Nellie's Sketchpad

Her leg was smooth white now that she was out of the cold. The black skirt had ridden up, and I could see a hint of her knickers. I looked out the window and back again, and there was more of them. They were lacy white and spare. I turned my face down to my phone, but my eyes turned up to peer up her skirt, hoping that somehow the white lace would dissolve, and I would be able to see everything. Her gaze never broke from the screen of her iPad.

We unloaded at Heathrow and processed through security. She seemed bewildered by the process, and I had to show her how. Laptop out of the case. Shoes off. Have your boarding pass ready.

When we were boarded and the plane taxied to the runway, she took my hand. As the plane rumbled along and then thrust itself into the air, I thought she would squeeze my hand to the size of a single finger. I gave her a piece of chewing gum, and she smiled and put it in her mouth, then looked out at the landscape of white clouds under intense blue sunshine.

She fell asleep with her head against the small porthole of the airplane window and I studied her peaceful face, a wisp of blonde hair drooping over the bridge of her nose, her lips slack over her crooked teeth. Against the backdrop of clouds outside the window, she reminded me of an angel on a cloud.

The tone announced our descent, and she woke with a start. She ran her fingers through her hair and looked about. We were down at the level of the clouds again. This time I reached for her hand and found her grasp was looser. We landed, and the announcements were made first in French and then in English. Welcome to Paris Charles de Gaulle, the local time is ten fifteen.

The hotel was a budget affair near the airport, and we took the shuttle. We checked into our rooms and ordered room service, separately, too nervous for conversation. We spent the afternoon looking over the presentation in our separate rooms and waiting, waiting, waiting.

Our rooms were adjoining, and that evening through the thin walls, I heard the sounds of the television in her room. I became curious and used the old trick of putting a glass to the wall. I could vaguely make out cheesy jazz music and then the pantomime cooing and grunting of porn. And then I heard a voice separate from the telly, a series of ah-ah-ah and then a prolonged aah and then the squeak of cheap mattress springs and then just the telly again. My mind worked to put together the pieces of the auditory puzzle, trying to convert what I had heard into a visual.

The television went off, and I put the glass down and settled into bed, on edge about the presentation for the next day and discombobulated about what I had heard from Nellie's room. Sleep toyed with me, and then I finally did sleep.

I dreamed there was a dock outside our building and a tall-masted sailing ship tied up to it. In the bow was Mr. Grisham in an admiral's uniform. There was water all up and down Tottenham Court Lane. He took me aboard. Two sailors went down in the ship's hold and were bringing something up. One of the sailors was Mum, I think, and I understood that the ship was a slave ship. I kept waiting for someone to emerge from the hold, but no one ever did and then the scene shifted. I was disappointed in that way you get when a dream departs from the script you're expecting.

I woke to a pounding on the door. It was Nellie. I had overslept. Thank goodness she hadn't.

"Come on, Pete, let's be gettin' on." I opened the door, and she followed me into my room and went into the bathroom. She came out with a towel and threw it at me.

"Get in the shower, I'll lay out your clothes."

I did as she said and as the warm water revived me I thought of her rummaging through my suitcase, especially my underwear. When I was finished I pulled the shower curtain open and instinctively covered myself when the door opened. It was just her arm with my underwear and pants. I dressed in the bathroom, and we took the Metro into the city.

She was dressed for success, much more conservatively than usual, with a longer skirt and a blouse with a blazer. The metro rattled under, over and through Paris as it shook us. French murmured around us, and I struggled to listen to the conversations. I was relieved to find that I understood most of what I heard.

The idea we had was to be pitched to a flooring retailer headquartered in Paris with branches in Lille, LeHavre, and Brest. Thanks to dad, flooring was something I knew a little about. The owner had seen some of Nellie's sketches on the Internet and liked her style. I had come up with an idea and Nellie took it and made it bloom. We spent the better part of a week and finally came up with about half a dozen workable proposals. Our star idea was one that centered on the exotic feel of an Arab bazaar, one where vivid red and gold rugs were sold. Area rugs were the specialty of the retailer.

This could be the big break Mr. Grisham and the firm was waiting for, our beachhead on the continent, our international debut. And Nellie and I were wading onto the beach.

In sharp contrast to the rest of my life, when I had an idea in front of a client I became fearless, extroverted, quick thinking. In a conference room at the client's office Nellie sat at the head of the table while I pitched the idea to those assembled. From the looks of it, half of those in the room were related to the owner, all sporting the same Gallic nose. I could feel the adoration radiate off Nellie as I took our idea and explained it in French. I'm sure she understood very little of it. At the proper time I had her flip through a giant pad on an easel at the ideas she had. I measured the facial expressions in the room and found smiles on all but Mr. Frere, the boss. I nodded to Nellie, and she doused the lights and the screen lit up with a PowerPoint presentation that was the climax of our pitch.

When the lights came on, we all stood up together, and there was applause and then handshakes all around. Mr. Frere was no longer frowning, but he wasn't smiling either. He shook my hand last, and in English said, "Thank you, Mr. Beaufaire. Will you excuse us now? We will be back with your firm by Friday. The secretary will see you to the door."

The door shut behind Nellie and me, and we crossed our fingers to each other. It was raining, so we splurged and took a taxi back to our hotel. That's when we got Mr. Grisham's text:

Clients loved it! Look for the ad in Paris Match, Vogue, Home and Garden, Elle Decor. Congratulations you two. Biggest account in firm history by TENFOLD.

I looked at my phone and then realized that Nellie was looking at her phone at the same text and with the same expression as me, but with her fingers over her mouth. We hugged each other, and that's when we kissed. It was a simple kiss at first, but evolved into a soul-searching, probing kiss. We kissed until I heard from far away,

Monsieur?

The shaggy haired driver's face looked back at me with Parisian exasperation. I gave him a ten pound note. He frowned and pushed it back at me, and I remembered and gave him a ten Euro note. When Nellie and I got in the lobby, we got another text from Mr. Grisham:

Everyone ecstatic in London office. You two spend a few more days in Paris. All expenses on firm. Great going.

Young lion Pete and young lioness Nellie had just taken down an elephant, and the rest of the pride was proud.

A moment later my phone rang, and it was Mr. Grisham himself.

"Beaufaire, check out and take a taxi down into the city. I've made different arrangements for you two." There was a pop in the background and the cheer of twenty people.

"What's that noise?" I asked.

"Champagne, of course!" he said, and there was another cheer.

We checked out of the hotel that huddled under the umbrella of jet-fire of Charles De Gaulle and took a taxi into the city to the Hotel des Deux Jardins. The marquis reached out and formed a square room with walls of falling rain. Under it a tall man in a top hat, royal blue vest and a black swallow tail coat opened our door and greeted us with a bow and a courteous, ''Bonjour, madame, monsieur."

''Bonjour,'' I said. We checked in at the white marble counter under the sounds of classical music and the bare breasted statues flanking the clocks of ten time zones. Across the lobby were a white marble mantle and a gas fire.

The man behind the counter asked for our reservation, and I said Beaufaire, but he couldn't find it. Then I said Grisham, and he said of course. He explained in French where the elevators were, and then I asked him if there was one room or two.

''Une seule chambre, monsieur.''

I smiled, and said, ''Merci, monsieur."

Grisham, you old rascal, I thought.

Nellie was in the lobby waiting by our luggage.

''Apparently the firm would only spring for one room,'' I told her as we took the handles of our suitcases.

She didn't say anything. She only smiled a crooked-tooth smile.

We were two young fish out of water in the large suite. The four poster bed was piled high with expensive sheets and duvets. A sitting room adjoined the bedroom. Expensive paintings of landscapes hung on the wall behind a finely upholstered couch.

From the bathroom, Nellie exclaimed with an echo, "This loo's as big as my flat!"

I stumbled in and admired the black marbled tile, the large mirror, the toilet and a bidet. I looked in the mirror and saw her reflection and then I felt her hand take mine and then her reflection looked up at mine and it kissed mine and I felt it and then her hands were unfastening my reflection's pants and pushing them down and she dropped to her knees and took my cock which was surprised and only half erect and she admired it for a second and then she took it in her mouth and I watched in the mirror as she pushed down and pulled her mouth back and it was erect, the head purple and shining wet now.

She stroked it with her hand and licked it and then sucked it and then stroked it again. I could only exhale and hope that my knees would hold me when my moment came. She stood up and kissed me and I could taste myself on her breath. I stood there ridiculous with my trousers around my ankles and my jacket on. She pushed my suit jacket back off my shoulders and roughly loosened my tie and undid the buttons on my shirt. When my chest was bare, she tongued my nipples, and I thought I would explode. I'd never had anyone do that to me before. Her hands squeezed my arse cheeks and they felt to me, from the inside, like pure muscle.

She led me by the hand, and my shoes clopped on the marble floor in the comic shuffle of feet tethered by trousers. I stopped, and her arm lengthened as I fought out of my shoes and trousers. She smiled and led me again in my stocking feet.

She sat on the big bed facing me, and my trembling hands fumbled with the buttons on her blouse and then she smiled at me and undid them herself. Her bra was lacy and white, a conservative, hidden colour for our presentation earlier. She kept it on as she shimmied down her pencil skirt. Her thong matched the lacy white of her bra.

I leaned her back onto the bed and kissed her neck, and she smiled and gave me more of it. Her perfume was an understated fragrance with citrus notes. I pulled a strap off her shoulder and flipped down a cup of her bra and there it was, the mounded pink nipple with circular crinkles, the tip like a pencil eraser, small and firm and elongated, reaching, begging for my lips and tongue. When I took it in my mouth, she moaned and lifted her hips. I felt the lacy brush of her thong against the front of my thighs as she slipped it off. Her heels dug into my arse and pulled my hips down. Her hand guided my shaft into her. My cock slipped inside her, and the smooth wet walls squeezed it. I heard myself exclaim as I sank into her and then looked down at her smiling face studying mine. When I reached the bottom of her she closed her eyes, and she echoed my exclamation.

It was over for both of us almost as soon as it started, like a sudden summer rainstorm that comes up and departs so fast it would be hard for you to imagine it rained at all were it not for the wet ground under the sun and trees. I leaned onto her, and she panted into my chest. I was still standing in my black socks. Her bra had ridden up into a white lace necklace. Outside the cold rain fell on Paris. We fell to the bed side by side. It had been a long, trying, satisfying day, and we were exhausted.

I woke up later, and she was wrapped in a sheet looking out the rain beaded window at the cold dense mist and the sights of Paris. I shifted on one elbow. My cock was shrunken, our passion dried in the cloud of hair at the base. Her finger traced the outline of the Eiffel Tower on the condensation of the window. She looked over and smiled. Her blonde hair was still tousled. The sheet hugged the curve of her bottom as she turned to face me and braced herself with her hands on the window sill. Her body was backlit by the dim light of a rainy Paris twilight. The sheet fell over her shoulders and exposed her small pert breasts.

I sat on the edge of the bed, and we looked at each other, admiring each other's naked bodies in the light that only fell in gray and black and white. She stepped forward and took my hand. She drew me up off the bed and to the window, and we looked out over the city. She opened her sheet, and I stepped in. We huddled against each other side by side, the smoothness of the skin of our naked bodies touching, the moles of our bodies two halves of the same night sky. She put her head on my shoulder, and I smelled her shampoo, something light and sweet and vanilla.

"What's that building there? With the gold dome?" She asked softly.

"There?" I pointed. "The Hotel des Invalides. Napoleon's entombed there."

"And the Arc du Triomphe, where is it?" She asked.

"There," I said shifting my finger over to the right. "You can barely see it."

She looked down my finger and said, "I see it now." Then she planted a kiss in the hollow of my elbow. Her arms encircled my waist, and her hands clasped together on my hip. Her cheek nestled into my chest, and I kissed the top of her blonde head and breathed in the aroma of her hair again.

We showered and got dressed side by side, throwing glances at each other's routine. Me: shaving, brushing teeth, deodorant. Her: applying makeup, the faces she makes when she does it.

We stumbled out of the elevator into the opulence of the lobby and then into the cold of Paris. It had stopped raining, but the sky was starless and moonless above the mansard rooftops and spires. We found a bistro on the Rue du Cherche-midi, and she watched me with adoration as I ordered for us. My French had come back like a homing pigeon, like riding a bicycle. The thought crossed my mind that dad would be proud of me speaking French in the presence of a beautiful girl.

We walked along the Seine, where the reflections of the lights on the far bank bristled in the choppy water. A stiff wind rushed in from England and across the channel and stung our cheeks, and we bundled together under coats and scarves.

We wandered the streets. The wine we had at dinner led us to a bar where we had one of each of the potent cocktails. Blue. Green. Pink. That yellow one. Shall we try the blue one again? Let's.

We found ourselves in a disco whose theme that night was retro, the Eighties. We danced together in the cool neon blue and warm magenta lights. When the crowd thinned out, we were on the street again, laughing and staggering and bumping our sides as we tried to walk straight. We came across a tattoo parlour, and Nellie had an idea.

"Lesss..." she slurred. "Lesss getta ta-toooo."

My eyes tried to fix on her in the underwater sense of drunkenness. Her eyes were still bright green with a radiation of eyelashes, but her eyelids drooped. She put a finger in the air and made a proposition:

"You get..." her finger went to her lip and hung there and then pointed in the air. "You get Mr. Grisham...right here," her finger poked my bicep. "And I'll get CC on my arse for Corp-rit Connnnncepts." She didn't wait for an answer and instead pulled the slack out of my arm as she teetered into the light of the parlour.

The artist was a big bald man with a goatee and tattoos all over his bare chest and arms. He took one look at us and smiled. It was probably three in the morning somewhere in some other world where time was kept.

"Bon-joooor, Mizzure," she crooned. "We would like tattooooos. Two taaaatoos," Her finger oscillated between the two of us. "Him and me, me and him."

He looked at me, and I told him in French, she's drunk and he gave me a sarcastic look with raised eyebrows that answered, you don't say?

She took a blank sheet of paper and sketched out a picture of Mr. Grisham, but instead of Mr. G it looked like a Dr. Seuss character. She turned it around and pushed it at him, and then said, "And I want CC right here...right on my arse." She turned and pulled down her skirt and her lacy knickers and looked over her shoulder. The tattoo artist nodded as if this was surely the most mundane request he had ever gotten.

The alcohol in me ebbed for a moment, and I realized that as much as I liked and admired Mr. G, I didn't want him traveling with me wherever I went, to the loo, in the bath, to my grave. So I told the man what I'm sure would make him send us on our way without our commemorative tattoos:

We don't have any money.

He flicked us away with his hand. Nellie looked at me and said, "Wuz...wuzzee sayin'?" Her eyes were watery, and the lids hung on them like they were slowly sliding down.

"He said we're too drunk. Think about it and come back tomorrow."

I took her arm, and we headed back to the door. As we got to it, she turned and shouted at the artist, "Ffffffuck off!"

His reply was heavily accented, "Yuh fock uv!" and he pumped his fist in the air like an exclamation point. And then he added for good measure, "Yuh Ess-ull."

We staggered back to the hotel and clumsily undressed. We sucked and licked each other, never quite cumming. Hair from my cock kept getting in her mouth, so she staggered to the bathroom and returned with a towel, a razor and some shaving cream. The Sober Me would never have let the Drunken Her shave either the Drunken or Sober version of my cock, but I reclined as she pulled it this way and that, pausing to swish the razor in a glass of warm soapy water. She wanted to leave a little tuft, but I suppose she was enjoying grooming me, and the tuft kept getting smaller and smaller until I was completely bare. She had me spread my legs and did my balls and arsehole. The towel on the bed was a weave of coarse black hair. She rolled it up and threw it into the bathroom.

She turned at the door and raised her arms. Her remaining article of clothing, a ivory silk camisole, came over her head, and she pushed me back onto the bed.

It took longer this time, owing to the liquor. I found myself watching the vine-and-bird tattoo on her side where my hand rested. She leaned back and showed me where I entered her, pulling her lips open to reveal the pinkness that glimmered with her wet arousal. Her hips were sliding back and forth over me. Suddenly she stopped and put her finger on her clit. I watched as she touched herself in the most intimate way possible.

I came inside her, watching her finger herself. I felt my cock spend itself inside her, twitching, pumping until it was motionless. She eased herself off me, and my cock fell back to me. It was smooth and wet at the base. She wasn't done with me.

She walked on her knees up my torso, and I felt my cum drip out of her onto my stomach and chest. Her shins pinned my upper arms to the bed, and I was face to face with her sex, red and swollen from the friction of our fucking. A thick coating of shining, pearly fluid was perched between the lips of her pussy. Her clit was swollen into a tense pink nub.