"Oh for goodness sake, she's just an old friend, ok?" Emily climbed off Jack's lap, fat lips sneering at his flagging member. She pulled up her underwear.
"And yet you refer to her as your 'first love', and boast about your... antics , even while I'm inside you?"
Em glared and his stomach wrenched. He wanted the big seductive eyes back. Her wetness chilled on him. She clawed her new, boyish hairdo in frustration. "Years ago at college! Look, you want me to cancel France? Is that what it's going to take to get you hard again?"
"You talk about this bloody trip too much."
"What? You think I want to get back together with Beatrice? Now? Right there in her husband's villa? I see how you look at her. You perve on the thought of us together."
"Oh yes. That's what's got me so hard right now. The thought of watching my wife finally, for once in her life, enjoying oral. With her ex."
That's when Em slapped him.
#
They travelled separately to Provence, as Jack had a conference in France, the reason why Beatrice had suggested they all meet up in the first place. He took as long as he could getting there.
His wife's confession about her past had been hard to take, but he could accept it as that. The past. However, now it was all out in the open, why did she have to dwell on it? Did she really think he enjoyed hearing the explicit details of the things she did with her lesbian lover? "Beatrice fingered me in church... She loved to lick me from behind... often we were both wet to the knees..."
Meanwhile, she was so reticent with him. He wasn't sure how much more he could take. This weekend would be the ultimate test.
The villa was enormous and beautiful, dappled by cool leafy sunlight and set in its own grounds. Not only was Beatrice a sexual threat, but her husband, the much-feted Parisian artist Le Génie, could afford all this, too? Jack's manhood shrivelled.
Then Beatrice answered the door.
Beatrice. The bright, happy - irrepressibly flirtatious - artist's model-turned-muse with her sexy accent and carefree curves and cheeky pout. She threw her arms around him, and for a moment, he was lost in the flowery dampness of her long, dark, just-washed hair.
She reached up and kissed him, French style, once on each cheek. He hugged her, English style, as if she was his maiden aunt. The woman was wildly voluptuous compared to his elfin wife. He had to admit, Emily had impeccable taste in women.
"Bonjour, lovely boy!" She sung and grabbed his hand, hauling him inside. "Le Génie has gone to pick up Emmy in the car. The airport taxis are a rip off. "
She dressed like a gypsy next to the tailored city fashions that Em favoured, her bare feet slap-slapping on cool, smooth flagstones as she led him through the house, turning all the usual polite questions into the bubbliest of conversation. She all but pushed him into their guesthouse, next to a long pool.
"Here you are, all yours, have a swim if you like, but please come and drink wine with me, oui?"
The water looked enticing after his long journey - and Jack wasted no time in getting into his swimming shorts - but then became possessed of a sudden awkwardness about revealing himself to Beat, who sat waiting outside. He loitered by the pool-house door, unsure if he should change back into his clothes. Was this proper? To be half dressed, alone, with his wife's ex?
"Hurry up!" Beatrice bellowed quite suddenly, as if reading his mind, "Let me see this fabulous physique Emmy gloats over so!"
Bereft of any choice, Jack stepped out to wolf-whistles and dived into the pool. The shock of freezing water took his breath away as he crawled across to where Beatrice sat with a bottle, dangling her feet in the water, dark peasant skirt up around her brown knees. She giggled as he gasped to a stop. "The pool is fed straight from the mountains," she said, "I forgot to say. Sorry. Drink this." Beatrice shoved a large glass of red wine at him and gulped at hers. "Let them find us in-flagrante delicto, non?"
Jack smirked. "I don't believe that means what you think it does, Beatrice."
She sipped, and sparkled at him. Jack was suddenly thankful for the cold water. He glugged wine. "Where is my wife, and your perfect man, then hmm?" He said, feeling her eyes drilling into his chest.
Beatrice sighed. "Oui, they are taking far too long. But Le Génie is not so perfect. I am cross with him." She pulled a goose-bumped foot out of the pool and cupped toes in her hands.
Jack squirmed; he did not want to be drawn into taking sides in a lovers tiff. He held his tongue. Beatrice growled anyway. "He is so selfish, you know?"
He gestured to the pool and house. "He seems to be providing you with a good life, to me."
"No." She pressed her lips to a raised knee as if to shut herself up, then blurted. "I mean as a lover. You two are so lucky to enjoy licking each other so. With him it is like-" she mimicked him, grimacing and sticking out her tongue. "Sorry. You are English I know, you don't talk of such things."
Jack downed his wine and dunked his head in the water. Beatrice roared with laughter and refilled his glass. The sun, the wine, this beautiful, candid, woman. He felt dizzy already and left the glass alone. But...
"Em said that?"
"What?"
"That we... she and I enjoy..." He rolled his hand. Beat peered down at him almost in triumph.
"What, this is not true?"
"No. It's great. Just, well. Never mind."
Beatrice smiled and patted his arm. Her hand hot and soft. "You forget how well I know your lovely wife, Jack. She is also a little like Le Génie, non? Why do you think we split up, her and me. I know she enjoys receiving a lot more than... giving."
Hot, lapping, silence consumed them.
Beatrice clasped her hands between her knees and flipped her legs in the water. "What is taking our lovers so long!" she gasped, cheeks pink.
Probably the wine, Jack deduced. It was certainly getting to him. Then, as if to prove the point, he blustered, "Probably in a field somewhere tearing each other's clothes off."
Beatrice sniggered. "Oui, enjoying a lovely soixante-neuf on the grass. Laughing and licking and climaxing..."
"Yes! That's it, the bastards." Jack laughed too loudly. His heart hammering fit to burst, unlocking every brain cell and releasing all sense. He slapped Beat's knee. "Come on then, our turn! Get your knickers off girl!"
His attempt at bawdy humour barked out over the water and away into the icy mountains. Beatrice arched her great dark eyebrows and her smile trembled, then disappeared. She blinked slowly. A long terrible moment eked itself out. Jack closed his eyes in shame, waiting for the gentle rejection.
"Monsieur, I would certainly remove my underwear, if..." Her voice was a husky whisper, "... if I was wearing any."
Such a quiet bombshell. Jack cleared his throat and Beatrice chuckled. She stroked one foot with the other. They both watched her legs.
"I suppose," Jack felt a warm stirring in his shorts, "It's just too hot for undergarments."
"Maybe." Beatrice shrugged. "But when one is to entertain a beautiful man, it is just exciting to be secretly naked, non?"
Her dark eyes seemed to fill the sky. He pulled himself out of the water and splashed onto the poolside. She made no secret of staring into his lap. He leant back, letting the water run off his skin and his shorts squirm beneath her gaze, secretly glad that the heat of the wine and the conversation seemed to mitigate any cold-shrinkage down there. This was ok. Flirtation. No harm in it.
"No. You're teasing me." He said, trying not to blare another nervous laugh.
Beatrice stood and swirled her skirt with contrived flamboyance as she pivoted and strode away, revealing in an irresistible glimpse of clefts that she definitely was not teasing.