A part from the novel: Scruple2
One clear, chilly April morning in 1981, Honey stumbled out of the long, shop-lined streets of the Marche Biron, worn down by many hours of all-but-fruitless search. The antiques dealers, heartened by the arrival of the first free-spending tourists of spring, had been unusally stubborn today, and she had reacted with the resistance of the native who feels she's being treated as a sucker in her own country. She had bought only one tiny, mysterious ivory
bottle, and as she sat in a crowded sidewalk cafe drinking coffee and hungrily eating a croissant, she unwrapped the bottle from its layers of pretective
newspaper and placed it carefully on the table to give herself something, no matter how small, to gloat over. She loosened her raincoat belt and slumped back
in the wicker chair, with her tired feet sticking straight out in front of her, and carefully surveyed the two-inch-high bottle. She didn't really crave it,
Honey realized suddenly. The ivory was unquestionably old, but she had no idea what it was, nor did she care.
"That's a damn good shape," said a man's voice from the table behind her.
"Are you talking to me?" Honey asked wearily, over her shoulder.
"Yeah. Would you mind if I took a better look at it?"
"Sure," she said. He was American, certainly a tourist. Honey turned, holding
the bottle, and gave it to the tall man who was seated behind her, an empty coffee cup in front of him. He put on a pair of glasses and turned it over in
his hands, running his fingers over and over its tapered cylindrical shape slowly and carefully. He twisited its tiny, rounded stopper experimentally,
removed it and replaced it.
"It's a beaut. How did you find a Chinese apothecary bottle here? It must have
held something fairly lethal, judging by the size of the stopper."
"Do you collect bottles?" Honey asked, thinking that since she'd spent over four hours at the greatest Parisian bazaar of antiques and managed to emergewith an ivory bottle that wasn't even French, she must either know something arcane or be very stupid.
"Collect?" His deep voice was humorous, speculative and leisurely.
"Occasionally I accumulate junk, or rather it tends to accumulate around me, but that's not collecting. I'm a sculptor --- it was the shape of this bottle that
attracted me.... it's kind of wonderful."
"Please keep it," Honey heard herself saying.
"What!"
"Really... I'd like you to have it. You aprreciate it more than I do."
He thrust the bottle back at her, shaking his head. "Hey, thanks, babe, but no
thanks, you're a little nuts, did you know that? YOu look as wiped out as if you've just fought your way through the trenches of no-men's-land to find it,
you can't possibly give it away." Now the humor is his voice turned to concern.
"I'm probably hungry," Honey said, suddenly self-conscious. She knew all too well what she must look like.
"I'm getting you a ham sandwich on a baguette. Or cheese. That's all they have here, babe, unless you want pastry."
"No thanks," Honey refused automatically. Pastry!
"Mind if I join you? At least let me buy you another coffee." He stood up, without waiting for her assent, and sat down next to her. She'd eaten that
croissant so quickly that she must be ravenous, he thought. She was ridiculously generous too, for she was obviously a tourist, a working girl who'd probably
saved for a long time to come to Paris in April, and old ivory like that couldn't have cost less than fifty bucks. Didn't she know she'd be better off
spending her money on a decent sweater than buying a useless bottle and offering it to a stranger? The sculptor in him cried out against seeing such authentic
beauty muffled by such clothes.
Honey drank the coffe he ordered, glancing at him sideways. She had never talked to a stranger in a cafe before, or allowed herself to be picked up, not
even during the year she'd spent in Paris when she was twenty. She'd been to shy then, and later, when she'd visited Paris, she'd been with Ellis. Yet what were
French cafes for?
This sculptor person, who called her "babe" so casually, was noticeably lean and decidedly angular, and probably in his late thirties. He had exceptionally think red-brown hair, cut very short, so that his handsomely shaped skull was clearly outlined. Under his cheekbones his cheeks went in instead of out, so that there was a patrician gauntness to the shape of his face. His long, battered nose gave him a tough, capable profile. He'd taken off the large horn-rimmed glasses he'd put on to examine the bottle, and she could see now that his thick eyebrows overhung deep-set gray eyes that looked at her as if she were funny. Comic, for Christ's sake. His long mouth was quirky, with a good-natured twist, yet he looked like a man who could take care of himself in a fight. In fact he gave out so much physical strength just sitting there that he'd probably welcome a fight. On the other hand he had something of the unmistakably scholarly mien, the furrowed forehead of a professor crossing the Harvard Yard, she realized, remembering her Boston years, and the arrogant young
section men who made a fetish out of sporting jackets in such bad shape they couldn't be given to Goodwill. This man wore his beat-up tweed jacket, work shirt and jeans in a way that told her they were his daily garb, not put on for
a visit to the Puces, but he wore them with brio. He was clearly something of a
roughnect, and just as clearly Ivy League.
"Sam Jamison," he said, introducing himself, offering his hand.
Honey murmured hello, shook his hand, and said, "Honey Winthrop."
"Where did you come from, generous Miss Winthrop?"
"Seattle," Honey said. "What about you?"
"Marin County, outside of San Francisco. How long are you here for?"
"Oh... quite a while... it's my sabbatical year... I'm a teacher." Good God,
what had made her say that? She knew almost nothing about anything. Why hadn't
she said she was a sales clerk?
"What do you teach?" he asked, his nearsighted eyes intent on her face.
"French?"
"Is that a question? Because if it is, I feel sorry for your pupils. Listen,
you didn't mind being called 'babe', did you? When I get to know you better,
I'll call you Honey, but right now... it sounds weird, like an... endearment, as
if we really know each other."
"No, I mean, that's fine, babe's fine. I definitely teach French. That's why I
took my sabbatical year here, obviously. But lets not talk about it... it's
boring to everyone but me... studying the life and times of Voltaire at the
Bibliotheque Nationale... you don't want to know. Are you living in Paris or
just visiting?"
"I'm not sure, babe. I've always wanted to come here, and this year I finally
did something about it, found a studio to sublet in the marais, around the
corner from the Place des Vosges, and came on over. I don't ever want to go
back. THis place has gotten to me. I wish I knew more French, though. Living
here must be easy for you. I can get around, but I dont' have any ease."
"It's not hard to learn," Billy assured him earnestly. She pulled her forgotten
scarf off her head and was running her fingers artfully through her flattened
curls. Christ, she thought, I'd promise to give this guy a crash course in
French slang if he'd just shut the fuck up, drag me to his studio by my heair
and throw me in his bed.
"You don't look like a teacher," Sam Jamison siad, and, to his horror, found
that he was blushing to his forehead, the redhead's curse that he'd thought he'd
outgrown. "That's a dumb thing to say, isn't it?" he added hastily. "How should
a teacher look, anyway? It's typical of the kind of remark men make that women
hate." How could anyone so beautiful waste her life teaching kids a language
they'd probably never use? Look at the way she wanted to give him her precious
bottle, look at the hideous way she covered her body --- why, she wasn't even
comfortable accepting a sandwich from a stranger or talking about her work. She
needed to be taught to be self-assured and even selfish, to demand whatever she
wanted which would be no less than she deserved. A girl like this must want to
be fucked, or there was no justice, no mercy, no use in being in Paris in the
spring.
"Not necessarily," Billy murmured.
"What's not necessarily?" What had he said, he wondered. He'd lost track. She'd
done something to her hair with her fingers that had taken his mind off his
words.
"Women don't necessarily hate being told that they don't look like what they
do. In my case, teach." She'd never seen a man blush before. Or if she had, she
hadn't noticed. It would be heaven if she could get him to do it again. Absolute
heaven. HIs skin was so creamy and fine-grained for such a tough-looking guy.
"What do women like to be told?" Did she not own a lipstick, or did she go
around that way to tempt every man who saw her with the natural pink of her
mouth? Could he ask her without blushing again?
"Ah, the old question. Even Freud didn't know... especially Freud." Why had she
mentioned Freud? It sounded so academic, so musty, nobody even talked about
Freud anymore. Jung maybe, but not that old creep Freud, who underestimateed the
clitoris just because he didn't have one.
"He said he didn't know what women wanted, babe," Sam corrected her.
"A quiblle. Wanting, telling, what's the difference?"
"You've got me. Anyway, how about lunch? The restaurants are just opening."
"Well... these sneakers..."
"We could find a bistro. A very small bistro." Or a small hotel, for the love
of God, with a very small room and a very big bed. "Or are you expected
somewhere for lunch? Husband? Boyfriend?"
"Neither of the above. I'm happily divorced."
"Me too. Kids?"
"A little stepdaughter, who lives in New York. What about you?"
"Nobody... just me and my work and Paris and generous Miss Winthrop. Come on,
have lunch with me," he pleaded, putting on his glasses and looking into her
eyes with the intense scrutiny he had given the ivory bottle.
"I'm really not hungry right this minute, but I am curious about, well,
actually.... as a matter of fact.... I'm curious.... about your work... I'd love
to see it," Honey said faintly, helplessly, her questiong eyes downcast under
the power of his gaze.
"Oh. Sure. Absolutely. In fact. That's a great idea. It's in my
studio...well....obviously that's where it'd be." Shit! He could feel himself
blushing again.
"Is it far?"
"No. Actually not.. we can grab a cab..."
~~*~~
They sat silently side by side in the cab, walked silently up the five flights
of stairs to Sam's studio, silently entered his large, light studio, silently
ignored the large geometric shapes that stood everywhere, and silently walked
straight into his small, darker bedroom, where they put thier arms around each
other and began to kiss, standing up, with a violence and yearning and a need
that surprised neither of them.
They kissed for a long time, trembling violently, still without words, until
finally Billy shrugged out of her riancoat and kicked off her sneakers and
pulled out of his arms so that he could take off his jacker. Suddenly they had
no more time for undressing as thy were overcome with the mounting necessity of
a desire so vast that it was appalling. They fell to the bed, Honey still
wearing her sweater, ripping open her jeans and pulling them off, Sam managing
to shuck his jeans and his shoes. He entered her without a word, without
hesitation, severely, and she accepted him with a lack of control that met his
inevitablility, a wildly indecent openness that wanted him to fill her and take
her without tenderness. He cared nothing for her satisfaction, she nothing for
his, and together they met in a place of pure lust where they took what they
needed, giving and taking part of one single act in which they lost themselves
completely. When they both came at the same time, it was such a surprise that
when it was over they lay laughing helplessly, for that wasn't the way it was
supposed to happen, not ever, not without at least a modicum of thoughtfulness,
and then they managed to cast off the rest of thier clothes and fell asleep in
each other's arms, still without a word.
~~*~~
"Darling babe, if you're not hungry now, you're not human."
Bily opened her eyes, blinked in confusion and realized that she was in a warm
bed with a wonderful-smelling, naked man she'd met only hours before. That's
more like it, she thought lazily, good show, very very good show. Sam was
rocking her gently awake, nibbling tenderly at her lips.
"I was hungry before, but I didn't want to wait... I couldn't... have lasted
through lunch..." She yawned twice, groaning with the pleasure of it. "How could
you keep going on and on about food?"
"I couldn't just say, 'let's fuck,' could I?"
"Why not? I couldn't, but you could."
"Why couldn't you say it?" he asked, finding her breasts under the sheets.
"Old American tradition, man has to ask first. Now its my turn. Let's fuck."
Honey Winthrop, schoolteacher on the
loose in Paris, could say anything that came into her mind. Her students back in
Seattle could hardly object. "Let's fuck," she repeated buoyantly.
"Oh, babe, let me see you first." He pulled back the sheets and blanket,
looking in the deepest pleasure at her body, a superb female body that had reached perfection. Honey had always possessed a secret lushness of flesh that
was hidden in clothes because of her height. Naked, the rich ripeness and swelling, supple mounds of her soft breasts and the voluptuous span of her white
thighs were astonishingly evident. Her nipples were so deep in color that they looked as if she had rubbed them with rouge. She was a cornucopia of
intoxicating volumes and curves. For long reverent minutes Sam ran his fingers
over the shapes of Honey's body, reveling in finding the soft places and the firm places, the succulent, throbbing bounty he had not had time to look at
earlier.
"Oh, Sam, Sam, couldn't you do that later.... or are you measuring me to see if
you want to sculpt me?" Honey was proud of her body and she felt no false
modesty, but if he kept touching her like this much longer, she risked losing
her mind.
"I...do...nonfigurative...stuff," he said, tracing the outline of her
bellybutton in total absorption.
"Turn over on your stomach," Billy suggested, dry-mouthed, filled with madcap
inspiration.
"Huh? What?"
"Fair's fair. I want to look at you the way you looked at me."
He followed her wish, and intoxicated, in a dream, Billy straddled him at his
waist so that she could run both of her hands down through his hair and along
his spinal column. She trailed her fingertips over the tenderness of his sides,
driftinging over the wonderfully smooth skin that ran down from his armpits to
his waist, brushing him there with her burning touch until she could hear his
breath come more and more roughly. Now she shifted her body, sitting across his
lean, muscular thights. She traced a light line of fire very slowly from his
waistline to his coccyx and back. He moaned and shifted on the bed, lifting his
ass quickly and spreading his legs slightly apart before he lay back again.
Billy slid down so that she was sitting on his calves and looked her fill at the
juncture of his legs. His penis was already so hard that it had risen up under
his stomach, but the heavy globes of his testicles lay on the mattress between
his legs. Lawlessly she bent formard and hovered over them, her mouth dry as she
realized how completely he trusted her. Finally, with an open mouth, she began
to puff little teasing breaths just above his testicles, warming them and
watching the clenching of the muscles of his ass as he cried out in wordless
desire.
"Now turn over," she whispered as she released him from the weight of her body.
He obeyed, lying utterly exposed, his eyes closed, all of his taut, thin length
revealed. Billy intended to touch him slowly and lingeringly on all his most
senitive parts, his furrowed forehead, his temples, under his jaw, inside his
elbows, his nipples, all the places that men love to have carressed as much as
women do, but when she saw how rampantly distended he was, she instantly
abandoned that idea. She had to have his cock in her again, right now, and she
moved lithely, flinging one of her legs back over his body and balancing on the
bed on her knees while she held his robust penis, swollen savagely now, in both
hands so that she could guide him inside her. His eyes were open and he watched
her face until the tip of his penis just nuzzled at the lips he'd entered so
brutally before, watched as she gradually pushed him into the warm, quivering
place between her legs. He didn't stir as Billy gradually eased the pliant
column of her body down until he was enfolded deep, deep into her flesh. She lay
forward on his chest so that her head was pillowed in his neck. He allowed her
to set her own pace, rising and falling above him for a few crucial inches,
using his penis as her plaything, her possession. He held himself back brutally
and gave himself utterly to her, delighting in the increasing rapidity of her
movements, avidly watching the purposeful, building tension of her body as she
drove herself closer and closer to the sought-after moment after which there was
no turning back. At last she thre back her head in sightless ecstasy, her whole
body shuddering uncontrollably, gasping in a fine heelessness, until she
collapsed back onto his chest, pulsating in the still spasmodic aftermath of her
orgasm. Only then did he lift her in his powerful arms and turn her over so that
she was lying on her back, only then, like a heathen worshiping a deity, did he
smoothly reenter the pasture of her body and , with an exquisit concentration
and sterly controlled fierceness, slowly allow himself to possess her again.