Drawn Curtains

"I couldn't be happier for you," he told her.

"I can't imagine why you have shown me all this," she told him. "But, I can't imagine ever not being grateful to you for it."

He said nothing for a while, but smiled at her, watching the rain paint her face, soak her hair. He kissed her again, almost fatherly.

"Tomorrow," he said, and as he walked away he reached in his pocket and took out his deck of cards and tossed them in the next trash can he passed.

The club, which had no name, changed places frequently to keep the police from raiding it. Bribes lasted only so long. A man Paul worked with knew someone who went there frequently, and put Paul in touch with this man, who gave Paul the current address and proper password, only with some reluctance. "Tell no one where you got this information," he insisted, and Paul agreed.

That night Paul arrived at Claudine's apartment around eight. She was in her robe and barefoot, her hair wrapped in a towel. She was fresh from the shower, still smelling of steam and soap. Her curtains were drawn against the encroaching night.

"What do I wear?" she asked.

"Whatever you are comfortable in," he told her.

She went through her closet, looking at him in his soft black suit, selecting and discarding one outfit after another. "What will be expected of me?"

"By who?"

She stopped what she was doing. "You, of course."

He shook his head. "Tonight," he told her, "you do nothing for me. This is all for you. You may do whatever you want, or do nothing at all. I am merely an observer."

"But, if not for you..."

He held her tenderly and kissed her lips sweetly. "The sunlight does not make the flower," he told her softly. "It only encourages it to bloom. This was in you all the time, only you denied it. Now, it will go where its nature tells it to."

She went back to her wardrobe. "But, what if...?" and she left the question unasked. "What if afterwards you cannot love me any more?"

He smiled, and sighed. "I could never love you any more, for my love is all consuming already. You mean; what if I love you less? Impossible."

She believed him, and came to him and kissed him again, passionately. He let her.

"I have so much to thank you for," she told him when the kiss ended.

He shook his head, slowly. "You have nothing to thank me for," he told her. "My love could no longer keep you all to myself."

She turned away, then, and put on a soft flowing dress, and dried her hair, and put on her makeup. He watched, noting that she didn't bother to put any underwear on, nor stockings. She had shaved her mound, too, not completely, but making a very small line of it that left the flat area below her navel and pointed directly to her labia. She had never looked so beautiful, naked or dressed. He was helpless before her.

"We have to go," he told her. The club was a long taxi ride away. She pulled her curtains aside and stared out into the night.

They didn't speak on the trip across town. He paid the taxi, which let them off in a former industrial area, now a dark neighborhood of sleeping monolithic buildings of oil-soaked brick and stone. A single door just up an alley sat painted red. A man in a suit stood outside. Paul paid him and gave the password and they were let inside.

Down a long brick hallway, around a bend, and down a flight of narrow stairs, the entrance opened up to a wide, flat room of lounge chairs, sofas, and huge piles of billowy cushions. Soft music floated through the air, saxophones and violins, and clouds of mixed smoke wafted by, smelling of strong foreign cigars, fruited pipes, and the overwhelming, pungent tang of marijuana. Waiters in tuxedos paraded around with trays of drinks, collecting empties, passing out tall flutes and short, ice-laden tumblers. Tables laden with food, fruits and breads, cheeses and chunks of meats, sat everywhere.

The club was actually many rooms, one opening onto another, and as they wandered down its length, as if passing from train-car to train-car, they watched the people lounging about, some standing in talking groups, others seated, some reclining. Everyone was dressed nicely, except for those who had chosen to be naked, or partially so, and they encountered increasing numbers of those the deeper into the club they went. One woman sat back, naked, her legs apart, playing with herself slowly while a small crowd gathered to watch and hold casual conversation. In another room a couple fornicated, she on all fours, he kneeling behind, and they moved in a slow, languorous rhythm, their faces blank, as if drugged with quiet lust. In yet another area a woman knelt naked before three seated men, each of whom had their organs out in the open, and she alternately applied her lips to each of them in turn.

They found an empty sofa and sat, drinks in hand, and they watched the crowds shift slowly about them. A couple walked by, he quite naked, she dressed in a man's suit, and she led him about by a dog's leash and collar. His erection preceded him nicely. A few minutes later and Paul pointed out to Claudine that her right hand was cupping her crotch. She laughed, that insane girlish giggle, and beckoned a waiter over for a fresh drink.

And then she handed Paul her glass and leaned forward, and reached behind herself to open the back of her dress. She let the short sleeves slide down her arms, and lowered the garment to her waist. Her breasts never looked so wonderful, and her nipples were already distended by her excitement. She stood, then, and let the dress fall away from her, and stepped out of it. Paul gathered it up and folded it next to himself as she sat again and retook her drink.

"What about you?" she asked him.

"What about me?" he asked back.

"Aren't you going to undress?"

He smiled and shook his head. "This is for you," he told her.

"But, what if I want you? Right now, right here?"

He smiled at her, and gestured with his drink across the room to where a clutch of older gentlemen in business suits stood, watching her and talking.

"You will have attention enough in a minute," he told her.

Even as he said this, one of the men came toward them and stopped right in front of Claudine, and said, "You are very beautiful. Do you mind?"

She wasn't sure what he meant, and looked at Paul, who thought she knew perfectly well what he wanted. He smiled at her and took her drink again. "All for you," he said. "You may do anything you want, or nothing."

She looked up at the man again. He was somewhere above forty years, with a full head of wavy hair that showed specks of gray at the sides. He reeked of money. She smiled. "No," she said, "I don't mind at all."

He lowered slowly to one knee, and with his gentle hands parted her legs and then moved between them. He lowered his face to her lap and began to kiss and lick her pussy.

Claudine turned her head and looked at Paul, fearfully ay first, but when she saw the beatific smile on his face she relaxed and let this stranger pleasure her.

She draped her long, naked legs over his shoulders, and slouched down, and his hands came up to hold her ass, fingering both her holes as he licked at her clit. She held Paul's hand, tightly, in one hand, and her head lolled over the cushiony back of the divan, her eyes not shut completely but rolled back white in her face. Her other hand floated to this man's head, grasping his peppery hair, and held his face into her lap as she let her orgasm overtake her.

The stranger moved away, afterward, and smiled at her, his face wet with her juices. He stood, and wiped himself dry with the back of his hand. "Thank you," he said, and he nodded an acknowledgement at Paul, for even a dolt could realize there was a connection between them. Paul smiled at him and nodded as well.

"You are not...?" she whispered to Paul as the man retreated, back to his pack.

"Angry?" he finished for her.

"Jealous?" It was an alternate, not a correction.

"I only want you to be happy," he said. "My love cannot be diminished so easily."

A somewhat matronly older woman then approached, as naked as Claudine, and her breasts were large and pendulous, her thighs thick. She wore far too much makeup and smelled of cigars.

"You are new here," she said, and Claudine said she was.

"You are very beautiful" the woman said, and then she looked at Paul. "You are a very lucky man," she said.

"I am, thank you," he said.

The woman went away after tenderly placing a soft palm on Claudine's cheek.

Two young men across the room began to kiss each other, and one, a delicate blonde, slowly sank to his knees and opened the other's trousers, reaching in and bringing out the man's erect cock. After holding the organ lovingly for a while, he began to suck on it as if his existence depended on doing so. Claudine could not take her eyes away from the spectacle.

"Do you wish to change rooms?" Paul asked her shortly after noticing her fascination.

"No," she said simply, and excused herself and walked over to them, and kneeling beside the blonde man, began to share the cock with him, sometimes just holding it in her hand while they kissed each other's lips. Her hands came up and fondled the standing man's ass through his suit, and she watched the blonde take the throbbing cock all the way into his mouth. From the noises she heard she knew the standing man was ready to come, and she knew when he began ejaculating in the blonde's mouth. She leaned in close and the blonde took the pulsing organ out to share it with Claudine, who hungrily took some and then gave it back. Afterward she and the blonde kissed some more, passionately, their tongues rolling about in the cavern formed by their joined mouths, and then she stood and came back to sit with Paul.

He offered her a napkin, and she took it, and he indicated on his own chin where she needed to apply it.

"I want to come here often," she stated flatly. "Do you mind?"

Paul tried to smile. "If it pleases you," he told her, and tried to sound as if he meant it.

"If this is too much for you," she told him, "we can leave."

"I am at your disposal," he said.

"But, you are not enjoying yourself."

"Am I not?" He smiled and handed her a fresh drink. They clinked glasses, and drank.

They left sometime later, and took a taxi to her place. She insisted he come in, and once inside she assaulted him, all the passion that had built up inside her during the last few days coming out all at once. She was all over him, she could not get him naked fast enough, and when each part of his body became available she attacked him with her mouth and her hands. He let her do whatever she wanted, and when they were both naked they fell on her bed and did everything they had ever done together right then, one act after another, for hours, until neither could move any longer. Covered in sweat and sperm, she slept snuggled into his shoulder.

Paul stared at the ceiling, sleep evading him despite his exhaustion, and casually looked about her bedroom. Only then did he realize that she had not bothered to draw the curtains.