The Inspector From Paris

High in the Pyrenees mountains, a black road winds along a blue mountain stream. The rush of the sunset wind, and the rush of the water combine into one sound. The yellow leaves of birch trees float across the road. A white luxury car slides through the turns, leaving trails in the leaves, its wheel swept left then right, right then left, by a leather-gloved hand. The driver wears a government badge and does not slow as she passes through the villages. She clicks on the headlights.

From Paris headquarters, they have sent her to investigate. To investigate a strangeness. There is a small town, at the far end of this climbing valley, that tourists no longer visit. Even the mailman refuses to enter.

So she, the lawyer, the accountant, the policeman, in sum, a representative of rationality has been sent to survey, to inquire, and to report back. She is dressed in a black coat, a cape really, with a pencil skirt, stockings, and heels underneath. She took with her from Paris nothing but a single bottle of water and her notepad. The bottle of water sits unopened in the center console. So smooth are her turns that its waterline does not shift. The countryside turns around her car, not the other way around.

There is a chateau, not a castle, a once great house, in this village. In medieval days, it was the seigneur, the lord, who lived there. No need for a castle, the mountains are better protection than any man-made walls. Its back to the mountains, the chateau sits at the far end of the valley, and at the far end of the town, so that the road runs right into it, and stops. The chateau swallows the road. During the two wars, generals billeted in it. And now, the mayor lives in it.

She is hurrying to this town because strange reports have reached Paris: those who visit this mountain town never leave. In the beginning this was not a problem, when only a trickle of tourists, mostly Spanish, came each year. But then the Americans arrived, and christened the town a hidden gem, and brought the crowds. Paris headquarters was inundated with reports of missing people, hikers, lovers, entire tour groups in fact. They planned a two week vacation and then never returned.

Phone calls from Paris reach the mayor but he always responds the same: "I have not seen them." Police dispatched from the next town did not return either. So headquarters sent her, with her black cape in her white car, all glossy curves and silver hubcaps. She cannot disappear in the same way that Paris cannot disappear. The institution stands behind her, she is unkillable.

It is night now, and the sky is full of stars. Aragnouet the sign reads through her tinted window. She has arrived.

All the windows in the village are dark except two at the far end of town. Two windows of the mayor's chateau, which sits in the middle of the road, are a warm yellow. She waits in her car, with the white eyes of her headlights staring down the yellow eyes of the house. She lowers her windows. Her car purrs, and she drifts into town. Total silence. Even the mountain river, her constant companion, is gone.

Then, midway through town, there is a hunched form. It sits on the steps of a stone house, facing away from her. Is it a person? She squints as her car approaches. No! It is a straw scarecrow. Its face is white cloth. And this scarecrow wears the clothes of a man. Sneakers, jeans, and a t-shirt. Strange choice of decoration, she thinks.

She continues, the chateau coming closer but seeming not to change in size. Always the two yellow windows watch her. She sees two more forms, sitting on a bench by the road. Perhaps a couple watching the stars? No! More scarecrows. She rolls up the passenger window as she passes. These two are dressed as a man and woman. They sit crumpled, with blank faces.

There are more and more scarecrows as she approaches the chateau: a woman in a black polkadot dress standing by the shuttered tavern, two men with hiking poles by the town fountain, and an entire wedding party in the park. The inspector now looks straight ahead, her answers lie in the chateau, that is obvious.

She parks the car in front of the wooden door of the chateau. The road disappears underneath it. She climbs out and leaves the car running with the headlights on. The headlights transform her into a triangle shadow on the door. She removes her gloves and knocks.

Silence, then the door opens, throwing yellow light into her face. She steps back. "You are the mayor?" she asks.

"I am," says the person at the door. They are tall and thin, with high cheekbones and full lips. He is a man, she decides. He wears a deep purple evening gown. They face each other, the warm light of his house behind him, and the cold light of her headlights behind her.

"I am the Inspector. May I come in?"

"But of course."

He steps aside to let her in. "You will leave the car running?"

"Yes, this will take no time."

He closes the door behind her. A fire crackles in a stone fireplace at the far end of the room. He walks to a wood sideboard. "Wine?" he asks, and runs his long fingers over the tops of the many bottles. "No, water."

"Ah, I see" he says and pours water into a wine glass.

"Thank you" she says, and takes the glass but does not drink.

"Please" he gestures to two velvet chairs beside the fire. "It is cold after the sun has set in the mountains. Can I take your coat?"

"No, I will keep it. I will disturb you only for a moment."

They sit, and his cheekbones look sharper and his face longer in the orange light of the fire. He gazes at her, and tilts his head to one side. "You are, I think, a woman." She is surprised. "Yes, I am." She waits for more, but he says nothing. She decides to begin her questions.

"Where are the townspeople?" she asks.

"They are asleep."

"In their homes?"

"I assume so, where else should they be?"

She pauses.

"There have been reports."

He says nothing. She continues "of missing people."

"Yes, Inspector, I have heard."

"What have you heard?"

"That there are people who visit our town, and never leave."

"And is this true?"

"Yes, quite."

She crosses one leg and leans back into the chair. "Who are they?"

"I am one of them"

"You are one of them?"

"Yes, I came to this town forty years ago and I never left." His laugh is deeper than she expected for his slight frame. "But as for the others, I know nothing. I am not one to invade the privacy of my citizens. People come to the mountains because they look for solitude, not nosy questions. So you see, I cannot help you with these reports."

"Then I must stay until morning and ask these nosy questions in the village myself."

"Of course, it is your job." He leans onto his elbow and stares into the fire.

"There is an inn in town?"

"No, I am afraid not. It closed ten years ago."

"Then I will find somewhere else. I must go, I am tired from my travel."

She stands up and shakes out her coat. "A pleasure Monsieur Mayor, I will see you again tomorrow."

He does not stand. "A pleasure, Inspector." He watches her as she walks to the door.

"You will sleep in your car" he says when she is almost at the door.

"Perhaps, if I cannot find a hotel in the next town."

"You will not. They are all closed. It is the season."

"Then I will sleep in my car, this will not be the first time. It is already very late, morning will be here soon."

He settles into his chair. "As you wish. But this house has many empty rooms. What a shame it would be for you to sleep in the driveway, only a few meters from a comfortable bed! You are invited to stay here."

"I would not sleep in front of your house. And I would not stay inside this place."

"Why not? This is state property, and you, like me, are a representative of the state."

She hesitates. She has spent all day in the driver's seat and it does not recline well for sleeping, so she is tempted by his offer. Why not, after all, she thinks. Though she mistrusts this man, she does not fear him. He is a seducer, with his wine, his fireplace, and his mystery. He is eccentric, she decides.

"Thank you, I will stay the night."

"Then come with me."

Up through a winding stone staircase he leads, carrying a white candle. The stone walls cannot be wired for electricity. "So, I live like it is the 17th century," he explains. Thin windows with no glass open onto the village and countryside. She sees a canopy of stars stretched over the peaks of the surrounding mountains. They are stars she cannot see from Paris. She steadies herself with her hand on the wall -- high heels are not for climbing stairs. "You climb this every day?" she asks, out of breath. "Yes" comes his voice. Now he is out of sight, above her. She continues to climb and finds him waiting at a wooden door. "Here is your floor. Take any room you like." he hands her the candle. "If you need anything, I will be on the next, and final floor."

She takes the candle and pushes open the door. A stone hallway lined with more doors and another window at the end. She turns but he is gone. Strange man, she thinks, and leaving the door ajar walks down the hallway. She pauses then chooses the second room on the right. The room is empty except for a bed with a single white sheet and an old wooden nightstand. Both are under the only window. She places her notebook and her pen on the nightstand and lays down on the bed, still dressed, with her shoes on. The mountain air is too cold and a single sheet too thin to sleep without her coat.

All is silent. She folds her hands on her stomach and stares at the ceiling. How long until morning? She checks her watch -- 1am, she must wait another five hours. And wait she will. She is a patient woman, one does not move through the levels of Paris headquarters without this virtue. The criminals she has hunted are men, and men, she smiles to herself, require much patience.

She drifts to sleep but is awakened by a scream. Pleasure or pain? She waits and listens, again the scream. She decides, at least, that it is a woman. She scoops her notebook and pen from the table.

Down the hallway, up the stairs, through another wooden door, and into another identical hallway. His door is open and light falls into the hallway. She arrives at it, a black figure looking in. The room is identical to hers, nothing except a bed and a nightstand below the window. The light comes from the bed itself, or rather, from the body of the mayor himself. He is glowing the color of the fireplace downstairs, flickering with the same inviting, unstable light.

He is naked, thrusting into a woman beneath him, her legs thrown into the air. She is wearing nothing except black high heels. His body is smooth, feminine, and were it not for his scrotum, she would think him a woman. At intervals the woman on the bed grips his ass harder, throws back her head, and screams. So, the Inspector thinks, it is a scream of pleasure.

Do they know she is there? she wonders as she flips to the first page of her notebook and pauses. What of this scene is not self-evident, and what of it is noteworthy?

The woman is sculpted as well, fine legs, curved hips, and breasts that sway forward and back with his thrusts. She wears bright red lipstick and when she screams her teeth are perfect. But the bottom of her high heels are scuffed.

The woman works herself towards a climax. She screams more frequently, and now with a mournful sound. Something strange happens to the inspector and her notebook. Her pen no longer works, but still words appear, in her own handwriting. She reads.

"He threw her down on the bed, his cock hard. She was wet, ready to receive him. He had exposed her, stripped her down to her shoes. 'You will leave these on, my darling, to remind you of yourself.' Then he went to work, his long cock with its expectant and shapely head, pounding her into new dimensions of ecstasy. Such a man did not exist, she thought, for he had none of the self-conscious vanity of normal men who loved to watch their own cocks sliding in and out of her, instead of watching her face, a far better indicator of their performance. This man, she thought, lives in service to his cock. His beautiful body has developed only as an accessory to this wonderful instrument."

The inspector looks from the notebook to the scene, then from the scene to the notebook, unsure which is more important. Then the woman on the bed freezes, her legs extend rigid, and she pulls his ass into her, throws her head back and releases a deflating moan. She cums. Then an awful transformation begins. Her face becomes a white piece of cloth, and clothes began appearing on her body. A black skirt, black stockings, and a black coat. And while she is being redressed, her skin, starting at her hands and feet, and working inwards, begins to turn to straw. Before the Inspector's startled eyes, this once living, naked woman becomes a white-faced scarecrow dressed exactly as the Inspector herself.

The Inspector is not squeamish, and is unperturbed by crime scenes that leave her male colleagues retching. But the late hour, her long trip, and now this unsettling transformation forces from her, no, not a scream, but a little sound like "hmm."

The mayor turns, still naked, and still flickering, at her voice. His cock too is transformed. It is now dark pubic hair and the inviting slit of a woman. His chest is softened into two perfect breasts and his face is rounder, though still striking with its angled cheek bones. "So," this newly minted woman says to the Inspector, reclining her enticing body on the bed, "I ask you again, you are still a woman?"