The One - No one said it would be easy

by Goldsmith, J. F.

  Waking up the next morning: utter confusion. “Where am I?” Looking around the small guestroom with its nineteenth century style furniture, rubbing my eyes while memories of the massive gated entrance and the estate in the park came bouncing back into my brain, jumping up and looking out the window. My jaw hit the floor. The sun was shining and my tired eyes could barely believe what they saw. Forests, green pastures, horses, a state-of-the-art landscaped park, grey-pebbled pathways, perfectly clipped box trees, elegant old luxury cars. Wicked, I whispered to myself. I could hear noise from somewhere in the house, I was quite unsure what to do. Should I get up? Was there anyone about? If yes, who? What should I say? Was Number Fourteen awake yet? I got dressed and walked – no, strode! – down the stairs, aiming for the kitchen-type noises. Couldn’t see Number Fourteen anywhere. I looked around in utter amazement. It hadn’t all been some weird dream – I really was in a small castle. In the kitchen I ran into the lady of the house, Number Fourteen’s grandmother. She was very nice and also very discreet. She wasn’t sure who I was in relation to her grandson; apparently it was a rare event to have friends of grandchildren come to stay. Which I suppose is quite normal. So what do unfamiliar females do when thrown together by circumstance? They get busy in the kitchen! A feast was being prepared and I helped wherever I could. At least I could make myself useful instead of just hanging around.

  At long last Number Fourteen turned up. He grabbed a hold of me and pulled me out into the lush gardens. And out there he sat – oh cliché of clichés – the Lord of the Manor. Number Fourteen introduced me and said a polite “good morning” and just about managed to refrain from curtsying, such was the power that still emanated from this old gentleman. He looked me over suspiciously with his dark eyes as though he could tell that his grandson would do better to leave well alone. What do you say at moments like this? The old guy didn’t look like he would be impressed by chatty girlie talk. Number Fourteen defused the embarrassing silence by proposing a walk before lunch. Oh yes please – anything to get away from this father of all grandfathers and his skeptical attitude and apparent apathy towards me!

  And now we were walking through the little park. We sat in the grass on a secluded little hill and let the summer sun warm our bellies. We talked and talked, we just didn’t run out of things to say. By the bright light of the sun I noticed how amazingly blue this young man’s eyes were. I’ve always been a sucker for blue eyes. I looked at him and suddenly more and more of those naughty thoughts popped into my dirty little head. What might it be like to kiss him? What might it be like to – right here, right now - ?? I looked at him some more while he kept talking, and I thought his hairy lower arms were incredibly sexy. Which I found bemusing since I’d never been keen on hirsute men before. But suddenly I was massively attracted by this manly peltiness. Naturally, I didn’t let on about these musings. But there was a definite electrical charge in the air between us. And I realized that he was looking at me far longer than appropriate, and that he had similar thoughts. We were lying next to each other in the grass, and every so often our arms would touch. These tiny inconspicuous touches set off veritable flashes of desire through the entire body.

  But since we must not be late for the grand feast, for which about half the entire clan seemed to have been invited, we had to discontinue our electricity-laden summer-grass-lazings and get back to the house. We got our thoughts back in order and removed the grass from our clothing. All had to be just so again, to make the proper impression back at the castle! I was well able to cover up my inner turmoil and managed to play a convincing role as a charming, well-educated, well brought up, cosmopolitan, high society young lady. The role fit me like a glove. I was still completely dazzled by this whole situation – by utter coincidence, I get to know a Luxembourg-high-society offspring and, almost immediately (well, within just a few days), he has fully integrated me in his fairy-tale life! Here I am, sat at an opulently decked out table, surrounded by illustrious bodies, and everyone seems to assume that I belong. When Number Fourteen handed me the bowl of potatoes and our hands met underneath the bowl and our eyes over the top of it, another one of those flashes of lightning shot right through me. Shit – I was sunk. I’d fallen in love.

  On the way back I wished that time would stand still. I wished that this summer would never end. I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to stay with Number Fourteen and have him show me more and more of his life. Suddenly, I was almost bursting with happiness. And then I remembered my boyfriend and that instantly brought me crashing back down to earth. Shit – not another one of those terrible muddles of the heart! However, since I ruthlessly disregard all possible drawbacks once I’m in this kind of situation, I just ignored alarm bells and guilty conscience: this is my summer, my noble knight and my very own unique princess adventure.

  When Number Fourteen deposited me at my front door, we remained in the car for a while. He thanked me for the great weekend and said that really, he didn’t much feel like leaving me now. Another bolt of lightning shot through my belly. And that panic again – there’ll be necking any moment now unless I make a run for it! Yes I really wanted to make out, but as ever, panic engulfed me – the panic of taking this first step. I jumped out of the car. Ran to my front door. Where I turned and saw that Number Fourteen was still waiting. Damn – did I want this beautiful weekend to end like that? No, this called for something a bit more special! Not making out, that was far too ordinary and vulgar. I went back to his car and, before my brain could interfere with my tongue, I had done it. I bent down and leaned into the open window, took a deep breath and said: “Je crois que je suis tombée amoureuse avec toi.” Then I blushed, smiled bashfully, walked away and disappeared into the house. I didn’t want to see how he reacted. Had I made a complete fool of myself again? And how was it possible that these words just kind of fell out of my mouth? Had I taken leave of my senses? I’d only just met this guy a week ago! His reply came by email, a short while later.

  He wrote that he’d been jubilant all the way home and that he was totally happy and had to keep grinning, because never before had a girl said something so sweet to him. Charming as he was, he let me know by email that you don’t say “tomber amoureuse avec toi” but “tomber amoureuse de toi”. I’d been so confused by my spontaneous emotional outburst that I had mixed up the English turn of phrase “to fall in love WITH someone” with the French. It seemed, though, that my little grammatical mistake had hit the spot because he was absolutely enchanted with it. Well – if a cute French guy were to tell us, in broken and accented English, “I am so fallen in love of you”, we’d be enchanted too. We’d probably want to marry him on the spot!

  However, there was just this teensy problem that I didn’t really want to fall in love at all. Because, I was supposed to already be in love, with my boyfriend, Number Ten. Which is what Number Fourteen pointed out to me very discreetly in his email. He knew that I was spoken for and, quite the gentleman, he said that he would be over the moon if we could build a relationship as he was very much “smitten of me” but he didn’t want to cause me problems because of my situation. My heart beat like crazy and I was flushed with heat. That was just typical! I was pulled this way and that. I wanted to be a Luxembourg princess and continue living this surreal summer dream. But I didn’t want to disappoint my boyfriend yet again. Why can’t you have two boyfriends – this question was foremost in my defiant, confused, naïve mind. Number Fourteen was away on business for the next few days and we didn’t see each other. Which was a good thing. It allowed the sudden heat between us to cool a little, and the head to grow clear again.

  In order to really clear my head, I had to see my boyfriend. I very much hoped that, once I was face to face with him, my temporary Luxembourg butterflies would stop fluttering and my heart would be back to normal and how it should be. Sadly, no chance! During my visit I pretended that everything was great but in actual fact, I found it hard to be around Number Ten and I kept wishing I was with Numb
er Fourteen. Of course, Number Ten wanted sex, after all we hadn’t seen each other in a while, but suddenly the mere thought filled me with horror. For the first time in my life I invented an excuse, namely the worst of all excuses: a vaginal yeast infection. Eek – these words alone should instantly erase all thoughts of sex from the mind of any male. But Number Ten became suspicious, I had never before refused sex, ever. I was always up for it, even when I was feverish and ill in bed. Number Ten smelled a rat and realized that things weren’t as they were supposed to be. He didn’t say anything though. On our last evening together I couldn’t stand it anymore. I wanted to be able to spend the next few weeks in Luxembourg enjoying my life as a princess, unencumbered by my British world and the need to come up with ever-new excuses to keep my boyfriend from coming to visit me, or expecting me to visit him every weekend.

  I had to do some straight talking. At least semi-straight talking. I didn’t mention Number Fourteen, of course I didn’t. But I did tell him I wanted to spend the next few weeks in Luxembourg by myself, and that I’d made many new friends and wanted to do all those things that didn’t happen for me in Bordeaux. I asked his understanding (always a good move!) and reminded him that he’d already had the time of his life in L.A. and that I intended to have mine right now. In Luxembourg.

  Number Ten was completely shocked. No surprise, since just a few weeks ago I’d raved on about how wonderful it would be when we could see each other every weekend. And now I was telling him the exact opposite. Then, when it sunk in what I’d said and what the potential consequences might be, I burst into tears. Number Ten comforted me and said, it’s OK, just do what you have to, we’ll sort it out later. That made me cry even more, he was so sweet and so understanding. And me, nasty horrible hussy-cow that I was, kept lying and cheating on him.

  I was so torn – that Number Ten didn’t make a big scene but was really understanding made things so much worse. Suddenly I was wildly in love with him again, but I still didn’t just want to kiss my adventure with Number Fourteen good-bye. I didn’t know which way to turn. I felt very sorry for myself but at the same time knew damn well that I didn’t deserve the slightest bit of sympathy. Number Ten and I fell asleep huddled together. He had to leave early the next morning, I stayed in bed. When I got up I found a note from him on the kitchen table. He said he could feel that something wasn’t right, but that he didn’t want to put pressure on me, and that he loved me. I burst into tears again. Shouldn’t I stay here after all and leave Luxemburg to the Luxembourgers? But no. As though urged on by unseen helpers, I packed and left his flat. When I reached the station, a short time before the train to Princessland rolled in, I hesitated. I turned and walked towards the exit. But then I hesitated again, turned and raced back to the train, got in, and before I had time to change my mind yet again, the train was leaving the station. When I reached Luxembourg, Number Fourteen was waiting for me at the platform, clutching a red rose. Oh, you’re such a hussy, I thought. But Britishy and Number Ten had already faded out of sight.

  Number Fourteen took things as they were. He didn’t ask what had happened in Britishy, even though he knew I’d been to see my boyfriend. That was OK by me. What would I have been able to tell him, anyway? I didn’t even know myself which way my heart was pointing. Number Fourteen and I had already declared that we found each other quite delectable, but the next logical steps – making out, sex etc. – hadn’t followed yet. Which is a special situation, given that things normally work the other way around: you date, kiss, make out, screw, and not until weeks later you maybe declare your love for each other. But the two of us already knew that we were besotted with each other. Which made things extremely exciting and sparkly. We didn’t just fall on each other and screw our brains out right there in the car. No – the thrill consisted of prolonging the wait for the inescapable to the ultimate point of no return.

  And so Number Fourteen suggested we go to the cinema. OK, why not. We decided on “Y tu mama tambien”, a Mexican summer-teenie-road-movie with lots of sizzling and subtle erotics and a pretty hot sex scene, where two guys and a woman are doing it with each other. Yummy! If you want to see a really scorching kiss between two men, I can warmly recommend this movie! Exactly the right kind of movie for two hormonally churned up creatures like us! Watching this movie and sitting next to each other – it was hardly bearable. My heart was beating like crazy. And between my loins things were going crazy too. At some point, our arms touched on the armrest, of course not at all on purpose, and I caught my breath whilst looking at his still very masculine and hairy arms. I was practically dripping. What followed was the wonderful our-hands-touch-for-the-first-time-and-play-with-each-other game. Really slowly, gently and in slow motion. I became even more dripping wet. God how unbelievably arousing! Number Fourteen suddenly got up, he’d need to go out for a moment, he said, and reappeared after a short while. Sometime later he confessed that he’d hurried to the toilets and jerked off, because he just couldn’t stand sitting next to me and watching those sweltering summer fantasies on the screen. Him and me both!

  After the movie we went to his place and I got to see his flat, for the first time. A classy grand old building, thick red carpet on the stairs, ginormous flat with double wing doors and molded ceilings, well furnished but not overdone. Niiice, I thought, and immediately felt comfortable. We took some of the fruit-flavored beer from next-door Belgium and sat out on the floor of his little balcony. We talked and talked and talked and tried to ignore the escalating sexual tension between us, trying to wait for the most perfect moment for our first kiss. We kept waiting and waiting, neither of us daring to make the first move. Quite a funny situation, when you both know that you both want it, but you don’t want to wreck it by picking the wrong moment.

  In the end Number Fourteen took charge. He went into his bedroom, sat fully clothed on his bed and called for me to join him. Wow, that was plain talk! I slowly walked towards him. We didn’t speak. He watched me calmly with his damn sexy blue eyes. If it didn’t sound so grossly pompous, I’d say he watched me hungrily. He’d moved his hands back and was leaning against them, lying back languidly from the edge of his bed. I moved closer and looked at him just as languidly. Without taking our eyes off each other, I straddled his lap and locked my jeans-clad legs around him. Number Fourteen leaned back all cool, didn’t move an inch and caught his breath. But inside of his trousers, more than an inch was moving, I could tell even through two layers of jeans material. If some type of electronic field measuring thingy device had been anywhere near us, I’m sure you could have seen the sparks flying between us.

  Slowly, Number Fourteen got out of his James Dean pose and sat up straight. He embraced my upper body, pulled me close, his hands slowly stroking my back, up my neck and into my hair. At the same time he started to kiss my neck. It felt sublime. Soft and gentle, and yet tough and demanding. I kept my eyes closed and savored the moment. Our breathing got harder and faster while we moved together rhythmically, grabbed each other by the hair and kissed all freely available sections of skin. Slowly we felt our way towards our mouths, briefly looked into each other’s eyes, and then we finally kissed. Another big relief: the kiss was fantastic. We sank onto the bed, getting out of the uncomfortable almost-but-not-quite-lying-down position and made out and kissed happily until we were lying there, both only clad in our panties.

  Number Fourteen was brilliant, he touched me just right, kissed just right, looked at me just right and groaned just right. Not too much and not too little. Simply perfect. I looked at him and yes, he was well built, muscled and firm, extremely hairy but, while usually I tend to close my eyes when faced with the offending sight of a pelt-covered body landscape, this time I found it extremely sexy and it turned me on like crazy. So far, I hadn’t dared approach his shorts and whatever might be contained within them. I kept stroking his arms, his face, his torso, his butt, his legs, carefully avoiding the great bulge that by now was hard to ignore. He, on the other hand, wasn’t so r
eluctant and had already made his way into my bright red jersey string and was expertly exploring his territory, which by now resembled the Mississippi delta at high tide. He ripped the last little bit of red material off my body and looked at me, top to bottom.

  Feeling his eyes on my naked body was extremely erotic and turned me on even more. Then he whispered: “T’as une belle chat” or something like that, the literal translation of which means: “You have a beautiful cat” and as far as the not so literal translation goes, I guess I don’t have to spell it out. If a British guy had said this to me, I’m sure I’d have died of embarrassment and the Mississippi delta would have turned into an arid desert in an instant. But strangely enough, a foreign language appears to defuse potentially embarrassment-inducing material. I briefly mused whether I’d understood correctly, but I left it alone and it didn’t irritate me. Maybe, if talking during sex isn’t your thing, you should try another language? Incidentally, the French language has the cutest little word for dick or cock: zizi. Isn’t that sweet? That makes it immediately so much easier to talk about sex – not lumberjack-type terms like prick or cock or dick, penis, member or pecker. Zizi sound wonderfully harmless and non-threatening.