The Quality of Her Tears

I studied him, estimating his age as around thirty-five. He looked attractive; fashionably clad and trim. Not the usual attributes in the dusty art departments of universities, even in Paris. His brown eyes were intense, somewhat belying the friendly innocence of the rest of his face.

I gave him my name and admitted that I specialized in artists who were not only uglier than the lovely Claudette, but also decidedly deader. "But hey, life isn't all about work, is it?" I went on. "I always try to keep in touch with today, you know?" He laughed with me. I took a sip of the not very good wine.

"I heard about the Alma-Tadema," he then said. "Must have been a shock for someone as famous as you. I really felt sorry when I heard it, knowing how fragile trust can be in the art world." I just stared at him, shocked. He looked at his half-empty glass with a slightly disgusted look.

"Can I invite you to something better than this?" he asked, smiling again. "Maybe we could even have a snack; I know this small bistrot around the corner." I hesitated, wondering how he knew so much about me. I also wondered why someone who was a stranger only minutes ago would invite me for a drink. His smile widened.

"Pardonnez-moi," he said, shrugging in a very Gallic way. "You must be surprised. But it is not just for the drink or the food. I think I do have rather important information for you."

The bistrot was as bistrots go, but the wine was definitely better. We sat at a rickety table, under old mirrors and vintage enamel signs. On our way to the establishment conversation had been light and inconsequential. We had both duly admired the dark haired girl who brought us our glasses; he agreed with me that Juliette Gréco must have a beautiful great-granddaughter. Then he suddenly said:

"I heard of two more pictures."

"Two more pictures of what?" I replied, knowing very well what he meant.

"A Degas and a Goya," he said. "Both with your signature under their reports; both suddenly suspected to be false, alas."

The murmur of the bistrot became louder. I didn't respond. I just watched him until his eyes shifted. How would he know about them, I mused, a young, no doubt insignificant arts professor? He seemed to read my thoughts.

"I have friends in the arts world," he said. "They are into buying and selling. They tell me things you might be interested in. I can get you in touch with them. Some have large financial stakes in the arts world and they worry about the impact these scandals may have. Trust is such a thin rope – especially when a multi-billion dollar business seems to be balancing on it."

"A Degas," I said. "And a Goya." He nodded.

"I never did a Goya. And my last Degas was years ago." He shrugged his Gallic shrug.

The wine hadn't improved after all.

***

He drove a silver vintage Citroën DS, very well kept. I noticed a lingering perfume in the car, as well as a colorful silk scarf. We sped along the Seine River and didn't talk much. The orange rays of the low sun reflected off the puddles last night's rain had left behind. The traffic was still rather dense.

Just to break the silence I asked him if he were married and he said he wasn't. Then he laughed as he saw me looking at the scarf.

"A girlfriend," he said. "Or maybe I should say a fiancée?" Then he turned my way and excused himself for being maybe a bit forward, but was I married? I wondered what to say, if anything. How long did I know him at all?

"I was," I then said. "We divorced, or rather separated." He lifted his hand from the slender steering wheel. "Sorry, I should not have been nosey!" I laughed, a bit forced.

"C'est rien," I muttered.

At last we left the city proper, meandering through tree-lined lanes. Thick layers of fallen leaves covered both sides of the road. Autumn had colored them brown, red and yellow. Elegant houses became visible through the almost bare branches of trees.

Turning right, the car stopped before a cast iron gate. Jean-Luc used a remote control to open it. I admired the two marble angels on top of the columns that held up the gate. From behind the generous foliage of evergreens a tall, stately mansion came into sight.

As we drove up I couldn't help but admire the house. It had all the typical French features of a classical country mansion, with its sandstone walls, steep slate roofs and flaring eaves. It even had two sturdy half round towers at each side of the entrance.

After parking the car, Maynard took me to the house, but not up the steps to the main entrance. In stead we walked around the building to its back, where a huge lawn stretched out into the light of the dying day.

The entire backside of the house was covered by a glass extension, built on an elevated foundation of gray stone that rose from the lawn in a series of steps. It was an orangery, once meant to be a greenhouse for precious tropical plants and trees – like oranges.

There weren't many plants to be seen from the outside. The last rays of the sun turned the windows into reflecting copper colored mirrors, but when I scaled the steps I could look inside. The orangery had been changed into a kind of immense ballroom, adorned with decorations and huge chandeliers. The floor was made of highly polished wood. At its center stood a single figure, right below one of the big clusters of glittering crystal. Its back was towards us. The robe it wore had an upturned hood covering the head; its hem touched heeled ankles. The silhouette was definitely feminine.

When I looked where to go, I noticed Maynard had opened a tall glass door. As we walked in, the figure turned and lowered the hood. It was Mia.

Mia.

After turning Mia into me, Jean-Luc took me to his apartment in Paris, a lofty affair on Quai Voltaire, where we fucked like rabbits over the next weeks. He took care that the new obedient me was never short of cocks, expecting me to be a perfect hostess in every sense of the word. He had me cook for his guests and wait on them. He also had me strip and suck and offer myself up for fucking – at home and at parties. I never objected. I was happy like a piggy rooting in the mud. Within the limited field of talents I still had, I did my utmost to be the very best – ­and I was proud of being it.

About three weeks into this nympho's El Dorado, Jean-Luc made me dress up in a long evening gown of classy sky blue silk. He even insisted that I wear a bra – quite an exotic feeling after all this time of unfettered nakedness.

He asked me to pile my hair up and apply less make up than I had become used to. "Think Grace Kelly," he said. Then he drove us to the mansion. I shivered when the building came into view. We walked into the house, but not towards the wing I knew so well. Jean-Luc steered me to the right. A row of ancient portraits frowned down on me as I click-clacked to a conference room that held a huge table and a view on the park through tall windows.

Men occupied several of the chairs, just men, and each one of them stared at me when we entered. Beside Jean-Luc's Papa I recognized two other people, not knowing their names. Mia must have 'met' them at one of the many soirees. There were four more guests, one of them dark, maybe Arab, and one Asian.

Papa rose from his chair and welcomed his son with a hug, introducing him proudly to the visitors. Then he hugged me, crushing my tits and squeezing my ass through the slippery silk. "O la la," he breathed in my ear, "la pute est chique ce soir." He turned me to the table and said my name was Mia. He forced my arms back, making my chest push out. I saw the usual hunger on the faces around the table. It triggered the programmed response in my twitching cunt.

"Get your panties off, salope, and hand them to me," Papa said out loud. "I bet they are soaked already." I lifted the slippery silk of my dress, exposing nylon stockings and a stained thong. I pulled it down, stepping out of it and gave it to Papa. He smiled and handed it over to the Arab. Then he and his son sat down in two chairs at the top of the table.

As I looked around for a seat, Papa smiled and shook his head. "Ah, mais non, chérie. Don't hide yourself, go stand by the window so we may enjoy the view."

Surprised by how he could still make me blush, I walked over to one of the bay windows. The late afternoon sun must have been shining straight through my dress, exposing the silhouette of my body inside.

I looked at the back of Jean-Luc and his father. They were whispering; their heads close together. Behind them I saw the Arab giving my thong to the Asian guy who took a whiff. Both men chuckled. Then all eyes slowly wandered away from my body, focusing on Papa as he started speaking.

"Ah bon," he said. "So you know the plan. Are there any problems you see – any details we forgot?" One of the men I'd never seen before grimaced with his pink baby-face, flashing pale blue eyes in my direction.

"She looks the part, but do we have any guarantee she won't fuck up?" he asked in an Oxford kind of English. "Will she even do it?"

An almost forgotten flash of curiosity struggled through the layers of my conditioning. What would I have to do? Jean-Luc wasn't surprised, I saw. He raised his hand and said: "You need not worry, Derek. She wouldn't even know how else to behave. She has no choice. She may look like some rich stuck up broad, but she is all slut. And she is mine, entirely mine." He swiveled his chair, his eyes resting on me. He was right; I was his – and a slut too. I returned his wide smile.

"Mia, sweet whore," he said, and I felt a wave of warmth spreading. "Please, walk over to this English gentleman and beg him to suck his cock."

I sighed with relief. This was easy; there was no need to think, no difficult dilemma. I smiled wider and sashayed up to the baby-faced Brit, holding his eyes as I did so. I must have been an incredible dream come true, this stylish woman begging him for permission to suck his yummy cock in the childishly sweet voice I had been trained to use. Audible gasps came from around the table. Smiling, I focused my gaze on the modest bulge growing in his pinstriped crotch.

The cock was small, even fully erected. Another woman might have called it pitifully small, but I wasn't other women anymore. I was Jean-Luc's trained slave slut. For me a cock was the Holy Grail whatever its length, girth or hardness. Its owner had to be pleased. He might have washed it better, though.

I swirled my tongue around the head; then I swallowed both his shaft and balls until his spunk splashed all too soon against my throat's entrance. I let go of him, opening my mouth wide to show the dirty-white puddle at the center of my tongue.

I felt a hand patting the top of my head and heard Papa's rumbling voice. "Magnifique, ma douce pute," he said. "Now rise and get rid of your clothes. I am sure some of these gentlemen would love to further test your loyalty."

When I dropped the bra, one might have heard a needle falling – but it was just the soft sigh of the satin garment.

The Arab raised his hand. I wondered if it still smelled of my panties.

"Who guarantees me she won't betray us after marrying him, and then run off?" he said in guttural English. 'Marriage?' I mused. What on earth was going on?

I heard Jean-Luc's voice.

"Monsieur Mouhaffad," he said. "It may be hard to believe, but Mia has been free to leave for almost two months now – she never even looked. We finally pushed her into freedom; a cab was waiting for her, but she preferred to stay." He turned in his chair, smiling at me. It caused new waves of warmth to wash over me. I smiled back, radiantly. He begged me closer. I felt his hand on my naked thigh. His eyes were dark pools.

"And now we live in the city," he went on, turning away from me. "She is on her own all day; free to shop, even free to find a job. She is free to run off whenever she wants." His eyes were back into mine. I felt his hand close around my wrist. A hot drop of cunt-juice left my shaven lips to trickle down my thigh.

"But," he said. "She won't leave me. Tell them, chérie, why you'll always stay and do as I tell you."

Some questions are as easy as taking a breath. This one went straight to my programmed soul; I didn't need a second to respond.

"Because you are Jean-Luc," I said, my voice thick with excitement. "I am yours. You are my love, you own me. I could never disobey you. Just thinking about it hurts. I'd die without you." As I talked I sank to my knees, holding on to his hands and pressing my lips on them.

"Go to Monsieur Mouhaffad, honey," he said. "Ask him what his pleasure is."

Carl.

I stood frozen at the center of the vast ballroom, watching the woman who was, but didn't look at all like my wife. My lips shaped her name twice before sound kicked in. She didn't respond, vocally nor physically. Her eyes were down, where her fingers fondled the strap of silk that held her robe together. Then her eyes came up. They roamed the space behind me. As I went with them I saw Maynard had left; we were alone. Her lashes fluttered before her eyes focused on me – cool and blue as ever, but sunken into a narrower face.

Her voice was hoarse when she said: "I never wanted this, Carl. You must believe me, I never wanted this." I walked up to her. My arms hesitated between reaching out and repelling.

"Why are you here, Mia?" I asked. "Do you live here? Is this where you went? Are you with...?" She looked away. I wondered about her hair; it was cut into a short, straight bob, bleached silvery white. It made her look like a different woman.

"Is he the one you left me for – this Maynard?" I asked. She held my eyes, retreating a step to escape my hands. There was a soft, jangling noise. My God, how thin she'd become.

"Nothing is like you think, Carl," she then said, almost whispering. Her fingers undid the knot of the silk strap, allowing the robe to sigh open – exposing her slick, marble skin. It looked cool and perfect like a mannequin's. It also looked waxen where it stretched over bones and joints. She'd lost weight. It made her look gaunt, ghostly pale. But her breasts seemed bloated; they were pointed cones, sagging sideways on her swollen belly, ending in dark, stretched nipples. With a shock I realized she was pregnant. I also noticed that her stretched nipples had been pierced with crude silver rings. They moved with her breathing.

Looking down her protruding belly I saw other piercings, some through the lips of her shaven, milky white vagina, one at its top, maybe through her clit. Tiny attached silver trinkets jingled when she moved.

The robe had fallen off her body by then, pooling around her feet. Her eyes stayed on mine, unwavering. Her lips smiled. She slowly turned. All she wore, beside the silverware, were white whorish platform heels and white sheer stockings with elastic tops. Her once perfect back, though, was ruined by what looked like a maze of fading welts. It covered her bony spine, ribs and shoulder blades, down to the narrow swell of her ass. I gasped, reaching out to touch her.

"My God, Mia," I whispered. "Who did this? Why?"

She turned and smiled, folding her hands over her belly.

"This you mean?" she asked. "I have no idea."

I stared at the woman who'd betrayed me, no doubt laughed at me behind my back, lying to me, disrespecting me... and yet, seeing her like this melted my heart.

"That too," I said, "but your back..."

"You wouldn't want to know, Carl," she said. "It is who I really am. I tried to flee, I tried to change, but...." She hesitated.

"They caught me again, Carl," she went on. "Ah, who am I fooling? Such a little liar I am. In the end..." Her voice broke. "In the end I ran back to them as I have before; back to him. In the end I begged him to forgive me and set me straight; to punish me for my treason." I grabbed her shoulders.

"They? Him? Who is he?" I cried out. "Is it Maynard? Is he the father? Did you run off with him? Was he the one you betrayed me with?"

She slowly shook her head no. Her eyes were sad ­– disappointed, maybe.

"You don't get it, Carl. You are all wrong. Please listen," she said, bending her knees to pick up the robe. The movement made her silver trinkets tinkle. "Listen and don't interrupt me, please." Her eyes were intense now; it made her look like a schoolteacher wondering if her pupil would ever understand her. Her naked paleness and her silverware disappeared behind the silk.

"I never cheated on you," she said. "I lied a lot, but I didn't cheat; not as you understand it. If I did cheat, it was on Jean-Luc, because I already was his woman before you and I met. This will hurt you, Carl, but I know it was him I truly loved, even back when we married. It's still him I love now."

She averted her eyes as she closed the sash of her robe over her round belly. The tit-rings pushed themselves obscenely into the shining fabric.

Mia.

Palaces love chandeliers. Ah, and they love lots of statues and gilded ornaments too. They dress in yards of expensive curtains and tapestry, and there are stretches of marble floor and polished parquet. You see fountains and sparkling crystal; there are painted portraits of long gone people in rich and colorful outfits.

I surely loved the palace Jean-Luc took me to. It had these wide and brilliantly lit Cinderella stairs on the outside, where limousines stopped to drop off the rich and famous. The women picked up their sleek couture gowns to gracefully scale the steps in thousand-dollar Louboutins, rows of diamonds reflecting the limelight. They held on to their Prada clutches and the elbow of their tuxedoed companions, while a sunburst of flashlights blinded their eyes.

Yes, I loved being Cinderella.

Jean-Luc had told me the day before that we would go to a reception held in the Elysée Palace. It was a glittering function, organized by the Louvre Museum, because they had recently obtained a very prestigious masterpiece. Why they wanted to celebrate that in the President's humble abode I didn't know, nor did I care much. Maybe the would-be Napoleon who currently ruled France wanted to impress his much younger and recently acquired Italian singer/model wife? More likely the glory of the republic might be at stake. Whatever the reason, it would be fun to be there and see it all up close. Jean-Luc must be quite an art-world VIP to be invited, I mused. Ah, but I knew he was the best, didn't I?

He certainly was one of the best looking men around and he had taken much care to make me the best looking woman – but what's new there? I loved the feel of my green satin gown. It had the tightness and elegance of traditional Chinese dresses, as worn in pre-war Shanghai. Compared to many of my outfits, lately, it was surely sexy, but nowhere near as provocative, let alone sluttish.

Tonight I would be the sophisticated American girl abroad who'd meet a man, a fellow countryman. And he, 'if I played my cards right,' would ultimately be the one to marry me.

I'd stared at Jean-Luc when he told me that. It was on the afternoon before visiting the Palace. I didn't have the faintest idea what he meant. Wasn't I already his? I needed no husband, did I? Then I recalled what had been said in the conference room of the mansion. A strange, long forgotten flutter touched my heart. Was it fear?

"Will you sell me off, Jean-Luc?" I asked. "Will you send me away?"

It was a stupid question. Under any other circumstance it would have earned me a severe flogging or maybe worse. So I knew something big was going on, when he took me in his arms, kissed me and assured me none of that was the matter. "Au contraire," he whispered, "tu sais que je t'aime." Under the thick cover of my conditioning a slow pulse of worry came to life, although I didn't know what it was. I smiled, pushing my tit into his hand, and said: "Ah, Jean-Luc, mais tu sais que je t'aime de plus. I love you so much more."