This was wrong, but it was what she wanted. This was what she had been waiting for. This had been her hope for years.
Vi-vi managed to get Alexandre back to his feet, managed to calm him and finish bathing him. She dampened a fresh cloth, added more of the dried herbs to cooler water she poured into the basin, and knelt before him as she finished what she had started. The small, skinny boy she remembered was now a lean, saddle hardened man. Still slight, still sinewy, but stretched and supple, he stood on a soft, thick towel, and allowed her to complete the task of washing him. She worked her way up his body, her hands never wavering, even when she had to touch him in more intimate ways then she ever imagined.
She drew a third cloth from the drawer in the washstand to complete her ablutions, wetting it directly from the pitcher and wiping Alex’s face and neck with firm, gentle motions. All the while she forced her mind to tell herself that this was no different than the many children she had bathed like this over the years, but it was completely different. She hadn’t kissed those children the way she had just kissed Alex. She hadn’t tasted their mouths as if they were fresh, ripe fruit plucked from a tree. She hadn’t desired those children, no, this was something entirely different, something akin to torture.
A towel was warming near the fireplace. Vi-vi fetched it from its rack and dried Alex with it. She took her time, made sure she absorbed every droplet of water on his skin. Then she retrieved a nightshirt from the deep wardrobe that was filled with Alex’s fine clothing, and dropped it over his damp curls. She smoothed the sheer material down his arms, pressing out imaginary wrinkles with her hands.
He took her by the wrists and brought her hands to his lips.
“Vi-vi…”
She wanted to tell him ‘don’t’, to stop what he was doing, and to get into bed. She wanted to tell him that he was drunk, and that she wouldn’t take his words or actions seriously. It wasn’t her place. She had no right to say anything, so she remained silent. She had no right to deny him, so she didn’t. It was only fate that his desire matched hers; they were of like mind.
Alexandre crushed Vi-vi to his chest and kissed her again. He had kissed her for a long time while he had been huddled in her lap. Vi-vi’s lips were full, parted under his without hesitation, just as they had moments ago. Many, many times in his life he had imagined kissing her, and now he was, emboldened by wine, brandy, and the full knowledge that he could do this with her, could demand anything of her, and she would comply without question. There was no sense of any reluctance in her. Alex knew reluctance, had seen it in other, less willing accomplices he’d bedded. Not in the brothels he frequented; never when there was commerce involved. It was the reluctance of chambermaids and slaves wenches that he was expecting, but there was none of that, just a pair of opened lips, honey sweet, peppered with some deep flavor reminiscent of salt and sugar.
His hand slid between their bodies and covered one of her breasts. Vi-vi didn’t shy away; she arched her back and pushed the full weight of her breast into his cupped palm. A memory rose up full blown behind Alexandre’s eyelids. Heat, the typical oppressive, wet heat rising up from the river and the ground enveloped him. There were the smells of dust, mud, and growth all around him, and the tang of grapes in the air. The sun beat down from the sky, a glint of silver flashed in the light, and then blood, a thin line of crimson blood running across the palm of his hand. There was a swift motion, and the lips beneath his turned to lips on his hand, sucking, sucking the way they were sucking on his tongue, drawing his blood out, drawing his soul out. His hand squeezed the breast it held, then caressed it. He wanted to touch the skin that lay hidden beneath the tight bodice that encased it.
For all his experience, and his experiences were many, Alexandre had yet to learn the intricate navigation of women’s garments. He could feel the hard buttons that ran the length of Vi-vi’s dress from neck to hem, but he could see that they were nothing more than mere decoration. The back of the dress, a series of laces, felt like a lattice work of ribbons too tangled to undo.
Alexandre cupped Vi-vi’s fragile head, dug his fingers into the tight knot of hair near the nape of his neck, and looked down into her face. It was the same face he remembered; time hadn’t touched it at all. She was only taller, as he was. Longer of limb, fleshed out into womanhood, but still the same Vi-vi he knew ten years ago. He rested his lips on her eyelids, tasted the residue of the salty tears she had cried, and felt the same sensation he had felt those many years ago in the grape arbor where Vi-vi’s sucking mouth had drawn on him until he’d fainted.
“Lock the door, Vi-vi,” he told her. He pulled back a bit, still holding her face, and looked deeply into her green eyes. If he could choose, and he believed that he no longer had the luxury of choice, but if he could choose he would choose to make his world within those eyes. “Lock the door.”
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Vee locked the bedroom door, although she knew it was unnecessary to do it. No one would dare enter her room uninvited, not even Françoise, but she locked the door anyway to impart that extra inch of privacy. At the click of the latch she felt A.J.’s body behind hers pressing her against the old wood. His large hands circled her waist at first, as if he was measuring her, and then they slid up her arms until they were on her shoulders. The straps of her dress fell at his touch. The zipper lowered with ease. Then his hands slipped inside the loosened fabric and circled her waist again. Skin on skin.
She thought she would lose her mind with the joy that filled her at his touch.
“Come close,” A.J. murmured against Genevičve’s ear. He wanted her warmth, and the sensation of her naked skin on his. He also didn’t want to be the only person in the room who didn’t have their clothes on. Vee curved her back to his chest as he pushed her dress out of the way, pushed it down and off her hips, down to the floor. “You feel so good,” he told her. She felt incredible; velvety and smooth. Vee’s skin was the color of milky cocoa, of latte, of cappuccino cream. She looked like candy, smelled like flowers, and tasted like salt. A.J. ran his tongue across her shoulders, up her neck, and into the tight swirl of her ear. “So good.”
Vee closed her eyes and rested her head back on A.J.’s shoulder. She wallowed in his embrace, enjoying each touch while anticipating the next. There was no shyness in him. There was no embarrassment. That had been evident to her when she’d bathed him; even more so when he’d taken her in hand, literally, and showed her how to please and excite him. The result of that was pressing hard into the small of her back.
“I want you, Alex,” she heard herself say. She surprised herself for calling him that, calling him ‘Alex’ when everyone else called him A.J., but it seemed natural, seemed to roll off her tongue without effort or thought.
“You’ve got me,” he said, and she felt his smile on her cheek, heard it in his voice. She turned in his arms. For all of the affectations of his stage persona and grooming, she saw true kindness in his eyes. Kindness and more. It was no trick of the light, no subterfuge for her benefit; it was genuine. As genuine as the love she felt for him that was growing exponentially by the minute. “I’m yours,” he whispered.
“Really?” she asked, and she ran the back of her hand down one of his cheeks.
“Completely,” he told her. A.J. heard himself, heard his words and the weight of them. They came out of his mouth before he understood what he was saying, or what he meant, but when he looked into Vee’s eyes, he knew that they were said with sincerity. He was completely at the mercy of this beautiful, exotic woman. She wanted him and it made him want her more than he already did. She was carnal in her lushness, yet there was innocence in her eyes and in her caresses. As bold as she was in bringing him to this room, in undressing him and washing his body, it had been his hand to guide her through the more intimate steps of seduction. He took her hand again now, and drew it back to his rigid penis, stroking himself along with her, building his desire to a more feverish pitch. When the rhythm felt right and steady he let her hand go and slipped his into the delicate lace panties she was wearing, into the even more delicate lace of her pubic hair until the tips of his fingers found her swollen clitoris.
A moan escaped her lips before he captured it with a kiss.
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He didn’t have to tell her to remove her dress, or the other bits and pieces of her clothing beneath it. He didn’t have to say anything. Vi-vi did it herself after she attended to the numerous other details of settling him in his bed. She moved about the room with animalian grace that he followed with only his eyes. Candles were snuffed out, the fire banked low for the evening. His discarded garments were gathered and removed from the room, left outside his door for cleaning. The basin was emptied, the pitcher was refilled, and the curtains were drawn over the windows, cutting off the view of the river. Once all these things were done, Vi-vi turned her back to him and reached behind her, pulling at this, and tugging at that until the heavy ribbons that held her dress closed gave way and he was treated to the vision of her back encased in the wrinkled material of her chemise.
Alexandre couldn’t remain in bed. Vi-vi’s skin glowed in the soft light of the fire, drawing him to her like a moth to a flame. His hand on her skin made her jump as he smoothed the thin fabric of her undergarment before he slid if off her body.
“Beautiful Vi-vi… always so beautiful,” he told her, his hands turning her around so he could see her. He viewed the upturned curves of her breasts, marveling at their shape, the seeming heaviness of them, yet how the nipples were tipped up, inviting him to touch. To kiss. He lowered his head to them, nursed them to hard points. “Beautiful,” he breathed, over and over again.
Vi-vi clung to him, swaying under the onslaught of his mouth. She didn’t need the words, the compliments, none of that; she needed him. She needed the strength she felt emanating from him; a strength she was sure he didn’t know he possessed. It wasn’t in the bunching of his muscles, or in the tight embrace of his arms. It was in his eyes. It was in the tenderness of his lips and tongue and fingers. His strength had always been there, even when he was a child, and it had sustained him throughout the years he’d lived on the plantation, sustained him when he’d gone, and she knew that strength would sustain him now. He was as timeless as the house and the land that surrounded it, as sure as the river that served to fertilize the fields.
Vi-vi bowed her head to his shoulder, pressed her face to the dusky curls that were a little too long, the way they’d always been a little too long. The pulse in his neck beat against her cheek, then her lips as she kissed that spot and raised goose flesh on him that she could see, even in the faint light of the fire.
Alexandre scooped Vi-vi up in his arms. He had always ‘seen’ her as bigger than him, as someone formidable and larger than life. In reality she was fine boned and delicate; a substantial, but easy armful of woman that he had no trouble carrying to the bed. When he laid her down he paused and looked at her, a dark shadow on the snowy sheets, then lifted the nightshirt she had so carefully draped on him and dropped it to the floor. He wanted nothing between them, nothing to get in the way.
Words sprang up in his mind, but dried on his tongue before saying them. There was no need for him to say anything, no need to break through the quiet that surrounded them. He hoisted himself back onto the high mattress, drew the heavy drapery of the bed curtains closed around them, and rested in her arms. Her long, dark fingers trembled on his cheek. For the first time, Alexandre thought that perhaps there was reluctance in her; that she wasn’t of like mind and was with him out of sheer obligation, out of duty, because this was just another part of her life that was under the jurisdiction and control of the men surrounding her, black and white. He took her shaking fingers and brought them to his lips.
“Is this what you want, ma cherie?” he asked her.
“Does it matter, Mich…” she began, and his fingers on her lips stopped her. “Alex. Does it matter?”
“Oui.”
“Does it matter that this is all I’ve ever wanted?” she asked him, her voice small. A shudder ran through her, traveled off the tips of her fingers into him.
“That’s all that matters, Vi-vi. That’s all that matters.”
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Slick with sweat, his body twined in a knot with Vee’s, A.J. felt his mind slipping and sliding along with his body. Sometimes he was right there; right where he was in a luscious tangle of arms and legs, the heavy, liquid air blowing the netting that sequestered the bed from the rest of the world caressing his body as surely as her hands did. Other moments he felt that he was in a more oppressive atmosphere, surrounded by things that were darker and watchful.
The light in the room had dimmed, the fire only glowing embers now. A few feeble candles still glowed, casting long shadows everywhere. Still, A.J. could see with clarity. He could see the woman beneath him, the rise and fall of her chest with each breath, the variation of skin tone from her lips, to her nipples, to the fragile skin on her neck where his mouth had raised the blood close to the surface. Together they had touched and kissed and touched until there was no bit of flesh untested; un-tasted. A.J. had even run his tongue along the tender arches of Vee’s feet, making her moan with pleasure when he did it.
It was time, now. He wanted to be inside of her, share the ultimate caress with her. He wanted to slip into the tight crevasse between Vee’s legs, feel her wrap herself around him, and see exactly how much pleasure they could really create.
Vee knew it was time, too. Time to let Alex, A.J., whoever he was, all the way inside of her, as deeply inside as he could get. It already felt like he was a part of her; it had felt the way from the moment she became aware of him, from the moment his voice had called to her over the radio, from the second she had looked at a photograph and seen his brown eyes. Time. It was time. She eased herself closer to him, lifting a leg over his hip. They were on their sides, face-to-face, and she rolled back, sank into the mattress, and invited him in.
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In. There was no struggle, but Alexandre hadn’t been expecting a struggle. Yet there wasn’t any false enthusiasm to mask the dull resignation that whore’s adopted, or the lassitude that serving girls offered, either. He supposed that this was what it was like to be with a woman who sincerely wanted him, and up to this point Vi-vi had been warm and sensual in ways he’d never experienced; ways he only ever imagined women to be. When the requisite wife would eventually come into his life, he hoped that she would be as warm and responsive as Vi-vi was, but he had no illusions about women of his class. They were dry to him. Dry, and aloof. It was hard for him to dream about the numerous eligible young women he’d met in the ways he’d dreamed of Vi-vi, and now it seemed impossible that any of them could live up to the reality.
In. He wanted to be inside of Vi-vi, to penetrate her in the most intimate way he knew. The sensitive head of his penis had been sliding in the liquid between her legs for quite some time bringing his excitement to a feverish pitch. Vi-vi seemed to be right there with him, too, arching from the feather bed into his body, urging him; moaning into his mouth as he teased her between her thighs. He was at the point where he couldn’t stand to wait any longer.
He pushed, slipped into her, felt the tip of his penis engulfed in heat, then withdrew. He pushed again, sinking in a little deeper; not thrusting, not yet, just easing himself inside. Once more he withdrew. Vi-vi clutched his shoulders, her arms strong around him, her legs loose on his waist. Her hips reached up for him, a signal he read to thrust down, to sink in. For a single, brief second he felt himself stopped, and he didn’t know if it was him, or her, or if he was just being clumsy, but he was stopped and it was Vi-vi’s heels digging into his thighs that pulled him in all the way, pulled him past that moment of hesitation and into her warm, lush body.
Vi-vi called out, she couldn’t help it, but she hid the cry in Alex’s mouth as he pierced into her and made her his own.
The floorboards shook.
A wolf howled in the distance.
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A.J. didn’t know what was happening until it was done. He’d heard about it, had perhaps even read about it, but it wasn’t within the scope of his experience to know for sure what he was feeling at first. Vee was clinging to him, pressing up to him and shaking; shaking so hard that it seemed that the whole room was shaking. She cried out into his mouth, but held fast to his head so he couldn’t move his mouth away to hear her. Instead, he heard a howling outside, a sound that sent a chill up his spine.
Vee released A.J.’s mouth along with the grip she had on him. She moved with his body, following the unfamiliar rhythm he made by instinct, surprised when she actually felt some pleasure after the initial pain.
She had been told that it usually didn’t feel very good the first time.
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Elle awoke and bolted up from bed. Something was terribly wrong. She went to the window, batting the netting from around the bed that stuck to her damp skin. The tall doors that opened to the third floor porch were opened to the night air, screened off by more of the netting that protected the bed. Elle pushed it aside and strode to the very edge of the house.
She saw the figure in the distance, saw the glow of red eyes in the dark.
The wolf howled once more before turning back to the forest and loping off into the shadows.
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The supine figure on the bed moved in the dark, where no one could see her. It was a subtle movement, but it was a movement just the same as her mouth drew open around a silent scream.
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© 2002, 2003, 2004 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2004 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
