French Awakenings

An angry shout in English cut through the background chatter of the French waterside cafe making me pause, my coffee cup halfway to my lips allowing me to look around for the source of the outburst.

Across the road a late thirties to early forties dark haired woman was wrestling over a bag with a pair of teenagers on a scooter, my guess was the pillion had tried to grab the bag and jumped on the scooter to make a getaway but she was having none of it. Her long wavy hair was flying around as she struggled to hang on.

American accented profanity floated across the busy road as the efforts continued until the passenger gave a shout of "Fuck off woman" and pulled a small-bladed craft knife from his back pocket stabbing it menacingly towards her, even so she hung on calling for help.

My Husband put his coffee down and with a curt "That's about enough" took off over the quiet road at a sprint, throwing himself at the two boys in a flying tackle, bringing them down in a crash of flailing limbs, broken plastic scooter panels and a cloud of exhaust gases as the engine raced. He knelt on the back of the driver and held the passenger in a wristlock warning that any resistance would result in a broken arm at the very least. His French is better than passable so I suspect the message got through. Having a hundred kilo rugby player sitting on them probably underlined the message. I stayed where I was, things seemed under control and the woman had been joined by a similarly aged man in a Rolling Stones T Shirt and baggy shorts. He took over the kneeling on the rider as Chris (my Husband) heaved the pillion to his feet releasing the flight bag back to the woman, who clutched it to her as if her life depended on it.

A small crowd of maybe 6 or 7 younger people gathered around the attempted robbery, they all seemed to be with the two Americans from the way they all spoke and interacted with each other. I shuffled my chair round so I could finish my espresso while I watched the show, which after the initial excitement had reduced to a group of people watching some other people, to be honest if I wasn't married to one of the protagonists I'd probably have lost interest quite quickly, in common with most of the other people in the café.

The first couple were the oldest of the group by some ten to fifteen years, which made them about the same age as my husband and me, she had shoulder length dark brown hair, a tanned almond shaped face, quite pretty, around 5 foot four with a slim, athletic figure, nice bum but quite large boobs. Looking at them I guessed she'd had some enhancement surgery along the track.

He was slightly shorter than Chris, who is six one which would make him around five eleven. He wasn't as solid either, with the build more of a tennis player or swimmer than a Rugby Player. Shaggy blond hair, piercing blue eyes and a few days stubble added up to a fairly pleasing package on the eye in an aging surfer dude style. Not as pleasing to me as my taller black-haired husband, forty one and no grey yet, with a solid body kept firm from evenings in the gym and weekends playing Rugby, grey eyes, a ready smile and a happy go lucky nature, I felt I was a lucky woman.

After a few more minutes the familiar honking of a siren announced the arrival of the Gendarmes who took a look at the two assailants and with a smile and a laugh snapped on some handcuffs and radioed for transport to take them away. I got the impression this wasn't the first time the two miscreants had been in cuffs, and probably wouldn't be the last.

Chris beckoned me over, so I left a ten euro note under my coffee cup, waved at the waitress who gave a gallic smile and nod to show she'd seen me paying, gathered up all our stuff and walked across.

"Hun, I need to give the police a statement which we can do at a restaurant and Sandy and Carl here would like us to join them so they can buy us lunch. What do you think?"

What did I think? We were on a two-week break on the French Atlantic coast, this was day three, Monday mid-morning and we hadn't planned much. I was aiming to get onto the beach so I could lose my top half tan lines, but we had plenty of time for sunbathing, so I supposed I was happy enough. It was only lunch and if they were hard work, we could always make our excuses and leave, besides which they were grateful and most of them younger than us and good looking so even if only for the eye candy it should be fun.

"Sounds like a plan" I said, to be greeted with whoops and cheers, just to prove they're American I suppose.

The two policemen told us they would join us to take statements from Chris, Sandy and Carl and if anyone else had seen what happened then any further corroboration would be welcome as well, so it looked as if I was making a statement too.

Chris made some introductions, as I'd already gathered from the conversation about the police Sandy and Carl were the older pair and as yet we didn't know any of the other names. They gave a round of "Darren, Paul, Charley, Ginny, Carol, Mona, Mike, and Deecee, which I promptly forgot, I remembered Charley was a girl but couldn't swear which one. One girl was ginger haired, one girl had a grade one buzz cut, there were a couple of blonde girls and one blonde boy. Everyone seemed fit and healthy with a clean-cut fresh-faced beauty about them all.

We pitched up at a beachfront restaurant that was above our usual lunchtime budget but the advantage of it being a bit pricey was that they had space for twelve. We were put on the sundeck sitting under blue parasols overlooking the rocky end of the beach where the blue Atlantic Ocean crashed into the granite rocks giving a gentle background noise that was nicer than any muzak could hope to be.

Sandy and Carl were struggling to get the waiter to understand their non-existent French, so Chris and I took on translating roles, being asked to order six bottles of Champagne, which we downgraded to Prosecco for a €400 saving. No one seemed to notice and as I was planning on offering to pay for the wine I was a lot happier that way. We did the same thing for food, explaining our way through the menu and ordering on everyone's behalf, their tastes were fairly adventurous with several plates of oysters, octopus salad and snails being served up. No one went for the burger or pizza option, I had moules if you're interested.

Once the food was ordered, bread was being nibbled and prosecco quaffed Chris and I sat back and relaxed just in time for the police to arrive and take the three protagonists from the morning's excitement away for a statement. On their return I was asked to make a witness statement which I was happy to, not least because the policeman was only in his mid-twenties and smelled delicious, plus who doesn't love a man in uniform?

Once I returned the prosecco was in full flow and there was a happy buzz around the table, one of the younger men with a birds nest of black hair above a smiley face, good looking in a boy next door kind of way, pointed at an empty chair between him and Sandy, down the table a way from Chris. I gave hubs a wave and settled down with a large glass. Sandy turned to me and asked what we were doing in Mimizan.

Mimizan is a small town in south western France on the Atlantic coast, we'd fallen in love with the region several years before and were slowly working our way through the entire coast two weeks at a time. We tended to come in early September as the weather was still reliably fantastic but the crowds had gone and accommodation was much more affordable. We had a two-bedroom villa for two weeks for under a thousand pounds and as my friend Jane was flying down to join us on Tuesday it cut the costs even further.

Sandy confirmed the cost savings, they had a four-building complex a mile or two outside town with its own pool and no neighbours and were paying half what they'd pay for something similar in California, even after they'd paid for the flights it was cheaper.

"So how do you all know each other? Do you work together?" I asked

Sandy gave a small laugh into her prosecco. "Yeah, sorta. Yeah. We do actually work together. We're making a movie. Your husband stopped the little asshole from stealing my bag with all our filming permits, work visas and insurance documents. If that had gone we'd have needed to get duplicates sent over from the states, but some of it you need to apply for in person so it may have meant flying some of us back which would have messed up the visas and work permits . I'd just been to the Mairie to get local stamps and countersignatures. If they'd gotten away with the bag, we'd have been done, no movie. And as independent movie makers no movie, no business. Your man may have quite literally saved our asses."

Carl was chatting to Chris across on the far side of the table, I tried to butt in to see if he knew what we'd stumbled over but they were too far away and seemed embroiled in a sports related chat, so I was never going to get in there.

"I saw him come flying over the road Man" the boy next to me was enthusiastically recounting "He hit them like an express train, like some Linebacker or something"

I took a sip from my prosecco and laughed. "Not a Linebacker. Openside Flanker"

Which of course meant I had to explain what a flanker was, what open and blindside meant and how Rugby was Chris's passion.

I mean, he had played it to quite a high level, getting a trial at Bath in his twenties but he got a broken leg just before he was due to go for the assessment and by the time he was asked back a year later his company had taken off and needed his attention so Rugby had to take a back seat for a few years. As it was now, he had a successful IT consultancy and played regular first team at county level which kept him happy and so when he's happy I'm happy. I even went to watch once or twice a season.

Paul, the boy next to me, called across to a taller boy in a New York Knicks Basketball top "Hey Darren, our boy down there's another Rugger for you to talk to" a short interlude followed in which Darren invited Paul to kiss Darren's butt before descending into laughter and cross table banter. Boys talk never was my thing so I turned back to Sandy.

"So, Sandy, what sort of film is it? Rom Com? Action? Comedy?"

She gave me a long look, I'd had two glasses of prosecco so I found most things funny and giggled uncontrollably, which seemed to help her reach a decision.

"It's a murder mystery, told mainly in flashback in a Rashomon style so the events are seen from several people's perspective"

None the wiser I gabbled on.

"Sounds fun. Could we come to the set at some time? I'd love to see a film being made."

She hesitated, seemingly torn. "Weeell, the problem is probably insurance. I'll check with the producer when he gets here."

The subject seemed closed at that, as if to emphasise the point she moved into standard small talk, seeming genuinely surprised I was older than her at 39, she being 38. I do spend a fair amount of time in the Gym, during the rugby season it's the only way I'd get to see Chris most evenings and at five feet five in my bare feet I'm in the upper middle of my BMI range at around 62 kilos. Any less and I lose my boobs which at 34C I'm quite happy with.

From there she segued into asking about Chris's work, which I generally don't understand. I can work Excel, Teams and Word but beyond that I'm a bit of an IT luddite, even refilling the printer with paper is beyond me.

We chatted away through lunch, I gleaned from my persistent questioning that they were a small independent movie maker, this was their first production of their own, everyone owned a part of the business and doubled up as technicians and performers, a couple of the girls were also the hair and makeup artists, one was a camerawoman, two of the boys were cameramen and lighting techs. Another was sound man, the director (Carl) was also an actor and the editor and Sandy was an actor and the financial manager. Their plan was to keep control of the costs and of the rights to the product so they could maximise their profits. They'd been able to put together nearly half a million dollars in personal investment with Sandy, Carl and the producer trebling that by re-mortgaging their houses.

I remembered back to the early days of Chris's business and the sleepless nights wondering how we'd pay the bills and gave her a fist bump of solidarity, I was on my third prosecco so may have said something stupid about Girl Power.

The afternoon rolled on, Carl asked us to order another round of prosecco and I resigned myself to missing out on the beach entirely, but I wasn't too concerned, we were in pleasant company and I was enjoying the reflected glamour of being with movie people. As the big hand reached towards three and the little hand pointed towards six a tall, red haired worried looking man in his early forties joined us.

"There you are, glad I found you. Sandy, Carl, we have trouble."

"No Jamie, we've avoided the trouble thanks to our new friends" Sandy had had almost as much Prosecco as me and wasn't necessarily making any sense, but she gave a relatively coherent explanation of what had happened earlier to the newcomer.

"Nicola, this is Jamie, our producer. I'll ask him about you coming to the set."

Jamie didn't seem to be in a mood to answer any questions at this stage in the day.

"We won't have a set at this rate. Look." At that he waved a document under Sandy and Carl's noses.

"What's happenin' man?" asked Carl from the far end of the table.

"Our medical and health certification is not acceptable to the French authorities. We all need to go through local blood tests and to have an EU certified medic on set at all times."

"Can we not just hire someone locally?" Carl was trying to come up with ideas that might solve the problem, a completer finisher if ever I saw one.

"Oh, man you're right, why didn't I think of that? Sure, where do we start? Could you recruit and interview locally? I've got a quote here, official industry rates are €25,000 per week per medic for overseas companies, to protect the local industry. Minimum of two required on the production at any one time. We are over a barrell and out another fifty thou, plus there's a three-week delay in getting someone to us."

Carl ran up to Sandy, they were looking at each other in horror. The mood round the table changed from cheerful drunken happiness to mournful depression almost immediately, one of the younger girls started crying and there were general sounds of doom and gloom across the board.

Something was stirring in the back of my mind. "Do you mind if I take a look at that please" I asked Jamie.

He seemed broken and sat down heavily. I reached over and took the paperwork from him, scanning it quickly. There it was:

Clause 4, paragraph ii. Qualification Minimale Requise: Diplome d'Etat d'Infimiere

"Well that's Ok, I've got a higher qualification than that, so's my friend Jane who's coming over on Wednesday. I'll get her to bring our certificates over, she's got a key to our place."

Jamie'e eyes lit up. "Tell me more."

"We're both senior RGNs at home, under the UK and European Medicines act of 1997 our qualifications are valid anywhere in the EU." I cannot put into words how impressed I was at myself for that little speech. In truth the date and name of the relevant act may have been made up on the spot, but the underlying facts were true. I felt like I'd just made the closing address in the Old Bailey.

Jamie had a quick muttered discussion with Sandy and Carl then turned back to me.

"I can't pay you the local rates, you know that right? How about five hundred US a day when you're on set? Each? You may get called on to help out around the set, is that OK?"

I didn't actually want the money, I was too excited about getting onto a film set but as I was accepting on Jane's behalf as well I thought I'd better negotiate. "OK, sounds good. When do you start filming?"

Top Negotiation Nicola. Well done.

"We start Wednesday, tomorrow we need to get everyone blood tested and issued with a local health certificate, can you get the other girl...Jenny? Jane, tested before she comes out? Industry Standard full range of tests, Hep, Covid, plus any STDs including HIV, yellow fever."

I reached for my mobile and called Jane, catching her at work.

"Janey, it's Nics. Listen..." I went into a confused explanation of what was happening, the prosecco wasn't helping but she repeated enough back to me to suggest she had a better understanding than I did.

"So you've got us both a job on a film set at five hundred dollars a day but I need to have a full spectrum blood test before I can do it?"

"Thassrite"

"OK, I'll get one done here this afternoon, sounds exciting. Anyone famous in the film?"

I confessed I didn't know any of the actors but that they were all lovely. I held my phone up and shouted "Say hello to Jane everyone" and received a round of "Hello Jane, we love you" plus whoops and whistles. Jamie grabbed my phone and took her full name and reminded her to bring both her and my registration certificates, which was just as well because I'd forgotten.

Jamie looked much happier and ordered another round of prosecco and a bottle of tequila, Chris looked across at me and asked if I knew what I'd let myself in for, I smiled back and said of course I did, I was happy to help out, all I had to do was be on set when they were filming and downed a tequila shot as if to end the subject. I then spoiled the cool image by snorting and coughing as the spirit hit my throat. Through the tears I could see Chris laughing and shaking his head.

At some point more food was ordered and more prosecco, and then later in the evening I vaguely remember being lifted into a taxi and taken back to our villa where I'd like to report an evening of hot sex and passion but in fact I was sick in the downstairs toilet and went to bed feeling sorry for myself and blaming Chris for letting me drink tequila.

I woke up the next morning with a fuzzy head and a queasy stomach, Chris seemed unaffected by the previous day's indulgence and seemed to think I was feeling equally frisky, pushing my strappy top up over my boobs and setting to work on my nipples. I slapped him gently on the head and told him to stop and that if he thought I was putting anything in my mouth he had another think coming, I'd probably vomit over his dick if I tried giving him a morning blowjob. Not being a stupid man, he decided against pursuing the opportunity and disappeared to return ten minutes later with tea and a pain au chocolat, leaving me to enjoy my breakfast on the balcony overlooking the garden.

Once I'd got them inside me, I felt much more amenable to getting something else inside me and peeled my pyjamas off. Pulling on a Victoria's Secret thong I tiptoed downstairs and peeped into the kitchen. He was standing by the sink facing away from me washing up his mug and plate, wearing his T shirt and Boxers that he used as Pyjamas. I crept up behind him and slipped my hands down the front of his pants, giving his generous package a rub as I pushed my breasts into his back.

"You're feeling better then?" He asked, turning round to face me and showing his approval at both my clothing choice and my greeting.

"Tea and chocolate work wonders on me, you know that" I told him as I slowly dropped to my knees, pulling on the waistband of his shorts as I descended.

I was at eye level with his semi erect penis, I gave it a theatrical sniff, there was a strong smell of mango flavoured shower gel.

I looked up at him,

"Did you wash this specially in the hopes of getting your dick sucked?" I asked in mock annoyance

"Might have" he answered, knowing that at this stage sex was by no means a sure thing and the wrong answer would see me off into the shower and him standing there in the kitchen with a semi hardon and no relief.