She closed her eyes as the shadows of spring crossed her face. Our train pounded out the kilometers with the cadence of a noontime fuck. Lost in the throb and sway, her forgotten fingers pressed into the skin of an orange. I sat across from her in the little compartment, and watched the mist rise from the prickled skin, staining her starched blouse.
I drew on my pipe; the smoke lingered in fat hazy clouds under the French sun. I took out my pad and began to write.
The first scribbles–the intercourse of pencil and pad–were interrupted by my lover’s voice; “I still feel you inside me Henrí.” I looked up at my orphan of the storm. Marianna’s hair, brown and fresh, washed by my hands only that morning, was tied up, revealing the whiteness of her throat. If I didn’t know her, I would have mistaken her for a schoolgirl.
I patted the seat beside me. Limber and poised, she came across the short span and offered the orange. Then curling in the sun with her head on my lap, her breath warmed my thigh. As the train rocked, she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.
I’d known her for two months. We met on the first day of spring of 1930 in Paris, where we hid from thunder and rain in a shared doorway, laughing as idiot children at the hail and thunder. All the while, the scent of warm bread carried from an unknown walk-up further down the lane.
She spoke little English, and I, even less French. But within the intimacy of that wet doorway, we came to understand each other. With each explosion that split the sky, she pressed her petite body against my chest, her skirt slightly raised, her bony mound pressed snugly against my thigh. Shivering, her cold hand slid into the pocket of my greatcoat and curled about mine. Her eyes, cocoa rich and deceptively innocent, were full of laughter and happiness and a brazen dare. She, scented of garlic and bread, leaned against my shoulder as my lips touched strands of her dewy hair.
After the storm passed, she took my offered hand and we ran across the lane where we dined in a little café. We studied the four-entree menu where I learned her name as she ran fingers through her wet hair: “Marianna”
We dined as savages, driven by a ceaseless hunger. Stringy chicken and a poorly made fumé, the first green beans of the new season and bread with butter shared with a half bottle of the house red. Satiated, we ran across the street to my hotel. Up the spiraling iron steps–with the clang of feet and the innocent laughter of the drunk, we raced among the echoes inside a narrow stairwell. We reached the door and pressed together–our eyes locked, her lips ripe. I stood so near–I could taste the sweetness of her breath.
We poured into the hotel room, standing in awkward silence on polar sides of the bed, panting in the quiet. The moment charged with the rumble of distant thunder and spring rain.
“Henrí!”
She came into my arms. We fell back into the bed and laughed at the moaning springs and the rapid pounding of the neighboring wall. By dawn, Marianna and I were no longer strangers.
Marianna claimed to be twenty, but she dressed frightfully young–adorned in a simple brown dress and woolen leggings with black shoes. Since our first time together, she stopped wearing the pigtails. On the street, she was often mistaken for pubescent schoolgirl. She explained; “I like to dress this way. I’m given privileges that would normally be denied. Life is affordable if one is a child…”
But over those months, while Marianna held my gaze and the simple brown dress slid off her pale shoulders and while my lips grazed upon the tender brown hairs of her underarms, Marianna proved to be every bit a woman.
We arrived in Nice. I settled with the porter and we took procession of our rooms. Marianna ran a bath, her voice sang over the faucet; “Henrí–I want you’re hands on me in the bubbles. Bathe with me, my Henrí. Together, we play in the wetness.”
I watched her from the doorframe. She stood nude–the hard curve of her narrow thigh, a toe dipped into the bubbles, her pointed breasts reflected in the steaming mirror. She arched her back with ballerina’s arms that reached far above her head. Still she bent further–her back shaped into a surprising curve, my eyes stolen by the spectacle. Her mound, thick and brown as sable–the hairs brushed upwards–erect as quills. She touched the bathroom floor with her hands, stepping into a tightened arch. Marianna’s glorious mound rose to the level of my knees. I dropped between her delicate thighs and worshiped the sweet grove of her womanhood while she moaned as a woman.
Aroused, I placed my hands on the curves of her bottom and stood up, lifting her. Marianna gripped my ears with her thighs as she sat upright. Looking upward, through a forest of silken curls, I watched her fingertips reach and touch the ceiling. Slowly, floating gently downward as a fallen leaf, she slid past my mouth with her bottom sat, cupped in my hands. Her wet cunt left warm trails on my chest. She stopped; her bottom hovered and rubbed against the swollen head of my cock. Engorged and disproportionate to her small body, I rubbed myself along the moistened flower; my foreskin flapping along the length of her pouting slit. Her thighs trembled as cooing French words came from her citrus lips. Marianna’s long hair flowed down her back, covering my hands as her delicate tongue traveled over my lips. She tasted of orange.
We bathed together that evening with murmured voices that blended with the sounds of the dipped sponge and the soap filled splatter. Her breasts floated with the grace of jellyfish. My fingers circled about her swollen nipples—stingless.
As she cupped my balls: “I must practice darling Henrí. I must make the audition tomorrow.”
“Come with me to England. You can perform there.” I looked down at the soft smile that crossed her face and the brown hair that drifted between her legs like an urchin in a tide-pool.
She turned around. “This is my home Henrí. This is where I belong.” She looked into my eyes as the raised sponge dribbled over my manhood. Then her full lower lip came in contact with my hardness as she softly took me in her mouth. I closed my eyes and drifted with the waves….
I never tired of watching her. For Marianna was a street performer in the art of sublimation–my beautiful Marianna was a contortionist.
I carried Marianna into the bedroom and set her down upon the bed. I brought over a chair, lit my pipe and watched as she began her routine. Awed, I followed the curve of each muscle, caught up with her fluid and graceful movements and the outline of bone, her double joints and the sweeping curve of her spine; my heart captured by the elegant turn of her hand and the artful beauty of her muscles.
Her legs bent and back twisted; I caught a glimpse of her sex–open and pouting in the afternoon sun; her breasts were ever changing from round and sublime to compressed and flat; a flash of pink over her pearlescent white skin. Her eyes held mine as the bottom of her foot touched the back her head; her little bottom quivered and taunt like a coin bank. Then a press of her shoulders as her back arched against all nature. I took her offered mouth and the treasured kiss.
She rolled onto her back, legs parted, telling the time of 9:15. She rolled back towards me and offered a hairy peach. She looked coyly under her arm. Accepting the invitation, my hands caressed the smooth skin of bottom; my lips touched the parted skin as my tongue sought nectar.
She laughed and turned around. Then with gossamer legs, she straddled me on the chair. She grasped my cock and eased down on my length. Marianna closed her eyes and my lips came to rest on her heated neck. A flush of red crossed her chest as she bit her lip.
Buried to my balls, she raised her knees as I spun her around, her back flat against my chest. My fingers slid down her stomach and the pearl of her navel. My finger’s raked through the curls between her legs. She took my hand and guided me; my fingers moved in a slow delicate circle over her tender spots, my breath spoke in her ear. She reached behind and cupped my head encouraging; “De plus en plus ma amour.”
I stood up; her legs encircled my waist and her back tightened. Marianna held her arms as a trapeze artist, all six and half stone of her, floating through the room, filled with my cock.
We fell onto the bed, laughing as idiots. I pressed between her legs, filling her with my need. Her hair spread over her chest as her eyes closed as if in a dream….