Their Summer in France
Letters found between the pages of a diary, in a trunk in an attic.
Perhaps we journeyed through France, you and I? In a borrowed old car that misbehaved and made your hands black with grease when it sulked and demanded your hands, your love. I understood the car. I knew it needed love and wasn't just there for a ride, even though it liked puttering round the French country lanes in the shade of lime trees.
We'd sit with a little picnic of baguette, cheese and red wine, drunk from the bottle. Wiping its juice from our lips with the backs of our hands, then leaning in to share our happiness in another carefree kiss. I pulled a face at one cheese - you laughed when I tried to spit it out in a dignified way, then we both laughed. There is no way to spit out food in a dignified way.
We watched the little stream and its darting arrows of trout against the sand warm gravel where we cooled our feet. The water tickled our ankles. I wrinkled my nose as I looked across at you.
Then it was time to dry our feet and for you to pick the little twigs from my hair, because you'd pressed me down, your weight stopping me from floating away into the sky. The hunger of your mouth on mine, where I welcomed you with soft tongue and little sounds in my throat.
My inner voice said, 'Own my body, but be gentle. Push hard but let me have time to yield, let my flesh stretch to your hardness. Let me feel the nuzzle of your balls on my bottom and the comfort of being filled, the triumph of your orgasm in me.' My arms wrapped tight about your head, my unseen tears caught as jewels in the sun, as birds wheeled overhead, as translucent clouds like muslin over sailor blue drifted through my eyes, as I felt the promise of life come from you into me.
The little village with one guest house. Rickety stairs and creaking landlady with no English and a moustached joyful smile that knew lovers, had known her own, was happy for our love in her home. The cluck of chickens in the yard and the fierce cockerel. I shared a glance at you, indignant for the hens, shocked by the cock's arrogance and you laughed. You carried on laughing at my frown of disapproval until I looked away with a smile growing on my face. I found I was blushing.
You made me feel small, but significant. You made me feel loved and alive. Your hand at my breast reminded me that I am a woman and desired.
Old men in the afternoon shadows, playing boules. Are there no young people here? Just you and I. Eyes examined us, nodded towards us with wheezy laughing coughs of shared French jokes. Les English. You had cognac for the sake of tradition, I had lemonade with bits floating in it on a metal table with weathered rails that wouldn't stand still, but rocked itself drunkenly on the cobbles.
* * * *
I said, "Go up to the room. I'll go to the garage to talk to that fellow about the car. What repairs she might need to keep going."
"Don't be too long," you replied, touching your fingers to my arm.
I wasn't long - the mechanic was sure in his mind what was needed, and I left him to it - and when I got up to the room there you were, lovely girl naked, washing yourself, bending over the small sink. It's how I remember my first sight of you, your back to me, then turning, the silhouette of your breast and the long bones of your back. Your smile was shy, but brave at the same time, allowing me to see you those first times.
"Let me," I said, "dry you when you're done."
"Pfft, I can do it." You waved me away with a hand, fingers unfurling like a bird's wing when it turns.
"Yes, I know you can, stubborn girl, but so can I." You turned to me, your simple nude beauty glowing in the warm afternoon sun. You reached out to me, your hair falling.
"Silly man, what do you see, over and over?"
I reached for the towel. It wasn't very big, so I dried you in pieces, an arm and a leg then down the other side. You let me do it, and because I was gentle but persistent, you let me take you to the bed by the window where the sun streamed in, and you let me lie you down on the crisp sheets, stiff with the sun from the hanging lines in the yard, wooden pegs carved in winter by the fire.
Propped on a pillow, your weight resting on one elbow, you let me arrange you, let me look. With one leg straight down and the other bent up, your sex was my mystery.
"You want to see me, don't you?"
I wanted to touch you more, to feel the soft skin of your shell like place, soft as a butterfly's wing. Your inner thigh, it's so very soft, and there's a cup there, a hollow, where the muscle turns. You laughed, jerking away from the tickle, so I kissed it instead. Your sigh when I kissed your skin was like a breath turning a corner on the wind. I kissed you again, and you giggled.
"Your beard, it tickles."
My fingers opened you in reverence, it was my turn to be shy. "Like this," you said, and you showed me, your fingers caressing the places I'd found, carefully showing me the right pressure, the right place. Your colours grew darker as the blood heated inside you, and you spread your leaves apart.
Your hands went to my head, and held me to your body in a kiss. The sunlight through a tree outside the window dappled patterns on your skin.