At the Summit Ch. 03

She was interrupted by a screech of female displeasure. As they rounded a corner, they saw a couple on a picnic blanket tussling with each other. The heavy man, just barely past being a boy, yanked at the girl-woman who was sharing the blanket with him. They were just a bit younger than Laetitia, and wearing wedding bands.

"C'mon you bitch," the heavy man badgered, and then he said something in Spanish. They struggled to gather up their things; an open Miller Lite bottle rolled out onto the grass, spilling the sudsy swill over their blanket as it passed. As they departed, they left a trail of empty Marlboro cartons, Twinkie crumbs, and convenience store burrito wrappers across the sweeping grass bank of the ravine.

"They're going home. He says that he is going to make love to her now," Laetitia translated.

"Now there's passion!" Dean needled her. Laetitia looked concerned, though.

"I feel sorry for that woman," she said, and then she thought for a moment and laughed. "But I take your point. I need something more than passion!"

Finally they reached a clearing in Sanchez Park where everything looked picture-perfect. Dean indicated the spot and prepared to toss the hotel blanket over the rough grass of the ravine.

"But what about that man following us?" Laetitia had noticed him.

"Have you seen him recently?" Dean smiled.

"Nonnnnnnn..." she drew out the French word, moving her tongue as she said it, searching aloud for another thought.

"Now that I think about it, I have not seen him since... we passed your friends!" Laetitia looked at him with penetrating eyes.

"They aren't my friends, they're friends of a friend." Dean grinned. "Perhaps he decided to go somewhere more interesting with them," he said in a mock-innocent tone.

"Maman will have a fit if you have done something to another of her Lepenisiste colleagues!"

"Will you?" Dean asked archly. Laetitia looked at him very seriously for a moment, then smiled wickedly. Her reply was amazingly saucy.

"I will not mind at all! I am ready to enjoy our sand-wiches." She said the word "sandwiches" with a French accent that reminded him so much of her mother that he almost called her "Michelle" by accident.

"Mmm... Laetitia, you're right." They began to spread their things out.

They concentrated on assembling lunch, and said no more than a few words. Then Dean gently took her hand. She looked at him curiously as he bowed his head and said an ad lib blessing over the food, with words from Psalm 23.

She continued to look at him in amazement. In the silence, a young couple walked behind them and seated themselves on a nearby park bench. Probably, it occurred to Dean, they were unaware of his and Laetitia's quiet presence.

"I have never known a man like you before," she stated simply.

"In fact, I have never known a man who prayed before. Or at least," she corrected herself, "when it was not a formal occasion or part of being a priest." She was more surprised by this than anything that had happened so far.

"I need to pray more than most people," he said simply.

"You must have a great deal to struggle with then, in your work."

"In my life," he responded. "You know, there are spies and soldiers in the Bible, and government officials who wonder which is the lesser of evils. This isn't a new problem."

"I had not thought of that."

They ate in peace, as if a curtain had dropped around them and made them invisible to their prospective enemies. Behind them on the park bench, the dark-haired beauty and her handsome man spoke quietly to each other. Laetitia and Dean found themselves speaking quietly, too, as an early-afternoon hush fell over the ravine parkland. No one passed by at this deepest part of the ravine.

In this peace, Dean saw a new Laetitia emerging. Their time and tensions together were building an intimacy between them that he had not expected. Her posture changed, her smile was becoming radiant. Not that there was anything wrong with her before, he thought, but in millimeters of difference she was coming out of a kind of self-manufactured cocoon.

Happily now, they talked about different kinds of men who she might meet, different sorts of relationships, and he even answered questions about his own long ago loves. She did not ask about her mother.

"I have something I want to show you," she said. "You must promise not to laugh, now." Dean promised, and she reached into her pack. She was pulling out a thin magazine, when her attention shifted. She was looking over her shoulder.

"Turn slowly," she whispered to him. "It's just like Professor Reynard said!" He saw that she was excited, smiling like a scientist who has made a great discovery. He looked around carefully.

The couple on the bench near them were still talking with each other. Dean looked back at Laetitia with puzzlement.

"What do you mean?" he whispered.

"They are already becoming intimate," she touched her lips and her reply was barely audible. "Notice how they both are tapping their feet. Look at the way that they are touching each other."

Sure enough, Dean mused, both were nervously tapping a foot apiece. They sat close together, so the motion in the young man's tapping should have been apparent to the woman at his side, but she took no conscious notice of it. She touched him gently on the cheek, and then pulled her hand quickly away to straighten his collar, lingering on the collar button.

Dean and Laetitia watched in silence as the couple continued their conversation, sitting closer and closer together. He touched her upper arm to make a point of some kind; they shifted positions slightly as if becoming uncomfortable, but both ended up touching. There was nothing blatantly sexual about this. It was not petting in the traditional sense, but the couple's yearning for each other was becoming clear, at least to their watchers. Without interrupting her concentration on the man with her, the dark-haired woman began to smooth her skirt absent-mindedly.

Her man stretched out his legs in front of the bench; Dean knew the feeling of suddenly realizing that he needed space for his swelling manhood. He whispered this to Laetitia, who grinned and added this information to her expanding pool of knowledge.

"In a minute or two, they will gaze into each other's eyes so deeply, and then it is only a matter of the right time and place before they make love!" She said it with the certainty of an expert.

"How do you know that?"

"Professor Reynard is an expert on this subject. He has spent countless hours in singles bars, watching the interaction between the sexes."

Dean started to smile, but realized that she was serious.

"She is preparing him to be her lover," she continued.

"How do you know THAT?" Dean challenged.

"I have seen that she is a step ahead of him in the body language. See how she touches him on the cheek again? Did you see her straightening his collar a little?"

"I think she is straightening something else."

"Bien," she giggled a bit, "that is the point, is it not?"

Dean could not tell if that was a pun or not; sometimes her English was one-dimensional. And then she grinned and Dean caught the sparkle in her eye.

"And now, they will look into each other's eyes, for a long time." Laetitia smiled and it was a combination of the satisfied scientist and a woman's appreciation of a sister's good fortune.

"I see something else," interjected Dean. "Her nipples didn't show through her blouse, and now they do..." She frowned at him in mock disapproval, but half-whispered agreement.

"And you made a note of her appearance before?" Laetitia teased him, and then returned her attention to the lovers.

The dark-haired woman leaned back a bit, as if to be more comfortable, bringing her well-rounded breasts up to the attention of her man. Whether conscious of them or not, he recorded the inviting motion of eager nipples reaching toward him.

Laetitia and Dean waited silently for a moment, and then, as if a magic spell had been cast, the couple across from them seemed to merge in a long, concentrated gaze.

"And what are they seeing?" Dean spoke first.

Laetitia watched for a moment longer, herself transfixed by the tableau: she was now half anthropologist and half apprentice seductress.

"He is seeing her beauty, his imagination is swimming in her now, she is perfect for him, he wants to become a part of her."

"And her, what is she seeing?" As Dean said that, he realized that Laetitia was nervously tapping her foot in a way that carried the timing to him. He wondered if he was doing that, too.

Laetitia paused again, as if lost in thought. She moved to watch the couple, and Dean enjoyed watching her tummy moving between her blouse and her denims. Her navel appeared and disappeared in a tantalizing way. Even more, he enjoyed the irony of the appearance, as she began to speak about the other couple, of her own firming breasts and rising nipples.

"She is looking into his eyes, they are becoming even darker now, and perhaps she is even subconsciously measuring his "messages emotionnels" - his cornea is signaling his passion for her." Her words were that of the anthropologist again, but they were delivered in a breathless tone.

"His cornea?" Dean tried not to break the spell, but it was difficult.

"Yes, she is measuring tiny movements in his eyes. They will tell her of his emotions, even if she does not know that." Laetitia touched Dean reassuringly on the arm.

The young man swept his love into his arms, embraced her, and kissed her. Her full lips took his as softly as a Victorian couch receiving a Southern Belle, gently accepting him. His free hand moved to her bra line, caressing, examining, holding, exploring, then teasingly tracing a nipple. She yielded to him.

"Now, who is the one leading!" Dean said it as a statement, not a question. The young man's hands were everywhere now, and the woman arched her back with pleasure, bringing her neck to his lip for kisses. Small, sweet, inviting words in Spanish drifted across to Dean and Laetitia's eagerly attentive ears.

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To be continued...