Julia de Valdois

"Honestly Lucien - he's like a puppy!" said Julia with a grin. "He bounds about from girl to girl, a dab of lip-gloss here, a touch more eye-liner there, always eager to be useful. If one of us waggles our fingers at him for a light, or an aspirin, or a tampon or whatever, he leaps into action like the entire House of Dior will collapse unless he gets it done."

"Ah! He sounds sweet! How old is he?" asked Lucien, pouring her another glass of white. The moules mariniere and bread had just arrived. Julia grinned at his question, half mischievous, half guilty.

"Oh dear! That's the thing! The poor babe only turned eighteen last week. It's the first job he's ever had, and he's thrilled with it. I've never met anyone so full of bounce: always happy but always in a rush. He makes me feel positively old!"

"Well, so you are, you little cradle-snatcher! I thought you liked your men a good twenty years older than you? - providing they have visible means of support pouring out of every orifice, of course."

Julia laughed, then ate another mussel. "Oh! I do! I do! But project seduce-the-boss isn't coming on too well. I've caught his eye, but I did that ages ago as you know, and it's still the only part of him I've caught. Too much damn competition, is what I put it down to."

"Competition?" said Lucien gallantly. "You don't have any competition. You're Julia. You only have to look at us and all us men are doomed."

She raised two pleased but disbelieving eyebrows. "No competition in Valdois, maybe, but this is Paris. There are fifteen pretty women right here in this restaurant, three of whom could give me a run for my money, and any minute one might walk in so inconsiderately gorgeous she makes me look like a dog's backside."

Lucien looked at her doubtfully.

"If you know of a dog's bottom that looks even remotely like you, my dear. I'd not just like to make its acquaintance, but be on deep and intimate terms."

"Just how much more intimate would you like to be, dear?" she asked, patting his nose with a piece of bread. She had a point. They met up at least twice a month on their own, and a meal and a chat was always followed by bed at either his place or hers. Both had other lovers than each other, but neither they nor the circle they moved in made much of a distinction between good friends and sexual partners. In the milieu of the Sorbonne and the Left Bank, the emphasis was on making life agreeable; to reserve oneself for 'one true love' was frowned upon as rather anti-social. They were young, and their grand passions could come later. Julia and Etienne had at least fifty friends in common, and met up far more often as part of a group than in private chats like this one. Life had been good for both of them, and was only getting better. They'd both graduated from the Sorbonne a few months earlier, and while a degree was quite enough for Julia and she was glad to be working, Lucien was still following his dream and had started his post-graduate studies.

As to her pessimistic outlook on the chances of hooking Xavier de la Fontaine, it was reasonably well founded. He had a lovely wife, a stunning mistress, and a Moroccan girl was kept at all times on his yacht, whether it was moored along the Cote d'Azur, in Capri or Tangiers. He owned the fashion magazine Julia now worked on, and had extensive interests both in France and the Near East. His family was not properly ancienne like Julia's, but some enterprising predecessor had put his finger in the pie after the monarchy was overthrown, investing his ill-gotten gains to fabulous effect in armaments and spices and the last years of the slave trade. He still owned a crusader castle in Alexandria and a palatial mansion outside Casablanca but, preferring Paris and his villa on the Cote D'azur, he only used them for a month or two each year.

"So how many times has Fontaine called in at the office since I last saw you?"

"Precisely once," pouted Julia. "And even then, we minions hardly get a look-in. He just breezes into the editor's lair, while all of us break out in a fight about which of us is going to bring their coffee. It's pitiful, Lucien, it really is; about nine of them rush off to the Ladies to preen themselves and check their make-up, then stick their chests out at him when he finally emerges. I even saw Claudia fish a random file out of the lowest drawer of her filing cabinet. It was so embarrassingly obvious it made us cringe; even Fontaine noticed it and smiled."

"Dear-dear," tutted Lucien with a sparkle in his eye. "You'd never stoop so low, of course."

"Of course!" she grinned back. "I rely on nothing but my natural charm and personality."

"Really? When did you get those?"

"I acquired them at birth, thank-you-very-much, not like all you peasants down the hill."

"Thank you for your insult, M'am. God knows we need them - they're all we have to eat down here." So saying, he respectfully doffed a cap which wasn't there. Julia's high birth had been a source of much hilarity at the Sorbonne, and still was amongst their group of friends. In less radical circles however, that portion of society which shaved, it added that little something extra to a girl who was already special.

The boeuf bourguignon was good here. Lucien had to watch his pennies, and she liked watching him tuck in. The bill would be on her and always was, but that was not an issue for her or him either; his day would come, and it had long been agreed the day he got his professorship he would get a bank-loan and take her for a five-course feast at Maxim's. Her papa had always been more generous with his love than with his chequebook, and her allowance throughout her Sorbonne years had been spartan, but it had still been double what most of her comrades lived on. To live on the cheap and still live well; that was an art, and they were artists at it. On being given a staff job on the The Look of France a few weeks earlier, she'd abandoned the modelling and catwalk work which had helped see her through university. Now, with a decent salary plus daddy's monthly pittance, she was doing fine.

"Ah! That was good," sighed Lucien, pouring both of them some more cheap red. He didn't add a '...and thank you for the meal,' because she had more cash than he did and therefore it was only right. Not only was she used to it by now, she felt the same way too. Life was a big party to which everyone had been invited, but in the view of Paris under thirty, the best party of them all by far would be to up sticks generally and have a revolution. Policemen had been put on earth to have things thrown at them, and those who demurred were either square or fascist and had somehow failed to grasp their Trotsky.

"So why does Fontaine want a classy intellectual magazine like yours? For someone who owes his money to making cannons for Napoleon, it seems an odd investment, surely?"

"Well, he's owned it for years. I've hardly spoken ten words to him, but by all accounts you're right -- it's a sort of chip-on-the-shoulder thing. His real money comes from armaments and god-knows-what, but he's also got the most prestigious mag in the country. He loves style and fashion and food and culture -- the French way generally -- and it puts him at the centre of all that. He's forceful and magisterial and built like an ox, with a voice so deep you think you feel it in your chest, so maybe the mag is the nearest he can get to having a feminine side. And if you think about it, an office-full of extremely well-presented women, all very much belonging to that world, all either scared witless of him or wishing he would notice them or both -- well, it isn't the worst place for an industrial magnate to hang out for an hour or two, is it?"

"No, I suppose it isn't. If I were an evil greedy capitalist bastard, I might even do the same."

"Yeah? I'll tell the editor you might be putting in an offer later."

"Okay, you do that. And tell everyone they can only use the bottom drawer of their filing cabinets as soon as I take over. The boss must have his perks."

"Indeed he must!" pronounced Julia. "Otherwise, what's the point in being boss?"

They shared a smile in memory of old times. They'd grown up, moved on, but the magic of Jean-Patrice had left its imprint in their souls, and lay inside them dormant. Julia's bed had four rotating lovers, Lucien's three, but those far-off days remained their most intense, their only drama of the heart. They ordered two espressos, lit up two gitanes, chatted, watched the world.

"So. This puppy of yours -- what's he called, and do I need to remember it?"

"Hah! Probably not!" she laughed. "But just in case, it's Phillipe."

"Fair enough. If I forget, I'll just call him puppy. But since he works for Dior and you've given up the modelling, surely he's out of the picture for good -- assuming he was ever in it in the first place, which I find doubtful considering he's only just come out of nappies."

"Oh come off it, Lucien! I can't speak for you, obviously, but by the time I was eighteen I'd left my nappies far behind me."

"So you're really saying he's a contender?" he asked derisively.

"No! I'm just saying he's sweet, that's all. Like, he puts everything he has into the moment, always doing his best, always being nice to people, helping out and worrying in case he isn't. He's all gentle and funny and bouncy and earnest, and he makes me feel, er, all experienced -- you know -- all femme fatale and older woman. Like I'm bewitching him, that kind of stuff."

"Okay, but why d'you need to bewitch him when you've got me to bewitch instead?"

Julia big-smiled at this.

"'Cos we don't bewitch each other, darling. We do everything else, but not that."

Lucien pondered this as he walked her back to what he called his pit, and what the landlord called a compact basement studio. Once inside, they cleared sufficient books and clutter off the sofa to be able to sit down. A languid easy cuddle. A glass of wine, a cigarette. One kiss led to another, but she was surprised he didn't start unbuttoning her shirt for access the way he usually did. She began to do it for him anyway, but stopped. He looked horrified! Completely shocked!

Her mouth opened to ask if he was ill or something, but he put a finger to her lips. Mystified but smiling, she watched him dredge a pen and notepad out of somewhere in the student carnage.

Julia! What do you think you're doing? I'm Lucien, not Jean-Patrice! No way would he have given me permission, not even for your baccalaureate. I'm sorry but I'm going to have to tell him what you just did.

She gasped wide-eyed when she read this. She stared at him, but for the first time in many a year he refused to look her beauty in the face. Instead he stared down at his hands, folded shyly on his lap to hide the bump he shouldn't have. She took the pen, but couldn't think of what to say. But then she used her other hand to squeeze herself through blue denim jeans. That made the words come easy.

Please don't tell, Lucien. Please! You know how cross he'll be. You know he'll make you turn around, and then I'll have to put my hands down on the tree-stump while he spanks me on my knickers. I won't ever do it again, I swear I won't! Listen -- if you promise not to tell, I'll try and get you five seconds of my panties from the front -- not all of them of course, just halfway up - and then two seconds of the back as well if I can get him to agree to it. How's that, sweetie? Deal?

Her eyes were closed. She was somewhere else. In Valdois, by the river's edge. After reading her plea-bargain, Lucien left character just long enough to unbutton and unzip her Levis. She slipped her hand in gratefully, but her jeans were far too tight to reach to where she wanted. Everything had been so easy all these years for both of them. Now, suddenly, there was that old familiar rapture of the difficult, the frustrated, the hard-earned. Lucien had started this for her sake, not his, and was amazed to find himself back in the vortex too, with all that primal pulsing magic of the innocent and infantile. Back then there'd been a stone he always steered round to the left, not right, in case his mother died. The spirit of the woods was watching over him, and he'd go home to find her still alive.

Poor Julia. Poor old you. You know I want to very much, but you also know I can't. Just be brave and tell him after school, because you know he's always nicer to you if you're honest and own up to things. Just tell me to turn round, then bend over the treestump and tell him what you did. And don't worry anyone will see you, because me and Valerie will be on lookout while you get it. When he's finished just say sorry and it will all be back to normal. Besides, you know he can't do it all that hard in case your daddy wants to see you later in his study.

She read this huffing through an open mouth, her hand now rubbing, squeezing, with full force, trying desperately to make sufficient difference through the denim. His hand joined hers to help her do it. Her handwriting, usually so elegant, was a mess.

Oh Lucien! I know you're right, and it wasn't fair of me at all. I promise I'll own up to kissing you, and admit I asked you to keep quiet. What I've done is really bad, so he's bound to make me choose between double with my panties normal, half with both sides tucked into the middle, or only have a little bit but have to take my knickers off. But like you say, he can't make my bottom red or even rosy, as Monsieur Arras might mark down my homework down and I'll have to see Papa about it. I know it doesn't happen all that often, but Jean-Patrice says we're not taking any chances and I'm really grateful he's so good about it.

They groaned. They gasped. This was a drug, but it was tough. The iron self-control of school was back. She could squeeze her thighs and he could press his naughty lump, but that was all. Listening to Teacher for hours on end, desperate to avoid the dreaded question: "You two: why are you so fidgety this morning?"

"Go put a skirt on," Lucien croaked.

"I don't have one here. This is your place, remember?" she just managed back.

"Damn."

"I know."

They gave up, gave in, and dived into each other's mouths. She clambered up and held his head between her hands so hard it looked as if she meant to eat him, she pinioned Lucien underneath her, his waist locked tight between her thighs. Tongue on tongue with lips wide open, their faces buried in each other as well as in the past, exchanging all their hot impassioned breath as though they only had one lung between them. He had to pull her off him by her hair before he suffocated. He turned the tables, forced her down, hands pressed on her ears and temples. Her back was flat along the sofa but she wouldn't put her knees down and lie prone, so he had to work around; he forced an arm between her legs, his elbow pressing on her crotch. He kissed whatever he could get his lips on from her forehead to her throat. Her beauty maddened him, and the more of it he took from her the fiercer grew the burn. He tried everything, pulled her hair and bit her neck, but there was nothing he could do to put his fire out. She sought him out at every turn, greedy for his lips on hers, retaliating his passion with so much bliss he was unable to subdue her. Frustrated at his own excitement, he retreated down and sucked her nipples through her shirt, then gorged on as much tenderness and cotton as was possible to put his mouth on. Moaning as her buttocks ground the sofa, head flailing one way then the other, she squeezed her breasts in with both hands to feed the shark as it attacked. Wanting her insanely now, Julia crying out for more while all her pearls were still denied him, he absurdly tried to pull her jeans out of his way, even though they were tighter than a rabbit's skin and her ass was halfway through the couch.

"To hell with this," he muttered. "You, Miss Julia de Valdois, are going to be fucked."

But the word was not yet father to the deed. He plucked her off the sofa, and she put up about as much resistance to being carried as a bag of shopping; a kitten in its mother's jaws could not be more obliging. He threw her on the bed ass first, rolled her like a log onto her front, lifted up her heels so high she was compelled to make herself a wheelbarrow. He dragged her down towards him until the soles of her feet were pressed against his stomach, her arches resting on the bed-board, then reached his hands around her waist and began to skin his little rabbit. Her undone zip and button had destroyed her Levi's will to fight, and her jeans and panties were so strongly bonded they both came down together and conceded him her legs and bottom. It took him more time than he wished to spare to get the damn things off her ankles, and when the last bit passed her toes he hurled them at the bedroom wall, then grabbed her firmly by the calves.

"Get that shirt off. Right now."

"Oh yeah? And how the hell am I expected to do that?"

Her feet were higher than her head by far and she was lying on her stomach, locked in place by Lucien's grip. The only way she could comply with his request would be to levitate her upper body, but the boy who'd sat beside her all those years, been her playmate, then companion, then her worshipper, and now her friend and lover too, was in no mood for minor details. He released her with a growl and stormed around and sat down where the mattress ended, right beside her head. Peremptorily he took her by the armpits, manhandled her across him and raised her shirt above her bottom.

"Oi! Get off! What the hell d'you think you're doing?" she protested. It did her little good, and a crisp hard smack hit her left buttock.

"Ouch! You bastard, Lucien! Piss off!"

His answer was a splat!-splat!-splat! in quick succession. She mewed just like a little kitten.

"Is that how you spoke to Jean-Patrice, you silly little thing?" He reinforced the question firmly even as he asked it.

"Oouw! Get off me! Let me go!"

"Right -- that does it. I was only going to do this for a minute, but now you're going to get a proper spanking." Julia felt the firmness of his hand and it meant business, so she decided to change tack.

"Yiee! All right-all right! That's enough now, darling -- just let me take my shirt off like you said, okay?"

"Fine. We'll stop for that, and then continue."

This was not what she'd expected. Finding herself free, she got off him, pouted, waited for Lucien to forget all this and pull her to the bed, then took her shirt when he didn't. She'd been naked in that room dozens of times over, but now, like this, it felt so different. She began to feel those old sensations. The last time she'd ever had to knock and enter Daddy's study she'd been seventeen, and that was long ago and in another lifetime.

Lucien took her hand and drew her to him, and this time she did not resist. He gently rubbed her bottom for a second, as if to say well done. He spanked her with a calm authority that was exactly like Papa, starting just as he would carry on, no ups and downs or variations, as certain as a metronome set to one beat every second, she got a burning hand-clap on the full of her bare buttocks. No harsh words and no emotion, no wildness or excessive force, but on and on and on and on. His power met her bottom and exploded as if falling from on high, majestic in the pain it caused, uncompromising and implacable, requiring her to feel his justice. She whimpered but she did not speak.

The first few minutes, he thought mainly of himself. So many ancient hurts he'd long pretended he'd forgotten all came pouring out. The oldest and the deepest was: what glory, what fabulous perfection must it be to have been born as Jean-Patrice? To be just the little finger of his hand would be sublimity, so to be all of him, see what his eyes had seen, would be to live the life divine. He listened as she gasped and moaned, her desperate struggle to be good, conditioned reflex stopping her from struggling excessively or wailing please to show her mercy. And as he looked, he understood. She had ancient hurts as well. He began to spank her much more lightly, landing on fresh pastures of her buttocks and varying the speed and pressure. Once he'd transformed to Jean-Patrice's style, which he'd never seen himself but had been many times described to him by Julia and Valerie, he brought comfort to his special girl.