No Wrong Way To Do Me Right

Stare from the shadows as old friends and lovers spin 'round,

Then you remember, you've forgotten how laughter sounds

-- Steve Tilston, "Then You Remember"

"Does anyone know where Marie and Pete are tonight?" Jane asked those of the Anglo-Saxons-in-Paris klatch who had come through the February rain and cold to their favorite bar.

The others all looked at one another and shrugged. Jane regarded them all in turn with surprise. Tonight, for the first time in quite some time, everyone except Marie and Pete had shown up. There was Eric, from a suburb of London that wasn't far from where Jane had grown up but which she would never be caught dead visiting; Alexandra, the only Australian when she'd first arrived in town two years ago and still the only one now; Sandy, an American grad student who even Jane thought was a bit of a snob, but they couldn't very well just tell her she was no longer welcome; and Tom, the newest of the bunch, also from America but from a very different part from the sound of his accent, though Jane couldn't tell for certain.

It was really just as well in light of what Jane had planned. "Well, listen, I'll get this out of the way in case they do show up..." she began.

"They won't," Alexandra said. "They've...got a prior commitment." She then realized her mistake in speaking up, but it was too late to do anything about it.

"On a night like this?" Jane said, gesturing to the freezing rain outside the window. "Must be something awfully special."

Alexandra said nothing, but she couldn't help smirking a bit. She turned away from Jane so she wouldn't notice, and was delighted to catch Tom's eye. He smiled back at her, and not for the first time, set her heart aglow. That, combined with her knowledge of why Marie and Pete weren't there, moistened her panties for the umpteenth time that day.

"In any event, I'll get this out of the way now," Jane went on. "Valentine's Day is coming, and -"

"We know, you hate Valentine's Day," Sandy interrupted. "Don't worry, Jane, I'm with you as usual on that one."

"You don't really mean that, do you, Sandy?" Tom asked, looking aghast as he always did when Sandy said something unpleasant. He had that tender look in his eyes that had been driving Alexandra wild for weeks, but which never seemed to have any effect on Sandy.

"I totally do!" Sandy retorted. "One day a year for guys to pretend they're women and act all lovey-dovey? No thanks! Right, Jane?"

"Sandy, please!" Jane's patience with Sandy was running thinner every time they met, even as she couldn't help but be aware how much Sandy wanted to be her best friend. Even she was beginning to wonder just how big a fool sweet, quiet Tom was to be so smitten with Sandy. "I confess, I never was very fond of Valentine's Day, true, but that's got nothing to do with what I was going to say. What I was going to say is, as Eric and Alexandra remember, this Valentine's Day will be two years since Marie and Pete first got together. They were planning a Valentine's Day party, actually, that's how it happened."

"And it damn near ended in disaster," Eric reminded her with a meaningfully stern look.

"Yes, which was partly my fault," Jane acknowledged.

"What happened?" Tom asked. "Hard to imagine anything tearing those two apart."

"I don't want to talk about that right now," Jane said.

"I'll explain later, Tom," Alexandra said. There wouldn't be time tonight, but all the better to get him alone some other time.

"Anyway!" Jane said in her not-to-be-trifled-with voice. "Eric's right, it was a real mess, and I think that's cast a pall over Valentine's Day for them both ever since. So I want to break the spell this year."

"What've you got in mind, exactly?" Eric asked.

"Well," said Jane, "Look, those two are a couple of lovey-doveys, and they never had a real wedding, you will remember."

"Right," Eric said. To Sandy and Tom, he explained, "Marie has an Italian passport, so she can stay in Paris as long as she wants, but Pete only had a student visa. So when he finished his MBA last spring, they had to get married for him to stay here. No time and no money for anything elaborate, they went down to the

mairie

and that was that."

"God, that's not right for a couple like them!" Tom said. "Both of 'em a couple of hopeless romantics."

"Exactly," Jane said. "Plus, Valentine's Day still has kind of a nasty connotation for them. So I want to kill two birds with one stone and throw them a Valentine's Day party that can also be a sort of wedding reception for them, or at least a chance to celebrate their love like we never really got before."

"Who are you and what have you done with our friend Jane?" Alexandra quipped, drawing laughter all around, even from Jane.

"Yes, yes, I deserve that," Jane admitted. "That's why I want to do this. Now, joking aside, who's with me?"

Three hands shot up. Sandy, upon seeing she was the last woman not standing, raised her hand as well.

"Just please don't get all dictatorial on us if you want our help," Eric said.

"Somebody's got to be in charge," Sandy said. Then quickly she added, "And I'm not going to be the one!"

"I'll do my best," Jane said. "First order of business, I'll want their best pals, the gay French couple, what are their names?"

"Leonard and Francois," Alexandra said.

"You didn't really forget Leonard's name when he used to be Marie's boyfriend!" Eric needled Jane.

"Well, it was three years ago," Jane said. "And thanks, Alexandra. Yes, I want them to be involved too, and I guess we should also add her sleazy ex-roommate, Charles, was it?"

"Jean-Charles," Alexandra said, "And he's in Tahiti for the winter with his latest boy-toy."

"Gosh, you've got all the dirt!" Sandy said. "Now, explain this Leonard guy to me, he used to be her boyfriend and now he's with a man? Confused, is he?"

"Takes some people a while to come out of the closet, Sandy," Tom said. For an awful split-second, Alexandra feared he might be gay as well, then just as quickly she recalled what they all knew except for Sandy - that he had a crush on her that wouldn't quit. At least on that front Alexandra could hope for a change.

"Since you do know so much, Alexandra, can I ask you to approach Leonard and Francois about this the next time you see them?"

"Certainly." Jane did not need to know that would be in just an hour or so, or that it would be with Marie and Pete. The reminder made her want to squirm with equal parts nervousness and joy, but she did not want Jane asking any questions.

Alexandra still couldn't quite believe she'd finally worked up the courage to ask Marie and Pete if she could join the next of their communal baths. She'd been toying with it for ages, knowing all the while that they would surely welcome her - as, sure enough, they had - but she wasn't entirely sure just what had finally prevailed upon her to ask. Maybe it was the brutally gloomy European winter. Maybe it was that she envied what Pete and Marie had and wanted a taste of it.

Or maybe it was because it was her only immediate hope of any kind of intimacy while Tom was head-over-heels for Sandy.

With his lilting Southern American accent, unfailing politeness and boyish good looks, Tom had stolen Alexandra's heart from the first time Pete had brought him to the klatch back before Christmas. Currently a student at the same business school Pete had graduated from last summer, he had previously spent several years teaching English in Asia and had plenty of war stories to compare with Alexandra, who had spent the past two years eking out a living herself as a teacher at a local immersion school. But no amount of common ground seemed to put a dent in his subtle obsession with Sandy's cheerleader's grin and stylish clothes (she was wearing a tight black skirt that night, despite the winter's chill, and a flashy top, and had her shapely legs on display in sheer tights) and her talent for making a man feel like the only person in the room when she felt like it. She had, at some point, done that to Tom.

Tonight, at least, she didn't appear to feel like it. So Alexandra was free to regale Tom between sips of beer with her latest tale of a hapless pupil named Henri. "I was collecting homework and he didn't seem to have it, so I told him no play time and the poor kid burst into tears. Then while the other kids were off playing I sat down with him to go through his workbook, and it turns out he had done it!"

"What did he have to say about it?" Tom asked.

"He just said he didn't think he'd gotten it right and he didn't want me to see it," Alexandra said.

"And did he get it right?"

"All but one question! Poor kid."

"You think maybe he's got family problems?"

"I'm pretty sure of it," Alexandra said. "He's got two much older sisters, as in, they're already out of university and here he's only seven...I think he may have been a mistake."

"Or an empty nest kid," Tom offered.

"Oof, mistake kids are the worst," Sandy said. "My brother was one, and the way my parents always got on his case drove me crazy."

"Well, that sounds like their fault, not his," Alexandra said as gently as she could stand to.

"Either way, it shouldn't have been my problem," Sandy said. "If the brat had taken the hint and run away, I'd have had some peace."

Tom laughed, and even dared touch Sandy's knee affectionately. Alexandra took a long drink of her beer to keep from speaking for a while. She didn't trust herself not to snap at Tom that Sandy wasn't joking.

An hour and a half later in Marie and Pete's hot tub, Alexandra was at least glad she had something to vent about. She'd kept her feelings about Tom very much to herself up to now, but trying to keep a secret just didn't make much sense while she was naked with friends. "I'm really sorry, Alex," Marie said. "We have all noticed how crazy Tom obviously is for Sandy."

"And we've noticed she's kind of a jerk, too," added Pete. "He'll notice too, sooner or later."

"I think you're right, or at least I hope you are," Alexandra said. "Thanks for listening. I hope I didn't make my first time here too depressing for anyone." She looked around the tub at Marie and Pete, Leo and Francois, doing her best to look at their faces rather than their bodies, and smiled. Not for the first time, her hair clip - the only thing she was wearing anywhere on her body - somehow felt confining, and she gave some thought to letting her blonde locks down to droop in the steamy water.

Marie asked what all four of them were wondering. "Are you uncomfortable, Alexandra?"

"No, honest! You're right, it's almost like the pub only much better. I guess I'm just still feeling a little..."

"Shy?" asked Pete.

"Well, no," Alexandra said. "Hard to be shy when we're all naked, now isn't it?" She laughed, and the others all joined in. "Just a very new experience to me." She had never before seen more than one naked man at a time, nor been seen in the nude by more than one man at a time. That they were all off-limits to her only made the whole situation that much hotter.

"It was to us all when we first met Marie," Francois said with a grin. "But she has a way of making you feel comfortable here."

"Gee, thanks!" Marie laughed and wondered if she was blushing. Alexandra was the only one in the hot tub who didn't know Marie knew all three of the guys in the Biblical sense, and although she wasn't ashamed, she didn't care to share that information.

"I meant it nicely!" Francois protested. Turning to Alexandra, he explained, "The first time she and Jean-Charles invited me, I thought it was some kind of joke. But they were wonderful! I have never felt so safe. With Marie anyway," he added wryly.

"Jean-Charles could be dangerous, could he?" Alexandra asked; she had met Marie's former flatmate a time or two but didn't really know him.

"He was an awful player," Marie said. "And yes, that's probably why we got along so well. But if it weren't for him being such a player, Francois..."

"Then I never would have hooked up with your ex." Francois could barely get the words out without laughing, as he snuggled up to Leonard.

"Yes, we both thank you for that," Leonard added. "So, Alexandra, you came to Paris after Marie and I broke up?"

"A few months after," Marie confirmed.

"It's great you guys still get along so well," Alexandra said. "I could never do this with any of my exes."

"You could if they had the excuse Leonard does," Marie said with a chuckle, as they all watched Leonard and Francois rub each other's thighs under the water.

"And you traded up pretty well, didn't you?" Leonard added, looking at Pete. Privately Alexandra had to agree; Pete's body was utterly gorgeous, and her hands had been itching to touch it.

Of course, the real revelation was Marie's body, with the biggest bush she'd ever seen. Leonard and Francois were shaved clean, Pete was natural but not nearly as well-endowed as his wife. Alexandra had trimmed and shaved in the past, but in the dead of winter with no boyfriend for some time, she'd let her own golden triangle grow as robustly as ever. She'd been a bit self-conscious about that, but one look at Marie had at least set her mind at ease about that!

It had also fascinated her, however reluctantly. As Alexandra now forced her eyes from Pete's forbidden beauty, she couldn't help but have her gaze drawn between Marie's legs.

It didn't occur to her that Marie could see where she was looking, until Marie ran her fingers enticingly through the abundant hair. "Like what you see, Alex?"

Alexandra's eyes shot up to look in her friend's eyes. "Sorry! It's just...like nothing I've seen before."

"I know," Marie said with a good-natured laugh. "And all three of these guys had the same reaction." At this, Francois, Leonard and Pete all nodded their agreement.

"I knew they called you 'the bush queen,' but I always thought that was something about backpacking in Africa or something like that," Alexandra confessed.

"Never been to Africa, and now I'm the tights queen, remember?"

"Tights queen?" Alexandra asked.

"I never told anyone about that, sweetie," Pete said. "But I guess now you have." To Alexandra he explained, "It's just something I thought of one morning when I was still a student. I'd be up early to study she'd be getting ready for work, prancing around in just her tights before she put on her skirt. Such a beautiful sight, you know?"

"Oh, that's really sweet!" Envy aside, Alexandra was still delighted for her two friends. Suddenly she felt compelled to say so. "Listen, as long as we've literally got nothing to hide, I just want to say how happy I am you two were able to come back from...you know."

"Thank you," Marie said. There was no need to explain; everyone in the tub did indeed know how Marie and Pete's love had nearly been destroyed just as it had begun, thanks to Jane's vindictive ex-boyfriend. "Here it is almost two years to the day," she mused. "What a Valentine's Day that was, huh? Maybe someday I'll enjoy Valentine's Day again, but I kind of doubt it."

"Is that why you never invite Jane in the bath with you?" Alexandra asked, wary of giving anything away.

"No, it's because she would never be caught dead doing a thing like this!" Marie laughed.

"That's true," Alexandra confessed.

"Shall we invite your crush in here next time?" Leonard quipped. "Tom?"

They all laughed, Alexandra included. "Tell you the truth, Marie and Pete, I was half-hoping I might have an excuse to tell him about tonight. I wouldn't invite him without asking you, but I was hoping to at least put the idea in his head."

"Oh, he is cute!" said Francois, who had met Tom once a few weeks before.

"Yes, he is," Marie concurred. "Honestly, Alex, I just got the impression he's a little too conservative for this."

"He doesn't seem too conservative to me," said Pete. "Maybe a little shy is all."

"Well, let's think about this," said Francois. "If he is the gentleman we think he is, would having him here and seeing your body, Alexandra, help or hurt?"

"Why would it hurt?" Marie asked. "She's beautiful!"

"I agree," Francois said, drawing a grateful chuckle from Alexandra. "But would he see it as flirting, or as a sign that she trusts him as a friend and will never be more than that?"

"Good point," said Pete.

"Really?" Marie gave her husband a quizzical look. "It never occurred to me that nudity could be so political!"

"Oh, it certainly can," said Pete. "I've told you about the women's studies course I took junior year, remember? The way women's bodies are so sexualized from day one, and -"

"Yeah, okay, that's true," Marie interrupted. "But I mean, no ivory tower bullshit in our bath, all right? Pete, look at Alex and tell me honestly, if you were single, would you be more or less attracted to her now that you've seen her boobs and her vagina hair?"

"Vagina hair?" Alexandra repeated, absentmindedly curling a few strands of hers around her finger.

"Got that from Jean-Charles," Marie said. "I never liked the word 'pubic' is all. Now, Pete? Don't worry about offending me, all right? Answer me."

"Well..." Pete allowed himself a good look at Alexandra. She welcomed his gaze, even opening her legs a bit so he could see at least a hint of her pussy. "More. Of course."

"Thank you!" Alexandra said in a shy tone she rarely used.

"But I wouldn't assume she was in love with me just because she let me see her naked in a place where we're all naked."

"You can't tell me you wouldn't feel more open to her, though!" Marie insisted.

"Well, no, of course I would. It just...it seems a little heavy-handed when we could also just ask discreetly if he has a girlfriend to start."

"Good point," Marie said. "If he does, no harm done."

"Maybe we should stop debating Alexandra's love life in front of her, no?" Leo said. Turning to Alexandra, he asked, "What do you think about all this?"

"You guys are just dying to play matchmaker, aren't you?" Alexandra looked back and forth to between her friends.

"Perfect time of year for it," Francois reminded her.

"And you've always been there for us," Marie said. "Let us return the favor, all right?"

Alexandra nodded and smiled. "Someone once told me, you should never argue naked."

Her heart was flying for the remainder of the bath, and she nearly forgot there was business to discuss with Leo and Francois. Fortunately, Leo jogged her memory when they were drying off after the bath, asking in an overly formal manner if he could help her on with her bra. "Yes, I'm gay, but everyone wants a little taste of the other side from time to time," he said.

Alexandra laughed and presented her back to him to let him fasten the clasp.

"He always loved doing that with me, too," said Marie, wrapping herself in a towel to see them to the door. "No offense, Leo, but you were better at putting them on than taking them off."

"None taken," said Leo, giving Alexandra's neck a playful nuzzle and kiss. "Thank you, Alexandra. May we walk you to the Metro?" His and Francois' flat was in walking distance.

"I'd like that," Alexandra said from behind her top as she was putting it on. "Marie, Pete, thanks. This was beautiful. I wish I hadn't waited so long to take the plunge." She hugged them both goodbye, passing over in silence the fact that they obviously did not plan to put on any clothes. Now that there was a ray of hope for Tom, she was glad someone was getting lucky tonight.

Pete was a little worried that his answer to Marie's question might not go down so well with her now that they were alone. But as soon as Marie had locked the door behind their departing guests, she turned to him with a smile that made it clear there were no hard feelings. "So you think Alex is beautiful too?"