Suzanne

After four fruitless efforts at a completed novel, a publisher had taken my fifth and turned it into a modest success. The rewards were mixed. A mandatory book tour had left me limp. Home after a month on the road, the challenge of proving the first success was not a flash in the pan had me in a funk.

Lulled by the notion I might not be a starving writer forever, I nurtured thoughts of improving my circumstances, as the Victorian novelists were fond of saying. While pondering what to do about my abysmal apartment, I considered looking for a relationship.

At thirty-one, there were exactly three love affairs for me to remember. A remembrance that bore echoes of the Proustian novel from a French literature class in college. In my memory, Amy, Helen and Marie flitted about, sometimes with clothes and sometimes without. Encounters that led to romance were so frequent in school that one had difficulty afterwards recalling what had brought the two of you together. More frequently, it was the breakup that was sharply memorable.

I didn't need a wife, or a female on a mission, although my age suggested the opposite, and my convictions were suspect.

When the fourth relationship started, Suzanne struck me as an uncomplicated woman with enough drawing and painting talent to chase a career in art and be my lover at the same time.

But the uncomplicated part didn't happen. As months went by, my relationship with her became more tangled. Just the opposite of what I thought I wanted.

One morning, I was staring at the text on the screen in front of me when she opened the door to her studio and came across the corridor.

"Olivier called. He's angling for an invitation to visit this weekend."

I turned and raised my eyebrows at her. "Our friends know this is a country place where we come to work."

"Yes. He apologized and said Irene had moved out without a word and turned off her mobile."

We stared at each other, thinking about how our being together started.

She had been Olivier's girlfriend for a time. Two years ago, when she was seeing him and I still had the loft in Manhattan, she appeared one weekend morning and removed her clothes in the front room before I was able to finish preparing coffee.

Calmly retrieving a towel from the bathroom, she placed it on the precious leather sofa, a gift from my parents. Then arranged herself with legs crossed and everything showing.

"I have a confession to make. At the party last week, I copied your new novel to a flash drive. It's very good. You write well and you put imagination on top of that. We could be good for each other. I have talent, but I don't have any spark. I'm still stuck in college art class, doing stupid derivative things as though I was a draftsman."

I said nothing, and walked the few steps to the kitchen to pour coffee. She followed and carefully worked me out of my clothes. Her nipples were stiff. When she rubbed them on my back, my erection became equally stiff. Her fingers explored what she came to join with.

I took a deep breath and said, "You can't be seeing Olivier and me at the same time. There is a defect in my personality that doesn't permit sharing. I know that sounds dumb in this day and age, but there it is."

A hand in the small of my back nudged us a short distance to the unmade bed. "Get there in the middle so I can sit on you."

She was hard to resist. Minute after minute, orders were issued to apply hands to the long, lean body. Her strong fingers entertained my maleness. Gently, so as to prevent an accident. She said, "You are not to come until I say. If my experiment works, we will come together and it will be good. Very good."

We seduced each other until I felt her clamping on my cock and let loose. After six months of abstinence, the fountain spurting into her was hot and generous. She leaned her head on my shoulder and made small noises. I pounded her ass. Her tongue probed mine and she asked, "What is the matter?"

I held her tight and let the silence develop. "Nothing. You were right. It was good."

She lifted my shirt from the floor and stuffed it between her legs. "You can lick me if you want."

She didn't get my tongue, she got my hand on her behind a few more times.

"I deserve a sore ass for breaking in and hitting on you, don't I?"

"We are not doing that again unless you tell Olivier it is over between you."

When I finished changing the bed and picking up some of my mess, she was gone.

The next day, my poor brain, wracked with unaccustomed emotions, was busy churning out text when a soft voice behind me said, "I did it. I'm yours now."

She came to the rear of my chair, her hands covering my eyes and forcing me to listen. "It is really over, Andrew. I told you yesterday I needed some of your spark. You've given it to me, and he never had any to begin with."

After a passage of two years, it seemed as though we were playing the same record over. Suzanne standing behind my chair talking about Olivier.

"Tell me about your feelings for him. Does he have some special hold? Don't women try to put old love affairs behind them like men do?"

She leaned over, letting her hair fall in my face. "The only man who has a hold on me is you."

She paused and continued, speaking quietly, "He seemed a bit helpless. You knew him too, before we were together. He is interesting to talk to, with all that gossip about art and artists his family firm is involved with. Would it work if I suggested a day at the beach and dinner after? We could go to Nantucket. No sleepover."

I turned around and gathered her to me. In the summer, she painted with just a smock over her body. Through the thin material, my fingers rubbed a breast with a firm protrusion at the tip. I wasn't jealous, at least I didn't think I was. But talk of Olivier energized some deep feelings, a surge of aggression that felt good. One of the characters in my book was overwhelmed by sexual aggression and suffered greatly as a result.

Her tongue sought mine. "I can feel you stiff as a board. Ready to fight for me, are you?"

The sparkle in her eyes was bright. The smock was a pullover, or my fingers would be doing more than rubbing her breast.

She squirmed in my arms and said, "God, Andrew, this is making me wet. If I ditch the smock, will you take me to the railing?"

The ancient farmhouse we were renting had a back porch, with old fashioned furniture, including a swing. We liked to sit out there in nice weather, sipping wine and talking after a day of work. It also had a hand crafted railing that we had carefully refinished, and took pride in. One afternoon when we were irritated with each other over something silly, I had snatched her underwear down, bent her over the fine railing, and jammed myself into her without any preliminaries. She screamed and cursed me, but I kept on, losing my anger and finding a lusty experience that Suzanne reciprocated with a bucking, wailing orgasm that continued for a long time. After that, whenever we were hot over something, the railing was where tension was dissipated. It was our version of not going to bed mad.

As we proceeded through the house, she giggled like a school girl, twisting in my arms.

"Honey, before the railing, you get the bar!"

This was another bit of entertainment we both appreciated. Oral sex was high on Suzanne's list of happy things to do. She only discovered my talents in that direction after we moved in together. Curled up with her on the swing one evening, I noticed that there was a good place for a pullup bar. And room above for a higher bar that a woman could cling to while her nether parts were being massaged by a lover's tongue as she rode his shoulders.

Neither of us could count the number of times Suzanne had cried out her climax holding to the bar with her thighs around my neck and my mouth buried in her sex. This morning, conversation about Olivier's girlfriend troubles had wrecked our work concentration. The prospect of an hour of sex before lunch swiftly hardened me up, but the whole thing was so ridiculous that I smiled and took my time. I placed her on the porch deck beneath the bar and slowly removed the smock. The July sun was hot and I told her to stand still while I applied sunscreen, taking special care with breasts and buttocks and the back of her legs. She growled wordlessly, trying to convince me it was a complaint.

I lifted under her arms and she reached for the bar, swinging back and forth slowly. Suzanne wasn't an athlete, but had a slim body with alluring feminine curves. Gazing at her hanging in the sun, all of my male instincts came to the surface, including the erection that was going to have to wait a bit.

"Beast. Let me on your shoulders."

I stepped underneath, where her female smell was strong. Heels beat on my back and hips flexed into my face. The strange body arrangement excited her, and moisture flowed freely. My eager tongue ignored her clit and worked between her lips, thrusting ever upward. I couldn't speak, but Suzanne had a stream of sex talk that mostly related to my sad deficiencies.

My fingers dragged across her lotioned back and around to her firm tits. With arms stretched to the bar, I had free reign for torture wherever my hands wished to apply themselves.

"Andrew! I am there already. Ohhhh." She released from the bar and slid down my front, shaking and moaning, to land empaled on my large cock. I pressed against the porch post, my lips finding hers and glorying in the sensations of being bound tightly to my woman.

We weren't finished and I sought the bed to take her in missionary position, satisfying the dominance surge she had summoned. It didn't take me long to complete either, thrusting powerfully and finally sealing us with all my weight.

After a minute, she pushed me to one side with a kiss. "I love you, Andrew, especially when I get the Tarzan treatment!"

I smiled and said, "We could have a Stone Age party sometime. The males would have to take their women and protect them at the same time."

Her fingers traced around my hairless chest. "I don't suppose females will ever find equality when there is so much biology that betrays us."

I leaned in and licked a rosy nipple. "Don't devalue yourself, the male surrenders to feminine charms every time."

She walked to the shower, saying, "Yes, charms," and wiggled her ass.

I was finishing shrimp salads for lunch when she walked into the kitchen, drying her hair, and pressed against my back.

"Did that calm you down about Olivier?"

"It's a secret, but I am going to record that conversation and my feelings this afternoon. For future use, with other names, of course. You've never driven me like that before. It's almost like there is a button on me somewhere that says, 'Press here to trigger violent male reaction.' "

She gave a short laugh. "What about the button somewhere on me that says, 'Press here to trigger female sex response to dominant male.'?"

We found seats on the sunny patio. I pressed her hand. "It's not very usual for two smart, cerebral people to let go and indulge their animal nature as easily as we do."

I had another thought. "Some day, when we have a little more money, I'd like to do a collaboration. You could create a dark painting with hidden themes buried in exotic flesh, and I would have to write the story of what it means."

"Did you say exotic or erotic?"

"Come sit in my lap."

"Promise you are not going to start in on me again. That is a real commission on my easel and the client expects it within a week."

She folded gracefully against my chest. It was a quality that endeared her to me from the beginning.

I got a kiss and a whispered, "Is it agreeable that I invite Olivier to a picnic away from here?"

"Yes. I am parking your former relationship with him on a far back shelf."

"Hmmm. It's not all bad that you get torched off once in a while."

She mused, "What about the other way around. You write a dark excerpt about the ending of a carnal relationship in which one partner is almost driven to murder and the other one to suicide. I am required to turn that into a painting."

"They are both a great challenge to do well. Is there any money in it? Our piggybank seems to stay alarmingly empty. The book royalties are not much so far."

"You are still determined not to touch your trust fund?"

"My grandfather drove himself to the grave working for that money. It seems tainted, somehow."

I hugged her tighter and added, "But I've promised to look out for you. We will use it if we must."

The afternoon was slipping away, but neither of us wanted to be the one to end the conversation.

"This hasn't turned out at all like I expected that morning when I undressed for you in the loft."

"Life is a crazy mix of dreams and expectations. Which version of yours am I getting?"

Her tongue sought mine as my fingers tangled in her freshly washed hair. She had the smock on again, but my hand rubbed on her breast anyway.

"I am not baring my innermost soul, but I am telling you that being around you at that party where I stole the manuscript started an incredible rush. I could hardly breathe when I finished reading it the next day. I stewed around and finally decided it would take a lot to get your attention, with all the other pretty women available and willing."

"You did get my attention. I was hard from the moment you walked in the door. Even before you just dropped all your clothes on my floor."

"After that incredible sex, and after your ultimatum about Olivier, I was in shock and knew I had to get out of there."

"Why? You had me in the palm of your hand."

"I went back to my place and had a very much too large glass of brandy, and cried my eyes out. I cursed myself for being a silly twit and thought about going home so my mother could beat some sense into me."

"But the next day, you returned calm as could be, already over the hurdle with him."

"I've never told you how much that performance took out of me. I was totally clueless about you, about me, and about us."

I kissed her forehead and eyes and nose. "Sometime, not now, you have to tell me how you constructed us from nothingness. Where you got that business about my spark."

We stood in the corridor, fingers still hooked together, smiling and thinking some barrier had been crossed. She broke away and the door closed.

I typed wildly for the rest of the afternoon. Madcap scenes and snatches of conversation. Almost like a script for god knows what play.

The sun had gone behind the trees when one hand was soothing my neck and the other was handing me a martini.

"That's not very calm, what you have been pounding at all afternoon."

I jumped up and captured her in my arms. Gin was spilled down her front and I licked deliciously between her breasts.

"Andrew! You've gone wild!"

"I suppose you have been talking to that oaf, Olivier."

"We have a date in ten days."

"I'll give you a date! The two of us are putting on good clothes and going to that French place."

I really was torched off, without a clue why, but enjoying the emotional heat immensely. Suzanne caught some of it and made a special effort with her dress and makeup.

I insisted on champagne and escargot to begin. I pressed her hand and got a soft smile in return.

"I thought guys only did this for girls they were seriously interested in?"

"I could demonstrate my interest. If you were enceinte, I might have to marry you."

Her eyes widened. "If you are going to use a French word for impregnating me, we have to do it in an attic in Paris."

"I think you deserve a month in Paris. For art and for love."

The waiter interrupted our tender moment and we ordered. She turned my hand over and traced my heart line with her nail. "You're half serious about this, aren't you?"

"More than half. If we are content to live on baguette and cheap wine, our dollars will stretch."

She laughed, "Women with babies growing are not allowed cheap wine!"

The poached salmon was divine. The bottle of premier cru white burgundy was going to make a very large hole in my wallet. Bohemians in Paris did not live like this.

"Andrew, you have too many big ideas on the table at once. Let's go back to simple conversation about art and writing. When we get home, we will scream and shout and decide on the other."

I kissed the back of her hand. "Scream and shout."

I asked where she wanted to take her art from the modest reputation and one showing she had had in a Back Bay gallery in Boston.

We were walking out by the time she answered. "Damn you. I have a standard answer to that question, but the thought of weeks in Paris absorbing art has me all crossed up. I haven't a clue where I would be headed when I got back here. Not a clue."

I was driving to the farmhouse, avoiding the freeway, when she poked my arm. "What would Paris do to your writing? You are the one cooking up this goose chase."

I smiled at her. "I could reinvent Poirot, but give him a modern reputation and clients in places like Switzerland."

"Yes. He takes the TGV to Geneva, but when he comes back from the lounge, the other passenger in his compartment is slumped over with a knife in his back!"

"Nice start, but I think you have the TGV and the Orient Express confused."

I parked in the usual spot next to the apple trees, and slung her over my shoulder, where my hand could find its way under the hem of the dress and attack her muscular rear.

"Now who is more than half serious? You are already doing plots. If I can sell them, we stay longer. Better yet, you do the illustrations in black and white. Perfect for mysteries. Will definitely sell."

She was carefully and slowly undressing. This time, the pieces were handed to me, rather than dropped on the floor. She twirled, letting her hair fly out, along with wisps of her fragrance.

She stopped, hands on hips, legs spread. "You've had me once today. Is there anything left?"

She trimmed the hair surrounding her sex. The light was very dim and her white skin, with that dark shadow at the junction of her legs, would make a fine self-portrait. Better in the attic in Paris, however.

"What is that look about?"

"In the attic, in Paris, we are going to get a full length mirror. When the light is just right, you are going to do a self-portrait. Your face is going to have the same mix of mystery, and strength, and beauty."

She jumped at me and propelled us to the bed.

"Andrew! This is too much. All of a sudden, you are not the elusive, reclusive writer. You are romancing the hell out of me, my body is tingling all over, and I am confused worse than I was that morning I walked in on you."

My fingers danced up and down her back. "I guess we better start planning the trip. No doubt, you will have to delay our picnic with Olivier."

She laughed gaily, "He has French relatives! It will serve you right when he shows up at the attic door!"

I groaned miserably and kissed her. She pulled up the blanket and cuddled with me. "I don't know about the screaming and shouting."

I held her close and said, "It must be the artist in you that sets me off. A personality that can go to a special place and imagine a different reality. A reality that emerges on your easel."

"Hmmm. Do you want me to tell you what I am imagining right now?"

I kissed the back of her neck, still a little buzzed from the wine. "Please."

"The attic has windows with a northern exposure and my easel is set before them. The room is larger than we expected, perhaps eight by ten meters. Everything is painted a pale gray, as though the landlord anticipated an artist would occupy the room and want a neutral background. I am sitting on a stool in front of the easel. Even the smock I have on is light gray. You bought it for me after we saw the room.