"Mama, I need you. Please call me back," Molly said in a quivering voice on voice mail. She stared out the window of the private jet and silently cried. To have been torn so abruptly from Seth had caused greater pain than she anticipated. She felt like a little girl lost in an unknown city. She didn't know what to do or where to turn. All she felt was a void where her heart used to be.
"Excuse me, Miss Fournier," said the flight attendant. Molly looked up at her with swollen, red eyes. "Your mother is holding for you."
Molly grabbed the phone. "Mama!"
"Baby, what's wrong?" D'Arcy Fournier asked alarmingly.
It was hard for Molly to talk, but she brought her mother up-to-date on Seth. "Mama, he opens my heart in a way that is new ... powerful ... astonishing. We made love for the first time yesterday, and I don't know how to explain it, Mama. I ... kept pulling him further inside me. I never wanted to let him go. I never wanted to lose the feeling of being one like that. And, now ..." Her voice trailed off as she started sobbing again.
D'Arcy listened to her daughter with a mixture of joy and heartache. She'd never heard Molly so vulnerable and needed to look into her daughter's eyes to learn how to define those feelings.
"Molly, would you please call the attendant and give the phone to her?" D'Arcy said. D'Arcy instructed the attendant to tell the pilot to change his flight plan and to land in Nice.
"But, Madam, we have been given strict orders ..." the pilot stammered.
"Your orders have changed, young man! I am Madame Fournier, and I am ordering you to bring my daughter to me. Am I understood?"
"But ..."
"If I hear one more word, one more syllable, one more utterance from you, young man, I will make it my life's mission to see that you are fired, stripped of your benefits, brought under pilot review and prosecuted for accessory to kidnapping. Now, turn that damned plane around this instant!"
The pilot swallowed and replied, "Yes, Madame ... at once." He handed the phone back to attendant, who handed it back to Molly. "Dear, you're coming home. I'll pick you up in a couple of hours. Then we'll figure this out together."
Molly clutched the phone to her ear. "Thank you, Mama. I love you."
"I love you too, Darling ... very, very much."
"I know, Mama," Molly answered softly.
*********************************
Pierre Fournier was on the phone to the French Minister of Finance when his assistant, Michel, came in to deliver an urgent message. He handed his boss a note:
The corporate plane carrying your daughter left Paris airspace and appears to be headed to Nice.
"MERDE!!" Pierre shouted. "No, Minister. I was not talking about your economic proposals. Something has come up. I will call you later." He slammed down the turned to Michel. "Nice, did you say? Nice! My fucking wife!"
"Ex-wife," Michel corrected. Pierre's eyes blazed. Michel swallowed hard and sat down.
"My fucking EX-wife! I could kill her! I could strangle her with my bare hands!! I could ... Get me Federico Moretti on the phone. NOW, you quivering baboon!!"
Michel turned and rolled his eyes. The battles between Pierre and his ex-wife were the stuff of legends. He figured he'd better call his girlfriend and inform her that she should probably go to the shore without him. He was probably going to be tied up for the next few days.
******************************
Once they were safely ensconced in the back garden of Madame Fournier's country house, D'Arcy held Molly for a long time and let her cry out some of the pain. Once Molly calmed down, D'Arcy said, "Okay, darling, start from the beginning."
Molly'd always had a special relationship with her mother. D'Arcy was her rock, her safe haven. Molly had always felt she could confide anything to her mother and would not be judged. She told D'Arcy about the spying episode and the nude march across the desert scrub, which made D'Arcy laugh so hard tears formed in her eyes.
"Mama, did you ever feel like the world was shrouded in clouds until you meet someone who becomes your Sun? When I'm with him, I can't wait for my day to begin. When I spy that look in his eyes as he sees me for the first time, my skin tingles, Mama. When he touches me, I feel a current flow that connects to my heart. Mama, I've never had these feelings. And, just as I was discovering them, I was whisked away like stolen property. "
D'Arcy got a lump in her throat as she listened to Molly and looked into her sad eyes, and she could only nod at her.
"When we make love, I feel free. For the first time in my life, Mama, I don't have to hold anything back because his ardor for me radiates off of him like heat off the summer pavement. And, I know I've only known him for a few days, and I know he's nothing that Daddy wants for me. But, my hearts aches more than I can endure," she said as she buried her face on her mother's shoulder and cried.
"Votre père peut être un connard!" D'Arcy exclaimed to the air. (Your father can be such an asshole!) She picked up her daughter's face and asked, "Did I ever tell you about Luc Sinclair?"
Molly sniffed and answered, "No ... I don't think so."
"Luc was a futbol player for Olympique Lyonnais, and I met him on holiday in Marseilles. I had already begun dating your father, but we weren't yet engaged. Luc was so different from your father ... so different from every other man I'd ever been with. Each day was an adventure for Luc. He had no patience for the ordinary. We spent almost every waking minute together for the next month."
"How did you meet?"
D'Arcy chuckled at the memory. "I was foolishly trying to teach myself to wind surf. I have no idea what made me think I could do such a thing. I had fallen backward for the third time in a row and came up spitting sand and saltwater out of my mouth, not realizing that my swimsuit top had stretched out of place, leaving me exposed." Molly laughed at the image of her always-together mother in such a state.
"Well, while I'm standing there, hanging out for the world to see, this man ... this Adonis walks up and offers his help. I yell at him to go away and say I can do this myself. He stands there with a bemused look on his face and indicates my top. I was horrified! I covered myself up and started dragging my rig away from the water.
"He told me not to give up so easily and that all I had to do was relax and let the wind do the work. He said he could teach me in 30 minutes. That's when I really looked at him for the first time and thought my chest would cease on me. Molly, he was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen. He had a strong, thick chest with dark skin and a coating of black hair. His arms were muscular, and his shoulders were broad. His thin waist looked like something out of an anatomy lab. He was wearing a Speedo that strained to hold his bulging package. Believe me, it was difficult not to stare. The muscles in his legs rippled with every movement." Molly was fascinated. She had never heard her mother describe a man in such a way.
"After getting a good look at him in all his glory, I decided lessons might not be such a bad idea," she said raising her eyebrows. "We spent the entire afternoon together. We had dinner that evening on his yacht. That's when I learned who he was. We shared an amazing bottle of wine. Then, we shared an even more amazing evening in his bed."
Molly's mouth fell open. "Mama!"
"I am a human being, you know. I have needs and urges. Oh, Molly, I can't even begin to describe what a magnificent lover Luc was. He was gentle, yet forceful. He had a sixth sense for knowing when I needed more and when I needed tenderness. Luc was a magician with his mouth and his tongue."
Molly stared at her mom with a half smile and put her hand over her mouth.
"What? You think I found you under a cabbage leaf? I love sex, Molly. I love the feeling of being filled by an incredible man. I adore the intimacy of having a man's mouth explore my most private areas. Luc did everything. He made me feel like such a woman. I felt protected and desired. We ate ... we danced. We explored the countryside. We played in the sea." D'Arcy sighed recalling her time with Luc. "Every time we made love, angels sang."
