Note 1: This is a work of fiction and the characters depicted herein are purely figments of my own imagination; any resemblance to any other persons, real or fictional, is entirely coincidental and unintended.
Note 2: This story contains graphic descriptions of sexual acts between consenting adults. Although entirely fictional, the characters are all over the age of 18.
Note 3: This is a continuation of the story "The Lesbian Nights." It is (very) loosely patterned after the book "A Thousand and One Arabian Nights," but instead of a looming death sentence, our protagonist faces eviction from her landlady, unless she can keep her distracted. You don't have to read the first story, but it might help you to understand what's going on. Of course, you could just sit back and enjoy... "what's going on"... if you know what I mean. Incidentally, the protagonist, Kelly, is the same Kelly from my very first story, "That's Kelly!"
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It was several days before Catherine D'Boudec was able to work up the courage to face the young American student girl about the matter of the seriously delinquent rent. Her last attempt to confront her tenant had somehow gone awry and she had ended up naked and (she had to sheepishly admit to herself, very satisfied) on the girl's floor.
Catherine was, in truth, internally conflicted about the girl. Her new life in this provincial and very catholic French tourist town depended a great deal on her ability to maintain an impeccable reputation. However, since giving up her life in London, where she was not only free, but practically encouraged, to indulge in an uninhibited bisexual lifestyle and where being sexually open and liberated carried a certain cachet, she found herself feeling empty and restless. In London, the more open she was about being sexually active with women, the more male suitors she seemed to collect as well. But not here in this quiet village in this backwater province where a person's worth was measured in equal lengths by their heritage and their mastery at growing vegetables. Dinard was not London, despite its many British holidaymakers.
It was therefore inevitable that she would succumb to the sexual advances of the American. Kelly helped Catherine satisfy lusts and urges that she otherwise had to suppress, and being her tenant, it meant that Catherine could do so without having to troll through the local bars for accommodating sexual partners and risking exposure to her busy-body neighbors. It was an arrangement so convenient, that it was also inevitable that Catherine was soon taken advantage of by the beautiful and predatory vixen, and the rent, consequently, had gone unpaid for... Catherine couldn't even remember the last time Kelly had actually paid rent.
It had to stop. First, Catherine needed the money. Her large estate cost a fortune to run and the bookings for her Chambre d'hote were down again for the third year in a row. Letting the little cottage to the American student was supposed to be helping her to make ends meet. As it was, Catherine was dipping heavily into the family fortune and, vast though it was, it was something of a personal defeat that she was unable to earn a profit at her business. Also, she felt a deep-seated shame at her apparent arrangement with Kelly that she had in no way ever intended this to become. The girl had to pay up or go. That was that, and Catherine would just have to resign herself to satisfying her urges in other ways. Business was business.
So, once again, Catherine found herself striding confidently along the little flagstone walkway toward the cottage on the corner of the property. The walkway wound around the outside of a neat garden that was segregated into four quarters by intersecting gravel pathways. In the center of the garden was a pond with a large stone fountain. The pond was filled with koi and lilies. The garden itself was surrounded by a low stone wall lined with alternating benches and fruiting trees; pears and apples, mostly; with their branches stretched and secured to the walls like living candelabras. It always reminded Catherine of the sort of setting that Money would paint, perhaps with a young couple sharing a picnic.
As she rounded the back wall of the garden, the cottage came into view. She saw Kelly's bicycle leaning against the shed and a delivery man in a crisp white uniform was knocking at the door. Kelly came to the door just as Catherine was approaching.
Kelly and the man exchanged "bon jours" and Kelly signed the man's clipboard, taking possession of a large, rectangular package wrapped in brown paper and tied together with twine. It was then that Kelly spotted Catherine lingering nearby. "Bon jour, Mdme. D'Boudec! Aidez moi, s'il vous plait? Can you help me to carry this in the house?"
Catherine stood on the porch with her hands in the pockets of her suitpants. "What is all this?"
Kelly was wearing a pair of overall-shorts that were a little shorter than they needed to be over a pink crop-top that barely hung below her perky breasts. She was barefoot, as usual, and her curly dark brown hair seemed to have a life of its own today. "I have no idea! There's no return address, either. Let's bring it inside and take a look!"
The package was about four feet by six feet and flat; maybe only two to three inches thick. The two women carried it into the little living room. There was a basket of clothes on the sofa and another pile of clothes on the armchair. "Sorry about the mess. I am trying to do all of my laundry today. I'm going back to Belfast for the weekend for a friend's birthday, so I need to have all of this done by tomorrow." They set the package down on its edge in front of the fireplace. "D'accord! Voyons ce que vous Γͺtes!"
Kelly cut the twine with a pair of sissors and tore the brown paper. The wrapping revealed a picture in a large frame, but a large piece of protective Styrofoam covered it. When she pulled that away, they could see that it was an oil painting. It was a striking abstract work done with sharp, almost cutting streaks of black, red and a vivid, intense green. "Oh.... Oh Didi!" Kelly uttered, almost to herself. She stood there silently staring at the work. After a few minutes, Kelly wiped at her eye with the back of her hand and sniffled back a tear. She collected herself, took a deep breath and said, "Didi, it's perfect. I love it."
Catherine looked confused. She watched as Kelly spun around and picked up her laundry. She carried it back to her bedroom and returned immediately, plopping herself down in the comfy arm chair and stared at the painting. "What IS this and who is 'Didi'?" Catherine asked.
Without looking at her, Kelly said, "Didi was my love in Augsburg."