French Letters

(Author's note: Oh good, you've found them, then: the letters you've been waiting for (...or maybe not!). It took me a while to persuade him to let me publish them, but he came around in the end. Now, if you haven't read the start of my autobiography - 'Some Day, All This Will Be Yours' - you won't have a clue what I'm talking about. But never mind; all you really need to know is that after we'd been together for about six months, the man I love was suddenly posted overseas to Paris, France: an offer he couldn't refuse. These are the letters and emails we exchanged immediately after that awful, wrenching separation. If you want to get to know me a little better before reading the letters, I suggest you read 'Some Day, All This Will Be Yours'. It's up to you.

Oh, and if you're expecting a story about condoms (though I can't imagine why you should be!), this isn't it.)

***

Virginia,

Sunday, May 7th, 2017.

My dear darling love,

Oh, where have you gone? I have never felt so bereft in my entire life! I watched your plane take off (at least, I think it was your plane, but it's hard to be sure these days) and then I drove back home with tears in my eyes (not recommended by the highway patrol!). I immediately stripped off all my clothes (you know my taste for nudity) and went through every room in the house looking for you. Not there, of course. You were at 35,000 feet above Newfoundland or some other godforsaken place, probably eating plastic chicken and watching a crummy movie. And - worst of all - leaving me at 500 miles an hour! I tried to remember all the times we'd made love in each room, but that just made me miss you all the more keenly.

But then (Oh, you lovely man!) there came a knock at the front door (I must get that doorbell fixed). Not really thinking too clearly - my mind was overflowing with thoughts of you - I grabbed a tea-towel to cover my nakedness (Don't laugh! I was in the kitchen) and opened the door. There stood a florist's delivery guy (on a Sunday, no less! What did that cost you?) holding a beautiful big bunch of red roses! (You know I like alliteration...and flowers!) I knew at once they must be from you, sent from the airport before you left. Oh, you lovely man! Overcome with delight and still not thinking too clearly, I dropped my tea-towel, threw my arms around the poor boy's neck and kissed him. I don't think he was used to having a naked woman throw herself into his arms on the doorstep in broad daylight. I thought to myself: 'Delivering flowers is a tough job, but somebody has to do it'. But in case you're wondering... No, I didn't invite him in for a quickie (which I might have done before I met you). He was only a lad and, blushing furiously, he beat a hasty retreat. I gave him a full frontal "Sorry!" and waved my roses at him from the doorstep.

And now I'm sitting up in bed, writing this to you. Your roses are beside our mirror, where I can see them every time I look up, and - thanks to you - I'm feeling much less miserable. As soon as you let me know where to send this letter, I'll get it in the mail. We can get through this...well, we have to, don't we?

All my love (and I mean that).

***

Paris

Monday, May 8th, 2017.

My love,

God... I hate flying these days! And particularly flying away from you. I was flying on Virgin Airlines - I've always liked the name. Did I ever tell you that I once worked as an advertising copywriter, and I still tend to think in slogans: 'Virgin Airlines: We won't go all the way!' Hmm... Maybe that's why I was fired; what d'you think?

The dinner tasted like plastic - I wonder what it might have been when it was alive?... if it ever was. I knew that no in-flight movie could possibly compete with my memories of you, so instead I closed my eyes and re-ran my favorite images from that afternoon we spent on Intimacy Island. The sight of your gushing cunt splashing my face is forever burned into my memory, along with your outrageous shouts of "FUCK ME! FUCK ME!" and the answering echoes from the lakeshore. When you stuck your finger into my... (well, you know where!), making me promptly ejaculate deep inside you, the delicious combination of sensations simply blew my mind. I have never felt anything like that! You now know that I have a fetish for intimacy; well, what could possibly be more intimate - or more passionate - than the things we did together that afternoon? Thank you thank you thank you! (Incidentally, my shoulder is healing nicely, but I'm hoping your tooth-marks will leave a permanent scar.)

It was gray and drizzling when we landed at Charles de Gaulle this morning, which suited my mood perfectly. To my surprise, the company had sent a car to meet me, and when I eventually exited immigration I found the driver holding up my name (misspelled, of course... Unless it wasn't me he was supposed to meet... Now, there's a thought!). The early morning drive into Paris was dreary, and the city seemed deserted. In my dreams I'd imagined living near the Bois de Boulogne (you know why!), but instead he took me to a company apartment in the Cinquième arrondissement (That's the Latin Quarter to you. See? I'm learning my way around already!). It's an ancient fourth floor walk-up, but with a lovely view over the rooftops of Paris. Apparently this is the student quarter, so maybe life won't be so bad after all. Now, if they'd only pay me what I'm worth...The address, if you want to google it...or maybe even write to me, is [address deleted to maintain privacy - Ed.].

Now I'm going to nip out in the rain, mail this letter, buy a few essentials, and then come back here and go to bed: early, sober, and alone. I know we agreed that holding ourselves (or each other) to celibacy would be unreasonable ("cruel and unusual", I think you said), but at this moment the only person I want is you: you and you alone. If there were another woman waiting naked and panting for me in my bed, I think I'd opt to sleep on the couch. So instead I'm going to masturbate (unless I fall asleep first). And yes...I'll be thinking of you - only you - as I do it. It will take away some of the loneliness.

I love you.

PS. I'll send you my new email address as soon as it's set up.

PPS. I hope you liked the flowers.

***

Virginia,

Sunday, May 14th, 2017.

My dearest darling,

Your letter arrived yesterday, and immediately lifted me from the deepest depths of depression. I've been wallowing in self-pity ever since you left (I know...that doesn't sound a bit like me, does it?), and not even Paul Simon could lift my mood (neither his music nor his 'music' - nudge nudge, wink wink!). But thinking of you looking out across the rooftops of Paris reminded me of Henry Miller's classic erotic novel 'Under the Roofs of Paris', which I think you might enjoy. I re-read it last night and promptly decided to write my own erotic autobiography. You know I've already published a few stories online, but now I want to write about myself, and include that afternoon we spent on Intimacy Island. Are you okay with that? I'll let you see it first, of course, once it's written.

***

Now it's a few hours later and the most amazing thing has just happened! You may not realize this, but you sent me another present! (Oh, you lovely man!) I was sitting up in bed, laptop on midriff as usual, wearing that old skimpy nightie you like so much, and writing this letter to you. (You know I've had that nightie for five years? Time flies when you're having fun!) Anyway, there came a knock at the front door (still no doorbell) and when I opened it, my heart leapt: it was you!... But no, it wasn't. Maybe five years younger, slightly taller, but with your face and hair and the same smiling eyes. You know how much I like dialogue; ours went something like this:

Him (blushing): "Er...Excuse me, miss...Is my brother here?"

Me (shocked): "Who?"

Him (looking sideways): "My brother...Er...He gave me this address..."

Me (catching on: 'God! This must be the little brother he told me about!'): "God! You must be the li... the younger brother he told me about!" ('Just imagine if God had a younger brother', I thought, irreverently).

Him (struggling to keep his eyes away from my all-too-obvious tits): "Er...yes, miss. He said I should look him up when I arrived. Is he here?"

Me (thinking 'He looks just like you, only younger... nice, very nice!'): "No, he's in Paris."

Him (looking worried): "Paris, Virginia? Will he be back this evening, ma'am?"

Me (I preferred 'miss'): "No. Paris, France; and no, he won't. But come on in. Come on, I don't bite!" (except sometimes, I thought). "Here, I'll slip on a robe if that makes you feel any better...There! Now, have a seat and tell me what brings you to my doorstep."

Well, as you probably know, he's just graduating from High School and is here to look at local colleges for next fall, once he's taken a gap year as they call it nowadays. I remember that you'd asked me to take care of him if he ever showed up, and here he is, needing a bed for the night!

We got talking...mostly about you, of course...Well, I got talking. Getting him to talk was like getting blood out of a proverb. You'd told me he was shy, but not that he was Olympic-quality shy! Fleeting eye contact (at best), stammered half-sentences, constant blushing: the whole nine yards! Poor lad; my heart went out to him as I remembered what it felt like to be terrified of talking to people.

To his obvious relief, I offered him a bed for the night (No, not my bed), and then sent him out to explore the neighborhood while I got dressed and started writing my autobiography. (I'm thinking of calling it 'Some Day, All This Will Be Yours'. What d'you think?

He got back in time for dinner, and eventually - after a couple of glasses of wine - he began to relax.

"Er...My brother's really lucky."

"How so?"

"Having...er...I mean knowing you."

"Well, you can know me too." (Oops! Well, at least I didn't say 'have'!)

"I never know what to say to girls. Anyway, everyone thinks I'm gay."

"Are you?" (Is he?)

(Fierce blushes) "Er...I don't know! How can you tell when you haven't...you know."

"Why might anyone think you're gay?"

"Well...I like ballet, and poetry, and classical music, and painting, and gardening, and..."

"Oh, give me a break! That means bugger all."

"So does being gay..."

"Ha! Nice one!" (Maybe he was relaxing!) "Anyway, would it matter so much...if you were gay, I mean?"

"I guess not, but it's not knowing that gets to me. However can you tell?"

"There's one way..." (Oops, again!... He's going to misunderstand me if I'm not careful!)

"What's that?"

"Well, when you masturbate... You do masturbate, don't you?"

(More fierce blushes) "Er...erm..."

"I'll take that as a 'yes'. So, when you masturbate, do you think about boys or girls? What turns you on?"

"Girls, always. Gorgeous blondes...er...like you."

"Thank you kindly, sir. I think that's your answer, then. If you find mental images of girls arousing, then I predict you'll find the real thing arousing too, once you get there."

"I never thought of it like that."

"When I was your age..." (God! Did I really just say that? Now I know I'm getting old!) "...I found that sometimes I thought about boys and sometimes about girls."

"You mean when you were...?"

"Masturbating? Yes."

"I didn't know that girls did it!"

"Oh, come on! What do you think we are...statues?"

"So are you...?"

"Ambidextrous? Is that the word you're looking for?"

"Don't tease me! Do you know?... I've never been able to talk to anyone like this before. You're different."

"Must be because I'm ambidextrous. Anyway, it's my bedtime, and you need a good night's sleep too, before you go college-tasting in the morning. So... Goodnight, sleep well! Let me know if you need anything."

"Goodnight, and thank you...for everything."

And Goodnight to you too, my love, there under your Parisian roof. I'll drop this in the mail first thing tomorrow.

I love you.

PS. Just got your email address...Thank you! I'll send this both ways, just to be sure.

***

Paris

Monday, May 15th, 2017.

Email at last...Yippee! What on earth did we do before it was invented?

So...my baby brother's staying in the spare room, is he? I should have warned you that he was almost pathologically shy, although you seem to have got more out of him in one evening than the rest of the family have in eighteen years! Why am I not surprised? Thank you for looking after him, and if there's anything you can think of that would give him more self-confidence, please just do it: no hesitation, no questions asked!

Funnily enough, I've got a similar problem here. One of the girls at work is the original shrinking violet. She scurries past me in the corridor, head down, never making eye contact, and if I try to talk to her, she panics...poor lass. Apparently, she somehow escaped from an abusive relationship, which probably accounts for her terror. Anyway, talking to her is difficult because I don't speak much French (yet) and she doesn't speak much of anything! Any suggestions?

Apart from that, I'm settling in okay. The weather has improved and I'm learning my way around the Latin Quarter: lots of cafés and bookstores and art galleries (My brother would love it!). I'll look out for a copy of 'Under the Roofs of Paris'. Maybe I can find a French translation; it would certainly make learning the language more fun!

Love you...

PS. Great title for your autobiography (provided it's addressed to me, of course!). Go for it, Intimacy Island and all; I look forward to reading it!

***

Virginia

Wednesday, May 17th, 2017.

Umm...brace yourself, honey.

I've been thinking about your baby brother, and what he needs to give him some self-confidence. I don't know how you'll react to this, and you can certainly veto the idea if you want to, but... What if he were to seduce me? Not the other way around (which I think would be quite easy and appealing, to tell you the truth), nor anybody else. My reasons? One, he worships you, and seducing me would give him membership in the same club; two, it would get his virginity out of the way; and three, it should lay to rest any uncertainty he has about his sexuality: three birds with one stone! (Well...with one fuck, maybe). What do you think? (The fact that he's a gorgeous young hunk is neither here nor there, of course!). I've no idea at this point how (or if) I could arrange it; he's so damn diffident. Maybe getting him drunk would work, but that's hardly fair, is it? And he probably wouldn't remember much about it the next morning, except the guilt...so scrub that idea. I'll think about it some more, but don't worry... I won't do anything until I hear back from you.

Re your shrinking violet... Have you thought about asking her to give you French lessons? Maybe in exchange for you giving her English lessons? I remember flirting outrageously with my Latin teacher over irregular third declension nouns!

Love you...always.

***

Paris

Saturday, May 20th, 2017.

My love,

I've written this email about ten times already, but then deleted it each time. Maybe this version is the one I'll actually send...

'Turmoil' is the word that best describes my reactions to your last message. It has taken me three days to work through what I feel about your suggestion, and I'm not sure I'm fully there yet. One problem is that there are so many layers to it. My initial reaction was to feel a piercing jealousy, unlike any I have felt before. Yes, I know we agreed to reject celibacy, but when faced with the actual possibility of what you suggested, my emotions rebelled. I love you so much that the thought of anyone else coming between us - even just physically - makes me positively nauseous.

But after a while I calmed down and began to think about it more objectively. I think you're absolutely right: it's just what my baby brother needs ('to make a man of him' would be the cliché). And, knowing you as I do, I think you're the perfect woman to do it; not just because of our relationship, but because you are loving and caring and gentle and generous (I wish we'd met when I was a virgin!). Furthermore - don't deny it - I think you might enjoy it! (And I love giving you pleasure, even vicariously).

And then there's my brother... I love him dearly, too, and it hurts me to see him so dysfunctional when it comes to human interactions. Why don't they teach that in school? He's been that way all his life, and if something doesn't happen soon, I'm afraid he may never outgrow it. So from that point of view, it's a brilliant idea.

So how would I feel - on balance, now that I've got more used the suggestion? I've been thinking of little else for three days, and to my surprise - astonishment, really - it has begun to turn me on! Kinky? Well, you already know that about me, don't you? Last night I found myself masturbating to mental images of the two of you fucking passionately, and I came with an explosive intensity that reminded me of Intimacy Island, and you know what that was like! I have no clue how you could possibly get him to seduce you, but maybe you've come up with some ideas? Anyway, love, I guess the bottom line is that you have my blessing (so long as you promise to tell me all about it afterwards!)

I love you so damn much...

PS. I'll suggest French lessons to my shrinking violet - good idea!

***

Virginia

Monday, May 22nd, 2017.

My dearest amazing love,

What was that acronym you taught me? NSFW...was that it? Well, this message is definitely NSFW. In fact, it may even be NSFY (not suitable for you), but you asked me for it, so here goes...

In retrospect, I think my subconscious mind had probably been working on this plan without ever telling me about it, because I was still puzzling over how I was going to get him to seduce me when your brother and I went for a walk together yesterday evening. He'd been out all day visiting more colleges while I'd been working on 'Some Day...'. I'd just got to the Intimacy Island episode; I have no idea what you'll think when you read it, but writing it certainly made me horny.

Anyway, we climbed over the gate by the house and set off across that field of cows that you and I have often walked through together. I'd noticed the farmer down there with a cattle trailer the day before, but hadn't thought anything of it. We were about half way across the field when your brother said:

"Er...Are you sure these are all just cows?"

"What do you mean?"

"Isn't that one a bull?"

"Where?"

"Right there, the one coming this way."

"Oh Christ! You're right; we'd better turn back."

"And fast! He's going to charge! RUN!"

Without warning, our pleasant evening stroll had suddenly turned into an Olympic sprint against half a ton of angry pot-roast (Thank you, Tom Lehrer!). I'm sure he could have outrun me, but - bless him - your brother kept himself between me and the charging, snorting bull, so I reached the gate just before he did. I was just starting to climb it when to my astonishment he grabbed my upper arm, spun me around to face him, and then forcefully grabbed my crotch. With one swift and fluid movement, he lifted me above his head and deposited me gracefully on the safe side of the gate!

I watched with growing horror as he tried to vault the gate himself...but it was too late. The bull put its head down, caught his ass and threw him high into the air. When you see gymnasts doing them, aerial somersaults always look so smooth and easy... but not this one. With flailing arms and legs, he tumbled clumsily through the air before landing heavily on his back at my feet. The bull, looking pleased with its afternoon's work, ambled off and resumed grazing.

"Shit! That hurt!"