Romantic erotica...
"Ghosts of Paris Past," a sex story by Hannah Martin
She had never liked Monet. Monet was wishy-washy, washed-out, weak, all pastel and no strength. Not her style, not at all. But the Monet museum was the first place she had visited in Paris; not the Louvre, not the Eiffel Tower, not Notre Dame, but the stupid Monet museum.
Appropriately named, Olympia thought of herself as more of a Manet girl, vibrant colors and defined lines, defying conventions with a tint of in-your-face scandal: there's no way to ignore the naked woman on the picnic blanket, try as one might. In her nakedness she looks straight at you and her eyes taunt: you know this is what you imagine underneath my clothes. Olympia had always liked that painting, its uncovering of hidden human desire, exposed for all to see.
Image by Vera Akotuah
The desire to see the thus-far unseen was what had driven Olympia into her profession. Even from a young age, she had wanted to explore, to uncover the hidden. She was five when her mother had caught her behind the chicken coop with little Andy. Olympia had just convinced him to pull down his pants to show her his weenie when Mother walked around the corner. Andy had tried to quickly pull up his pants, but he hadn't unbuttoned them so the waistband got stuck around his hips on the way back up. Olympia just sat there and laughed as her mother stood, arms crossed and glaring, and the little boy danced around, flesh bouncing, struggling to get his pants back up.
Olympia become an airline stewardess, a mere waitress with a fancy name; a job of travel, of seeing the thus-far unseen, of personal exploration. She walked out of the house shortly after her eighteenth birthday, tan duffel bag over one shoulder and a ratty plaid suitcase in the other hand, a job already secured. After training, she worked the puddle-jumpers along the east coast, taking classes in Italian and French whenever she could fit them in. She tied her blond hair back just so and always wore fresh lipstick, professional beauty a means to an end. Time elapsed, and Olympia's single-mindedness and determination were unmistakable, so she was assigned longer, more prestigious flights. Boston to Chicago. Boston to New York to San Francisco.
Mary, another stewardess, suggested that they rent a spacious two-bedroom apartment downtown, and Olympia jumped at the chance. She had been living in a dingy studio, and had been dreaming of living downtown, walking the cobblestone streets and perusing the shops like a gawking tourist on her time off. When assigned the same flight, the two of them had explored cities around the country. Mary liked to call herself the "Virgin Mary" with an appropriately wicked laugh that endeared her to her new roommate. Months after her move, Olympia passed rigorous proficiency tests in French and started taking German in addition to more advanced Italian classes. Finally, nearly a decade into her career, Olympia worked her first international flight.
* * *
She sits now in the park in front of the Louvre, watching the crowds of people, walking, buying ice cream, languages from around the world swirling in the wind. A little girl cries as her mother drags her along the brick walkway. Crying is silly. Olympia had always promised herself that she would experience every moment of life's ecstasy and pain, feel emotions down to her bones regardless the cost, but that didn't mean crying over those emotions. When she met Pascal on that first international flight, she had known she was in for heartache. Whatever you do, don't date a pilot. Not only is it mixing business and pleasure, but pilots tend to think they're Maverick, a young Tom Cruise, even though they're flying a bus, not a fighter jet. They're great for the short term, but not exactly keepers, you know?
Olympia had thrown away the advice niggling the back of her mind, thrown caution out the cockpit window. Live life to the fullest had been her motto. No regrets.
Pascal was handsome; 'hot" some of the other stewardesses called him. Not movie-star hot, although he did bear a striking resemblance to a non-mulleted middle-aged MacGuyver. His hair was prematurely gray, which strangely added a degree of stately sexiness, and his youthful face belayed his gray hair, eyes with a wickedly boyish glint that could charm anyone. When she first came aboard, nervous about the international flight and excited to finally see Paris, Pascal had greeted her. He shook her hand, a firm handshake, pulling no punches just because of her femininity. She liked men who did that, who gave her unquestioned respect instead of a chivalrous façade. His voice had been like melted butter, French liquidity running down her spine. Less than a minute onboard her first international flight, and Olympia could feel her crotch getting wet and warm, a hopeful tingling. He had had a special smile, just for her, eyes crinkling around the outside corners, his whole face and body a part of that smile.
* * *
She wanders now through the Picasso Erotique and knows what it was they had. The beast-man, the Faun, le minotaure and woman; the naked blue woman hunched over to pleasure the half-dressed, self-satisfied boy-child. Pascal had taken her to the Monet museum after that first flight, his favorite place in Paris; perhaps she should have guessed even then that something wasn't going to work between them. As if cat people and dog people could ever mesh; it was hopeless from the start.
They had found a quaint Parisian hotel overlooked by Montemarte that first night. Pascal had told her about his ex-wife and their difficult breakup, his twin boys that still lived with their mother in Auver. He told her about his heartbreak over their divorce, how he had gone gray during the custody battle. How he almost never saw his boys. They made love that night, starting on the back balcony, to hell with errant observers, then moved to the bed. She had wanted him inside her, deeper and deeper, her uterus expanding up to make more and more room for him, thinking that she could never have enough. He had rolled her onto her stomach, fucking doggy style, the sweat of his chest lubrication for sliding along her back. When he finally collapsed on her, her back and knees aching, she still wanted more, wanted to be filled with him again.
It was a pattern they repeated. Olympia looks up at the cloud-filled sky and wonders if it will rain, her back twinging, knowing the pain is from the way she held her hips at just the right angle for him time after time, her spine compressing as he pounded away; Pascal could only come while she was on her knees, so Olympia had done everything she could to help, despite the pain at every thrust. She would have done anything for him; she cringes now at that thought.
When had the pain become so intense that she had finally put a stop to it? Not physical pain, but heart pain, gut pain, soul pain. They had hidden their relationship, arranging to take the same flights as often as possible; secret clutches and whispered moans waiting for the release of picturesque hotels in Paris. She had been the one to say that there should be no strings attached. It was like a fantastical emotional adventure, with Everest-mountain highs and muggy swamp lows, and Olympia had thrown herself into each aspect with voracity. Until it became too much for her meager flesh-and-blood body to contain.
Olympia had finally passed her tests in Italian, and since Pascal wasn't going to be in Paris that week, she jumped at the chance of working a flight to Venice. She almost wishes now that she had not made that fateful decision. Back then, wandering along the canals, ignoring the faint smell of sewer, Olympia had smiled. People around her smiled back, and she remembered how much she had always enjoyed exploring and discovering places alone. A gondola drifted by, young lovers leaned together; Venice of idealized romance, Venice of heartbreak.
* * *
She sees the Eiffel Tower in the distance and wishes that her first memory of it had been as a solitary adventurer, although her womb tingles with the memory of the night-time walk up the higher stairs, the way it felt as Pascal put his hand down her long flowing skirt and fucked her with his fingers in a dark corner overlooking brightly-lit Paris. They moved to the rail, and no one looking at them would have known her underwear was in her purse and that her skirt had been lifted in the back, his pants unzipped and his penis hard between her legs. His chin rested on her shoulder as they took in the view of the city, the corner of his coat flapping in the breeze. The angle had been all wrong, but the feel of the head of his cock so close, oh so very close, almost there, moving as they swayed together in the wind, it had left her entire body shaking. That night, when they got back to the hotel, was the first time he fucked her up the ass. He was gentle, sliding at first in and out of her vagina so slowly it merely stoked the fires, then using her own juices to keep his penis wet and smooth, worked it slowly in, centimeter by centimeter. A little in, a little out, in a little more, out a little, in just a little more..."I love you," he had whispered in her ear as his shaft pushed in the final inch. She groaned in delicious agony.
"Please," she had hoarsely whispered in return, "please."
Looking at the Eiffel tower, she can still feel him. Olympia wishes she could walk somewhere in Paris without his presence pervading every step, every crack in the sidewalk, every reflection off glass, every scent. She throws her purse against a wall and when it lands on the ground she stomps on it, jumps on it, screaming, but the rhythm just reminds her of him, as if he is imprinted on more than just her body.
Olympia had seen him that time in Venice. Pascal had been walking, arm around the waist of another woman. Just as she saw them, her mind still in shock, the couple turned to look into a shop window, and Olympia saw it was Mary. Her own roommate, the closest thing she had to a friend. More like Mary Magdeline than the Virgin Mary. Her vision had washed with red, white flashes as she blinked, and when her eyes cleared the couple was gone. Olympia told herself it was her fault; she had been the one to keep things muddy, unspecific, stringless; Pascal thought they were only together for the sex. She hadn't told Mary about him, wanting to keep the secret precious by holding it to herself. She hadn't expected that she would feel this way, like her heart had been bitten by a thousand tiny needles, her entire body stuffed in a ziplock bag, deprived of oxygen. Breathe, Olympia, breathe. She found a bathroom, hoping she could puke, but nothing came up. It took weeks before she could eat a real meal again, she who usually loved pasta and pastries.
Olympia had seen Mary first, just a week later; a relatively rare moment when both of them were in Boston for a few days at the same time. Olympia had tried to pretend nothing was different. They had ended up sitting in the living room, Mary telling her all about her adventures in Rome and Venice. Olympia had pretended to laugh, listening closely for any reference to Pascal. There was none. Then the conversation had faltered, silence squeezing like a vice. Olympia asked why Mary hadn't picked up her shoes yet.
Over the next few days, Olympia found all sorts of things to talk about. The toilet paper left empty. A garbage bag full but not taken to the dumpster. Mary wasn't chipping in enough for groceries. Olympia kept up a barrage of nitpicking; she kept seeing them together in her mind's eye, sharing the type of intimacy she had thought he reserved for her alone. The air in the apartment became thick with verbal thorns, until Mary announced that she had had enough; if Olympia didn't understand that living with a roommate required a little give-and-take, Olympia could go ahead live by herself. The next morning, Olympia worked a flight to Chicago, and when she got back Mary had moved her stuff out of the apartment. Olympia tried to be happy about it.
Pascal didn't deny that he had been seeing another woman. More than that, he admitted to seeing several. He's French, Olympia told herself, he doesn't know any better. She pretended it didn't bother her, and they had made love again. She still wanted him inside her, as much as ever. But now, each time she saw him or thought about him, it hurt. She wallowed in self-pity, wringing every facet of emotion out; then, sopping it back up, felt it all over again. Gradually she built up a tolerance, as if emotion was penicillin, her feelings numb despite constant self-stimulation.
They had been sitting in a café near the Pompedeu when Olympia discovered she needed to break it off. He had just convinced her to get chicken marsala even though she was really in the mood for red meat. She watched the way the candlelight hit Pascal's cheekbones, his chin scruffy with dark-gray shadow, and Olympia realized that her every moment of happiness or sadness rested on his minute movements, comments, and feelings. Never before had she been dependent upon another person for her happiness; it must be time to stop things, before she forgot how to be herself. Her strong, self-reliant, independent self.
* * *
Olympia sits in the Louvre, listing to the echoes of clicking footsteps. A tour guide passes by, his voice reverberating against the tall domed ceiling. It wasn't until her fourth stop in Paris that she finally got around to visiting these hallowed halls. She sits there now within the familiar smell of freshly waxed floor, soaking in the statue of Venus de Milo, armless but still the embodiment of feminine strength and beauty. Perhaps all truly strong women are marred. Victoire de Samothrace still stands, lit by faint orange light, strong and graceful, while missing her head. Olympia wishes that the only thing she had lost was her head. But it was more even than her heart that she had lost; it was her strength, her independence, all the things she had grown to treasure and value about herself.
Olympia hadn't broken it off at the restaurant, of course. They had gone back to the hotel and taken a bubble bath, making love amongst the slippery suds. The next morning, as she packed up her suitcase for a flight back to Boston, Olympia told him not to bother making any more hotel reservations for the two of them. Pascal had thought it was because of his other women, and Olympia decided not to disabuse him of the idea. He hadn't been happy, but it had been over quickly and relatively painlessly. She worked on getting back to her own solitary life.
Three months later Pascal had found her as she walked home from yet another fruitless, unsatisfying solitary expedition downtown. He was in Boston overnight, he said. Please, he said. The smell of his aftershave gave her shivery goosebumps, and so she relented. One more time, why not. He had prolonged the foreplay, gently licking and sucking her clit for nearly an hour before filling her, topping her, her legs splayed to either side of him.
"I have news," he said after that first thrust, his hips motionless, his stillness a tease. "I'm single." And then he pushed into her again, giving her no chance to respond, his thrusts coming faster until he turned her over for their usual finale.
He fell asleep, lying in his side, still holding her from behind. Wide awake, Olympia had looked at the faintly-lit wall, shadows mushrooming from the corners. His arm was a familiar weight, sitting in just the same place as it always had, right below her ribs. His faint snore a like a touch on the back of her ear, a ghost, a spectre of a previous time. She fell asleep with the rhythm of his breath like a heartbeat.
The next morning, Pascal tried to convince her that he had changed. He wanted to have a relationship, he said, not just sex. He put his hand on her shoulder, looking her directly in the eyes, the same way one would an unruly child. They fucked one more time, her silent tears soaking into the pillow as he moved behind her, before she told him to leave and never come back.
She cried then, really cried, for the first time since she had seen Pascal with Mary. It felt like the sobs were ripped from her lungs, from her gut, tearing with each convulsion, tearless sobs punctuated by retching coughs.
Olympia called in sick.
The next day, she called in sick again. She told her boss that she didn't want to work Paris flights, or flights to Italy. Someone who usually worked flights to London had a family emergency, so she filled in for poor guy. Pascal wrote her letters, left messages on her voicemail. I miss you, he said, I want you back. She heard his desire for her, the want of control of her, in every syllable of his voice. Under threat of formal reprimand, something she couldn't afford now that she had to pay rent by herself, Olympia finally returned to her usual Paris flight.
Pascal had found her there, entranced by Van Gogh, filling her soul with the painter's pain in the hopes of alleviating her own agony. Brush strokes like slaps, like sobs, like knife cuts on the canvas. Walk with me, Pascal said. He made such a scene that she had finally assented, wanting to escape the curious eyes of the Orsay's high-brow crowd. Olympia thinks now of the way her vision was filled by Wheatfield with Crows right before they left the well-lit museum.
They walked, his hand holding onto her elbow. She told him she was seeing someone else, surprised by the depth of pain on his face. Almost, he looked vulnerable. Then he just looked angry, arms immobile. Leave him, he said, voice deathly quiet. Olympia told him he was being stupid; there had never been an Olympia and Pascal, there had just been fucking. He hadn't heard how her voice shook as she said it, wanting him to see through her smoke screen and hold her in his arms, wanting to feel his body pressed against her in comfort.
* * *
Olympia sits, looking over the rippling currents of the Seinne, thinking of her favorite painting in the Louvre. Raindrops are falling, landing in the river, on the sidewalk, but not on her. She wishes she had looked as good as the La Jeune Martyre, but there were no halos, no nebulous white virginal dresses made near-translucent from moisture. Pascal had pushed her away, his strength magnified in anger, and she had tripped, fallen, spun out of control into the winter waters, her body registering the shock of cold only milliseconds before her head hit something solid. He had screamed her name like high-pitched woman, but it was too late.
* * *
More drops of rain splat on the sidewalk, on the bench, hitting newly-green leaves on trees. People walk in ones and twos under wide black umbrellas. Pascal stands under one with a beautiful auburn-haired woman, looking at the dark water, telling her of a past, lost love.
Olympia smiles and closes her eyes, leaning her head back to let raindrops fall through her face.
Originally published April 2007 - "Dirty"