The Soprano Ch. 04

At last his back bowed and he cried out as he emptied himself into her. He turned the vibrator off, pushing it carelessly onto the floor. His chest was heaving with his breaths and he was blinking a bit too quickly, as if he almost could not remember or believe what had just occurred. Claire was still twitching inside and out and the kinks in her muscles were becoming quite painful.

“Maestro,” she whispered. “Could you please untie me now?” He stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment. “Sebastien,” she said, a bit louder. He blinked then, reaching automatically for the knots and undid them with trembling fingers. She felt empty inside, as if she’d been washed clean by an enormous wave. Did she look as shell-shocked as he did?

Stretching out her limbs was actually not quite as painful as she had feared, and she’d cracked every joint she thought was possible before going limp. Just as she did so, Sebastien drew very close to her, burying his face in the crook of her neck and cradling her to him.

“Mon abeille, I believe you are any man’s dream come true,” he murmured.

-----

“Are you ready to have your parents visit?” Sebastien asked, still idly scanning the newspaper.

“Not really. They decided to make a vacation out of it and stay the entire week. Which would be fine, except that I already told them they should stay with me. They told me they could still get a hotel, but it being a holiday and all, well, I can handle it for a week.”

“Nonsense. Let them have your apartment. You can stay with me.”

“With…with you?”

“Yes, and I do not understand your confusion. You stay overnight often enough and we did share a flat for three weeks in Paris.”

“That was different.”

“Hardly. Come, just think of it as an experiment…or practice.”

“For what?”

“Living together. Surely the idea has occurred to you,” he replied, finally looking up at her.

It had, she supposed. But he was just so damned private, she assumed he enjoyed his private space. Thinking about it, though, perhaps it was she who was the one pushing away from the idea. It all just seemed too soon! They hardly knew each other. Yet with each passing month that was, of course, less the truth.

“It has occurred, of course. I just didn’t think…I don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be room for me here,” she protested.

“Mon abeille, if we made the decision to live together, I assure you that I would find the room. Besides, it would not have to be here. I could always sell this apartment and purchase a house elsewhere. Perhaps one to the north, among the trees. Or across the city, near the ocean. Would you like that?” he asked, his voice sounding soft and serious.

She should have been thrilled, but she was sort of panicking. Had he been putting serious thought into moving in with her? Even buying a house with her? That was crazy! She wasn’t ready for any of this. She looked up at him, trying to think of a response, and saw the humor sparkling in his eyes. He was just fucking with her!

“Jerk,” she muttered. He only laughed.

-----

Thursday finally came, and Claire was pacing Sebastien’s apartment. She’d arrived the night before and found that he had cleared out a little room in his closet and chest of drawers for her things, which made her at once more and less comfortable. She had gone ahead and unpacked into them, though, after which Sebastien had seduced her – like it was so damn difficult or something – into having slow, passionate sex in an attempt to get her to relax. Which it did, and she was able to sleep.

But of course now it was Thursday, and her anxiety and constant pacing had driven Sebastien positively up the wall while he attempted to do some work, and then to begin cooking. So he had taken her back upstairs and tied her up to his oversized wooden easel – much more tightly this time than he had in the past – and then he had actually placed a vibrator on low between her legs, fastening it to her with more rope.

“You need some distraction,” he’d said, kissing her softly and abandoning her there. She had squirmed and whimpered all to no avail. The vibrator simply hadn’t been enough to drive her over the edge, but it had been more than enough to drive her crazy. He’d left her that way for two hours before he stopped the vibrator and fed her lunch, but then he’d tied it right back on for a further two hours.

She’d been stiff and a little sore when he finally returned, but still anxious to have him fuck her brains out – which he did. After that he’d wrapped his arms around her and held her close, murmuring to her that if she didn’t take a nap, she would drive him crazy. So she slept for a short time.

Finally, evening came. Her parents were supposed to arrive to her apartment around four o’clock, and then Sebastien was sending Tom over to pick them up in his town car at six o’clock. Well it was six now, and Claire was back to pacing.

“Stop being so nervous,” Sebastien said, placing his hands gently on her shoulders. “It is only dinner.”

“Dinner…yeah,” she responded vaguely.

“Mon abeille, I believe you were less nervous the first time we made love!”

“Made love?” she snorted. That’s not exactly what she would have called it. “Well sure, but then I knew what was about to happen,” she joked.

“And you know what is going to happen tonight,” he went on, ignoring her sad attempt at humor. “Your parents will arrive. René will be here, we will all share a meal, and then they will go away so that I can resume seducing their daughter.”

“Hey!” she squealed. “I was feeling okay right up until that last part. Why did you have to go and throw that in there? I don’t want to be thinking about sex all through dinner with my parents!”

“Just think of it as a reward for being your sweet, charming self.”

“Sure, yeah, charming.”

“You are. Haven’t you noticed how well people respond to you? I believe no one could help themselves from liking you.”

“No…that’s true for you, maybe, but not me.”

“Not so. Few people know me well enough to like me. You let yourself show, just enough, to intrigue and delight. As for me, I am charismatic. People are taken in, not by me, but by who they think I am. And, if I am so lucky, some people – the right people – also fear me.”

“I don’t think they’re afraid of you. They respect you.”

“Perhaps so.” A knock on the door startled Claire, but before she could really react, it opened. René was out in the hall, looking adorable in a knit sweater and corduroy pants, and he was ushering in a slightly befuddled-looking pair of people – her parents.

“Come see what I found wandering about the lobby. We have already introduced ourselves,” he said cheerily. Claire was momentarily paralyzed at their sudden arrival, but Sebastien stepped forward and spoke smoothly into the silence.

“Welcome to my home, Mr. and Mrs. –”

“Doctor, actually,” Claire interrupted in a murmur – her mother, the pediatrician.

“Frank and Jill,” corrected her mother with a smile.

“Yes, well, Mom and Dad, I’d like you to meet Sebastien, my, ah,” she paused, clearing her throat before finishing, “my boyfriend.” Wow, that word still sounded pretty strange. But no one else seemed to notice her awkwardness.

“You have a lovely apartment, Maestro,” said Jill, and Claire was surprised and pleased that she’d remembered to use his title.

“Thank you very much. You have a lovely daughter. Shall we sit? Dinner is nearly ready.” He gestured toward the dining room, which Claire had done the work of setting with Sebastien’s paper-thin china plates and imported linen napkins. She had also wanted to make the soup, but her imprisonment in the bedroom had meant that Sebastien had made everything himself.

Not that this was a problem, not at all. Sebastien was, after all, an amazing cook. For dinner, he had prepared the squash soup René had taught her, along with roasting a pair of ducks, frying potatoes in the rendered fat, and preparing an orange-butter sauce that went with everything. Claire’s parents had brought along a pumpkin meringue tart for dessert, René was whipping up some kind of apple cider cocktail, and all Claire had to do was sit and look pretty – well, and help guide the conversation.

The pretty she could do, as she’d dressed in slim black pants and a charcoal grey turtleneck sweater. Sebastien was in grey from top to toe, though he was as barefoot as she. When they had all sat down at the table with their soup and their cocktails, she nudged the top of his foot with her toes. Damned if her mind wasn’t already on sex a little bit; it was his cute bare feet.

The conversation was the hard part. Claire struggled for conversation topics, since Sebastien didn’t know anyone from her hometown. Although the way her father told a story, it didn’t much matter if you were acquainted with someone – you certainly felt like you knew them enough once you’d heard the story. Then there was symphony business they could discuss, but her parents would have been left out of that conversation. So they were somewhat left with stories from Claire’s childhood, which she was none too thrilled with.

“So,” her mother said at last into the lull between topics, “how did you two start dating?” Eek. That was not something Claire wanted to talk about. How would she begin? Well, one day I pissed off the Maestro by coming to rehearsal late and not wearing underwear, so he spanked my ass with his belt and made me come, and after that I couldn’t think of anything but fucking him so we finally had to do it, right there on the piano on stage. And then we played kinky sex games for months until we realized we had feelings for each other. Oh, sure. That would go over really well. She hoped very much that Sebastien would answer, and he did not disappoint.

“It is a funny story, is it not, Claire?” She flicked her eyes over to him without saying anything, and his lips twitched in humor. “Well, perhaps not. As you can imagine, our relationship was strictly professional from the beginning. I am very serious about my work and I normally do not allow such things as personal matters to interfere. And at first I saw Claire as merely a colleague.

“I am afraid it is all due to my friend René here, who attended a rehearsal early last season and remarked to me about what a beauty Claire is. Not only that, but that he had tried to get her attention and it had not worked. She, too, is very serious about her work, and she hardly gave anyone the time of day. So at once I was looking at her with new eyes and I realized that René was right, of course. I could not remember the last time I had seen a girl so beautiful. Before I knew it, whenever I was not thinking about music, I was thinking of Claire.

“So I resolved to ask her on a date, even though it was entirely against my own policies, and would you believe that she turned me down? ‘Of course not; it would be unprofessional,’ she says, and I knew it was true, but I could not be deterred. At last I asked her to dinner – not on a date, you see, but to discuss professional matters – and she consented to this. And then at the end of the night, I admit I stole a kiss. Like so,” he said, leaning over to her and brushing his lips over hers, making her heart speed up despite herself.

What is he on about? she wondered. This was all complete bullshit – about his pursuit of her and her turning him down. Yet she could see her parents were charmed, and she herself was becoming seduced by his storytelling – she could almost believe it herself.

“Well, you can imagine how it went from there. She was still rather reluctant, but I eventually persuaded her to date me in earnest. Would you like to hear how I knew I was falling in love?” he asked softly, more to her than to her parents. They seemed plenty interested to know and Claire eventually gave one slow nod. She had never asked him and he had never offered to tell her. They were all falling under his spell – even René had his chin propped up on his hand, listening.

“It was in May, and I had gone to my sister’s home in Paris. She was introducing me to all of her single friends, perhaps trying to set me up with them, though she must have known already it was futile. As I sat there one afternoon, I realized that although I had just been introduced to a couple of admittedly charming and pretty girls, I had already quite forgotten their names. I realized that my mind had been so occupied with thoughts of lovely Claire back home that I had simply not been paying attention to anything else. And that is when I knew. I must be in love. There was no other explanation for it.”

Sebastien paused for a moment, looking at her fondly, and it was all she could do to keep her hands fisted at her sides instead of pulling him to her and…

“I wanted to tell her as soon as I returned home but, well, you may have noticed your daughter is bit hard-headed.” Nodding laughter from Claire’s parents. “She wanted nothing to do with love, or so she had convinced herself. Too young, too soon, the wrong man. Well, no matter. I hoped that she would come around to my way of viewing things, and eventually she did.”

So. He had loved her for three long, painful months before she had finally confessed her feelings to him. Oh, he hadn’t said they were painful, but she read the emotion shadowed in his eyes. Remembered his despair, his torment at the thought that she might not love him back. She wanted to take it all back, make the pain go away. But there really wasn’t much she could do in front of her parents. Just then, though, he smiled. He touched the back of his hand to her cheek and she knew he understood.

“Who’s ready for dinner?” she asked.

“Are you coming back with us, baby, or coming a little later?” Jill asked, as Frank shook his head and rolled his eyes behind her.

“Actually, Mom, didn’t I tell you I was staying here while you guys are in the city? There’s, um, there’s a guest room here and I just thought you would be more comfortable if you had my place to yourselves, and…” She broke off when Sebastien placed his hand gently on her shoulder. Yes, she was about to start babbling.

“Frank and Jill, thank you for coming to dinner tonight. I hope you had a lovely time and that I will see you again before you go home. There should be a taxi waiting for you downstairs to take you back to Claire’s apartment.” He shook their hands and gave them his most charming smile before they finally left. At last, Claire turned to go back into the apartment, noticing that René and Sebastien were looking at her with obvious amusement.

“What?” she asked testily.

“Nervous as a virgin,” observed René. “Surely your parents do not care if you share a bed with a man.”

“They do know you are not a virgin, yes?” asked Sebastien, his lips twitching.

“Of course they know,” she snapped, heading upstairs to escape them. “Be pretty hard for them not to know,” she went on in a mutter, “since they pretty much walked in on it happening.”

“This sounds like a story I want to hear,” said René with a grin as he followed her. “But with a drink in hand, don’t you agree?” Claire frowned, but the drink did sound pretty good. She detoured into Sebastien’s office and flounced down on the floor in front of the fireplace. René poured the brandy while Sebastien lit the fire, and they all lounged on the floor, silently watching the flames flicker. Eventually René nudged her with his knee and she rolled her eyes.

“Fine. It was the summer after my sixteenth birthday. My parents had taken me camping up at the lake. Being at the age where I wasn’t exactly excited to be with them all the time, they let me have plenty of time on my own. I pretty much spent most of it at the lake, swimming and reading. Then one day I met this amazingly hot guy on my way there. Apparently he’d come to the lake with a bunch of his cousins and their campsite was near ours. So, okay, in retrospect this is kind of creepy, but one day he followed me out to my spot by the lake to hit on me. But what can I say? I was barely sixteen and here was this really cute guy interested in me. Well, anyway, you can probably guess what happened yourselves.”

“Oh, no. So many possibilities,” said Sebastien. “Do go on.” Claire glared at him.

“Well, I kept going to the lake, only I’d meet him at our campsite and we’d go together, and we’d usually spend all day making out. One day we started making out before we even left for the lake and he suggested we go into my tent instead of to the lake. Naturally…well…one thing led to another and we…well…we had sex, okay? And not ten minutes after we finished,” she said, blushing a little at the memory, “my parents came back to the campsite unexpectedly. It was absolutely mortifying. Even if we hadn’t been doing that, my parents would have thought we were. So yeah, my mom flipped out and practically chased the guy out of our campsite. But my dad? He couldn’t stop laughing. He thought it was hilarious. I’m surprised he didn’t tell that story tonight,” she grumbled.

“That is really not so bad,” said René. “At least your whole family was not notified at your birthday dinner that you had finally become a man. Oh yes,” he added as Claire looked at him in surprise. “It was my seventeenth birthday, and it was the younger sister of my mother’s very best friend. Much younger, only twenty-two. She decided it would be appropriate to explain that she’d given me my birthday present the previous night. Not only that, but how wonderful I was at it, as if my family wanted to hear it.

He cringed at the memory. “Of course, that was not quite my first experience, but they did not know that,” he added, throwing a look at Sebastien.

“All right, so I am the precocious one in our group, I see. I was fourteen. So was she. Two virgins we were, fumbling in my grandparents’ barn until we had figured out where it all went. Then of course when I returned to Paris, I had to show my dearest friend what I had learned.” He smiled fondly at René, who returned the look before turning back to Claire.

“Have you ever been with another girl, cherie?” he asked, the tone of his voice clearly indicating he thought he knew the answer already.

“Sure,” she replied breezily, enjoying the startled looks they fixed on her then. “A couple of times with the same girl.”

“Well…?”

“Well, what? There’s not much to tell,” she teased.

“I could make you tell,” Sebastien warned.

“Oh yeah?” She set down her brandy glass. A challenge. Sebastien leaned forward and what he did next shocked the hell out of her – he ran his fingers over her ribs and under her arms, tickling her. She let out a high-pitched squeal of laughter, feeling the ticklish tremors running through her.

“Okay, okay, stop!” she cried. “I’ll tell you.” Sebastien drew her into the space between his legs, changing his tickling to caressing. “It was a friend of mine from high school – Susan. We were, you know, just hanging out when it happened the first time. She just asked me, like, did I know what it was like to kiss someone, and I did, but she didn’t, and she asked if I’d show her. So…I did.”

“What was it like?” Sebastien asked, sliding his hand beneath the waistband of her pants and into her suddenly damp panties.

“Um, well, it was…nice. Her lips and her tongue were really soft and she definitely was a more gentle kisser than the boys I’d kissed before her. And we both liked it so much, we just…we wanted to kiss each other all over. So we took off all our clothes and were laying on my bed kissing and touching each other. And, um, so I just got curious, what would it be like to go down on a girl. I’d done it with my boyfriend, but girls are, you know, different.”

“Did you like it?” He slid two fingers inside her and she gasped, feeling his palm pressing up against her.

“I like this,” she murmured. He pulled his fingers out, pinching her firmly between his index and middle finger. “Ouch!” she cried. “Okay, all right. Yes, okay?” She blushed, not wanting to meet the eyes of René as they bored into her. “Yes, it was really…sexy. All soft and wet and she…she tasted really good.”