Léna smiled as she gazed fondly at her brother. Their long drive from home, over busy roads, had seen them delayed by families intent on getting to their holiday destinations in the shortest possible time.
They were no different, but Curtis drove his zippy convertible with calm assurance, the roads they drove over from their home city of Limoges offering no quick or direct route to the family's holiday home overlooking the shores of the Mediterranean. They would be swapping the grandeur of their home city for the rough stone walls of 'Vue Claire', along with its stone slabbed floors, creaky staircases, a red pantile roof, and a walled garden. At least it was cool during the hottest time of the day, the small windows both a blessing and a hindrance, for they did not allow into most rooms the glaring brilliance of the sunshine outside.
'We're in no hurry, are we?' she said with a brush of her fingertips to his slender, high-cheeked face. His skin was smooth and lightly tanned, his complexion perfect and the mop of brown hair was swept back and retained the curls she remembered from their youth. To her ways of seeing him, Curtis was handsome and free. No one had claimed him and who would have closed her out of his life, as it was between them now.
'No, there's no rush, although there's a lot to catch up on.' Léna could not see the drift of his eyes over her as the car slowed to a crawl and he again had the chance to do that. The dark lenses of his sunglasses kept out the glare; they also hid from view what his eyes might be focussed on.
His sis looked stunning, her denim shorts, with frayed hems, flattering slender legs, a yellow sleeveless racer's vest shaping her wonderfully, to his ways of seeing the young woman beside him. Their bond was often a cause for some dismay, the reasons rarely spoken of but all too present in how they often were with each other.
They remained close, way too close some would say, and they had a bond that few could shake, or break into, even after days or weeks of separation that saw him working for an IT consultancy and she having just graduated from university. A placement in a renowned business, in their home city, would begin in a matter of weeks, but right now she was going to unwind, they would enjoy each other's company and see where that again took them.
As ever, their past informed the present; suppressed feelings would now have a chance to be given voice to, even acted upon. No one else knew how it was, or could be, between them; he and his sister on one side and their remote parents on the other.
Curtis slowed at the turn that they needed and the road soon took them through sun-baked scenery that captivated her. Léna realised that to be here again was like returning to a second home. It had never been a place that she merely visited and that many others simply looked on as a holiday villa that her parents rented out whenever the opportunity arose. A trusted local housekeeper, and cleaner, ensured that their treasured possessions and some pieces of furniture were securely locked away in an outhouse, its video alarm set when they weren't staying there.
'We'll check out the party scene tonight shall we...do a club or two?' Curtis suggested as the car juddered occasionally on the uneven road surface, vehicles of all sorts passing in the opposite direction and trailing swirls of dust. 'Or we might get spotted by the Lavigne's and go from there...'
'Yes, we might,' she answered in a distracted voice as his few words registered in her. There was no time to dip into the memories that mention of their holiday neighbour's name had aroused.
Curtis whooped. 'We're here again, in our holiday playground!'
For her, the word 'playground' had taken on a different meaning since the last time they were here.
The electric gate opened slowly as the key fob signalled their presence. Curtis drove on and parked in the walled courtyard, much of it shaded by the rustling canopies of stunted trees. Beyond, a gateway led to a small garden and a path up to the backdoor, the family's favoured way into the cool of 'Vue Claire'.
'Yes, we're here...just the two of us.' She gripped his hand before he could get out of the car. 'Be with me, look after me won't you?'
'Of course, I will.'
His lovely sister had her weaker side. They were close, often closer than close, and it felt as if it had always been that way as their parents, who were friends of the Lavignes, pursued their busy social and work lives. They'd had their kids and it had often felt through the years, as they grew up, that they were left to fend for themselves in an emotional and practical way of living.
That parental indifference, or laissez-faire, had left its mark on them and they had often resorted to finding solace in someone else's arms; with people who were all but strangers or people with spirit who were just as restless as they often were. To do that often left them feeling used.
It was then, at such a moment, that they again turned to each other. The thin line, between choice and necessity, had been difficult to draw but she had done so, and with Curtis. It was either that or resort, as some university friends had done to their cost, to finding relief in some substance, the provenance of which you were never certain of until it was too late.
♥
They were greeted in the sheltered yard by Madame Grillot, a bustling woman in her loose-fitting blouse and swirling skirt, her greying hair tied back in a bun. She seemed to buzz with enthusiasm, like a bee at a nectar source, to tell them of her work to prepare the house in readiness for their arrival. She lived with her lorry-driving husband in the town below them, at the foot of the hill, She was loyal and trustworthy.
'I'm sure everything will be fine, madame,' Léna soothed as the woman's chatter finally fell away and she made ready to leave them.
'Your mother told me she will be here in two days, so I only put a few things in the refrigerator for you.'
'It will be fine,' Curtis said, echoing his sister. 'We'll go into town if we need to and for anything we particularly want.'
Seeing him move to begin unloading the car Madame Grillot took that as a hint to leave them. 'I will call in again when your parents arrive.'
'That will be fine and thank you for getting everything ready for us.' Léna followed her and opened the latch on the pass gate set into the wall.
On doing that she suddenly felt a tremor course through her body and was dismayed to see Alain and Julia Lavigne standing before them in the lane. Before she could gather her thoughts, on what to say, they passed through the doorway and into the yard. She closed and locked the gate and followed them over the path. Curtis looked up from his task of hauling two suitcases from the confines of his car's trunk.
'Hey!' he laughed, unaware of his over-familiarity.
It seemed not to bother their parent's friends. Julia met his kisses on her cheeks and Alain shook his hand. Léna was the one to hesitate before succumbing to the convention of such a moment.
'Welcome,' Julia said at last and smiled at Curtis, memories of how they had been together rushing in like an unstoppable tide. She saw Alain's suggestive pout of his lips as he looked on.
To Curtis's ways of seeing her, Julia possessed a natural attractiveness, an hourglass figure clothed, he now saw, in a floaty beach dress that clung to her hips and shaped her delightfully. Julia's husband, Alain Lavigne, dwarfed her both in stature and bulk, his closely cropped greying hair making him look more like a ruffian and not a wealthy businessman.
'We heard that you would be arriving today,' Julia told them with a beaming smile, but her wondering eyes lingered on Curtis. She had her way of saying his name as if she owned him; 'Curteez'. 'When I spoke to your mother she said that she wasn't sure when you would get here.'
'We decided to break the journey.' Curtis felt a tug on his arm as he said it, Lena's stilled gaze upon him suggesting that she was annoyed that they remained talking.
'Let's get our stuff inside, we can talk later,' Léna ventured, yet unsure of how she felt about that.
The towering presence of Alain again made her uneasy, not least because of the memories of last summer and that seeing him again aroused in her. An invitation to supper, suggested by Julia, had led to the revelation of what played out in their lives and the couplings they pursued with others, and that had included them. They were swingers and that evening, with them, had led to the discovery some nights later, when they had returned from a night of clubbing, that her parents had quite another side to their lives and one that they had studiously hidden from them.
And now, here she was again with Curtis, in the company of a couple who might seek to play with them again. That much she already saw in how Julia behaved towards her brother, the smiles, the stilled look of her eyes upon him, along with a moment's touch to his arm that kept Curtis in thrall once more.
Her brother possessed an athletic grace, never more so than when he had been seen swimming, last summer, in the Lavigne's pool; their three-story house with its casement windows and shutters an overt declaration of their wealth and, even, status in the small town. They had all frolicked in the garden, she unaware of what had begun to play out in Curtis and that Alain did nothing to restrain.
Quite the opposite. He had slowly come onto her as they all threw a frisbee, picked it off the rough grass, or when they had to search for it in the shrubbery that softened the outlines of the boundary walls. They could not be overlooked and as the drink flowed and inhibitions gradually fell away, suggestive words spilled from Julia's mouth to both of them and Curtis in particular. Alain offered a moment's touch to her back as she watched Curtis get drawn in, and she had met the look of roving eyes upon her. She soon knew what had lain behind the invitation to spend time with them.
She had become lost in the sexual mayhem that followed, Curtis taking to Julia with consummate and energetic ease, on the mats by the pool, and she had worked Alain's tool, its length, girth, and wrinkled foreskin unlike anything she had seen on the student guys she'd become involved with, physically and not emotionally. Jerking him off, her legs draped over his thighs as Alain lay back had soon seen him lose it over her belly and breasts. Her actions on him, and Alain's responses, had then given way to penetrative sex, carnal and wild. The man's red swimming briefs had lain on the slabs beside them, what they contained needing no imagination.
She looked at her unlikely lover again, now, but said nothing. She wanted to get into the house and come to terms, once more, with all that seeing Alain again had aroused in her.
