Je Suis A Tois

Imagine munching into a big ripe juicy peach. Sweet-sharp flavour bursts into your mouth. Juices you cannot possibly capture all of flow unchecked down your chin. Hedonism! You take another bite. The juices flow once more, but you ignore them. You take another mouthful and abandon yourself to the pleasure.

They are ripe peaches, all the young mothers wheeling their tiny new infants in their carriages in the summer sunshine. I watch them pass by, sitting on ‘my’ bench on the promenade by the sea, while I eat my lunch. Walking advertisements for fecundity, they are luscious, all of them. Marginally overweight from nine long months of gestation, with rounded bellies and breasts heavy with nourishment for their offspring, they are sexual yet not sexy. ‘Look at me!’ their proud bodies cry out wordlessly. ‘I have proven myself. I have taken a man’s cock into my body and his seed into my womb; and made this miracle. Admire me! I am sex personified, but I am not available…not to you stranger!’

And you are by far the most luscious of them all. I watch you walk by and let the juices run down my chin.

I begin to look out for you every day. Sometimes you disappoint me, but most days you are here. You have to pass me twice, once in each direction on your way from and back to the car park. I look pointedly at your ass when you have gone past. I admire your panty lines, indents in the plump flesh beneath the thin material of your summer slacks. I stare at your flexing buns, willing you to know that I am bursting to ravish your succulent, fertile womanly core.

I need a name for you, oh delectable object of my lust. What will it be? Hmmmmm, I think you will be Claire…for no other reason than I do not associate it with anyone else; and I like the name.

I have seen you nearly every day for two weeks now, Claire. You have studiously ignored me, but today, did I detect a swift sideways glance from behind those dark sunglasses young lady?

What did you see? A middle-aged businessman in a crisp white shirt and razor-creased grey pants, with polished black shoes? He won’t cause Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt any loss of sleep will he? But he is not bad looking. Regular features, apart from an unnaturally crooked nose. Do you wonder how that came about? Or don’t you care a jot? Seems to have a trim body…looks as if he is reasonably fit. Do you wonder what he does and how he can sit here every day at this time?

Well, my lovely Claire, I make a point of sitting here every day now so that I can see you. If I look prosperous, it is because I am. My new BMW 535, parked nearby your pale blue Toyota Corolla Hatchback attests to that. And if I could carry you off to my four-bedroom penthouse apartment overlooking the Viaduct Basin and America’s Cup Village, you would be further convinced. I make the time to see you because I can afford to have an obsession.

Today, you flash me another look, both going and coming. And as I project my customary lustful thoughts at your departing rear end, I notice that the panty lines framing your bottom are becoming less prominent. Claire, you are losing weight. Is this especially for me?

I need to know if you truly notice me, if you are interested in my interest in you. I test you out. I spot you approaching in the distance and when you pass, I study the book I have brought with me especially for the purpose. The dejected slump of your shoulders gives you away. In all probability, you have no real interest in me, yet you still enjoy basking in my admiration. When you return, I look you full in the face for the first time and smile…not a wide, toothy grin, but a friendly, companionable acknowledgement of you as a person. You respond uncertainly, but there is a spring in your step on your way back to your car.

Now, whenever we see each other on your ‘outward’ journey, we smile and speak a quiet "Hello". When you return we exchange a look, sometimes a smile, or sometimes just a nod.

An opportunity! You are past me by a few metres on your return journey when something falls from the baby carriage. Junior has thrown something out and you haven’t noticed. I let you walk a few metres more and then take off after you, picking the object up on the way. It is a rounded plastic ring that mothers sometimes give their infants to keep their mouths busy when their gums are sore, but it is too soon for this child to be teething. It is amazing that you didn’t hear it fall.

"Excuse me!" I call out, holding the ring in your direction like an offering. You turn and stop, waiting for me to catch up with you. "I think your baby threw this out." I tell you.

You take the ring from me. Our fingers touch briefly before we withdraw with mutual rapidity.

"That is very kind…thank you so much."

Your voice is soft, almost melodic. I like you even more. I search for the expression in your eyes behind your shades, but their dark glass frustrates me. Then, as if reading my disappointment, you slide the sunglasses down the bridge of your nose and look at me over the top of the frames. Your eyes are gorgeous…hazel flecked with green and sparkling with amusement.

I feel my sense of being in control slipping. My face is becoming flushed, dammit! Somehow, I get it out that I have to get back to work and ask you if it is okay to walk along with you to the car park. You incline your head in the direction we have to go and we set off. On the way, we exchange inconsequential pleasantries. Jeremy, your baby son, is now two and a half months. You are unsure if you will go back to work as a legal secretary at the end of your maternity leave or become a full time mother. All too soon, we reach your car. You refuse my offer to help you load the stroller, so I have no further excuse to linger. I see you watching the Beamer go past but I do not wave.

You hesitate and look expectantly in my direction. My pulse goes skippety-blip, and then I stand and make my way beside you. We walk about half a metre apart in silence for maybe two hundred metres…

"I love your tie."

Your soft voice startles me and it takes me a few seconds for your words to register.

"It has become my game to guess how many you have. I have seen you sitting on that seat every day for over a month now, and you have never worn the same tie twice!"

I flush, but not from discomfiture, "I don’t know…maybe forty-five…sixty. Silk ties are a weakness…must be the peacock syndrome!"

"Why so many?"

"Mood…and I always rest a tie for at least a month before I wear it again, just the same as I never wear the same pants or shoes more than any one day during a week."

"And a clean shirt and everything else every day."

"What does that tell you about me?"

"You can afford to do it…and you have a wonderful wife who loves doing your washing and ironing. You must find out for me how she gets your shirts like that…they’re fabulous."

I could make the offer to show you, but I am careful that I mustn’t come on too strong. Instead, I say, "I have to confess that it’s all my own work."

"You are a good husband!"

"No wife…she ran off with her fat little Italian hairdresser eighteen months ago."

"Ouch! Sorry!"

"Don’t worry. The ego was the only thing bruised."

We walk in silence for a few more metres while you digest this information.

"Can’t imagine what he could offer that you couldn’t…"

"She…"

"Oweeeeeeeee!" You drum your fists on the bar of the baby carriage in embarrassed frustration and Jeremy starts howling. Other strollers turn and stare. We burst out laughing together. The sunshine suddenly seems warmer. You get the boy out of his carriage and jiggle him up and down between your breasts to calm him. The lucky little bugger is right where I would love to be.

I hold out my hand, "Chris…Christian…"

"Mathilde…"

I could hold your hand like this forever.

"French? You have no accent?"

"Pure New Zealand, but old Akaroa…German? Dutch?"

"Dutch…born here in Godzone though."

We are still holding hands.

"Something wrong? You look as though you’ve lost something…"

Red face, "Second confession…I had to give you a name…I christened you ‘Claire’…"

You drop my hand quickly.

"That’s creepy…Claire is my middle name…my mother’s"

Jeremy stops crying and you return him to his carriage. We carry on walking together, but our conversation is stilted, guarded. We reached intimacy too quickly.

You don’t appear for two days and I fear that I shall never see you again. But then, there you are wheeling Jeremy towards me. I get to my feet and wait for you. You take off your shades a metre away. The welcome in your eyes is brilliant!

We walk. Suddenly, there is a quantum shift; we are completely at ease with each other. We do not touch, but the previous half-metre has shrunk to ten centimetres, sometimes only one. We are so absorbed in our verbal exploration of each other on the return segment that we almost run into the elderly couple in our path.

"Oooooo! What a lovely little one!" the lady coos, bending over and peering into the carriage. "Is it a boy, or a girl?"

Her husband shuffles from one foot to the other, raises his eyebrows and winks at me with that male camaraderie that surfaces whenever our gender are confronted by the gooey side of maternal instinct.

"A boy," you tell her, proud of your achievement, but tense because our conversation has been interrupted.

"I thought so…" The old lady looks to me with a twinkle in her eye, "He looks just like you!"

You make clucking conversation with the old lady for a few more moments, and then we make our excuses and get back on our way.

"Sorry about that…you…"

"Felt rapt at assumed fatherhood and all warm and fuzzy inside…"

"Truly?"

One hand on heart and the other raised in the air, "Honest Injun!"

You let me help you put the baby carriage into the back of the Toyota. You back out of the parking space and point the car towards the car park exit. Then you call me over to your window. You hide behind your dark glasses when you tell me, "My turn to confess…it was me who dropped the plastic ring." And then, with a swift rev of the engine, you are gone.

This is interesting. Today you have your husband with you. At least I assume he is your husband, Wayne, because he walks close to you and clasps your elbow in a proprietary grip. And he looks around and sniffs the air as if he is seeking something. Does the daft so-and-so think you meet your lover here?

When you, your man and Jeremy get closer, your body language warns me to ignore you. Mathilde! Give me some credit! But, I observe him keenly as you walk past. He is a big lad with broad shoulders and chest, large powerful hands and thick, thrusting thighs. You told me he is a heavy diesel mechanic. I hope he trims and cleans his big blunt fingernails before he puts them inside you! There is no doubting that Wayne would make mincemeat of me if it came to a confrontation. Maybe not seven years ago when I was playing first grade for Te Atatatu rugby league, but now I lead a softer, very successful funds manager’s life.

"Thank you, Christian."

I was not there when your little family group came back. My heart warms to your use of my full name and the fact that your say it with the European inflexion, ‘Christiaan’. Where did a good Kiwi girl learn to say ‘Christian’ like that?

"Wayne gets very jealous sometimes…"

There is a little cove part way along the promenade that has a tiny sandy beach. It is a tricky climb to get down to it, so very few people bother to visit. At nearly three months into our friendship, I have taken to bringing a lunchbox and coffee for the two of us. My fancy $300 leather shoes have given way to sneakers at lunchtimes, and we have grown expert at manoeuvring Jeremy’s carriage over the rocks to ‘our’ place. We are hardly ever disturbed in our little enclave.

I still want you with an enormous, searing intensity, but, although we sit close to each other on a large, flat rock that has a natural backrest, we have not made physical contact since that lingering handshake ‘way back when’. We commune with looks, our voices and our thoughts. We have learned to exchange humour and we talk without judgement or reservation, sharing our loves, our hates, our hopes and our fears for ourselves, our society and our country.

Then, one early autumn day, Jeremy is unusually fractious. You smile apologetically, "He was a little rat-bag earlier this morning…wouldn’t take anything…he must starving by now…do you mind?"

I wave to you to go ahead, "I’ll take a walk."

"Christian! Don’t be such a bloody wimp! Stay!"

I watch you out of the corner of my eye as you unbutton your shirt and then unclasp your bra at the front. Stupid me, unused to infants, I have never come across a feeder bra before! Jeremy immediately latches on to the teat you offer him, then, after three or four vigorous sucks he falls asleep.

Your smile and shrug apologetically. Our eyes lock. Another quantum shift occurs. Fighting my way through air the consistency of golden syrup, I find myself bending towards you. In incredibly slow motion, your hand bares your other breast. A tiny droplet of milk expresses from your nipple. I enclose your dark, inviting pink aureole and your taste in my mouth. Your nipple surges to a different erection enclosed in my warmth. I lave you with my tongue, nibble you with my lips, bite you gently between my teeth, draw your sweet milk from you, and bring you to a quiet, shuddering orgasm that sets Jeremy to sucking manfully at your other breast.

I hold you close until you subside. Together, we watch Jeremy satiate himself, then, together, we return the blissfully sleeping child to his carriage.

We have not exchanged one word since your orgasm. I watch you silently, full of previously unimaginable tenderness as you re-engage the clips of your bra and restore your shirt to modesty.

"What about you?" you ask me, looking pointedly at the bulge in my pants.

"I had no intention of a ‘reward’."

"I know…but I want to."

I lean back against the warm ‘backrest’ and watch you undo the clasp at my waist and then run my zipper down. The sun glints on your wedding band as you part my pants and then extricate my shaft from my underwear. You run the circle of your fingers up and down my hot length and search my eyes. Then, as if you find your answer, you swiftly duck your head and take me into your mouth.

I gently stroke the deliciously smooth side of your neck underneath your dark hair while you make excruciating, tantalising oral love to my sex. You ignore my warning of impending explosion and milk every last drop of semen from me with your hand and your lips. And then, once more, we hold each other closely, this time until I realise that I have not died and gone to heaven.

We carry the sleeping Jeremy, in his carriage, back up over the rocks to the promenade. Then pushing him together, we make our dreamy way to the car park. When he is loaded into your car, we stand face to face, separated by mere millimetres. We make as if to kiss, but then you hang back. I understand and I will not push you. You are not yet ready to be betray your husband.

"Tomorrow?" you ask.

"Tomorrow."

Endnote: In 1840, A shipload of French immigrants established a settlement at Akaroa, on Banks Peninsula in the South Island of New Zealand. Their descendants still live there today.