But then, there it was. And she felt so much better.
She'd been to doctors. They'd told her not to worry, this was perfectly normal. Her interest in sex and her active sex life more than compensated for the lack of completion. And who knew? Perhaps, they said, her biological equipment was merely a bit delayed in blooming. Keep on trying by all means, they said. But it sounds to us like you are really, really enjoying what you have now.
Which was true.
Absolutely true.
Oh sure, her high school friends thought she was the slut of the new century. But that really wasn't true. If she were a real sex maniac she'd have done stuff like--What? Gangbanged the football team? Seduced the principal.
Oh yes, she was "easy". But the boy--or the girl, as the case may be--had to be right. It wasn't like she'd open her legs for just anyone.
Still, in Paris, she had flowered. After a couple of years in America, at Kansas U., she'd tired of the hookup generation. The problem wasn't that there weren't handsome guys she could fuck. The problem was they didn't really know what the hell they were doing. She kept on waiting to fall in love with one, but boy, that sure didn’t happen. There had been Ben, of course. He'd kind of been her, on again, off again, boyfriend all two years at Kansas. But Ben Barkley had been just about the worse lover ever. She had to talk him into even doing it. Ben's dad, unfortunately, was a Methodist minister. Ben said he couldn't help but want her, and he'd begged her to marry him--but when his cock came out and he started moving inside of her, he got absolutely embarrassed and upset and wound up coming in about seven seconds flat. That was okay, really, but when she'd asked to do other things, he'd just bat his big blue corn-fed eyes and say, "That's evil". And it hadn't been much! She liked light love taps. And getting him to lick her pussy. Now what red-blooded young man in America didn't want to lick pussy? It was, like, not only a rite of passage, it was fun! True, there was herpes and chlamydia. Thing was that, even though Janice got those tests regularly, she couldn't really tell Ben that, since that would more or less admit that she'd been sleeping around with other guys.
Okay. So now, here she was with a huge famous Frenchman collapsed between her legs. Murat had almost done it, but he hadn't.
So live with it, sister, she told herself.
She thought about it for a moment, as her mind cleared and she realized that--hey--she'd done more or less exactly what she set out to do.
General Murat, Napoleon Bonaparte's right hand man in battle and perhaps elsewhere--was lying now, spent, between her legs.
She rubbed a gentle hand down his back and then slid a finger down his spine.
His eyes were closed. He murmured gratification, but mostly seemed to be in a sex-drugged stupor. She let him drowse in that delicious state for a bit, murmuring sweet French words into his ear and rubbing his back until finally his eyelids opened.
He looked at her.
"I am in the arms, surely, of the angel of love," he said.
"I love gorgeous Earth folk," she answered.
"You astound me."
"You surround me!"
He chuckled throatily. "My dear, you are remarkable. And first, I must apologize."
"Apologize, General Murat. For what, pray tell?"
"For the ghastly impolite drugging, and all that I put you through."
"Now that I know your mettle, sir--I believe it was the will of the Divine. For I cannot help but think of the pleasures and resounding fulfillment I feel now. We have made a journey together, and we are good companions, no?"
"Oh indeed, indeed, my dear," he sighed.
"You are an amazing wonderful man," she said. "I am in danger with you and in danger, I feel safe and secure."
"I would have you for my own," said Murat. "Alas... There are difficulties."
"You are married?"
"I believe we shall go into that later."
"As you wish," she said.
"But in the meantime, you say you have some of your memory back. You know where you are from, but not totally the circumstances of your present. Say what you like about my victimization of you, I insist on rectifying it. You must be my guest."
Yes! This was exactly what she wanted.
"I must accept, as I have nowhere else to go. That I am aware of, that is."
"Indeed. Yes." He scratched his curly hair thoughtfully. "Not here, though."
"In Paris perhaps?"
"No, not in Paris."
"But surely that would be more convenient for all."
Especially to try and get closer to Napoleon Bonaparte.
"No. Eventually, no doubt. No, there is a friend of mind who has helped me in many matters. He is a friend of other military men as well."
She kissed him. "I am in your good hands."
They nuzzled for a bit, and he drowsed.
She played with a lock of his hair, twisting it around between her fingers, smiling.
CHAPTER TWO
It was a beautiful little cottage.
This cottage was planted on a hill, overlooking a chateau. Around it was a wealth of trees, full of green leaves and shade. Down the hill was a swath of dark green such as she had never seen before. It was May in France, Early May, Murat had informed her. Flowers were out and in abundance.
She had never seen such flowers. The chateau was a day's ride from Paris by coach, far enough south to warm well up by afternoon, with a fat sun and perfect clouds in the sky, but close enough still to Normandy that the morning had a brisk chill to it.
Thus, a curious assortment of flowers were now in bloom. Daisies, of course, but also tulips and other varieties--all in full vibrant color. Against the hilly country that surrounded the chateau--an old castle on a hill, refitted--it was quite striking. The cold dark of the stone of the castle, against the daisies and other yellow and brassy violets. And of course the thousand shades of green. With other houses and cottages poking up here and there, it was an astonishing site in the morning, with dawn slowly parting the mists. Now, a fresh breeze fluttered drapes at the window, carrying with it the perfumes of spring. The sharp smell of grass, and the semen smell of the plants all busily procreating in time for the full rapture of summer.
Janice sat at the window, sipping at a cup of the most delicious hot chocolate she had ever tasted, and pondered this remarkable landscape.
It made her want to become a painter. This was the kind of wild gardens that surely drove the great European artists such as Van Gogh and Matisse to set out their vibrant splashes of color. What she had noted, these first few days here, was how well the architecture, the human occupation, fitted in with Nature. It felt real and calm and very, very... well, serene.
This, now, was the day, here, in the French countryside, when, amidst the bounty of sperming spring, that she encountered her first sexual experience of a most curious kind.
That was to come, but now, as she sat with her book, sipping her hot chocolate, nibbling from a crisp French baguette, she had no idea of why, truly, General Murat had planted her here. "A rose to outshine the other flowers," he had announced, perhaps somewhat pompously, as he had opened the coach door on the driveway. He'd thrown a careless hand about, alluding to the surroundings. "You see, my dear. For a time, especially with this weather, you will be quite happy here. And I will visit when I can."
He hadn't visited so far. But then it had only been three days since that memorable coupling with him, and each day brought notes that he would return, yes, this Thursday night for more of the same.
In the meantime, it had been her specific instructions to relax, read from the several shelves of the library provided and try and remember more of her past.
Well, of course, now she remembered everything.
And of course, she couldn't tell General Murat that she was not of this time, but from the early 21st Century and that, somehow, she'd been cast back to the Napoleonic Era. Napoleon was only just First Consul now, a term to disguise his true power amidst others, supposedly equally pow
erful. Soon, of course, he would shed the term, and after further conquests, named himself nothing less than Emperor of France. But that was in the years to come, for now he, in the years after he had discovered the disloyalties of his wife Josephine, was vulnerable to the bonding of the woman who truly loved him and needed him.
Herself, of course.
She was not, of course, unaware of the oddness of the situation. But she lived more by her feelings than by her intellect. Indeed, her intellect was powered by her feelings and thus something remarkable, in combination with her growing knowledge and of course timeless instincts--in any case, she felt, just as Napoleon Bonaparte had felt, driven by nothing less than destiny.
"Destiny," she said.
She went back to her book. It was, interestingly, not a French book, but a book from the new United States. And, of course, in English. The book was dated from 1797. Recent, in the way of books that passed across the Atlantic. It was cheaply pressed, with cardboard covers and looked to be well thumbed through, as though read by many people. A cheap edition meant for the masses.
It dealt with liberty and the true meaning of liberty.
What was fascinating about it was that the writer absolutely broke with any kind of religion. Religion was not disrespected by the writer, but religion that "keep the soul and spirit in bonds" was a religion that helped tyrants rule. Tyrants such as King George III, whom the United Colonies had just rebelled against—"to form a more perfect union", etc, etc. Tyrants such as the King and Queen who had been beheaded in the French Revolution.
This was, indeed, thought Janice as she poured over these pages, a time of great changes.
In any case, the writer pushed the themes of liberty past the normal boundaries she was used to reading about in American revolutionary times. In fact, the writer, one Daniel Martin, seemed to have been involved in the so-called Whiskey wars, in which the newly formed Union had to quash a rebellion formed from bootleggers unwilling to pay taxes.
Presumably those taxes were meant to include "representation".
I'm no expert on Post Revolutionary America, she thought.
What was most interesting, though, was that the writer, this Daniel Martin, mentioned certain "books that are banned from these shores. Books of freedom". These books seemed to be by some kind of Duke or Count or something. The writer was not sure. He had not read them, for he hadn't gotten his hands on them. But the very thought that he could not--here in these supposedly free lands--enraged him.
Daniel Martin wrote that while he was a sinner indeed in the eyes of God, he needed to answer only to God, and not to any head of government. He wrote of a curious fact that Janice was not aware of. While sexual peccadillos could result in branding with red letter A's and such--rare, perhaps, but still happening from the days of Nathaniel Hawthorne's THE SCARLET LETTER--the most grievous sin some communities visited upon their citizens was forcing them to attend church. If an individual did not attend a duly appointed community church, it would seem, he or she could be fined. In other words, attendance was counted, and communities went after shirkers of church as though they were tax scofflaws.
This shocked Janice, but not too much.
After reading this, and on and on (oh lord, these eighteenth century writers could be succinct, but they could also be unbearably windy and with their "s"'s so often looking like "F"'s it wasn't easy reading, she was thrilled to come to the morals part.
"Albeit though murder be profane above all, and there must be order, true, I have wondered if conduct in other mores--social mores--might be more the council of a free individual rather than his assembled fellows in some sort of supposed power."
It didn't take long with reading further to see that this meant sex amongst consenting adults.
"Here here!' cried Janice, after slurping some chocolate and eating some more bread.
She was deeply immersed in this tome when there was a knock upon the door.
She started.
Oh dear! Who could that be? She was in the middle of nowhere.
She wasn't fully dressed. In fact, it was seldom that Janice was ever fully dressed. She was always in some sort of state of undress, it seemed, in casual states of affairs. Sometimes, when she was video chatting back home, she forgot to put on clothes and her male chatters asked her if she was charging for the experience.
No, she wasn't fully dressed, but the knocking on the door was persistent and grew louder and more insistent with each pound, so she tucked herself into her night robe, made sure only frills leaked out and not boobies, and went to answer the door.
She wasn't too worried. If the visitors were dangerous, they probably could have just pushed the door open. There was a small latch, but it seemed only to keep the door from blowing open in the wind. This cottage simply didn't seem built with the possibility of burglary prevention or such in mind.
Janice took a deep breath and then unlatched the door, opening it and peeking up.
"Yes?" she said.
"Mademoiselle!" said a high-pitched voice. "May I introduce myself. Sergeant Claude Debussy, at your service."
Janice almost slammed the door closed with shock.
Instead, she looked out at the visitor.
The man was short, maybe five foot five. He walked with a crutch. He was squat, in a frayed and ratty French Uniform. One whole side of his face was a mass of scars, and his eye was covered with a large black patch. As she looked closer she could see that the hand the man held out in way of greeting was no hand at all, but a metal hook.
"Oh. Good day, sergeant."
"My superior did not lie. You are quite beautiful," said the sergeant. "I was quite beautiful in my youth. And my companion here, Thomas--he is yet beautiful, no?"
The hook pointed over to another man. But truly beautiful was not the word for this man, this ‘Thomas’.
Janice's mouth fell open.
The man was the most handsome man that Janice had ever seen in her life.
For one thing, his hair was blonde. Janice loved blonde hair on men. Nor was it just hair, but a wealth of gorgeous curls that wreathed his face in the current fashion of the French in Paris these days. From a face that might befit something carved my Michelangelo to depict a Greek god, bright blue eyes stared out above a slender and perfect nose. The mouth was wide. The lips were full. He was a strapping lad grown to the perfect flower of manhood. Maybe thirty-six years old, he wore a French corporal's uniform that was fairly bursting with muscles and perfect male proportions. And he was smiling at her in a way that melted her heart.
"Perhaps it is yet too early in the morning to devote to any kind of judgement," she said.
"There you go, Thomas," said Claude. "Smart as a whip. That's just as Murat said, eh? She'll be just fine!"
"Fine? I don't know what you are talking about," she said, perhaps a bit sharply. "Now what can I do for you gentlemen?"
"Invite us in, invite us in. Some tea would be nice. Hmmm! Do I smell hot chocolate? I do like hot chocolate."
"Well I--"
"Come now, Janice," said Claude. "We are your own special guardians. "You see, I am in charge of... uhm... security... Yeah, yeah, security in the area about the chateau. And Corporal Thomas Smith here, is my personal aide. Isn't that right, corporal?"
"Aye. This is correct."
The man spoke French with a clumsy accent. In fact, she could see now that he didn't look Gallic, but seemed... well, broad featured and English.
But what would an Englishman be doing in France! England was at war with France!
"Ah. Well, gentlemen. You catch me very early in the morning. Perhaps..."
"Well, some hot chocolate would be nice, but some other time would be fine. But we do need to come in and speak with you... for just a moment."
The handsome corporal took off his tri-cornered hat. Debussy, however, kept his two-corners hat, slanted, on tight, even as Janice gestured them both in to the front room of the cottage.
"Nice, nice!" said Debu
ssy. "Yes, they do keep some nice cottages hereabouts, most certainly. Yes." He was a rat-like man, with a long nose. His dark, sharp eyes darted about the room as though to discover some shameful secrets. They shone with a kind of amused malice. He spun around and directed his gaze upon Janice.
"Now then. You are comfortable here?" asked Debussy.
"Yes. Yes, I am. By any chance do you have word from General Murat? Is that why you are here?"
"Messages often arrive later in the day. But we have none right now."
"I see."
She couldn't help but notice that the short sergeant was eyeing her décolletage and licking his lips with naked lust.
"Sergeant. We did have a message," said the corporal. "But not from the general."
"Oh, of course. Sorry. I was just admiring... your gorgeous robe," said Debussy. "The corporal and I have our quarters in the north side of the chateau. We take pride in the way we oversee this property and the small number of French soldiers garrisoned here. Don't we just, then, Thomas."
"Indeed, sir."
"We also like to get to know our charges! And... well... " He seemed to get lost again in the pondering of her breasts.
"What the sergeant is trying to get across, Mademoiselle Janice, is a simple invitation. I have taken an interest in the cooks of this country, and enjoy experimenting. We simply would like to know if you'd like to join us in our quarters tonight for supper."
Janice blinked.
If it had been the ugly, creepy sergeant who had asked, she might have declined. But the corporal spoke in such a genuine pleasant way--and with such sincere innocence... almost more innocence than she could hope for in such a specimen of sex in boots--that she found that she could not say anything else but yes.
"Well--yes, I suppose that might be nice," she said.
"Oh don't worry about the sergeant," said the corporal.
"Damn it, corporal. You needed to extol my virtues!" The sergeant winked at her. "I do have a bit of reputation as a ladies' man."
Janice shivered. What sort of ladies, she wondered.
The French Affair Boxed Set Page 7
