‘We’ll see about that, won’t we?’ she retorted, again pushing aside the intrusive thought of the utterly crazy risks that she was taking behaving in the way that she was. And yet, there was something about him that beguiled her and that had her push caution from her mind.
Once in the apartment, and shrugging off her coat, she took him into the bedroom, threw open Mathis’s closet, that still had a few of his things in it, and told him to take a shower and to help himself to whatever he needed, and that fitted him, while she rustled up some food for the two of them.
‘A man I once knew and who lived here, then, left these behind. Make of them what you will.’
Marguerite then left him to it.
When he emerged from the bedroom she was surprised to see how sharp he looked and that a sudden and acute surge of longing now possessed her. Mathis’ betrayal could so easily draw her into a very different maelstrom of emotions and behaviour with the man before her.
‘I hope you like omelettes and salad?’ she said in a distracted tone. ‘It’s the only thing I can think of doing at such short notice.’
‘Omelettes are fine,’ he replied. ‘I could even help you…’
‘No, just you sit down…you can pour out some coffee. There’s a baguette there on the table, as a start,’ she said, holding out a plate. ‘Make sure you leave me some…won’t you?’
‘Sure, I’m hungry but not ravenous,’ he laughed only too engagingly and looking her way once more. The discreet floral print on that night-blue silken dress of hers flattered the woman before him. She sure was eye-candy and had her captivating, feisty, ways about her that he liked.
He took a couple of pieces of bread and thanked her for her continuing and unexplained kindness. During the meal, she asked him lots of questions about how he managed to end up on the street. She found out that his name was Emile; that he was thirty years old and that he had once been a university professor but that he had developed a gambling habit that had gotten way out of hand.
‘When I’d spent all my own money and tanked out my credit cards,’ he explained, ‘I started to borrow from my colleagues. As I kept losing, there was no hope of ever paying them back. When word got out it caused some embarrassment to the college. In the saccharine words of these days…they let me go. That was a few months ago. Then two days ago they locked me out of my apartment, and I’ve been sleeping in the park or under bridges ever since…winos and druggies all around…women selling themselves to get by…migrants some of them. The place is an effing mess now…you wonder who’s in control.’
‘You learn who your true friends are then…at such low moments.’
Emile nodded and licked his fingers after the plate had been wiped clean with a morsel of bread. He did so under her watchful gaze. He took the opportunity to delight in the cut of her long, grey-blonde hair that he had seen women wearing and had to be some new fashion. ‘Yeah, there’s that too. So, you’re a new one in my life, from now on…a beautiful and charitable friend.’
‘We’ll have to see, won’t we?’ She looked teasingly at him; liked the words he deployed on her. They sounded right on his lips and went well with the look of his wandering eyes upon her.
Marguerite looked at his lightly chiselled face, his attentive and very direct gaze and at Emile’s thick brown hair. She had soon reached the conclusion that he was undoubtedly much better looking than Mathis, whom she now wished was sleeping in the park and not in bed with that bitch, Eloise.
After cleaning his plate, again, Emile sat there looking a bit uncomfortable as she continued to give him the eye but staying silent. Marguerite poured some more coffee.
‘Thanks…’
‘When I met and then talked to you,’ she blurted out when the silence became too much to bear, ‘I had a reason for doing that.’
‘I hope you’re not a mad scientist looking for body parts,’ he laughed. ‘I haven’t got any that I can spare…or want to lose the use of.’
Marguerite laughed at his impudence.
‘Oh, I might be looking for your body parts,’ she now said only too directly, and on a flirtatious tilt of her head as she gazed at him, ‘but it depends on what you have to offer.’
‘I’m sorry…I don’t follow you?’ he replied, but on a soft, disbelieving look her way. He then gave her a knowing smile.
It disconcerted her for its spontaneity. The vengeful, feral act of going with anyone she could have found at the nightspot had given way to something quite different; the sharing of the act as a means of finding comfort and the mutual understanding of another’s plight, perhaps?
‘Well I’ve just had a very bad experience…only forty-eight hours ago, in fact. I had just caught my boyfriend, who I’d always been faithful to, fucking my best friend in this very apartment.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he sympathized, and on a disbelieving shake of the head. ‘Your man must be crazy to have done that to you…quite crazy.’
Madeleine shrugged, even if she liked to hear it said.
‘It may sound utterly bizarre…weird, even, but when I bumped into you, I’d just been in a place my ex frequented…looking for someone I knew who might come back here, so that….’
‘You could have a revenge fuck?’
‘Yes…I was going to fuck their brains out.’
Laughing in disbelief at her directness of speaking, Emile put his coffee cup down and gazed at her with a quizzical look on his face. ‘I guess you thought that would make you feel better?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘And how do you feel about it now…telling me that? Me, a complete stranger…a guy wearing your ex-boyfriend’s, or lover’s, clothes and who is sitting here in your plush apartment and who you know nothing about? I could be a sex fiend…’
‘Oh yes please!’ she laughed on a suggestive tilt of her head, Madeline fluttering her eyelids as if she had become besotted with him.
‘I’m not…and I’m not indifferent to the idea either, in case you’re wondering.’
‘Good and I now know, and hear, that you’re smart and educated!’ Marguerite laughed again and now saw the softest of wondering smiles on his lips. ‘I’m feeling surprisingly certain…of you and me, Emile.’
Marguerite got up from the table and walked over to him. She offered and then sustained a long lingering kiss, felt the hem of her dress rode up her thighs as she leant forward. Emile couldn’t restrain from touching her and to then offer a caress to the back of her knees and warmth of her thighs.
‘We meet in our new and particular ways of it,’ Emile offered, placing a hand once more on her leg and moving it gently up and down, discovered the skin of her buttocks and bindings of a thong.
‘Call it consolation for our circumstances…’
‘Quite so, different as they certainly are,’ Emile whispered against her lips before their kisses deepened, his hands caressing her buttocks and hollows of Marguerite’s hips. Hearing her soft groans of pleasure, he moved to press the silk of her thong into Marguerite’s crack, their exchanges urging them to throw caution to the wind.
She straddled him, her dress up around her waist and her legs, and the curve of her belly open to his touch that soon progressed to press against her thong, in slow beguiling touches. He felt her wetness and tugged the triangle of cloth aside, soon entering her, Marguerite meeting these claims upon her, rising to settle on his fingers as he sought to find her.