by Lores Steblur

He was just one of the odd assortment of students, business people, and housewives in my evening French class. I only got to know him a little better than the others because after each class our paths coincided for a few blocks, as I walked home and he to his subway stop. We got into the habit of continuing our French speaking efforts as we walked.

"Et, maintenant, ou allez-vous?" I would ask, affecting the perkiest French accent I could muster.

"Umm" He would think of something he could say "Je vais chez moi pour mon diner."

"Oh, mais c'est tres en retard! Vous n'avez pas mangè?"

"Non, et j'ai tres faim."

We'd walk on in silence for a while until we reached the cross street that leads to the T stop.

"Au revoir."

"Au revoir, jusqu' à la classe prochaine."

Since we never spoke English to each other, and our French was rudimentary at best, he remained a stranger. The same was true for the rest of the class, and this was actually one of the things I enjoyed about it, since I like watching people and it's easier to watch people that you don't know than people that you do. I knew a few facts about each of them from their answers to the little personal questions our teacher would use for in-class drill, but the different ways they would struggle to answer in a foreign language without making a fool of themselves were much more revealing. I had plenty of material for idle speculation, which I would indulge in when the spotlight wasn't on me. I'd picture the stiff man who always came in a three-piece suit still wearing that suit as he meticulously waxed his car every Saturday, sculpted evergreen shrubs in the background. Or I'd imagine the recriminations as the couple from Reading, who didn't seem to be able to let each other finish a sentence even when they didn't speak the language, tried to settle who was responsible for the huge credit card balance.

About my after-class companion, I knew that he was a student at a local art school, he was married but his wife was away, his weekend plans often included skiing, his favorite restaurant was Italian. My first impression was that he was shy and bookish -- he was usually pretty rumpled -- but he emerged after a while as someone with an impish sense of humor, claiming, for example, butter was his favorite breakfast food after the rest of us had settled for the more conventional eggs, cereal, or fruit. Sometimes he would try to make a joke that stretched his little bit of grammar past its limits, whereupon he would reconfirm my first impression of him by sinking back in his chair to scribble in his notebook, red rising in his cheeks. He was amusingly, sometimes even endearingly, empathetic, wincing in embarrassment as others stammered and struggled through their little phrases. He seemed nice, but it never occurred to me to think of him as anything but a pleasant stranger. After we bid our weekly adieu I thought no more about him.

As I walked out of the building after the last class meeting, I saw that a cold winter rain had started. My acquaintance was standing just outside the front door, opening his umbrella. When he saw me he smiled. "Avez-vous un . . ." He shook his umbrella to indicate what he was trying to ask, and I nodded, taking mine out of my handbag. He waited at the bottom of the stairs as I arranged myself. As we started down the street, he looked around, then blew a disgusted sigh, puffing out both cheeks. "Pphww, Il pleut."

Despite the weather, I was in a good mood that evening, looking forward to getting home to hang a gorgeous new picture I had bought from my best friend and favorite artist. Besides which, I'm generally a cheerful person -- sometimes I'm even accused of being a Pollyanna. I had had enough French for the day, though. "Well, that was fun," I chirped, "a good diversion for a grim winter's evening. I think I'll miss it."

"Yeah, it was OK. I just wish I could actually speak French."

"I think you did pretty well. You were one of the quickest learners in the class."

We trudged down the street in silence for a bit. My picture on my mind, I asked, "Do I remember correctly that you're studying at the Art Institute? I have a friend who finished a degree there a few years ago. She loved it once she found the right teachers."

"Yeah, I guess I'm still working at that, but I think it's gonna be OK. Whose studio was she in?"

"Frederica Hernandez. Does she still teach there?" I queried.

"No, she's gone. I've heard she was pretty cool, though. What's your friend doing now? Is she showing anywhere?"

"Oh, she's doing wonderfully! She had a show of prints at Harvard that just ended last week. It was magnificent!" I get carried away whenever I talk about my friend Sally's prints.

"Were those the figures in gray and brown?" he asked. I nodded affirmative. "Those were nice, one of the better shows I've seen this year." I had met enough art students to know that this was high praise.

"I've just bought one of her landscapes. I spent all weekend trying to decide where to hang it. It's a lot brighter than the pictures you saw -- really something to cheer one up this time of year."

"She's really lucky to have someone who cares about how it's shown. It's hard to let something go if you don't know where it'll end up. That's why I don't want to be a successful artist. Having to sell things is a drag." He said it as a joke, but I sensed some bitterness.

"Sally used to feel that way, too, but she got over it after she got her first few checks. I'm sure you will too." I find gloomy artists a bit hard to take. "You know, she's a very very nice person, and she knows a lot of gallery owners around town. I'm sure she would be happy to talk to you about the business side of things -- she likes helping people to make the transition from school to the real world." I immediately felt misgivings about so cavalierly volunteering Sally's time. I always want everybody to be happy, and it always seems to get me into trouble.

"Well, actually, I was kinda curious about her printing techniques after the show. Would she talk to me about that?"

"Oh yes, I'm sure she'd love to tell you all about it. I'll give you the number at her studio. Call her any weekday after one in the afternoon. She usually doesn't answer the phone in the morning. Tell her I gave you her number. Oh, wait, she just moved into a new studio. Hmm . . ." I tried to rummage in my handbag while holding the umbrella.

"That's OK, I'm sure someone at school will know how to find her. Maybe the alumni office."

We were standing on the corner where we normally went our separate ways. My house, and therefore my address book, was only a half block away. "If you don't mind a little detour, I can get you her number. My house is just ahead, on this block."

"Um, sure, yeah I can do that."

We trudged on. He was scanning the old brownstones on both sides of the street. "I've never met anyone who lived in this neighborhood before. It's one of my faves. Even in this weather these houses are beautiful."

I started to effuse about just what a wonderful neighborhood it was when we got to my door. "Come in. It will just take me a minute to find the number." I slid off my boots, stepped into my house slippers, and had started down the hall when it occurred to me how fun it would be to show off my new prize possession. "If you want to see my new print, it's leaning against the wall just around the corner there. But if you don't mind, could you take off your shoes first?" I get so tired of all the mud in winter.

"Yeah, sure, no problem." He started unlacing his shoes while I continued on into the kitchen to get my address book. When I came back he was crouched in front of the print. "This's even nicer than the ones in the show. I'm really into the control she has over each edge -- some totally sharp, some smeared like this one. That's what I want to ask her about. I've just started printmaking, and I can't deal with the way they teach it at school. They should have hired your friend, not that idiot Goss." He looked up. "Is this the wall you're hanging it on?" I nodded. "Cool," he commented approvingly. He went back to studying the print. "I love the balance in this piece, the solid black form down here against the diffuse blue and green up there." He pointed out several other features and I nodded and passed on a few remarks Sally had made to me about the work. I was thrilled to find someone I could talk to about it, someone who's appreciation went beyond the insipid gush "Oooo, pretty." His conversation was articulate and intelligent, and any misgivings I had about giving him Sally's number faded.

After a while I realized my knees were hurting. We had been hunched over in front of the print for at least fifteen minutes. "Look," I said, "if you're not in a hurry, how about coffee or a cup of tea? I could use some warming up."

"Oh, OK. Yeah, tea sounds great. I don't have to be anywhere."

I went into the kitchen and put the water on. I could hear him working his way around the front room, pausing in front of the other pictures and knickknacks, taking in the pictures of my husband and son, looking out the bay windows. "Man, this is an incredibly cool place. I always wondered if these old brownstones were as nice on the inside as on the outside," he exclaimed, so I could hear in the kitchen.

"I couldn't imagine living anyplace else," I called back.

I brought in two cups of steaming tea, as well as some cheese and crackers and lox. I had a feeling he didn't eat before class, and it was now a little after eight o'clock.

"Please, have a seat," I said, placing a cup by the armchair and motioning for him to sit down. He did so without a word, still looking around, then picked up his cup to blow on it. I sat on the sofa. The picture that had animated him a minute ago was now behind his back. To get things going again, I fell back on convention. "So, how did you decide to become a painter?" I asked.

I needn't have worried. With a little prompting he described how he had spent his childhood painting and drawing but how, for practicalities sake, he had studied biology in college and had then taken a job at a big pharmaceutical company, a job he gave up when he realized that he would never forgive himself if he didn't try to make it as a serious painter. He also talked about the period after he quit his job, when he traveled with his wife, who worked in international aid, and the struggle of trying to paint as they moved from one place to another. As he grew more comfortable with me, his dry, sometimes sarcastic sense of humor surfaced, no longer crippled by French. I asked a leading question now and then, but mostly I just enjoyed listening. It seemed like forever since I had had a conversation with a man young enough not to be in my generation but enough older than my son to seem like an adult.

After an hour or so, there was a lull. "Well, I've gone on long enough," he said. "I'm sure there's nothing more fascinating than my life story, but I'd like to eat some of this salmon." He piled some cheese and lox on a cracker. "What kind of work do you do?"

The question caught me off guard -- I had just been thinking how interesting this man's life seemed compared to mine. "Oh, I'm just a doctor's wife. Our son has just started college, so I collect beautiful things for the house, I work part-time for the Red Cross, sometimes I take a class or two."

"You'll have to do better than that," he said, through a mouthful of cracker crumbs. "How did you and Sally meet?"

"Oh, my, we go way back. We went to college together." Having someone else to talk about made things easier. I described how we had both gotten married in college, and how Sally had divorced ten years ago and then gone back to school, and how proud I was of her.

"So what'd you study in college?"

"I was a history major. I passionately love medieval history. Oh, lord, in those days I dreamt of spending my life in old monastery libraries in Europe. Actually, that's why I was in the French class. Now that my son is gone, I'm thinking of going back to school, so I need to try to resurrect my languages. It's truly horrifying how much you lose in 20 years."

"So I guess these aren't here just to impress people," he said, pointing to my medieval manuscript facsimiles on the coffee table.

"Oh, no, no. Those are my inspiration. I'm determined to get the credentials so I can study the originals someday." In truth, my plan to go back to school was just forming. This was the first time I had talked to someone as if it would actually happen.

"That sounds cool." He picked up a reproduction of a medieval book of hours and started leafing though it. "I'm really into medieval art, into what came before and after realism in European art. These are so stylized but they can be incredibly intense without being about the artist's ego. There's a modesty in them that I want to get to in my own work." He stopped on a group of mitered bishops and saints. "Like this one. What's going on here?"

I got up and walked around the back of his chair and started to explain the iconography of the picture he was looking at. It was small, so I bent over to point out some details. His musky smell drifted into my nostrils with the warm air rising off his body. Our hands brushed. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. It dawned on me that what I was having a conversation with was flesh and blood, a human body, no, more than that, a male human body. I noticed the vague bulge that the bottom of the book in his lap was resting against. I faltered as the proverbial ton of bricks fell. "You see here, ummm, the, ummm, hands folded in the saint's lap, as opposed, um, to the other figures . . ." As I continued to babble I looked at the wedding ring on his finger. My husband's behavior had long ago made fidelity a non-issue in our marriage, but somehow I hoped that my new friend and his ambitious wife could manage to treat each with more dignity. It didn't seem right to take advantage of her absence. Men, I knew, didn't have a lot of will power -- somehow that always fell to us. I went back to the sofa and sat down. But I needed to know more.

"I remember you said in class that your wife is away for, what, five months?"

"Uh-huh," he answered absently, still studying the picture.

"That must be awful. I can't imagine how I would deal with it if Fred went away for that long," I lied.

"Yeah, I wish I could say that I get used to it. I mean, I knew this is what it would be like when we got married. I'd never ask her to give up her work -- it's too important to her. It's who she is, who I married. But, yeah, I won't try to be a tough guy and pretend it's not hard for me. I hate it every time she goes. What about your husband -- is he gone a lot too?" He was looking out the window.

"Well, he's an important surgeon -- he goes on consulting trips for a few weeks at a time, oh, about once every two months."

"So he's gone as much as my wife, but it's more spread out. That seems like it would be better."

"It's fine. I'm used to it now. It gives me the space to do things I couldn't do when he and Mitch were home all the time."

"Hmm." He leaned back in his chair and looked at me. "You don't really sound like you miss your husband very much."

I had to laugh. "You've seen right through me. How devastating." I watched him hungrily slide a glossy mound of pink salmon into his mouth. Impulsively, I said, "Hey, it's time for my evening glass of wine. I'm working on a delicious bottle of Chardonnay. Can I tempt you?"

"Yeah. Consider me tempted."

I went to the kitchen to fetch the bottle and a couple of glasses, mulling over the connotations of our last little exchange, which I, Mrs. Willpower, had initiated. When I got back he was looking at a book of photographs of Gothic cathedrals. We traded stories of traveling through Europe, not only of cathedrals but of Texans ordering lunch from rude French waiters and harrowing train trips and Italian village hospitality. From his stories I was getting more of a sense of his wife and of their relationship. After a bit of wine, I decided that it was strong enough to weather a little dalliance on his part. What did she expect, anyway, leaving this delightful little package of pheromones for five months at a time? I had pulled out a picture album from one of our trips, to show him my favorite cathedrals, which had necessitated him moving over to the sofa.

"You were an awesome family," he commented, flipping through pictures from a European trip we had taken when my son was still golden-haired and my husband hadn't lost his football-player physique. The distance between us, initially polite, was narrowing as I pointed out details of the various cathedrals in the small snapshots. His warmth and the smell returned with a vengeance. Our hands brushed more and more often. The cathedrals and cobblestone streets ended abruptly, and there was blue sky and sandy beaches, and me in a ridiculously revealing bikini.

"My, oh my. Where was this taken?"

"St. Tropez." I felt my face flush. I stammered "how I wish I could have that woman's body again! Why didn't I enjoy it more at the time? I was always so self-conscious when we were at those French resorts, but Fred insisted that I wear the latest thing."

"I'd say you do have that woman's body." I could practically hear the wheels turning in his head. "It's been hard for me to believe that you have a son going to college. I guess these pictures prove it." I felt some movement where he had slyly stretched his arm along the back of the sofa a while before. Fingers were stroking the nape of my neck. Lips appeared at my ear. "Your husband may not appreciate what he has, but I do." The lips moved down to my neck. An arm was draped across my waist.

I tried to protest. "Uhhhhm. Something tells me that your wife does appreciate, um." At the word wife he stopped. I took a deep breath. "Does appreciate what she has, and wouldn't appreciate me appreciating it also."

"Yeah. I guess so. If she knew she'd be pissed. But I can still love her and, um, appreciate you for a while. Not for too long. As long as you don't have long-term designs on me. Do you have a basement full of lonely husbands stuffed in boxes?" The fingers and arms and lips went back to work. I think he knew that I was only offering token resistance. I turned my head so that our lips met. His hands wrapped around the back of my head and pulled my mouth into his. On his breath was the tang of the salmon I had watched enviously a while before. Sitting side by side was no longer tolerable. I nudged him up as I slid my legs onto the couch and then pulled him on top of me. Now I was able to wrap my arms around him as we kissed. I sent my hands on a little expedition. Yes, nice thick hair. Uh-huh, ears, furry neck, bristly chin, cheekbones, soft, rubbery eyelids, eyebrows, yes, back to all that hair. Look at me, my fingers seemed to be saying, like kids in new snow, I'm playing in all this hair! His hand was exploring new terrain as well -- up and down my back, then tentatively across my buttocks and onto my thigh. After a while it returned, coming to rest on my ribs. Feeling that its trip was not complete, I nudged it over a few inches to place it on my right breast. One of his legs found its way between mine, and he sent his tongue deep into my mouth. Shivers went down my spine as his fingers traced the outline of my electrically charged nipple. His mouth moved away from mine, across my eyes, down to my neck and chin, and then to my ear. My earlobe was gently nibbled. Warm breath tickled against my eardrum. It said "I think it's time for me to take your clothes off."

I found an ear of my own, whispering "I think it's time for me to take you to my bedroom." I rolled on top of him, straddling him, pushing him into the sofa cushions as I ran my hands up and down on his chest. I though about what it would be like to straddle him with no clothes intervening, and that gave me the energy to stand up, take his hand in mine, urge him off the sofa, and lead him to the staircase. He balked as I started climbing the stairs. "Do you have any condoms?" he asked.

I hadn't thought about this. My tubes were tied years ago, and anyway sex hadn't been much a part of my life for a while. "Uh, I'm not sure," I answered. "But it's safe, I think."

"No, we need to use one. But it's not a problem." He went to the foyer, where he had left his briefcase. I heard a zipper, and he came back with a small cardboard box.

I couldn't suppress an exclamation. "You little devil!" How is it that all men are such cads? I felt a pang. Please lord, I prayed, let me hang onto my last scrap of detachment with this one. Let me enjoy him and laugh about it later.

He played innocent. "I've been carrying these around for a while. It gave me a feeling of independence -- I didn't expect to actually use them." He climbed up to stand on the stair below me so our faces were level, placed his hands on my waist and looked solemnly into my eyes. A corner of his mouth twitched and then rose in a sly grin. Our noses touched as he said, softly, "After every class I'd get weird ideas about following you home, like some lost puppy. It seemed like a safe fantasy. I guess that proves what they say about how you should be careful what you wish for." I turned, taking him by the hand and led him into my bedroom.

I started to unbutton my blouse. "Oh, no, no, no, no, Madame," he exclaimed, in a fake French accent. "You must allow me." Sitting me on the bed, he unbuttoned my blouse, slid my arms out of it, and draped it over a chair. He then stood, leaning over my shoulder, and explored the bra straps on by back. "Mmm, c'est un probleme," he muttered.

I wanted to be helpful. "It's on the front," I said.

"Oh, mais oui, so it is." He unclasped and removed the bra, put it on top of the blouse, then knelt in front of me, gently tracing the contours of both breasts with his hands. He leaned in and brushed my nipples with his nose, then his lips. He teased them with his tongue. Involuntarily, I arched my back, took two fistfuls of hair and pulled him to me. He took a nipple into his mouth and it was as if I had been plugged into an electrical socket. My scalp tingled and I rocked slowly back and forth, holding his face firmly to my breast. Heat rose between my legs. When I released him he sat at my feet and removed my slippers, kissing each instep. He stood up and indicated for me to do the same, unzipped my skirt, dropped it to the floor, knelt in front of me and peeled off my panty hose. He pulled my naked body to him and ran his nose through my pubic hair, taking a deep breath, then rose to his feet, pulled back the sheets of the bed and motioned me in with a flourish. "Madame could get cold." I watched him undress. A patch of fuzzy chest hair emerged as he unbuttoned his shirt. Delicate feet slipped out of his socks. Under his pants his underwear was straining to contain its awkward cargo. He carefully stretched the elastic outward so it would clear his penis and then slid his shorts down his long lean legs.

It had been a while since I had been able to observe the implausibility of male anatomy in its fully upright position. How could such a thing be so appealing? It flopped around as he turned to slide into bed. It seemed to need a hand, so I gave it mine. It was silky smooth to the touch, radiating heat, a fabulous, exhilarating hand warmer. His mouth dropped open and he seemed to stop breathing as I experimented with all the ways I could wrap my hands around it, squeeze it, stroke it. I reached around to grab a fleshy cheek and pulled us together. Our lips locked again and our hands ran rampant. Skin! Skin! Skin! Why, I wondered, does there have to be more to it than the miraculous feeling of two naked bodies pressed together? Couldn't we just enjoy this warm, friendly intimacy and forego the moist violence of thrashing genitals? The swollen penis pressing against me, though, proclaimed in no uncertain terms that I would not be allowed to linger in purgatory for long. He shifted me onto my back and planted soft kisses over my face, my ears, and my neck before returning to my breasts. I felt a finger slide teasingly up the inside of my thigh. Up and down a few times and then some playful loops through my pubic hair, then tracing out the shape of the moist slit between my legs. My whole body shuddered. Gently but insistently folds of skin were pushed aside as he searched for and found the bull's-eye. I gasp and press back into the mattress. Finger strokes send tentacles of pleasure up to the back of my neck and down to my toes. There is movement, rustling under the covers, I feel sandpaper whiskers brush against the inside of my thigh, and the finger is replaced by a tongue. As he sucks on my distended vulva a charge spreads over my entire body, and my mouth, my hands and arms and skin cry out for contact, for substance. I pull him back on top of me, wrap my arms around him again, squeeze him against me, run my hands up and down his smooth back. I smell him and taste him and taste myself on him. His cock makes a searing impression in my soft belly. He slides off of me onto his side, props himself up on an elbow and looks into my eyes. "I'd like it if you would, uhhh." He closes my hand around his penis while running his tongue lightly over my lips.

Pushing him onto his back, I straddle his legs and sit back on my heals to contemplate his dick. As I start to fondle it I flash back incongruously to the model rockets my son used to build. I never understood their attraction, but fingering his fleshy, volatile projectile, sensing its pent-up energy, the half-comic, half- tragic striving of every erection for its brief, explosive glory, I begin to understand. I bend over to take it into my mouth. Its heft is just as satisfying in my mouth as in my hands, and I'm also rewarded with a new, salty taste. I take it in and out, run my tongue over the tip. I hear him gasp, feel, with my hands, the muscles in his ass pull taut. With just a stroke of my tongue I send him into gasping spasms, and then I release him. I feel powerful, knowing I have the master control to every nerve in his body in my mouth. He pulls on my hair, he twists, he moans. I show him no mercy. I sense him going over the edge, pushing up, the muscles in his stomach stand out, his penis straining against my grip. A sweet taste explodes into my mouth. He writhes a few more times as I finish milking him, then his body goes limp and his arms drop to his side.

I lie on top of him, and he folds me into his arms, murmuring "I think I must be dead now." I pull the covers back over us and let him trace curlicues up and down my back. Though he's lying inert, I'm pleased that there still seems to be a substantial bulge between our crotches. I prop myself up, smell his hair and fondle his earlobes.

Enough lying around sweetly! I blow down his ear. "Hey, mister, every good death deserves a resurrection." He grunts, but also starts to show signs of life. He rolls us over onto our side, pulls our mouths together and reaches down to take a handful of my ass. I investigate and find that his equipment is indeed still serviceable.

He rolls away from me, I hear some box-opening noises before he returns with a condom. "Any volunteers?" he asks, tearing open the foil. After I delicately roll it on he climbs between my legs and slides down to take a few mouthfuls of my stomach and then a breast. Fingers dance on my thigh again, and then on my vagina and into it and up to my clit sending magic tentacles of pleasure snaking through my body again. I briefly wonder how the people who write chewing gum commercials would describe this sensation ("it's cuntilicious!") but he's perched over me now and I can feel his fingers spreading me. He penetrates and I yield, welcome, engulf. He fills me, starts moving slowly. Every part of me is engaged. My mouth finds his mouth, his ear, his neck. My hands pull his hair, or caress the muscles in his arms or back, or fondle his balls and the shaft of the penis that I'm moistening. My breasts wait to be kneaded like bread in his hands. My cunt contains him. I shift with him, pushing into the impact of his slow, firm thrusts. With an inexorable rhythm, he pumps me full of electric pleasure, rising, rising, still rising, a flooding river pushing against its crumbling levees. My levees burst, but the rhythm persists, I clasp him to me, pressing against him with all my strength, he's my life raft as I thrash in the seething waves of a warm ocean of ecstasy. He speaks. "I want to turn you over." I can only groan. He withdraws and rolls me onto my stomach, lifting up on my hips so I'm on all fours. Kneeling behind, he plants his cock deep inside me again, deeper even than before. My arms buckle. He keeps a firm grip on my hips, rocking me into him as he thrusts. A brusque hand on my ass pushes me down onto my stomach, his weight is on me again, he wraps his strong arms around me, grabbing both my breasts like handles. His thrusting accelerates, teeth sink into the soft skin of my shoulder. I arch my back pushing my ass into him, striving to take him as deeply as possible. His embrace is almost suffocating. I twist against his grip reaching between my legs to find his balls, as he drives desperately into me, groaning, my hand clasping the pulsing contractions between his legs as his cock labors to fill me with his seed.

A curtain of stillness fell then, as if we had suddenly emerged from a reverberant tunnel into a vast, empty space. In the stillness I became aware of familiar sounds--the swish-hiss of a car stopping at the corner, the oblivious, plodding tick-tick-tick of my clock. I could hear his panting breath now, feel the flutter of his racing heart against my back. I lay spread-eagle under his bulk, limp, rubbery as a jellyfish, though a warm energy still coursed from my crotch to my tingling extremities. After a while his vital signs subsided, he started to lift himself off me, to withdraw, then leaned down to softly kiss the back of my neck. He carefully removed himself from me, easing over onto the bed at my side, then wrapped his arm around my waist and urged me to roll against him. We lay in silence for some time, fingers aimlessly brushing. I wondered how long I could manage to stay blissfully suspended between the selfless fucking that had come before and the inevitable crashing-down of the real world, the having to put clothes on and go places and talk to people as the same old me as if nothing had happened. The having to find some psychic space in which to put this young painter pressed against my naked body so that life could go on. I was aware of the fragility of the bubble that was protecting me from facing all this, but I was determined to hang on as long as possible to the luxurious glow. I knew there would be time for consequences later.

As it happened, the spell was broken in the most mundane of ways, by urgent messages from my tea and wine-filled bladder that could not be put off or rationalized away. Easing myself off the bed, promising "I'll be back in a minute," I padded down the hushed, dark hall to the bathroom.

On my return, I found him gingerly working the condom off his half- erect penis.

"Mon Dieu!" I exclaimed, "il y a un homme, mmm . . ." trying to remember the French word for naked, then improvising "sans les vetements dans ma salle."

"Oui," he replied, smiling sheepishly, "et j'ai tres faim."