Gift of the Black Virgin

by Serena Janes

  “But I haven’t finished the lesson. There’s more.”

  “That’s all I can handle right now. I was so turned on by your story.” Her hand snaked down to his cock, almost completely flaccid. “Weren’t you? Can we try to get you hard?”

  “It would be a waste of time,” he said, shifting awkwardly in the bed. “Is it time for my pill yet?”

  Chapter Eight

  Two weeks after the accident and Luc could maneuver through the lower floor of the house with the help of a crutch. He was weaning himself off the painkillers—with some difficulty—and insisted that he couldn’t do it without the help of red wine. Jo had to capitulate. When it came to a lesser evil, alcohol beat synthetic morphine every time, in her book.

  Once he managed to get through twenty-four hours with only Tylenol-3’s and a liter of wine, Jo knew he was going to be fine. He was anxious to get back to work on the report that had been consuming him for the last few months. Luckily, he could pick up where he left off, working on his laptop in bed, or more often, seated at the kitchen table.

  Daniel resumed his weekend visits, and he and his father played video games and chess for hours at a time. Jo had begun a blog on living in France, and increasingly spent her time writing. It made her feel good to exercise her mind that way again, and she toyed with the idea of doing some freelance work.

  To start with, Brenda had asked her for a series of stories on the trials and tribulations of adjusting to a new culture. At first, Joanna wasn’t keen, but as the dreary January days rolled into even drearier February, she was getting restless. It would be good to get back to work, she thought. Luc said he didn’t mind.

  Once he was off the painkillers, Luc’s libido returned. It happened while he was sitting in the tub under the shower. He’d learned how to get on and off the bath stool himself and didn’t really need Jo’s help any more. But, one afternoon, seeing him wet and naked in the tub was more than she could take. Sneaking up behind him, she quickly peeled off her clothes and picked up a washcloth to soap his back. Then she climbed into the tub behind him and leaned over, pressing her breasts into his back, running her hands down the length of his arms.

  To her relief, he didn’t object. In fact, it took only a moment for her to see that she was more than welcome in his tub. He tried to turn around and embrace her, but he couldn’t. His broken leg, still encased in plaster, was elevated and balanced on the side of the tub. He was pretty much stuck, until he could get up onto his one good leg.

  As soon as she saw his erection, Jo took advantage of her position. She reached around him and began to soap his chest, all the while continuing to rub her breasts along his broad back.

  “Feels nice, doesn’t it?” she said near his ear.

  “Mmm.”

  “It looks like you’re back, lover.” Her hand dipped to his cock and lovingly caressed its length. He spread his legs a little wider for her and bent his head back out of the nozzle’s spray to rest it on her shoulder.

  “You’re so hard,” she said as she wrapped her hand around his shaft and pulled up, he groaned, and she released him.

  “Let me up,” he said, voice low.

  That was when Jo knew her troubles were over.

  She helped him stand and angle himself out of the tub. Then he grabbed her in an embrace that almost knocked them both off their feet. When she re-balanced them she handed him his crutch and they wobbled out to his cot, leaving a trail of water behind them.

  Luc barely waited until she’d hit the sheets before he tried to climb on top of her.

  “Ow, ow! Fuck!” he said as he twisted himself into an unnatural position, right leg skewed out to the side. “I have to get on the bottom.”

  She deftly slid out from under him and helped him get settled on his back, then carefully climbed on top of him. She kissed him deeply, loving the way he tasted, the way his body felt so hard and slippery between her knees, beneath her belly and breasts.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” she said into his mouth.

  “I’m right here.”

  She slid back and forth over his chest, his belly and thighs, around and around, grinding his cock into her soft belly. When she was wet and ready, she pulled up into a sitting position and guided him into her body with shaking hands. He filled her, he completed her, and just as she began to rotate her hips to better savor the exquisite sensation of being full of Luc, she felt his hands clamp onto them. He pumped up into her, she heard his low, guttural cries, and she knew it was all over.

  Despite herself, she started to giggle, collapsing onto his chest. “Wow! Was that just like the first time? With Patrice?”

  “Yeah. Probably.” She looked up at him to see that he was smiling.

  Ever since she’d stopped taking her contraceptives, Jo had been carefully charting her menstrual cycle and taking her temperature to determine when she was ovulating. Over the next few days she was ripe and she insisted on putting her poor husband on triple duty. Trying to make a baby after the long weeks of abstinence made their lovemaking even more exciting than usual. Sex just kept getting better and better, she thought, despite the restrictions posed by Luc’s cast.

  Then she waited with crossed fingers for the weeks to pass.

  When her period arrived on time, as usual, she tried to be a good sport about it. They had lots of time, she rationalized. But her emotions raged as she waited for the next month, and her next cycle.

  While she bided her time, she spent her days writing, cooking, keeping house, and being the best step-mother she could to Daniel—and a model wife to her husband. He had never blamed her for his broken leg. It was silly, he kept telling her, to blame anyone. It was an accident. Eventually Jo stopped feeling so guilty, but she promised herself she would never knowingly put him into a risky situation again. He was far too precious to her.

  The break was healing well. Luc went uncomplaining to his physiotherapy sessions, determined to walk without a limp. The cast-off party to celebrate his leg being freed from the itchy plaster shell was a great success. Jo prepared most of the food herself, to positive reviews.

  Then, all of a sudden her husband was back to work. Again she found herself alone in the big spooky house during the day. But now she was usually too busy to notice.

  Her French was improving rapidly, thanks to the combined efforts of Daniel, Rose and Luc, and the dogs had stopped fighting, learning to tolerate each other. Everything was settling down to routine when a chance encounter delivered a new home right into the LaPlantes’ laps.

  Rose and Robert had a regular customer—a woman who dropped by the house for vegetables, a cup of coffee and neighborhood gossip—who knew someone who was preparing to sell their family estate. Rose knew the house, and she thought of the LaPlantes right away. It hadn’t been listed yet, she told Jo one morning in early March, just as the first buds of spring were starting to swell.

  “I’ll take you out there and you can meet the seller. It’s an elderly couple. They can’t handle the upkeep anymore. When do you want to go?”

  “Right away, I guess. I haven’t been thinking about property much. Since Luc’s accident, you know. You really think it would be right for us?”

  “Mais oui! C’est excellent,” Rose answered. “It really is. It has gardens and lots of outbuildings, and several hundred Malbec vines. They call them Auxerrois here. Robert would kill to have a vineyard full of Auxerrois, he said to tell you. And the house is fabulous. I can’t wait until you see it!”

  Rosie’s excitement piqued Jo’s curiosity, and, not expecting too much, she agreed to view the house the next day.

  Only a short distance from where they already lived, the property on offer boasted eighty acres of fertile land, a renovated nineteenth-century farm house made of top-quality materials, a barn, vineyard, fenced vegetable garden and countless fruit and nut trees. As an unexpected bonus, it also had a swimming pool. And it lay only about twenty minutes outside of downtown Cahors.

  Perfect. It sound
s perfect. Jo grew increasingly excited as Rose slowed down and pulled off the road, drove through an open gate, then along a private lane lined with lavender bushes. She couldn’t help thinking how beautiful they would look—and smell—when they were in bloom.

  The house was hidden from the road, but as soon as they rounded a bend Jo could see it, sitting on a slight swelling of land, surrounded by carefully pruned trees and shrubs. She recognized climbing rose bushes running alongside the front porch, and what might be a wisteria twined around an arching trellis. Real leaded windows, heavy wooden shutters, and peaked, red slate roofs added charm to the smoothly-hewn ivory stone walls.

  Jo thought it was a beautiful house, even in the glare of a late winter’s morning.

  “Oh my God, Rose. It is fabulous! I wonder if we can afford it. Do you know how much they want?” Jo could feel an anxious knot forming in her stomach. She hadn’t even stepped out of the car and she wanted the house already.

  “Non. But if you buy it without a realtor, you’ll save a lot of money. That’s why I thought you should see it as soon as possible.”

  “Thank you for thinking of us,” Jo said as she climbed out of the car and gazed around her. “It’s so private!”

  The front door opened and a middle-aged woman greeted them—the daughter of the owner. After formal introductions were made, the woman, named Helen, gave them the grand tour.

  “My parents have just moved into a residence in Toulouse, and I am looking after the sale of the house and all of its contents,” Helen said formally. “If you would like to have an inspection, I would advise you to have it done as soon as possible. I need to finish my business here and get back to the city.”

  “Thank you very much for allowing me to have this opportunity, Helen,” Jo said in equally formal terms. “So far I love what I see. May I bring my husband back this evening? I am certain he will be most interested in the property.”

  “But of course,” Helen said with a wave of her hand. “Here. Come and see. Let me show you the lower floor first.”

  Jo and Rose followed the severe woman through to the sitting room, a large room with walls made of enormous blocks of honey-colored stone fitted into each other so tightly they looked like rectangular puzzle pieces. The ceiling was open wooden beams—probably originals, Jo thought. The entire space glowed, and she could smell lavender.

  “The lower floor is all terra-cotta tiles,” Helen informed them. “The upstairs floors have chestnut plank floors, and the staircase is elm.”

  The dining room was similarly beautiful, but one wall had been opened up with large windows to a view of what looked like a partially-covered patio, beside the swimming pool.

  “These two rooms each have an inglenook fireplace with a wood-burning stove insert. And in here,” Helen pointed into the charming rustic kitchen, is a souillarde.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “The original farmhouse sink. Made of solid stone.”

  Jo was thoroughly impressed. Not only by the sink, but by the seamless integration of stainless steel Bosch appliances and a large, smooth butcher’s block imbedded in a stone countertop.

  Upstairs, Jo and Rose were walked through the four bedrooms, storage rooms, bathrooms and then climbed the narrow staircase to a small attic. The views from the tiny window were magnificent.

  Then Helen took them outside to the flagstone patio, which she called a summer lounge. Under the covered section, Jo was shown a kitchen, an outside shower, a fireplace and a complete bathroom.

  Although she knew she sounded like a rube, she couldn’t help exclaiming, “Wow!”

  The pool wasn’t large, but it was in good repair, covered for the winter.

  Lastly, they saw the barn. It contained a guest suite, a three-car garage, a heated workshop and a half-buried wine cellar.

  “You can see the gardens. For vegetables, over here,” Helen pointed dismissively, as if anyone would be crazy to want to grow their own food. “And fruit orchards. But the most valuable part is the truffle trees. Over there.”

  Jo looked to where she was pointing and saw a small copse of oak trees beside the stream.

  “Very nice,” she murmured.

  Luc’s going to love this. She couldn’t stop smiling.

  She was still smiling when she shook Helen’s hand, telling her she would be back at six-thirty with her husband.

  As she walked to the car, she suddenly remembered something, and turned back to Helen, who was just shutting the door. “I almost forgot,” Jo said as she ran back to the porch. “How much are your parents asking?”

  The price was high. No doubt. But Jo had already done her research, and she knew it was fair. They had the money. It would just be a matter of convincing Luc to let her spend hers.

  “Merci beaucoup. See you soon!”

  Jo babbled excitedly all the way home as Rose drove.

  It’s perfect, perfect, perfect!

  Jo couldn’t wait until Luc got home from work. She called him at his office, which she didn’t like to do unless it was important. This was important. He laughed at her almost-incoherent description of the house and grounds, and promised he wouldn’t be late for their appointment. He suggested they have dinner at one of their favorite bistros afterwards, so they could talk about the house over a good meal and an even better bottle of wine.

  At six-thirty sharp the two of them knocked on the door of what Jo already thought of as her new home. Helen, as austere as before, seemed to be one of the few women in the world who wasn’t enchanted by Luc’s masculine charms. She showed them around, answering Luc’s questions simply and directly, clearly a woman who disliked extraneous chitchat.

  Jo was almost bouncing with excitement as Luc poked and prodded, turned on taps, closed and opened doors and cupboards, and examined the hand-carved interior shutters. He asked about the title, the taxes, and the water, heating and sewage systems—all things Jo hadn’t given a thought to. If she hadn’t been so over the moon she would have felt embarrassed at her lack of common sense. But she didn’t mind. She was in love.

  Afterwards, sitting in front of a glowing fire in a nearby restaurant, Jo bombarded Luc with a hundred questions. Wasn’t it just right? The location was great, wasn’t it? It was private, yet convenient to town. Schools were nearby. Anna and Daniel weren’t far, either. And, one of the best things, she added, was that it was move-in ready. It didn’t need any real renovations or upgrades. Did he like it enough to consider buying it, she asked with fierce hope, watching him smear a piece of crusty bread with tapenade.

  “Say something. I’ve been doing all the talking. What do you think, sweetheart?”

  “It’s twice as much as we’d agreed to, Joanna,” he said, chewing slowly.

  She watched his expression as he swallowed the bread and took a sip of heady dark wine. Then he took another.

  “I know. But…”

  “You know how I feel about taking your inheritance money,” he said, draining his glass.

  “But you’re not taking it,” she countered. “I’d be spending it on our house. It’s an investment. It’s not at all the same as spending it on something we’ll never be able to recoup—like a vacation. Or expensive wine,” she said, holding up her glass for a refill. They’d splurged on a bottle of Pécharmant costing about five times more than their usual red.

  She kept watching his face for clues as he mulled her words. But it remained stubbornly closed to her. She sighed. Did he really feel so threatened by the fact she had more money than him?

  “You shouldn’t feel bad about the money. It’s not like I earned it or anything. It was a gift. An unexpected gift.”

  Then she thought of something.

  She softened her voice and reached across the table to take his hand. “Anna must have earned more than you while you were married. How did you cope with that?”

  He looked at her and shrugged. “I survived.”

  “So how is this any different?”

  He cleared his throa
t and pulled off another chunk of baguette. “Yes, Anna earns more than me. But she’s self-employed and has a lot of business expenses. And it took a long time for the real money to come in, with student loans and the cost of setting up her practice. I don’t earn as much, but I get a generous benefit package. It sort of evened out over the years.”

  “Oh,” Jo said, feeling defeated. She didn’t know where to go next with this.

  The main courses arrived and Luc attacked his broiled lamb loin. Jo looked down at the duck confit on her plate and sighed again. Her appetite had disappeared.

  “Enjoy your duck, ma biche. We’ll talk about it some more when we get home,” Luc said as he added a little cracked pepper to his eggplant.

  * * * *

  Luc had a little surprise up his sleeve. But he didn’t want to spring it on Joanna just yet. He wanted to be absolutely sure it was the right decision—for him, for Daniel, and for any children he and Joanna might have in the future.

  As he drove home from the restaurant, feeling warm and sated after the wine and food, he reflected on his options.

  Yes, Joanna’s right. The house is perfect for us. The right size, the right location, an ideal set-up in the barn. We’d be able to entertain comfortably, especially in the summer. We could accommodate the entire family at the same time—my father, my brother and his family, and Daniel would all be well housed. The workshop has plenty of room for my tools, and the wine cellar is a bonus. The pool is adequate, but the gardens—and the views—are excellent.

  And those vines! Outstanding!

  But more important than all of this was the fact that Joanna wanted it. Desperately, he knew. And he wanted her to be happy. But…

  It was so much money! Although property values had fallen significantly over the past few years, this particular home was still pretty pricey at just over one million Euros. And because prices had fallen across the board, he knew that the property he owned with Anna had devalued too. His share, when she bought him out, would be less than he’d hoped for.