Maing Love in the City of Love

Wednesday November 24, 2004 is a day which my wife Julie and I will never forget. That day, I bought a lottery ticket while on my lunch break at work. The following morning (Thanksgiving Day), I checked the lottery results online and was shocked to learn that I held the lone winning ticket for the $234,000,000 jackpot. The following Monday, Julie and I both presented our bosses with written notification that December 31 would be our final day with our respective companies.

When we were both younger, before we met in our final year of college, Julie and I had both traveled extensively in the States, plus Julie had made numerous trips throughout Canada, primarily to visit relatives. I had twice lived and studied in Europe before meeting Julie: in southern, French-speaking Belgium as a high school exchange student during the first Gulf War, then in spring 1995 at a small institute in southern Paris. Julie had never traveled outside North America, and had always wanted to travel the world, especially wanting to see Paris, so – not surprisingly – when we began to plan where we would travel, Paris was at the top of the destination list.

January 2005 was filled with work of a different kind: home renovations. In buying bought the small house in 2001, we had planned to upgrade the house – which was the only way we could afford to buy a home at the time. We had done little things over the previous 3-1/2 years, but nothing major. Throughout January, our days were filled with many trips to the local Home Depot, and many hours painting, replacing tile, and much, much more. We also acquired a 40-inch TV and impressive surround-sound speaker system, upgraded to digital cable and to high-speed cable-based Internet, and bought the Power Mac G5 we had both been drooling over for quite some time.

However, we went against our friends' expectations and did not buy new cars. Julie and I loved our old Ford Escort and even older Volkswagen Rabbit too much to give them up quite yet. Besides, we would need to first have a garage built to adequately protect the Corvette we wanted.

The evenings in January were often spent planning our upcoming trip to Paris – often over dinner at expensive restaurants we had never visited previously. The idea for our Paris vacation was to leave on Thursday February 10, and return on Tuesday February 15. This way, Julie noted, our final night in the City of Love would be on the day dedicated to love.

And, she noted with a smile, it would be essentially the tenth "anniversary" of my arrival in Paris (which had actually been January 28, 1995, but I was not about to argue with her over that small detail).

However, Julie made one very unusual declaration: Once we had left the States, we would not engage in any sexual activity until the evening of Valentine's Day. I wondered exactly what she had in mind, but, knowing how her mind works, I agreed, knowing that I ultimately would not regret the "loss" of any such activity with my beautiful young wife.

The night before our trip was to begin, we did something we had not done in a long time: We took a long hot bubble bath together. Even though it was our final opportunity to engage in any sexual activity for a while, we did not make love, we did not masturbate each other. We simply relaxed together, enjoying the sweet rose-scented bubbles and the dim light of the lone pillar candle. Our conversation was soft, practically in whispers, and focused primarily on Julie's questions about Paris.

*****

Our time in Paris was wonderful. During the time I lived there a decade earlier, I had come to know the French capital much like a native, and by the end of my studies there, landmarks and places such as La Tour Eiffel and Les Champs-Elysées no longer fascinated me. However, since Julie had never been to Paris before, she exhibited plenty of fascination and enthusiasm; I was able to see the city through her eyes, and it was almost as if she and I a completely different city from the Paris I knew.

Despite the chilly winter weather, we definitely enjoyed the experiences we had in Paris. I showed her many of the places I had frequented a decade earlier: one of the fnac stores, the small family-owned sandwich shop on a narrow side street near Notre-Dame, La Défense, the institute where I had studied, Parc des Princes (the stadium near where I had lived)... We spent much of a day at Le Louvre, specifically using the underground entrance and bypassing the massive line of people trying to enter through the giant glass pyramid. Of course, we went window shopping on Les Champs-Elysées and ate at one of the restaurants near L'Arc de triomphe.

But, of course, one cannot have a true Paris experience without having been to the top of both La Tour Eiffel and Sacré-Cœur. Fortunately, on the day we made both those journeys, the skies were unusually clear for February, and we were able to see for miles and miles. To be able to stand on the top level of La Tour Eiffel and hold the woman I loved as I once again scanned the Parisian cityscape made this short trip so much better than the months I had been here in 1995, when I had come here shortly after a breakup and constantly carried that loneliness with me throughout my time in the City of Love.

*****

At last, Valentine's Day arrived. I awoke that morning to a small feminine hand stroking me gently through my sweatpants.

"So much for no sexual contact until the evening of Valentine's Day," I whispered as my eyes slowly opened.

"Oh... You're right." Julie reluctantly withdrew her hand, and we settled instead for a long cuddle underneath the covers.

This was the day we had chosen to leave the city itself and visit Chartres, primarily to see the cathedral with the famous stained-glass window. The skies were overcast again, a return to the usual winter weather for that region of France, and it did rain briefly while we were on the train to Chartres. But, it was an enjoyable visit – especially for me, as we returned to the same cozy restaurant I had visited with a few friends ten years earlier.

At last, we returned to Paris and to our hotel room. When we emerged from the hotel again, we were dressed in our best clothing and went out in search of a small restaurant for our Valentine's meal. We found one, and were very impressed that the main lights had all been turned off, a large candle at the center of each table to provide more of a romantic atmosphere in honor of Valentine's Day. I was able to speak with the waiter in fluent French, which in the waiter's eyes instantly elevated us above his general feelings about American tourists, and I noticed that he gave us much more attention and care than he did with the few other American couples in the restaurant.

A romantic meal – with a live string ensemble to add to the atmosphere – seemed a most fitting way to close our trip to the City of Love. As we sipped the last of the wine before we returned to the hotel, I could not help myself from thinking just how much more interesting this trip to Paris was since this time, I had someone very special and important to share these experiences with me. Returning to Paris with Julie had essentially taken away the dark cloud of loneliness which had haunted me here a decade earlier, and had cast a negative undertone to my memories – even the positive, happy, jubilant memories – of that time.

Hand-in-hand, Julie and I finally returned to the hotel. She went to the bathroom "to do some girly things" while I took off the coat and tie and shoes and sat at the small desk, writing postcards to family and friends with the intention of mailing them the next morning on the way to the airport. As I wrote, I heard the bathtub fill with water, then a long silence as Julie enjoyed a long soak, and finally the water running down the drain. At this last sound, I abandoned the postcards and retrieved a tiny bottle of wine from the small refrigerator, the bottle containing just enough to fill two wine glasses. When the bathroom door finally opened, I stood at the ready, a wine glass extended to her as she came into view.

It was quite an exquisite view. Wearing nothing but a smile highlighted by a heavy coating of bright-red lipstick, Julie stepped up to me and gracefully took the offered wine glass from my outstretched hand. I smiled in return, feeling a little uncomfortable in the clothing I was wearing. She giggled, apparently realizing my discomfort, and her kiss to my cheek instantly calmed me... and promised of things to come.

"The lights, please," she whispered, and I moved to turn off the lights in our small, cozy hotel room. Now the only lighting came from outside, from the lights of the city below penetrating the thin white curtains. Julie moved to one of the windows and stood there, in profile from my vantage point, silhouetted beautifully against the illuminated curtains as she sipped from the glass. And in the distance, brightly lit against the night sky, was La Tour Eiffel, its upper third clearly visible above the many buildings.

The ultimate symbol of the City of Love stood in the background of my view. The object of my love stood in the foreground of my view. And it then dawned upon me that, at long last, something I had wished for a decade earlier was about to come true: At long last, I would be making love in the City of Love.

Julie turned to me, offering a small, delicate hand to me. I approached, took her hand, and allowed her to draw me to her. Then, as we had done on the day of our wedding, our right arms intertwined and we drank a toast:

"To love in the City of Love on the night devoted to love."

Those were the last words spoken for a long, long time. We stood there together at the window, the curtains not necessarily thick enough to hide Julie's complete nudity from any prying eyes in nearby buildings. As we drank slowly, we touched lovingly, our fingertips the instruments through which we each aroused the other. By the time we had emptied our glasses, I could definitely feel the effect of the wine in my head, and the effect of my wife's simple presence in my slacks.

Julie took the empty glass from my hand and moved away from the window, receding into the darkness, moving carefully. I heard her set the glasses down somewhere as I looked fondly toward La Tour Eiffel once again, wondering if the events of this night would repeat themselves in the future. Feeling Julie press her bare breasts against my back and wrap her arms around my chest, I cast that thought aside, simply enjoying and cherishing the moment.

For a long time, we stood at the window, Julie holding me from behind. Slowly, her hands began to glide down my front, her long fingernails scratching gently through the shirt, teasing me nicely. Down my torso her fingers traveled, further and further, then, to my disappointment, stopping at the waistband of the slacks. Instead, those small fingers lifted the shirt out of the waistband and began working their way back up my front, unfastening each button along the way to reveal the thin t-shirt underneath.

For a moment, I thought of how the roles had turned. Often, I was the one who stood behind, first gently teasing her as I pressed myself against her backside, then slowly and lovingly undressing her. But now, she stood behind me, nudging me to bend slightly forward so she could remove first the shirt, then the t-shirt from my torso.

Topless, I turned around as the clothing was banished to the floor, and took my beautiful wife into my arms. Our lips met, and I could feel the film of red transferring itself from her lips onto mine. Julie whimpered softly into my mouth, her body seeming to melt as the kiss lingered, then finally resting her ear against my chest when the kiss ended. I stroked her long sandy-brown hair as we stood in the near-darkness, peppering to top of her damp head with soft kisses, savoring the aroma of her favorite orange-scented shampoo.

In time, Julie turned me back around to again face La Tour Eiffel, and resumed her self-appointed task of undressing me. The belt was next, removed deftly yet respectfully before joining the shirt and t-shirt on the floor. She unbuttoned and unzipped the slacks before slipping a hand inside, caressing my hardened manhood through the briefs, purring into my back like a kitten happily playing with a ball of brightly-colored yarn. Reaching behind me, I hooked my fingers together behind her back, holding her awkwardly as she continued to caress, fondle, stroke, tease. Her lips kissed all over my back, and I could feel a slight film of red whenever her lips left my skin. It seemed that my body would be covered with the imprint of feminine lips by the time the sun finally rose, but I did not mind.

At last, and seemingly all too soon, Julie's hands returned to undressing me. She knelt behind me, lowering first the slacks, then the briefs, and casting each garment aside. I stood in only the black socks, and awkwardly lifted each foot so the sock could be removed and similarly banished from our combined thought.

Now, we were both naked. Julie crawled around me and took up a kneeling position in the narrow space between me and the window, facing me, looking up into my eyes with both love and determination in her expression. As her hands reached out for my erect phallus, fondling me with great care, my hands reached out for her head, caressing her cheeks, stroking her hair with deepest love. In a city of more than two million individuals, Julie and I were suddenly the only two people who existed, and we were quietly, romantically making the most of our solitude.

I was looking out at La Tour Eiffel as Julie's warm mouth engulfed the tip of my erect penis. Time lost all meaning for me as she fondled and licked and stroked and sucked and caressed me, keeping her actions slow and measured. She knew me well, she knew how to read my body, she knew how to play my body, she knew just how much I could take without being drawn toward the brink. Yet she was able to nonetheless bring me to the point where my will and self-control began to break down. Leaning forward, my hands flat upon the windowsill, I forced her to lean back against the short wall underneath the window, her mouth open wide to accept me as my hips moved of their own accord, soft sloshing sounds coming from her mouth as a result of my actions as I continued to look out across the city at the erect symbol in the distance.

At last, I regained my will and self-control, and stepped away from the window, withdrawing from my kneeling wife. Only then did I realize that my use of the loving, pleasing mouth had not permitted her to swallow her saliva, forcing her to drool down the front of her body. Yet as she suddenly stood and pressed herself tightly against me, the drool was somehow sexy, reflected in our intense kiss, our hands clutching tightly at each other. Our tongues jousted even as we awkwardly made our way toward the bed, separating only long enough for Julie to sit breathlessly as she looked up at me, her eyes flashing full of desire in the near-darkness of the cozy hotel room.

I sat beside the young woman, a hand to her shoulder enough to cause her to lay back on the bed, her legs dangling over the side. For a moment, I simply admired the rise and fall of her breasts, then bent to kiss her lips, a hand sliding to her saliva-dampened chest. Her nipples were as hard as pebbles in my palm as my hand moved from one hot breast to the other. Her hands went to my head, holding me in place to continue kissing me. She whimpered and moaned as I manipulated her feminine lobes, gently at first, but then with increasing vigor. Only when I pinched a nipple, gradually increasing the pressure until it became erotically painful, did she pull away from my lips to cry out softly in the near-darkness, and I took the opportunity to quickly replace my fingertips with my teeth, gently biting at the base of the nipple and tugging backward with my head, enjoying the soft, erotic sounds escaping her lips.

My hand moved quickly down her nude body to the bare feminine folds at the base of her torso. I was not at all surprised at the level of wetness my fingers discovered there, and stroked gently, respectfully, continuing to tug at the nipple and also battering it with my tongue. She squirmed sensuously from my ministrations, her breathing heavier, her hand slipping to the rigid, dripping pole standing proudly from my loins. We masturbated each other for a long time, the effect of the wine combining with the now-heavy scent of our loving foreplay to only increase my desire for the woman who had captivated my heart.

Suddenly, I took both of Julie's hands and positioned them above her head. Holding her wrists with one hand, my right hand returned to its former position between her legs, three lengthy fingers nestling snugly inside her. The thumb strummed her clitoris, slowly increasing the tempo as I played her like a fine musical instrument. She soon began to sing softly, her voice melodic and captivating, reminiscent of a siren. She quivered around my fingers as her body writhed seductively once more.

"Please," she whispered between erotic gasps, the first word either of us had said in a long, immeasurable length of time. Instead, my thumb continued its work, the three fingers within her beginning to finally move inside her body, curling upward to stroke that one special spot inside her which always triggered a powerful sexual wave within her. She pleaded again, her breath loud and quickening as she continued to drench my hand. Her eyes clamped shut, her mouth was open wide, her jaw quivering as strangled sounds of sexual pleasure emerged even as the last shreds of self-dignity attempted to keep her from announcing her feelings to everyone in the hotel.

My mouth returned to her chest, taking a heaving breast between my teeth, biting violently around the nipple, tugging fiercely and lashing wickedly with my tongue. Her body suddenly went rigid, vibrating almost imperceptibly for several seconds.

Her climax was a beautiful experience for me as an "innocent" bystander. Her body lurched repeatedly several times, bucking hard against my hand before I released her breast from my mouth and raised my head to drink in the primal display before me. She bucked fiercely, her gasps loud and unmistakable in the room, her movements causing the bed to squeak in wonderful protest. Yet even before her body had stilled, I changed my position, kneeling on the floor between her legs, removing my three fingers only to replace them with my lips affixed to her succulent sex, drinking of her freely-flowing passions.

Long after Julie had finally calmed from her turbulent orgasm, I continued to sample her tangy nectar. Gently, I licked and probed, never seeming to be able to taste enough of her. Her legs crossed behind my neck, and her hands gently petted my head as if I were a small kitten. I continued to lap at her like a kitten lapping at a bowl of fresh milk, and my ears were rewarded by the soft contented sighs escaping her lips.

When at last I stood once more, I gazed upon her with deep, profound admiration and love. Her eyes met mine with the same intensity, and I stepped back as she stood with me. Our kiss was sweet, gentle, soft, and she whimpered once again as she tasted her own nectar upon my lips. My erection had faded a little as I had feasted upon her feminine charms, but I felt her hand slip between her legs, then she spread her wetness upon my manhood and began to stroke slowly, reinvigorating me in more ways than one as she repeatedly kissed my chest.

"Please," Julie finally whispered, "make love to me."

I smiled into her hair as I kissed the top of her head. Then I maneuvered us back to the window and stood behind her. My hands went to her chest, cupping her breasts gently, essentially forming a human bra. "Look out the window," I whispered into her ear. "Look out across the City of Love. Could there possibly be any better place to make love?"