Bella...A French Life

by Marilyn Z. Tomlins

  He let the bottle fall to the floor, what champagne left in it, running over our feet, swung me round and lifted my left breast up to my mouth and stuck my hard nipple between my lips.

  “Suck, Bella,” he ordered.

  My nipple was dry. So was my throat.

  He stepped away from me.

  “I want you to stay here. Don’t move,” he said.

  He disappeared back into the bathroom and quickly I lifted the bottle to see if any champagne was still left in it. There was; a few drops. I threw my head back and let the drops fall into my mouth.

  On Jean-Louis’ return he was carrying the ice bucket in which the wine waiter had earlier served the champagne we had had with the pizza. The bucket was filled with water. From the steam rising from it I knew it was hot water. The floral scent of the hotel’s Versace collection of complimentary bath foams clung to the flannel mitt he was holding.

  “I’m going to wash you, my little baby,” he murmured.

  I watched him.

  He dipped the mitt into the bucket and slowly he wrung it out, his hands red from the heat of the water.

  Waiting, I pressed my wet and sticky back against the cold of the mirror.

  Jean-Louis began washing me. He started with my neck and shoulders. Next, he washed under my armpits and under my breasts, following a centre line to my stomach and to my thighs. He rinsed the mitt and gently pushing my legs apart he proceeded to wash between them. The mitt was hot.

  I threw my head back. I was completely lost in his touch and the champagne from earlier.

  “Come on,” he said.

  My body quivered from the expectation of what he would do next.

  Again, he dipped the mitt into the bucket and having again wrung it out, he handed it to me.

  “Come on, sweetheart, your turn to wash your little Jean-Louis,” he said.

  He spread his legs and placed his manhood on the mitt.

  “Wash, Bella, wash!” he ordered.

  I swept the mitt up and down across his thighs, down his legs and up again to his manhood.

  I was cold and I began to shiver.

  He too began to shiver.

  Both of us shivering, goose pimples on our arms, we held one another. Slowly, we sank to the floor and he rolled on to me and entered me gently. We were still shivering, but no longer with cold but with desire, desire for one another.

  We lay on the floor for quite some time, two exhausted people, two exhausted lovers, contented, fulfilled, happy.

  Later, the new raincoat again wrapped around me, I sat on the bed and watched Jean-Louis dress in jeans and T-shirt.

  “Let’s get another bottle of champagne,” he said.

  He telephoned the bar and asked for another bottle of Moët & Chandon to be sent up.

  “And something to eat too. Crisps. Olives. Crackers. Chocolate. Figs. Do you have figs? No! Go see if you can find some.”

  I ran to the bathroom to shower and while I was in there the bar sent up a splendid selection of snacks.

  “No need to go out for dinner,” said Jean-Louis, a cracker spread with blue-black caviar in his hand.

  All night we made love, Jean-Louis, a most tender lover, kissing my breasts, my feet, sucking my fingers, my toes, and holding me to him and whispering into my ears, my hair and my face that he was never going to let go of me again.

  At around four in the morning I remembered Pavarotti had been singing when I came in from downstairs. I had no idea when the tape had run out.

  “Pavarotti,” I asked, “what happened to him?”

  “I asked you whether you wanted me to replay the tape.”

  “Oh yes,” I said. “So you did.”

  I had no recollection of him having done so.

  -0-

  In the morning, on waking, Jean-Louis told me not to wear a dress that day. I had to wear jeans.

  “I take it you brought a pair of jeans?”

  Over breakfast, he told me that he had hired a scooter; it was to be our transport for the day.

  “Bella, this day is going to be memorable!” he said.

  The scooter was turquoise. The hotel’s concierge handed us two matching crash helmets the hire company had left on delivery of the scooter. He also handed us a street map for Rome.

  “Speed ahead,” said the concierge.

  “We’re speeding ahead,” replied Jean-Louis.

  Despite the early hour of the day, Rome’s streets were already congested. Ahead of us was a sea of cars, all small, all in need of a visit to the cleaners, all ignoring the existence of such a thing as a traffic lane while scooters and mopeds, even pedestrians, dogged around, both the coming and retreating vehicles. Never having been on a two-wheeled vehicle before, despite that Marius had often asked me to go for a ride with him on his motorcycle, I gripped the back of Jean-Louis’ seat tightly, concentrating on keeping my balance. The traffic was, or so it seemed to me, sweeping us along, the Tiber to our left, old stone buildings, which appeared to be holding one another up, to our right.

  Going down a narrow street, we passed burly grey-haired matrons dressed in the black of mourning and selling fruit from two-wheeled barrows placed in front of alcoves through which little Romans could be seen playing oblivious apparently to half a dozen cats rummaging in discarded garbage.

  I began to relax and eased my grip on Jean-Louis’ seat.

  A traffic cop, his stomach bulging over the white belt of his uniform, waved us forward: ahead loomed the Coliseum. A cacophony of car hooters and opera booming from car radios, made it useless for me to call out to Jean-Louis that I would like us to go round the Coliseum. Just then another traffic cop also waved us on with white-gloved hands. His white pith helmet had slipped over his forehead and he looked rather silly. Yielding to the scooter’s sway, I freed one hand and signalled a salutation to the traffic cop. He blew on the whistle he was holding between his lips: his return salutation to me perhaps?

  At noon, we pulled up on a square where three workmen, two standing on a columned fourth floor balcony, were holding a rope which was tied around the waist of the third who, two floors down, his feet resting in crevices, was brushing bird droppings from the top of the head of an angel chiselled into the façade.

  “I’m hungry,” said Jean-Louis.

  We chose a trattoria on a narrow, cobbled side street and Jean-Louis decided we should have cannelloni and as always, I did not argue.

  After lunch, having just had a glass of Chianti each to drink, we continued with our scooter tour of Rome.

  Back at the hotel and in our suite, Jean-Louis said he had to make a telephone call to Paris.

  I went into the bathroom to change into a white cocktail frock for dinner which was to be in a restaurant.

  I listened to what he was saying.

  “Yes, sweetie, papa knows. I am so sorry I’m not staying over this weekend, but I will see you and Carmen on Monday evening. Is that ok? Yes, give me your mom. Hello. How are things today? I’m in Rome. No, it is a business trip. I’ll be back tomorrow evening so I’ll come round on Monday evening. Yes, I am sure they miss me. I miss them too. Yes, certainly, I will. I’m bringing them something from Rome. Yes, I am sure. Yes, of course. Well, I will have to ring off now. Ok, put Carmen on. Hello sweetie, how are you and Charissa? Oh, Charissa is naughty eating so much ice cream. Yes, sweetie, I know, you are not allowed to eat ice cream yourself, and I am very sorry this is so, but the doctor did say when your blood sugar is down, you will be able to eat a little of it. Yes, sweetie, I know. No, I will not eat any ice cream at dinner this evening. No, I’m not on holiday. I came to see a client. Yes, I am here on my own. Yes, I will bring you and Charissa to Rome. Yes, we will do so very soon. Yes, I promise. Yes, Mom can come too if you and Charissa would like that. Sweetie, I must really ring off. Ok, bye for now. I love you too, sweetheart.”

  -0-

  We dined in a small restaurant near to our hotel. We sat at a round table for two which stood at a window behind which t
he Spanish Steps loomed and where tourists in jeans and sandals were buying ice cream from a Roman, dressed as a centurion. Next to the centurion another centurion was belting out O Sole Mio.

  Ma n’atu sole …cchiù bello, oje ne’… O sole mio sta ‘nfronte a te! … O sole … O sole moi … sta ‘nfronte a te! … sta ‘nfronte a te! …

  Every time a coin was dropped into the metal jug at his feet, his largamente became a stentato which, once he had shot a glance at the tourist’s offering and had seen it was perhaps but a few centisimi, again quieted down.

  Jean-Louis politely asked if I would allow him to choose what we would eat. The question, in no way a surprise, I just nodded. He ordered ossobuco and polenta.

  “And a bottle of Chianti,” he told the waiter.

  “Which will no doubt be holding a candle tomorrow evening,” I said.

  I thought he would laugh, or at least smile, but the frown across his forehead, which I had observed earlier when I had walked back into the bedroom from the bathroom, had returned.

  After what was a morose couple of hours in the restaurant, despite that the maitre d’ - bless his soul - had, having noticed, no doubt, that the thoughts of the male of the species were not on the food, and also not on the Chianti, or on the female of the species, kept on coming to our table, each time pressing the index finger of his right hand into his right cheek, which Jean-Louis had interpreted for me as the man finding me tasty-looking, we walked back to our hotel.

  -0-

  “Bella, I am rather worried.”

  We were back in the suite, the French doors leading to the terrace, wide open, the Roman sky, starlit.

  “About what Jean-Louis?” I asked.

  “About who rather. It’s Carmen. The sugar, you know. The child is really struggling with the diabetes.”

  What was I to say?

  “Children do. Adults do too.”

  “I wonder if we could go to Le Presbytère next weekend and I could bring the girls along? You can then explain to Carmen how things work.”

  Yet again: what was I to say?

  “If you think it will help.”

  “It is worth the try, Bella.”

  -0-

  Reaching the suite, Jean-Louis said he needed the bathroom. I walked out onto the terrace.

  I stood there thinking.

  I realised that I would never be first on Jean-Louis’ list of priorities. At the top would be his daughters. A close second would be the freedom his separation from his wife was allowing him. Next, his job. I knew he was a good lawyer, one of the best corporate legal minds in Paris, if not in France. I even suspected that Collette, the wife he was telling me he was no longer in love with, would rank above me on a priority scale. Yes, Mom can come too. Those words of his kept spinning round and round in my head. And there was the diabetes thing and he was becoming involved with it and I was probably heading for a place where I would be no more than a ‘doctor friend’, someone who knew how to inject people.

  “Bella, I’ve warmed the bed,” Jean-Louis called out.

  He had gone into the bedroom.

  I took a deep breath, painted on a smile and sauntered inside. I had felt so very much alone out there on the terrace anyway.

  He lay on the bed, naked. I undressed and lay down beside him. He rolled onto me. Purposely, yet it took all my self-control, I did not move. I just lay there, yet I wanted to cry out, Jean-Louis! Love me! Dammit!

  “Bella,” he said, “I cannot live without you. I do not want to live without you.”

  He rolled on to me and we held one another for quite a while before we began to make love again.

  In the night, I rose from the bed, Jean-Louis lying on his stomach, fast asleep.

  I went into the bathroom and I began to shower.

  I looked at my face peering back at me in the mirror above the washbasin.

  Were those tears I saw running over my cheeks? Tears because Jean-Louis was not wholly mine?

  No, maybe it was just water from the shower …

  -0-

  At four that morning I was back standing on the terrace. The stars had faded and the night was dark. Jean-Louis was asleep, his beautiful, slim body relaxed in total abandonment across the rumpled bed where he had held me and told me he could not live without me. That he would not want to live without me.

  -0-

  We took a taxi back to Fiumicino. While Jean-Louis stared in silence at the road ahead, the frown back across his forehead, I chatted about all and everything that came into my head. The taxi driver, obviously exasperated at this woman who would not shut up, shot me angry glances in the car’s mirror below which a metal Saint Christopher medal swung in rhythm to the movement of the car.

  “Bella, you won’t mind if I go straight back to my apartment, do you?” asked Jean-Louis, once back in Paris.

  We had already gone through customs at Orly Airport.

  On the flight he had suggested we each have a gin and tonic and, yet again and as always when he decided what we would eat and drink, I had agreed.

  Standing in line at the taxi rank, he kissed me on the cheek.

  “Thank you, Bella. Thank you for a wonderful weekend. Sorry … sorry if … you know … if my mind wandered a little … at times.”

  We took separate taxis into Paris.

  -0-

  Le Presbytère was almost fully booked, so my mother let Charissa and Carmen have the ‘Tony from Colorado’ room which was free. Fred pushed another single bed in there. The only other room that was also free was the one with the rose window.

  “Will it be alright if you and I go in there?” I had asked Jean-Louis on the telephone on the Friday.

  “Sure. Why not? It’s a lovely little room,” he had replied.

  My mother got Fred to push an extra single bed in there too.

  Jean-Louis, Carmen, Charissa and I arrived at the guest house at eleven on Saturday morning. Because the Porsche was a two-seater, Jean-Louis hired a Volkswagen Combi like that of the Le Presbytère for the weekend: the girls wanted to take their bicycles along.

  When we arrived, some of the guests were still having breakfast which was being served out in front of the house under the copse of trees. My mother, helping Honorine and Martine with the serving, was frying eggs and bacon on a gas plate.

  “Hello girls,” she greeted Jean-Louis’ daughters.

  Bella, what are you doing with a married man, and one who has two children, the expression on her face asked me despite the broad smile of welcome she had given the two girls. Mother, I love the man, was my unspoken reply.

  Our overnight bags deposited in the rooms, we drove down to the mount. The girls’ bikes were in the Combi, in case they wanted to cycle later in the day. At the mount, the tide out and the mount standing on sand, the two, dressed in jeans and sweaters like their father and I, began to jump up and down: they wanted to go to cycle on the sand.

  “Maybe we can go out there, but only later, and not for the two of you to cycle on the sand. We’ll go for a walk. Pick up some shells,” I replied on their father’s behalf.

  “No,” Jean-Louis overruled me. “Let’s go for a walk out there. We can climb up to the abbey afterwards.”

  The grey, wet sand was cool under our naked feet: we were carrying our sandals and we had rolled up our jeans to our knees.

  “Not nice,” growled Charissa after a few steps. “The sand’s all gluey.”

  I could have told her.

  A little white and black dog found the sand to his liking and was running around yapping and soon snapping at our legs, its teenage owner not caring to restrain her pet.

  “Horrible beast,” complained Carmen.

  “He’s only playing,” I said.

  “Leave it, Bella,” whispered Jean-Louis.

  Because of the little dog Charissa and Carmen decided they would rather walk around on the mount. Immediately, we turned back the way we had come and Jean-Louis retrieved a bottle of mineral water from the Combi for us to
wash away the sand which clung to our feet. I handed out tissues with which to dry our feet. Our sandals back on and our jeans rolled down, we walked along Grande Rue and sat down in a café: the girls were thirsty.

  In the café, the four of us sat at one end of a long table. It stood behind a window which looked out to where we had just walked. The little dog was still running around; he was chasing his tail. Sylvain, the café owner and a cousin of Fred, Frascot and Gertrude came over to greet me.

  “Pretty girls,” he said. “Yours?”

  The question was directed at Jean-Louis.

  “All mine!”

  He looked proud.

  Both girls wanted orange juice and ice cream. Jean-Louis did not object. When I was a child, my mother would have asked me whether I thought money grew on trees and she would have allowed me one or the other, but not both. And Carmen should not have been drinking a sweet soda and eating ice cream. Jean-Louis had a beer. I said I will have some fizzy water.

  “My mom hates fizzy water,” stated Carmen.

  She was juggling two glass ashtrays.

  “You should not be having ice cream,” Jean-Louis told her belatedly.

  “Mom said as I was to enjoy myself this weekend, I can eat what I want.”

  “We all hate fizzy water,” said Charissa. “My mom never buys it.”

  “I like fizzy water and I always have a bottle in my fridge,” I replied, speaking to the wall opposite and not to the three at the table with me.

  “Leave it … leave it, Bella,” whispered Jean-Louis yet again.

  Using the monk’s zigzag technique, we ascended the steps to the abbey. Charissa and Carmen swung their arms in the air. Some other children followed suit and a few steps later so did their parents, and so did Jean-Louis, and, not wanting to be the odd one out, so did I.

  “That was fun,” said Jean-Louis at the top of the steps.

  He was sweating: his jersey, wet, clung to his back and I wanted to lay my hands on his back and pull him towards me: he looked so masculine, so manly, so attractive. So sexually enticing.