It was a month before she performed her wifely duty with Adam. She had told him on the wedding night that she was not ready and needed time to think. Although Adam was disappointed, he said, “That’s alright, honey. Take as long as you need.” He hoped it would not take longer than a week.
Thirty days later, after mulling it over and over in her mind, she came to the conclusion that she was married now, no matter how much she wished it weren’t so, and was duty-bound to make her husband happy. As she lay beside him one night in the dark, she announced, “I think I’m ready now.” Adam’s heart palpitated with excitement.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I think so,” she replied, after a moment.
Adam turned on his right side and began caressing her long hair. He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the mouth, but received no response. He unbuttoned her pajama top and caressed her small breasts. He kissed her on the mouth again, harder. He eased his tongue between her lips and inserted it into her mouth as far as he could and then withdrew it slowly. He repeated this several more times, and she reached up and put her arms around him. He moved down to her left breast and slowly encircled the nipple with his tongue several times, then flicked the nipple back and forth with his tongue. Marie moaned softly and began stroking his hair. He drew her whole warm, soft breast into his mouth and sucked, occasionally flicking his tongue across the nipple. She moaned louder. He stopped sucking that breast and moved over to the right one and performed similar caresses there. Marie inserted her middle fingers into his ears and slowly moved them in and out. He stopped sucking her breast and slowly began kissing her rib cage, her abdomen, her navel. He grasped the top of her pajama bottom and pulled downward. She raised her buttocks to allow him to remove it. He pulled it down her legs and dropped it onto the floor. He began kissing her lower belly and could feel her pubic hairs against his chin when she took her fingers out of his ears and held his head tightly between her hands.
“No,” she said emphatically.
“No?” he questioned.
“That’s what dogs do,” she stated. “It ain’t natural.”
“But how do ya know that you . . .”
“No,” she repeated firmly. “That’s perverted. Come back up here.”
Disappointed, he moved back up and lay atop her. She moved her legs apart. He eased himself into her slowly, not wanting to hurt her. She grimaced in the dark and let out a soft cry. “Easy, easy,” she whispered.
“I’m goin’ as slow as I can,” he whispered. When he was all the way in, he withdrew gradually and continued the slow-motion lovemaking two more times when he came. He eased himself off her and flopped on his back alongside her.
“Is that it?” she thought.
“Did it hurt much?” he asked her.
“It got better after the first time,” she replied. She got up and went into the bathroom.
When she came back in, she turned on the light. She had a washcloth in her hand. “I’m bleedin’. Lemme see if there’s any on the sheet.”
Adam looked down and saw a red stain in the middle of the wet spot. She wiped it vigorously with the washcloth and then brought a towel from the bathroom and laid it over the spot. She put on her pajama bottom, turned off the light, and crawled back into bed.
“Are you OK?” he asked in the dark.
“I’m fine,” she replied flatly.
Adam raised himself on his elbow and pecked her on the mouth. “G’night, then.”
“G’night,” she answered. “I waited all my life for that?” she thought. “How silly! At least I done my wifely duty.” She turned onto her right side and faced the wall and silently cried herself to sleep.
Adam lay on his back and stared at the ceiling in the dark. He had not been completely truthful with Marie the night before their wedding when he implied that his only relationship before Marie had been with Melissa, his wife in Montana. There was Didi in Paris during the war.
He had been a member of the 28th Infantry Division under General Eisenhower in late August, 1944, when the Allies liberated Paris. As the division marched into the city from the southeast while the French marched from the northwest along the wide boulevard of the Champs-Elysées, throngs of exuberant Parisians pressed against their flanks, kissing the soldiers marching on the outside of the division and thrusting bouquets of flowers and bottles of wine into their hands. One exuberant Parisienne had hugged Adam, passionately kissed him on the mouth, and pressed a piece of paper into his hand. He slipped it into his front pocket and kept marching, smiling back at her until he could no longer see her.
After the division had bivouacked in the Bois de Boulogne, he reached into his pocket and read the piece of paper the girl had given him: 40 Rue de Rivoli, #B. He had to wait two weeks before the troops were given leave and he found the address, an apartment building north of the Seine and close to the Hôtel de Ville.
He walked up the dark stairwell and found the letter “B” above one of the doors. He knocked on the door tentatively. No response. He knocked louder. “Qui est là?” came a female voice from within.
“Uh . . . it’s me, the American soldier,” Adam stated.
“Américain?” inquired the voice, hopefully.
“Yeah, American. Uh . . . oui.”
She flung open the door and beamed at him. “Bonjour,” she said in a lilting voice. The man standing before her was the most handsome man she had ever seen.
“Um . . . hi,” Adam responded shyly. Her black hair was piled high on her head in a bouffant. She had a retroussé nose and was wearing bright red lipstick. He could smell her perfume and an odd fragrance of something else, like wet hay, in the apartment. She was wearing a black dress which had small, white polka dots and a plunging neckline. He could see the valley between her breasts.
“Voulez-vous entrer?” she asked, still smiling, as she stepped to the right and motioned with her arm for him to come into the living room. “Je suis désolé, mais je ne parle pas anglais.”
“Um, OK,” he said as he entered the living room and stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, tracing the edges of his helmet nervously with his fingers.
The girl sat down on a sofa with a floral pattern near an open window overlooking a courtyard and motioned for Adam to sit down beside her. “Je m’appelle Didi,” she said when he had sat down. “My name Didi. Comment vous appelez-vous?”
Adam mentally sighed with relief that she spoke some English and understood that she was asking him his name. “Adam,” he replied and awkwardly stuck out his hand for her to shake. She took his hand in hers, but instead of shaking it, she directed it to her left breast and placed her hand atop his. Adam was instantly aroused. She looked into his eyes and smiled. “Avez-vous déjà fumé de la marijuana?” she asked.
“Ah . . . I doeknow what you’re sayin’,” Adam stammered.
Didi leaned over to an end table near the open window and took an odd, withered cigarette out of an ashtray and picked up a lighter that was beside the ashtray. Adam withdrew his hand and placed it on the sofa.
“Comme ça. Regardez,” she instructed Adam. She lit the end of the cigarette and inhaled the smoke deeply into her lungs and then held it in as long as she could. Then she exhaled. “Voulez-vous essayer?” she asked, as she offered the cigarette to Adam.
“Sure, I’m willin’ to try anythang,” Adam replied. Given her response to his offering her his hand, he was willing to do anything she asked. He took the small cigarette from her hand, noticed her red lipstick on the end, and put it to his lips and inhaled deeply. And instantly coughed. The smoke was the hottest tobacco he had ever tasted. She laughed and stood up.
“Je vais nous chercher un verre de vin,” she stated. “Essayez à nouveau.” She put her fingers to her lips and inhaled. She walked into the kitchen.
Adam tried again, this time not taking as much into his lungs. He held his breath as long as he could and then exhaled. “I wonder why you’re s’pose to hold your breath,” he t
hought. “Must be the Frenchy way o’ smokin’.”
She came back into the living room holding two glasses of white wine. She proffered him one, and he took a sip of it. She sat down beside him. The wine soothed his throat somewhat. She took the cigarette from him and inhaled deeply and passed it back to him. “Encore,” she said. He placed the glass of wine on the floor and took another long, slow drag, held it in as long as he could, and then slowly exhaled. “Magnifique!” she exclaimed. She walked over to a gramophone in the corner, turned it on, and placed a record on the turntable. “Aimez-vous Edith Piaf?” she asked from the corner.
Adam suddenly noticed how beautiful this woman was, admiring her backside as she leaned over the gramophone. He shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows to indicate that he did not know what she was saying. She came back to the sofa, took the cigarette from him and placed it in the ashtray, and closed his eyes with her fingertips. “Profitez,” she whispered in his ear. From the gramophone he heard the quavering sound of a woman’s voice begin to sing, “Non, je ne regrette rien.”
Suddenly, a wave of pleasure flooded into his body like a tsunami. With his eyes closed, the music seemed to be inside his head. He could hear every note of the violins and the soulful sadness beneath the voice of the singer. He smiled broadly and opened his eyes to look into the eyes of the beautiful Didi. She was the most beautiful woman on earth. Her head was glowing with a radiant, white nimbus. “What’s hap—” he started to ask, but she placed her forefinger on his lips and whispered, “Sshhh. Tout simplement profitez.” She kissed him softly on the mouth. He had never felt such a soft mouth before. She eased her tongue into his mouth and he gently sucked on it. She slowly withdrew it, and he inserted his tongue into her mouth, and she drew on it as he had done hers. Waves of pleasure rose higher and higher in him. He caressed her back as they kissed and the fabric of the dress she was wearing was the softest he had ever felt. They exchanged slow kisses for what seemed to be an eternity.
Suddenly, she stood up and took him by the hand. He was disappointed; he could have kissed her forever. She smiled and whispered, “Venez.” She took him into the bedroom and motioned for him to lie down on the bed. She stood at the foot of the bed and slowly pulled her dress over her head. Then she reached behind her and unhooked her brassiere and took it off. Her small, upright breasts were the most perfect he had ever seen. She pulled her panties down to her knees, let them drop, and then stepped out of them. She crawled up to him from the foot of the bed and they began kissing again. She unbuttoned his khaki shirt as they kissed. She withdrew her tongue from his mouth and kissed his chin and then trailed kisses down to his right nipple, which she slowly encircled with her tongue, and then flicked the nipple back and forth. Each flick of her tongue seemed to send a signal to his cock to grow even harder than its already engorged condition. She trailed kisses over his chest to his left nipple and performed the same caresses there as she had on the right. He had never known that his nipples were so directly connected to his cock, as it began to jerk synchronized with the brushing of her tongue slowly back and forth.
She left his nipple and kissed her way to his navel. She circled it with her tongue while she reached up and tweaked both his nipples between her thumbs and forefingers. Then she slowly inserted her tongue into his navel as deeply as she could. Adam reached down with both hands and pressed the back of her head so that her tongue plunged further into him. Her hair was silky soft. He felt as though he were a woman and her tongue was penetrating into the very core of his being. He was alive as he had never been in his life. She gradually withdrew her tongue and hands, took off his shoes, unbuckled his belt, and pulled off his pants and underwear. As deliberately as she had inserted her tongue into his navel, she pulled his cock into her warm mouth. With his eyes closed, he felt as though he were being drawn into a warm whirlpool of glittering gold, as she strongly and insistently coaxed him to an ethereal place he had never been. “So this is what it’s like,” he thought. Melissa had never sucked him. She inched her mouth down his length until her nose was pushing against his pubic hair. “Oh, my god! Oh! MY! . . . . . GOD!” As she slowly withdrew her mouth, she nursed him towards a celestial portal he had never known existed. Suddenly, the portal was flung open and a flood of bliss surged into his soul and he erupted in her mouth. He screamed and she moved her mouth slowly back and forth as he came, which sent him soaring ever higher.
When the waves of pleasure finally subsided, she swallowed and crawled up and inserted her tongue into his mouth. He could taste himself on her tongue and eagerly twirled it with his tongue. She lay back on the bed.
He performed the same caresses to her breasts as she had to him and just as deliberately. When he got to her pubic hair, he did not know what to do, since he had never done it to Melissa, but he began to lick until she responded. He discovered, by listening to her moans, which caresses pleased her most, and he focused his attention there. “I was afraid of this?” he thought. All he wanted to do was give her the same pleasure that she had given him. Finally, she arched her back and stretched her arms out and grabbed the sheets with both hands and moaned loudly. He did not quit licking until she lowered her back and stopped moaning. To his surprise, he seemed to derive as much pleasure from his lips and tongue as she did in receiving his attention. He climbed up beside her, and she wrapped her arms around him and they kissed, again seemingly interminably. They drifted off to sleep.
He awoke with a start. “Oh, shit! I’m late for curfew!” He jumped up and quickly began putting on his clothes. He looked at his watch in the dim light coming from the living room. It was ten o’clock! He was supposed to be back in camp by nine.
“Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas, mon chère?” Didi asked.
Adam understood that she was asking him what was wrong. He pointed to his watch. “I’m late for curfew, an’ I’m in big trouble,” he said.
She got out of bed and put her arms around him as he was buckling his belt. “Reviendrez-vous demain?” she asked imploringly.
Adam thought she was asking him if he would come back. He shook his head yes. “Yeah, I’ll come back as soon as I can.” He sat down on the side of the bed to put on his shoes and she sat down beside him and placed her hand on his thigh. The warmth of her hand began to arouse him again. He smiled at her. “Damn! I doeknow what was in that cigarette, but I like it.” He stood up, and they hugged and kissed one last time before he rushed out the door and down the stairwell.
As he crossed the Rue de Rivoli and made his way towards the Bois de Boulogne over the sparkling Seine, he thought to himself, “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I can’t believe what just happened.” He felt as though he had been walking through life with blinders on, and now the blinders had been removed. He had never known that his body was capable of experiencing such joy, such ecstasy. Now he knew.
He went directly to Didi every leave that he got, and they developed a routine. They would share one of Didi’s cigarettes and then spend the next two to three hours mutually gourmandizing each other’s genitals, she on her knees above him and her head in his crotch, and he lapping her between her thighs, his head propped up by several pillows. It was heaven. When he felt that an orgasm was imminent, he would reach down and touch her head to indicate that she should stop. When he felt that he could continue, he would touch her head again and they would resume. She called this position “soixante-neuf.” He called it wonderful. He would finish sometimes by entering her from behind while she was on her knees on the bed, or with her lying on her back and him holding her legs aloft by the ankles. But, more frequently, they would mutually climax from oral stimulation. Didi would swallow and then come up and give him a kiss, the earthy smell of himself on her breath.
Through hand gestures and mime, Adam came to understand that Didi was in Paris alone. Her parents had been put on a train by the Nazis and she had not seen them since. She had come to Paris from Montmirail and had arrived the week before the city was liberated.
T
he two weeks they spent together were the most wonderful Adam had ever lived. On the night before the troops were to leave, they made love one last time. As Adam was putting on his shoes, Didi brought him a pad and a pencil. She put a forefinger on his chest and then moved her finger on the pad, indicating that he was to write his address.
“You want me to write my address?” he asked.
“Oui,” she responded, “ton adresse.”
He wrote down his address and handed the pad back to her.
“Je suis triste que vous partiez,” she said, frowning with her beautiful lips and tracing imaginary tears down her face with her forefingers.
Adam choked up. “Yeah, I’m sad too. I’m gonna miss you.”
He lay back on the bed, and she lay on top of him. He put both hands on each side of her head and kissed her deeply. He stopped and held her head in his hands. “God, you’re so purty. I wish I could take ya back with me.”
“Aux États Unis?” she asked hopefully.
“Yeah, back to the U.S. Will you come an’ live with me?”
She held her ring finger up and traced a circle at the base of it with her forefinger.
“Ah, ya wanta git married. I can see myself doin’ that. Yeah, why not?” He shook his head yes.
She beamed and her eyes sparkled. “Mon chèri, mon chèri, vous m’avez rendue très heureuse.”
He smiled because he knew he had made her happy. “Yeah, I’m happy too.”
They kissed and embraced one last time at the door and she whispered, “Je vais vous écrire chaque semaine.” She pretended to write on her palm with her forefinger.
He traced her soft lips with his forefinger and brushed the tears off her cheeks. He turned and went down the stairs.
“Je t’aime,” she called down the stairs after him.
He walked back to camp behind Notre Dame cathedral across the blurred Pont de l'Archevêché bridge. He could not stop crying.
When the war was over and he had returned to Ohio, he received her letters every week, but they were in French, and without her beside him to demonstrate what they meant, he could not decipher them. And he knew no one who spoke French. He did not write back to her. He never saw her again, but he kept her love letters as mementos to remind him of the two heavenly weeks they had shared in Paris. He created a beautiful niche in his heart where she would forever be enshrined. Now he hoped that he could coax Marie sleeping beside him to participate in the kind of lovemaking in which he and Didi had regularly engaged so that they might soar to the same heights of ecstasy that they had experienced.
Fiery Rivers Page 19
