CHAPTER FOUR
Warning: the following story contains graphic descriptions of sex between consenting adult males. If you are underage or do not wish to read such materials, or if reading this sort of material is illegal in your jurisdiction, then read no further. If you have any feedback or encouragement, or would like links to some of my other stories, feel free to drop me a line at niftystoryteller@yahoo.com.
Over the next several days we left the house exactly twice. Once to collect my luggage at the little hotel that had been home, and once again to buy food and wine. The rest of the time we spent fucking, cooking, eating, sleeping, soaking in the tub, listening to music, making out on the floor, all of which eventually led back to fucking. I don't think that we overlooked a single room or horizontal surface. All were fair game. All witnessed our raw animal attraction. Our wonder at the thrill of shared discovery filled both space and time.
But eventually that had to come to an end.
"Aujourd'hui, today, is Tuesday," Luc announced as he buttered tartines while I made our breakfast coffee.
"Should that mean something to me?"
"The technicienne de surface comes today. Unless we really want to scare her off, we should probably clear out for the day. At least we must put on some clothes."
He looked so serious I could not help but laugh. "Technicienne de what? Is this where some deep dark family secret is revealed?"
He pursed his lips with mock annoyance and rolled his eyes. "I think that the correct English translation is cleaning woman. In France we specialize in obscure terminology."
"Ahhhh, I see. I guess I had noticed that nothing was simple here." I pulled him toward me and savored the feel of his body against mine. "Except for this, that is. This is simple and very nice."
He placed his lips on mine and we kissed for a moment, stark naked in the middle of the cavernous kitchen, before he reluctantly pulled away. I couldn't resist grabbing at his revived erection.
"We shall go biking, I think, and take some lunch with us. There's something I want to show you out in the country, near a property we own."
An hour later, after eating, showering, putting on biking gear, and packing our supplies for the day, we pedaled away under the baleful stare of Mme. Delmas, the dreaded technicienne de surface.
"I think that she knows what you have been doing to me, and she does not approve," Luc whispered loudly after waving back at her. She frowned and shook out her dishtowel before going back inside the house to clean up after us. "This will be trouble."
"Are French aristocrats always so afraid of their servants?" I asked.
Luc snorted. "It's impossible to keep secrets from the people who work in the household. They pretend that they do not know everything, and we pretend that they do not, and I am sure that they are willing to work for ten percent less because they get the thrill of knowing our business. And, by the way, we are not aristocrats. Haute bourgeoisie would be more accurate, since not that long ago my family had to work for its bread."
"So she'll be going through my suitcase?"
"Guaranteed."
"Fortunately I left the handcuffs and leather jockstrap at home."
He turned to me and gave me that seductive look that always made the bottom fall out of my stomach. "That's too bad. We might have had some fun. And I don't give a damn what she thinks."
With that he increased his speed, challenging me to keep up in the intense heat. Soon we had left the city behind, and the road before us rolled toward the horizon like a spool of shimmering black ribbon. We began to climb and bob and weave into the parched hills. The sun's glare was almost blinding, and I was grateful when Luc signaled a break at a lonely little cafe by the side of the road.
"This, I love," I said as I dunked a croissant into my coffee.
"Better than Starbucks?"
"No comparison. It's just real."
"Real like that?" Luc nodded towards the young shirtless guy who was unloading cases of wine and water from the back of a panel truck. His brown skin glistened with sweat.
"I've never seen that at Starbucks."
"You like him?"
"He's pretty sexy," I admitted. "But..."
"But?" Luc arched his eyebrow.
"I only have eyes for you."
He laughed. "You are definitely not French. I find American puritanism so charming."
"Puritan? Is that what you thought I was when I was fucking you last night?"
"You have a point," he said softly. "You can be very passionate. Maybe you are a little French. Or a little Italian, even if you have blond hair. Definitely not too much German or English."
We finished our coffee in the silence that exists between people who are completely at peace with each other. After filling our water bottles at an outdoor spigot, we pedaled on, deeper into the parched hills, before we finally reached a small grove of olive trees.
"We will leave our bikes here and hike up," Luc said, gesturing at a faint trail that meandered up and over a ridge. "You can take this." He handed me one of the panniers that carried our lunch.
The sun had climbed to its highest point in the sky, and we baked in its rays as we toiled higher. The wind blew hot and dry, evaporating the sweat that bloomed across my skin and soaked through my Lycra biking shorts and jersey. Finally we crested the ridge, which provided a fine view of the valley that lay in front of us. A small creek meandered into and out of view among the trees. Luc pointed towards a small church that was visible in a clearing among the trees. Judging from its state of disrepair, it was no longer in use.
"We will go there," he said.
Entering the little Romanesque church, we passed from light to dark, heat to cool, dry to damp. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, and the contrast in temperature made me shiver. The sanctuary was empty, not a single pew to be seen. Maybe they had been turned into firewood. Or sold in the Paris flea market. It was probably impossible to know. Hearing a rustling sound, I looked up and spied something moving in the dim recesses of the vaulted ceiling. Bats. InvoluntarilyI glanced back at the door, but Luc headed over to a side chapel, and I somewhat reluctantly followed.
The walls of the chapel were decorated with faded frescoes of another era. A sorrowful-looking Mary held a gaunt Jesus, surrounded by a cavalcade of grim saints and apostles. Despite their age, the figures reminded me of photographs of the modern era. Auschwitz. Cambodia. Sudan. Perhaps human misery was a timeless constant.
Luc pulled open a small side door and I followed him down a rough hewn set of steps, illuminated only by the small flashlight that he had produced from his fanny pack. As we descended, the walls became rougher and rougher, and it finally dawned on me that we had entered what was surely a natural cavern. We finally stopped deep inside the earth, and Luc directed the light at the ceiling. It was amazing. Spread over the rocky mantle was a herd of bison. A pair of bears. A troop of fearless warriors. The outline of human hands, marked by charcoal and pigment, clasped in prayer to an unknown god, or the same God that had been worshipped above our very heads.
Tears came to my eyes at the sight of this prehistoric Sistine Chapel. People had been living there, dying there, worshipping there, for longer than we could know. Yet in some way we were connected to them, all of them. We lived, we died, we worshipped in the same places, connected to them by common human needs. In the most important ways we, and they, were not alone.
I reached out and took the light from Luc. One by one, I examined the figures, trying to imagine them, their lives, and their motivations as they committed their world to us with scratches of charcoal and daubs of color. I did my best to commit their work to memory.
"Thank you," I said simply when we finally turned to leave.
We ate our lunch by the creek which, unfortunately, did not have enough water to accommodate a mid-afternoon swim. After resting for a bit, we scrambled down the hillside to our bikes. Luc proposed a stop at the country house of his friends Thierry and Alastair, where we would be able to jump in the pool if they were home. Mercifully, they were, and the four of us were soon splashing around in our birthday suits.
Thierry was a successful contemporary artist who had collected many fine things over his life, including a younger Scottish lover. Alastair's red hair and pale skin were a testament to his heritage, and the pendant swing of his cock indicated a rather randy disposition. Initially they seemed like a very strange match. While Thierry was cool and reserved, always observing, Alastair positively exuded kinetic energy. At the time I could not see how their relationship could possibly work, though I eventually came to understand their deep complementarity.
We took a break from the water for a round of gin and tonics, and Thierry proposed that we stay for dinner. It did not take too much convincing, especially after he offered us a guest room to use for a late afternoon siesta. All four of us needed a break from the heat, and soon we headed down separate passages of the quiet villa. After a quick shower, Luc and I slipped between crisp sheets and gently drifted off in the cool darkness.
Emerging from my deep and dreamless sleep, I found myself curled up against Luc's body, which enfolded mine. The short hairs on his chest bristled against my back, and his hard cock had wedged itself into the crack of my butt. I was as content as a cat after a saucer of cream, and I snuggled back against him. He responded by draping his arm over me and intertwining his fingers with mine. Our breathing synchronized, and I could not really tell where he ended and I began.
It was nice just to lay there, but I was not disappointed when his hand began to rake up and down through the hair on my forearm, and he began to nuzzle the back of my neck. I had not been completely hard up to then, but that soon changed. Luc rolled me onto my stomach and pulled back the sheet, exposing my backside. He slowly worked his lips from the base of my neck down my spine, stopping only briefly when he got to my waist so that he could spread my legs open, creating enough space for him to kneel. I shivered with anticipation as he began to kiss his way across my ass.
"Ooooh, so nice, so hard," he whispered. "You are so beautiful." He reached one arm underneath me and pulled my butt up. Of course I yielded to him, and my reward came when he gently parted my cheeks and began to tongue my hole. This truly is one of the most intimate possible acts, and with Luc it felt completely natural, even though I had known him for less than a week.
Putting together the copious precum that we both were leaking, as well as some old-fashioned spit, we were able to generate enough lubrication that I could accommodate him when the time came. Words were not necessary. We both knew where we were going and what we were doing. Luc fucked me completely and purposefully, and I knew that I did not have a choice in the matter, not that I wanted one. I was almost, but not quite, in a trance. I knew who I was with and what I was doing, but maybe not where I was, or why. Perhap that's why I failed to formulate a question or objection when Alastair came into our room, loosened the drawstring on his pajama bottoms, and began to rub his thick cock across my lips. In that instant all I knew was my desire, as I used my lips to roll his foreskin back, and my hands gripped his hips, and moved up and across his chest, the pale nipples and freckled skin. He was an eager accomplice, as was Luc, and the three of us tried one thing and then another, until all knew complete and utter satisfaction.