Meeting 'atya'

Paris had been great, seeing old friends, hanging out on the

rive gauche

, re-visiting favourite restaurants and delights of delights going to English language movies. But I was glad to be leaving, the meeting that was the excuse for the trip had gone well, I’d won the contract I was after and had six months work to tide me over the summer, but I missed the South. The smell of the

garrigue

, the sense of space, the light, most of all the heat. Paris wet, polluted, crowded had worn me down and stressed me up- I needed a long walk along the beach, a swim in the sea and a good dose of heat to clean the pores. The morning rush hour crush of the Metro to the Gare de Lyon, and the tired, impatient crowds of the station brought back all the reasons I had turned my back on city life.

The Montpellier TGV looked like it was half empty, my wonderful, flirty, travel agent had managed to get me a seat for four people around a table in the smoking coach- bliss. With a bag of supplies, water, OJ, super strong coffee, Benson and Hedges and a bag full of books from Waterstones on the

rue du Rivoli

the next four hours were going to be a reading fest fuelled by caffeine, nicotine and the knowledge that at the end I’d be but a short car journey from by beautiful home and idiotic, sloppy, devoted dog.

The departure whistle blew and the doors pulled closed, at the last second a flurry of activity caught my attention. A bag packer had pushed herself onto the train at he last minute- the automatic doors snapped shut behind her almost catching here sack. Storing her rucksack in the overhead rack she sat across from me, immediately lighting a cigarette and starred intently back along the platform. It would seem that I had a companion after all, such is life, the whole public transport system wasn’t run just for my benefit after all. The train pulled out and with a sigh she stubbed out her half smoked cig only to pull a fresh one from the packet. She was younger than my 35, probably late twenties, short black hair, spiky at the front, shortish, about 5ft 4in, large boned but not fat, signs of small breast could just be seen. She was dressed in dark jeans, a large light brown shirt with a fleece jacket, typical travellers style, with large interesting Indian style silver ear-rings and the sparkle of a small diamond nose stud. Her skin was a brilliant white, sign of a life spent in a Northern climate.

“You were lucky to make the train.” I ventured in French, she looked at me coldly and replied in accented English “Was I?”, her dull tone indicated that she wasn’t replying to my question but to a conversation already well advanced in her own thoughts. With that I retreated behind the pages of my book, submerging myself in the suicidal politics of Republican Spain. For an hour we sat in silence, me, face in my book, her, staring out of the window with unseeing eyes smoking constantly with sharp sudden movements.

The clatter of the door opening heralded the arrival of the buffet trolley, the waiter slowly moved down the carriage serving our fellow travellers strong, bitter coffee, bottles of Evian and baguettes. My companion I could see was watching his every move, she opened and looked inside the purse she had round her neck, with a exasperated snort she closed it and returned to looking out the window. “Monsieur?” the waiter loomed over me, “Two coffees, a cheese baguette, and a Mars”, I ordered. Her head jerked sharply but continued to stare out he window. “I don’t need charity”, she said to the glass once the waiter had moved off, “Maybe not”, I replied, “But you look like you could do with breakfast”, pushing across the baguette to her side of the table along with the coffee and the chocolate. I took the OJ out of my bag and poured out two into plastic glasses and placed one in front of her along with the rest. After a long minute she reached out to the juice and took a sip. “Thanks” she almost whispered. Returning to my book I left her to eat in silence. Finishing the Mars bar she lit another cigarette, “Are you English? I replied I was, “On holiday?”, I explained briefly my situation, how I had left Paris after 14 frenetic and pointless years in the European media world, how I was trying to re-build a slower and more satisfying life as a writer and website designer in the

Languedoc

, and what I loved about my new life. She listened intently.

“You are happy?”

“I’m getting there”

“You are alone?”

“When I like myself then I’ll be someone that others can like”

She gave this some thought, “When will you know?”

“What?”

“When you like yourself”’

“When I wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and smile”

“You’re a nice man”

“No, I’m just someone who can afford to by a sandwich”

She smiled, a gentle, warm smile than changed here whole face, the tense muscles on here forehead and jaws relaxed for a fraction and I glimpsed a snapshot of the person.

“I think someone would like you just as you are” she said softly, embarrassed by her words she returned to looking out the window.

“What about you?” I asked,

“What about me?”

“Are you on holiday?”

“I was, but now I’m not too sure”

Continuing to look out of the window and not at me she explained that she had expected to meet someone at the station, they were going to travel down to the coast and then work their way along the French Med and into Spain. The idea was to do small jobs in the tourist resorts to fund the trip and then find somewhere, probably in the Canaries to work through winter. She had got the late train down from Brussels, slept in the station and arrived in good time for the TGV but..but her friend wasn’t at the station, not only that but her friend had their money, and here she was on a train to the South her plans in ruins and with no idea what to do. There was breaks, silences, too careful choosing of words that went beyond just speaking in a foreign language, this wasn’t the whole story, not by half, I guessed but it was all she felt safe to tell to a stranger. Just from her accent I could tell she wasn’t from Belgium, Amsterdam or somewhere in the Randstadt I would say, there was a harshness to her vowels that was very different from the sing song flow of French/Spanish influenced Flemish spoke by Belgian Dutch speakers.

“This isn’t a proposition but a suggestions, I said carefully, but I have a spare room and some friends who runs bars and clubs along the coast, why don’t you stay at my place? -At least until you have decided what to do”

She said nothing.

“Have a think about it,” I added before returning to my book, maybe I’d overstepped the mark, anyway what was I doing inviting a complete stranger into my house. The person I was 6 months ago wouldn’t have done such a rash thing, was I getting more foolish instead of more relaxed? For God sake I didn’t even know her name!

We travelled the rest of the journey in silence, eventually pulling into Montpellier station. Gathering my bags I lifted down her rucksack as she collected up our rubbish and threw it in the bin. Leaving the train we walked across the platform towards the exit. “Katya, Katya .. van Haenen” she said, “Peter, Peter Durritti” I replied and we shook hands in an awkward formality, “I thought you better know my name if I’m staying in your house”, she said. I smiled and lead us towards the car park.

The drive to Meze took only 20 minutes, with an extra 10 to pick up the hound from a friend. The dog, disloyal beast that he is, took to Katya straight away and perched himself on her lap for the short trip back to the house. I could tell she loved the house, I did too. Set on the outskirts of the village it is an old stone pile with a garden that runs down to the

etang

, salt-water lake divided from the sea by a long beach that stretches from the island heights of Sete to Agde. The garden was full of fruit and olive trees with a stone paved swimming pool. The house itself was large and I’d covered it with flowering climbing plants.

“You live here?” She said with awe in her voice

“Yeah, lucky aren’t I?”

“Its marvellous”

“I know” I grinned, and taking her bag showed her up to the spare bedroom.

“Dinner at eight, make yourself comfortable, have a look around and I’ll see you later”

I left her and took the beast out for a long walk through the vineyards that surround the house and push right up to the shore, I needed to sweat out Paris and the trip from my body. Two hours of walking in the afternoon heat left me hot and dusty. Returning to the garden I stripped off and plunged in the pool, pushing myself I splashed through lap after lap as I felt my body and mind unwind from the city and the enforced immobility of the trip. Pulling myself out of the pool I showered off the chlorine in the garden, looking up I saw a flash of movement on the terrace as Katya darted out of view. I was so use to living by myself that I’d forgotten about having guests- time to pull out those old swimming trunks from bottom draw.

Dressed in my usual shorts and t-shirt I pottered around the kitchen preparing dinner, a light salad, Thai chicken and aromatic wild rice with freshly picked cherries from the garden lightly doused in

Marc du Languedoc

.

“Your singing is terrible”, her voice behind me made me jump.

“Ahh, urm sorry but I’m use to living alone” I explained.

“I noticed, she smiled, do you always swim in the nude or was that for me?”

Blushing I once again apologised, and explained that one of the reasons I’d moved here was because Agde was the nudist centre of the South of France. After over a decade of living in suits I had developed a real passion for the freedom of letting things hang. Afraid for the first four months a regime of walking, cycling and swimming had rid me off the effects of too many business lunches, too liquid a based diet and airplane food. At 70 kilos I wasn’t exactly skin and bones but in what I considered good shape, the effects of the sun had given me a healthy golden tan and, all things being equal, I thought I looked just fine. Well fine enough to forego the swimming costumes on the beaches anyway.

Dinner was pleasant, sitting on the terrace, watching the sun set behind the Montagne Noir and the lights of Sete and Agde flicker on over the water. We talked about France, the politics and economy, enough for me to discover that she was well informed, perceptive and coming from the same part of the political spectrum as me, we talked about my life before and now, the one thing we didn’t talk about was her, gentle probing questions were met with evasion and shifts in subject, after a while I gave up and we moved onto safer ground.

After clearing up and making coffee I returned to the terrace with a tray of cups and a bottle of Armagnac, Katya had drifted off to sleep in her chair. Gently waking her I lead her to her room and wished her goodnight. As I turned to go she leaned forward and kissed me on the lips, “Thank you” she said when she pulled back. “Thank

you

and sleep well” I smiled and walked over to my room.

Paris, travel, and the wine sent me quickly into a deep sleep. I didn’t notice the door opening and only it was only the changing weight on the bed that caused me to stir, my brave defender merely raised his head waged his tail and moved over to let the cool, naked body of Katya slip in beside me.

“Peter, is this alright, I need someone to hold me”, turning towards her I brushed her hair with my hand and pulled her close to me with the other. We lay like that for sometime, me slowly stroking her head which was pressed hard into my chest, her legs wrapped around mine, her hands firm against my back.

I felt her head move slightly then her lips started kissing my chest and moving over to my nipple, her tongue feather like teased it until it was rock hard. Our hands, started to explore each other, a light sweat broke out on her back and both our breathing deepened. Reaching round I cupped her breast, the nipple firm and rubbery to the touch. She sighed and rolling away from me I felt her legs splay: Her hand reached down and lightly ran over my hardness nestling against my balls. Leaning over her our lips met and hers were firm under mine, her tongue thrust into my mouth,. Reaching down and I ran my fingers through the hair of her sex. Her hand enveloped mine, her finger pushing mine inside her warm enveloping wetness. Guiding my fingers to her slippery clit her other hand moved up from my balls to the tip of my cock, grasping it between finger and thumb she slowly, with the smallest of movement played with the tip, sending sensations like jolts of electricity through my body.

Thrusting against each other hands, our insistent mouth and tongues glued together, we wanked each other for what seemed an age, I felt her hand leave mine and slip lower, I moved my free hand beneath her body and under her now heaving bum, reaching up to slip inside of her sex from behind I felt her fingers already deep inside of herself. I moved my hand back and pushed my finger firmly against her tight arse, she opened to let me in. The effect was spectacular, pushing back against my hand she tore her mouth from mine and cried out into the night, I could feel the intensity of her contractions through her anal wall, her hand flew from my cock to my back as she held on as she rode the orgasm. As the shaking subsided I ever so gently withdrew my finger and held her close, my other hand resting in the curls of her sex. Almost like waking from dream state she kissed me and lowered her head to my nipple once more, her hands returned to my cock, with one holding my balls and pushing against the skin beneath them and before my arse and the other back on the tip it was seconds before I exploded, spraying my stomach with cum, she kept the pressure up until I felt completely drained. The finger on my prostate carried my orgasm up my spine and into the back of my head. Kissing me once more she lowered her head and licked the sperm from my stomach, it had to be the most erotica thing that had ever happened to me in my life: Returning to meet my lips I could taste my own sperm on her tongue.

“You are a very nice man” she whispered in my ear, “And you deserve a fabulous holiday” I whispered back

Pulling her close I held tight as I drifted off to sleep, I didn’t want to let Katya, or what ever her name was, go… ever.