above the seat: they are still playing cards, oblivious to what is happening to her.
For a brief moment she realises she would like to feel him flow inside her stomach, mingling his sperm with all that is floating within her, then the thought is violently abolished because she comes again, ferociously, wantonly, literally screwed on to this cock that is splitting her apart, piercing her very heart.
She is gasping for breath when the man’s hands let go of her bum and move under her shirt, partly freeing her breasts from the push-up bra, lengthily caressing her hard, sensitive nipples, enjoying himself, then pinching her breasts hard to bring her back to reality from her swoon. Through the waves of ecstasy she is also confusedly angry at him for having discovered she enjoys the combination of pain and pleasure.
The man withdraws from her, settles to her left and folds his still-bulging cock so wet from the very secretions of her stomach into his trousers. Will she ever know the taste of his sperm, or just this lingering smell of wet rosewood?
His smile is muted, almost affectionate but distant again as he moves back to his seat, and the last thing she sees of him is his straight neck and his short grey hair.
She frees herself from the wet knickers now cutting into her crotch, and shudders, face against the window pane. She watches the Rhone outside. An old piece of poetry by Victor Hugo comes into her mind: “The noisy river flows, a fast and yellow flow…”
The heat of the sun, the coolness of the glass against her cheeks, and the dying vibrations inside her stomach now peaceful, moving away, drying up…
She doesn’t wake up in Avignon, nor in Marseilles. When she opens her eyes again, she can still hear the subconscious echo in the air of the voice which has just announced their arrival in Saint Raphael. It is now evening, and only the sporadic lights of the approaching station puncture the darkness.
She had thought of going to Nice, but why not Saint Raphael; she’s never been before.
She is now alone in the compartment. She rises, still unsteady on her legs – she’d fallen asleep in an awkward position and her left foot has fallen asleep – and moves forward with a slight limp, lacking grace, towards the exit and almost topples over as she walks down the train’s steps. Blood flows back into her brain, the vertigo fades… She takes a few steps forward on solid ground and the dizziness returns.
“I must be hungry,” she thinks. And the act of saying so makes her hungry. She walks towards the station’s exit, reckoning that like with all stations there must be a bar, a bistro nearby, some Arab grocery.
But all there is nearby is a Rolls Royce parked close to the pavement, a very old model with the driver’s seat open to the air and the back shrouded by dark opaque windows. The chauffeur, holding his cap in hand, turns towards her.
“Mademoiselle,” he says, “we were waiting for you. Would you please…”
She is so surprised she allows herself to be led, just two metres of pavement between freedom and the green English leather seats of the luxury car, and the door closes silently behind her. Immediately, it’s night behind the dark windows, banishing even the glow of the street lights, allowing barely pale haloes to survive, just like the mad stars in Van Gogh’s skies.
The car is driven in total silence; it could well be stationary, just a hint of vibration betraying its motion. They travel for a long time, and the young woman who is hungry and thirsty and badly needs to pee, is now in a bad mood. They stop for a red light and she tries to get out but the doors are locked from the outside. She raps her knuckles on the glass separating her from the driver. The man’s neck doesn’t budge.
The Rolls-Royce leaves Saint Raphael and takes a small, winding road that rises above sea level and leads deep into the hinterlands. A long time. Hunger. Thirst…
At last, the car slows down as it runs parallel to a high wall that leads them to an intricate metal gate headed by a mess of white metal arrows. The door opens by itself, no doubt electrically controlled, unless there is an invisible caretaker in attendance…
Screeching across a gravel path, the car drives up to a small castle, one of the many Modern Style monstrosities that the Cote d’Azur has given birth to over the past century, and comes to a halt in front of its steps. The stylish chauffeur gets out and ceremoniously opens the door.
In a rush, the sound of the early cicadas of spring invades the Rolls Royce.
She alights, intrigued, worried, still angry. A man stands there, on the second step and, astonished, she recognizes the grey-haired stranger from the train. How in hell could he have reached this place before her?
“Please accept our apologies,” he says. “You must be quite tired?”
He ceremoniously takes her hand. He is now wearing a smoky-grey lounge suit, the same colour as his eyes.
“Come,” he says. “We’ve prepared some food for you.”
She agrees to enter the castle, although she also knows this might prove a mistake, that maybe she shouldn’t, now that the falling sun has retreated with all its elementary seduction, and the menace of night is ready to take over.
Once inside, she looks back, intuition or ultimate temptation. The moon is full, and shines over a freshly mowed lawn at the heart of which stands a white marble statue, maybe of Venus, or even Diana the Huntress without her slings and arrows, the languorous shape of the Goddess bathing in the moonlight.
The young woman turns back and, with quiet determination, enters the house.
“If you wish to freshen up,” the man says, pointing to a door.
“Yes, I’d like to spray my war paint on again,” she jokes, repressing the anxiety quickly rising inside her throat.
As she washes her hands, she gazes at the reassuring image in the mirror: she is still pretty, still looks fresh despite all those hours on the train; some would even say the darker shade below her eyes was an added bonus.
“What a face,” she says though, almost out of habit.
A snack? On a small table at the centre of the Art Deco salon with its delicate furniture, she can see all the things she likes: patisseries, fruit, finger-sized delicacies, lemonade – she is still at an age where you are allowed to enjoy sweet, sugary things. In the meantime, the stranger is busy starting a fire inside the big chimney breast, kneeling in front of the initial orange flames longer than he would normally do, exposing his slim neck to her gaze, no doubt aware she is full of questions and that he is in no hurry to supply answers.
He finally rises from his prone position, while she finishes biting into a thin slice of exquisite tarte.
“I will take you to your room,” he says. “You’ll find something you can wear for dinner. Take your time. If you want to take a bath, just tell Nora, and she will arrange it.”
With his hand, he points to a corner of the room where a young mulatto woman in a domestic’s uniform is standing, straight and silent. She has pale grey eyes, shining in the light of the nearby flames like the eyes of a cat.
She hadn’t even heard her enter the room.
“We dine at eleven,” he adds.
They walk up a wide pink marbled set of stairs, a bit too ostentatious for her liking. Then, after passing through a red vestibule, down a long corridor punctuated by doors numbered One to Nine. At the other end, there is another set of stairs probably leading up. They stop at number Seven. The maid opens, and moves back to let her go in.
The room is spacious, with tasteful furniture. Not one piece of furniture is contemporary, but every single one, from the straight geometry of the dresser, to the make up table with its crystalline mirror and the bed shrouded with delicate millinery, appears to be brand-new, although they visibly were created in the 1920s.
On the wall, a Millet-styled print: three farm labourers resting in a field, enjoying a drink, while a woman awaits them, sitting against a haystack; it’s unclear what she might be waiting for as, unlike any character in a picture by the Barbizon artist, she is fully naked and when you take a closer look, her hands though held against her knees are tied together with a thin piece of string.
This sets her thinking again of the four men who were playing cards on the train, the same sense of discontinuity between the image you would expect and the more disturbing one…
“Do you wish to take a bath?” the maid asks.
There is no trace of the Caribbean in her voice.
“Yes, please…”
The bathroom that connects to the room is huge, all green marble, all three walls covered by mirrors, as is,
