Secure

Yes, we talked. I talked at first, and Monsieur listened, as that’s his way. For someone who can make idle conversation in seven languages, he’s remarkably taciturn when it comes to his feelings; me, I can speak only one language well, and just try to shut me up in that one.

Monsieur talked about the pending lawsuit that he’s facing, and how he feels betrayed by the people he worked for. Basically he is being sued because the company who is suing him didn’t do what he told them that they should do. They are being fined by their state regulatory agency, for not following the law, and so they’re suing him almost out of reflex. It’s a nuisance to them, but it’s his livelihood, his home, everything he’s worked for that he has to fight. Monsieur is worried that, if he ends up losing his home and land, he’ll have to move into town into some rent house or apartment, crowding his kids all in a smaller place, living under the eyes of neighbors. He is afraid I’d feel crowded and without the lovely house and huge backyard, his kids would be unhappy, and that I’d just up and leave. He knows I’m kind of needy, and thinks I should have things that I don’t have here, and that I would rather be in graduate school and dating younger men, working in theatre and having fun.

And he has to go out of town and be away for almost a week, which is bothering him, because he hates where he has to go, but he’ll do it because if he doesn’t take this job, he won’t be able to finance his defense lawyer.

I was hurt by the suggestion that I’m so needy and would be happier with things and with someone else, and the idea that I’d just leave him because of a change in address. But to my credit I shut up and I listened. At some point, I just held him. He was quiet, and he sighed in such a way I thought it was a sob. I hoped, prayed, wished, he would cry it all out.

I’ve never really seen him cry, even through all this, even after Maggie died, I never saw him really cry. His eyes got red sometimes, his face went from this ashen gray to a bright pink, but no sounds, no weeping, nothing. Me, I cried all the time. I cried when we went through Maggie’s clothes, to give them away. I cried when I had gathered up her mascara and lipstick, when I had found the one shade she showed me and said, “I call this Cock Sucking Red, you should borrow it sometime,” with a wink. I cried months later when I had found a Jamie Cullum T-shirt wadded up under the upstairs bathroom sink, that smelled of her sweat and that cheesy almond oil she used on her skin. I had closed the bathroom door so the boys wouldn’t walk in on me, held it in front of my face and cried.

Monsieur talked to me about a lot of things, about Iraq and Fiji and West Africa and some of the horrible and wonderful things he’s seen and been through. He talked about being young, in France and being thought of as American because he was born in California. As a result, he styled himself as an authority on all things American to the other kids. They couldn’t play cowboys or gangsters without him; since he had been born in America, only he knew how they really wore their hats, how they really drove their cars, how they really shot their guns. He became the technical advisor for playing anything that had an American theme, from cops and robbers to rock and roll.

I listened to the story of how his whole life, he never really felt like he belonged in what they told him was his own country, and never felt at home in America either. He speaks French with an accent, and he speaks English with an accent. No matter where he went, he was marked a foreigner, a stranger in a strange land, slow of speech and slow of tongue. He wandered across Europe, playing American pop songs for Germans, playing Irish folk songs for Hungarians, playing anything for anyone.

He casually mentioned some girl’s name I hadn’t heard, someone who had let him sleep in a spare storage shed when he was down and out, and I asked him about her. I wasn’t trying to pry, I just said, “tell me about her.”

At first he rather shied from that, but I asked him gentle questions, why she let him stay, what did she do? What was her story? She was married to a man who drove a semi-truck from Scotland to Turkey, and who was gone most of the time. I asked him if he had slept with her, and he said he had. I asked if he had loved her, and he said, “I tried very hard not to, but men are weak that way. Most women can decide for themselves whether to fall for the men with whom they have affairs of the heart; men are not able to differentiate as easily and that is their failing.”

There were many affairs, he said, but no girlfriends. He did not manage to date women, to have a girlfriend, or to hold a full time job. He joined the army almost out of distraction, thinking he needed to learn skills and come out with “knowledge under the fingers”. He ended up in Mechanized Infantry, and though he was very highly regarded, came to hate it as he was deployed to Kuwait, then to West Africa and Fiji. His team’s job was to be the first to go into an area and make sure it was secure.

“How did you know when it was secure?” I asked him.

“When they stopped shooting us. When everyone who could fire a weapon or plant an explosive was either captured or dead. When the construction battalion people could come in, and rebuild the bridges that were destroyed, and set up communications.”

I didn’t reply. I held him.

“I finished my time, and left, less sure of myself than I was when I went in. The sound of a round being discharged, gives me a feeling of untold grief.”

“Is that why you don’t let your boys have toy guns?” I asked. “Is that why you don’t keep a gun in your house, even against wolves and coyotes?”

“Partially. I don’t want my boys to have romantic notions about firearms. Also, such weapons are terribly imprecise. Let them discover this when they are older; should they become interested in such things.”

“Some people would describe you as a pacifist,” I whispered.

“Some people like easy labels,” he replied. “Besides, I know of few combat veterans worth their weight who would truly enjoy the sound of gunfire, or who would not like to see war’s end.”

We talked until late at night, me in his arm laying my head on his chest. I listened to his deep baritone, not saying much of anything, just listening. He would pause and I would think he was asleep. Then he would start again, speaking so softly and so distractedly that it was almost like listening to the ocean. A wave of murmurs, and then a pause, a few breaths, repeating at odd intervals for hours. His chest was a seashell against my ear, making each word resonate; we were on top of the blankets because he was so warm I needed nothing but his voice around me. My hair cascaded across his chest and onto the blanket around him. I wanted to shield him from the world.

There was a long pause, and he said, “When we met you, that time, at my sisters’ house, and you were her roommate…” he paused.

“Yes,” I said.

“I felt so ashamed, of how I wanted to see you again,” he said almost inaudibly.

“I know.”

“I felt myself becoming what I was, someone who not respect the marriage, someone who would seduce a girl, and I was ashamed. Even when Maggie would talk about you as a good friend, I was not receptive to that. I did not want her to be close to you. I did not want you to be near her.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know at the time.”

“Old habits,” he said, and did not finish the sentence. Then he began again, “Of the two of us, she would have said that she was the more likely to sleep with someone else, and before I had met you, I would have agreed. She could not contain herself very well. But, with you, I was the more tempted, and the guilt is more burning when we met you because you were still very much a child.”

“I was nineteen, past the age of consent,” I said, somewhat defensively.

“But not past the age when you could have been objective,” he said quickly. “For a married man in my mid thirties, married to a woman like Maggie, to look at a girl of nineteen, it is criminal.”

“You can’t help how you feel,” I said. “I wanted you and Maggie. I flirted with you and Maggie. I tempted both of you. I knew what I wanted. I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t know it was causing you such conflict. I was not ...” I looked for the word.

“You were not yet grown up, for one,” he said.

“No, I guess I wasn’t.”

He paused, breathing somewhat deeply, and I thought he might let go and finally cry.

“Yet you were so alive, so full of joy. And you were ... you are ... so beautiful. So beautiful.” He held me tighter under his arm, and my arms went around him. I held him tight.

“You have no idea,” I said, finally, “how much I need you to tell me that.”

He rolled over me and kissed me. His mouth was warm, and his lips were searching mine, and he moved against my body and kissed me like he meant it. Most guys kiss me like they’re trying to turn me on, because they want something. Which is okay. When Monsieur kisses me like he kissed me, it was like I was the center of the universe, and he wanted nothing more. He kissed me like I belonged. He kissed me like he loves me. My arms went around him, he was my darling, he was my everything.

“I’m sorry that – ” I began, between kisses.

“Hush, ma belle douce,” he whispered and kissed me.

“But I’ve been so bad,” I protested.

“Still yourself,” he said, “you were never bad.”

“But, I just wanted to ... I mean, I was only thinking of myself,” I said, through tears.

“You have every right to ask for what you want,” he said, “and not to apologize.” He kissed me.

My tears were streaming down my face, but I didn’t talk. I didn’t deserve him. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t stop crying.

“You are sad?” he said, finally. He pulled away and looked into my eyes.

“No. Yes. I don’t know,” I admitted. “I feel guilty.”

“Yes, as do I, but that is only because you have a good heart. I see who you are. We see the good in you. The boys see your intent. They are loved. We are loved.” He kissed me. “And so, you are loved.”

My arms and my legs went around him and I held him as close to me as I could.

“How can you stay with me,” he asked, “if I don’t take care of you properly?”

“How can you think you don’t? I get all I need, if not all I want.” I closed my eyes as tears streamed from them. I kissed his cheeks, and they were wet. I don’t know if they were wet from my tears, or from his.

He sat up in bed, and, turning around to make sure that the door was shut tightly, he lifted my nightgown, grasped the gusset of my panties in one hand and pulled. I lifted my hips, sniffing my tears, and my panties were pulled down and off of me. He leaned back down and kissed my neck, my collarbone, my shoulders. My nipples crinkled and my heart leaped in my ribs. I pressed against him, realizing I hadn’t showered all day and I hadn’t shaved my legs, or down there, since Wednesday. I was a bit fuzzy. I hoped he didn’t mind. He didn’t seem to. He pressed against me, and I felt him against my vulva. His cock.

I wanted to tell him that it was all right. He kissed my breasts and my voice didn’t come. I wanted to tell him that we didn’t have to do anything. He sucked and nibbled my nipples. I gasped, instead of saying that if he felt sad or afraid it was all right.

But all I could manage to say was, “Don’t.” I didn’t mean to say that, because he stopped.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and started to move off of me.

“No! ‘don’t STOP’, I meant,” I said, and, holding him by either side of his head, I put his lips back on me where they belong.

He kissed his way down, teasing my navel, then bit my tummy, gently. He started to move down and I said, “I’m, um, not shaved. Sorry,” I added. “I haven’t been very – ”

“Don’t be foolish, you’re beautiful, from your toes to the top of your head,” I heard him say, his voice muffled in my mons, the smooth baritone wafting up from between my legs, blending with my scent. His lips found my stubble, and despite my self-consciousness, I pulled his face tighter to me, half hoping that he wouldn’t be able to tell so much how stubbly I was.

“Besides,” he added after a while, “I haven’t shaved today either.” His mouth stayed closed as he kissed me there. I was swollen and I could feel the pulse in my sex, under his insistent lips. He held his lips to my labia, not opening them, just holding his face against it, while my nails went up and down his neck, and my fingers entwined in his hair. He kissed it again. I loved it, despite the heavy friction of his stubble against mine. Or maybe because of it.

His tongue emerged, licking the outside all over, running over the stubble on my labia. He licked me open then licked me shut. I wanted his tongue inside, his fingers, his cock. I ached to be penetrated but he lick, lick, licked it instead. I was slishy wet, running down his face, pooling up under me. Still he licked, up and down, all the way to my butt. I was afraid I wasn’t clean but he insisted, his face burying itself in my bottom, kissing, sucking, even biting me. My head spun and I felt like I was floating on clouds.

I writhed, bit my lips, tried to move but he was holding me down. I wanted to cry out but my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I finally managed to say the single word, “Stop,” and he stopped instantly.

“Nooo,” I protested, finally, gasping. “Don’t stop; I meant stop... stop teasing me.”

He looked up at me. “I am not teasing,” he said. “Not in the sense that I think; usually teasing is more of a sense of not allowing you to have your hopes satisfied –”

I mashed his face back down into my pussy. “Shut UP!” I screamed. “Suck. Lick ... there. My clit, and inside, I need to be fucked, fuck it, fuck me, fuck my OH GOD yes,” I cried, this as his tongue plunged into me, filling me with its warm prehensile girth, spreading me, making me delirious.

“I need to suck you,” I said. He held his tongue inside me and shook his head. I looked down, into his eyes. “I need you in my mouth,” I said.

He pulled his face from me, looked up and said, “Not tonight.”

I was crying. “Please. Don’t just ... please don’t just eat me; I must be fucked.”

He moved over me. He held my hands up over my head, and holding me by his wrists, he positioned his cock, thick and bobbing, between my legs. I captured it with my thighs, squeezing it hard and trying to work it in my pussy using only my quadriceps. I looked up at him, defiantly.

“You better fuck me,” I said. “Oh, sweet godamighty, if you don’t fuck me you are going to have one angry girl in your bed – ”

He held one finger to my lips. “Hush, sweetheart, you’re should not talk so,” he whispered.

I kissed the finger, then sucked it, writhing, moving against his cock. “Now,” I insisted. “I’m past ready.”

“Impatience is very becoming on you,” he smiled.

“I wish you’d be coming on me,” I said, smartly.

He didn’t say anything to that, but let go of my hands. He held his cock against my swollen pussy lips and was still. It felt like a warm, wet, iron bar. I moved against it, pushing down, reaching down to spread myself, enveloping it, opening up, moving against its immovable head, until it slowly filled me with

One.
Smooth.
Stroke.

His held thumb against my clit, his half-lidded eyes on me, and did not move.

I writhed against him more, lifting my hips, then my legs and locking them around his back He was motionless. I looked up at him, breathing through my teeth, trying to get him to move by stimulating him and gripping him with my Kegels, but he was as motionless as a lump of granite. A very sexy, well-defined, tall, dark, and hot lump of granite.

My hands went to pinch his nipples, then I bent forward to kiss him. He kissed me as gently as could be, his lips touched me like butterfly wings, like the eyelashes of an angel, which was as bad as his motionless body to me right then. I grabbed him by the back of his head, and pressed my lips tight to his, sucking his tongue. I felt a pulse in his cock, and he rubbed his thumb against my clitoris, lazily, not as fast as I wanted but very hard. Thump. Pause. Thump. Pause. He pinched it, rolling in his fingers, and I came, my vision going black as I cried. When I could see again, his hand was over my mouth and he was moving in and out of me, slowly, deliberately.

“Yes, angel,” he said, letting go of my mouth.

I don’t know what I said. I cried. I gasped, calling his name, calling for JesusMaryMoses and probably my Mommy, too, for all I know. I came again and held him, crying, crying, crying out. He watched me, and then a surge went through him and then into me. He filled me up, completely, holding me close to him as it pooled inside me and ran down my legs, down my crack, onto the sheet.

“Oh!” I cried, voicelessly.

“You are all right?” he asked me.

I nodded, unable to speak. He held me there, until I fell asleep with him still inside me.

When I woke up, it was morning, a sheet was over me, and my legs were apart. I was weak as a newborn lamb. I was unable to see straight, make a fist or walk properly. I staggered to the bathroom, not remembering anything right, and I sat on the toilet, unable to pee for many minutes, until everything relaxed.