my fingers eased through her hair, roaming over her arm, shoulder, and down the valley of her spine. The harsh need for air replaced the distant music. Clasping at me, we writhed in harmony. Lisette was everywhere: against my body, floating through my mind, and illuminating my soul. My devious fingers dipped into the cleft of her behind, and I found that tensed knot of muscle. I tapped it, and she yelped, bolting as a filly for freedom.
