No Wrong Way to Do Me Right

"Well, I wouldn't dare say otherwise while she was right there with me and so completely vulnerable," Pete pointed out. "But sure I do. That doesn't mean...I mean, it's you I love, Marie!"

"Relax!" Marie said. "I agree with you, she is beautiful, and I did tell you to be honest with me." Her hand lingered on the doorknob, and Pete gathered that she was even a bit nervous - something that almost never happened with Marie as far as sex was concerned. "And it took guts for her to join us, didn't it? All the time I was checking her out in the water, Pete, I was hoping you liked what you saw as much as I did."

"Marie, you're not saying..."

"Only if you want to, and if she does, of course. It's just...if you're open to it, Pete, I wouldn't mind."

"Never knew you had a thing for women," Pete said.

"I don't," Marie admitted. "For all my adventures before we met, I never have been with a woman. Maybe I'm a little bi-curious, maybe I just want to get off on seeing how you react to another woman. All through the bath that was in the back of my mind, even though I don't really know why."

Pete nodded his concurrence. He had long since learned never to underestimate his wife's promiscuities. "As long as you're secure about us," he finally said.

"Of course I am," Marie said, and she loosened her towel so it fell away. Patting her giant bush, she said, "Alex is beautiful, but she hasn't got this, has she?"

Pete lost no time in tearing his own towel away to reveal what Marie already knew - that he was hard as a rock. Marie threw herself at him, and let out a deeply satisfied sigh at the beloved sensation of his left arm cradling her and his right hand teasing her vulva. "More of that, please!" she whispered before locking her lips hard on his.

As usual, Pete followed her directive and caressed her well-hidden lips just right, and Marie spurred him on with one passionate moan after another, while playfully squeezing his hard cock now and again. Not for the first time, they didn't even make it into the bedroom, instead sprawling on the couch with Marie perched on Pete's thighs. She expertly spread them a bit to give him easier access to her furry undercarriage, which he tickled with great aplomb.

"Oh, Pete, I love you so much!" She rubbed his cock a little harder now.

"So amazing," Pete responded. Marie didn't need to ask what he meant; he'd confessed to her before about wondering how he stacked up against the dozens of partners she'd had before they met.

"You sure are!" she squealed as his flicking on her clit brought off her first orgasm - a small one that only made her ravenous for more. "Oooof, I need you now!" She hoisted herself up on her knees and scooted up a bit, and effortlessly took him inside her.

"Ohhhhh!" Pete squeezed his eyes shut, and the rest of his body went limp for a moment as he savored that first moment in her hot, wet feminine embrace. Marie took a moment to enjoy it as well, and then set in humping him with abandon.

Pete's eyes opened to the sight he adored above all others. The look of absolute bliss on Marie's face as she rocked back and forth in hard and fast rhythm, and voiced her joy wordlessly in every husky breath. Her large breasts jiggled every which way, which as always proved utterly irresistible to Pete, and he reached up and rubbed them both just as she liked it.

Marie was expecting him to play with them, and welcomed his touch as always. Once again a fleeting memory roared through her mind of what Jean-Charles had to say back when she was still pining for Pete: "Just tell him, look, Pete, open your damn eyes and this time tomorrow you can have my thirty-eight-D's bouncing in your face!" She had to hand it to Jean-Charles, he understood men. Once again, his gentle, teasing touch on her nipples added just the spice she needed as she rode him into another, much bigger orgasm.

One day, Pete was sure, one of the neighbors would complain about the noise Marie made when she came. Now as she screeched with joy, he was more deliciously afraid than ever that it would be tonight.

"Now you!" Marie ordered once the flood of colors was fading away. She hadn't missed a beat in her humping.

"Please!" Pete responded, rocking his hips as best he could while pinned beneath her on the couch.

Marie knew just what it took to get Pete off with her on top. Some guys never came that way, others had only to look at her breasts to let go. Pete just needed it faster. As usual, that was what she gave him, springing up and down as fast as she could go, still welcoming his now-harder rubbing on her breasts, which he held in place rather well. With each bounce, Pete's responses grew more intense, until she knew she had him on the edge.

As promiscuous as she had been in her younger days, Marie had never been with a man who came as loudly as Pete did. As always, his joyous yelps made her feel utterly beautiful. Once they had subsided, she couldn't help laughing as she came to rest, still clutching him inside her. "Think the neighbors are jealous?" she cooed.

"I'm quite sure they already were!" He drew one hand down to the crux of their bodies and gave her clit a final, playful rub that made her squeal.

The following Saturday was unseasonably mild, with clouds but no rain for a change. Still too cold for a dress, so Alexandra put on her favorite tight jeans and a red jumper to reflect the occasion, and made sure to get to the meeting early. It was at a classic Paris café with tiny tea tables and comparably small servings of coffee. Setting aside enough space for seven people might be a challenge.

She needn't have worried, for she arrived at the café with nearly twenty minutes to spare, only to find Jane already there. "Good morning," Jane said. "How was your bath?"

Alexandra was flabbergasted. "Marie told you?!"

Jane shook her head. "No, you just did. The way you seemed to know why they weren't at the pub the other night, and you looked rather antsy, I just put two and two together and let you confirm it."

"That's none of your business, Jane."

"Oh, relax! I don't pretend to understand Marie's lifestyle at all, but she likes what she likes. If you like it too, wonderful."

"I wish you'd give it a try, Jane. Then maybe you wouldn't be so wound up all the time."

"And let Pete see me in the altogether? Ha! He's like a baby brother to me."

"We know, and it drives everybody crazy the way you still think of him that way."

"All right, all right, never mind that," Jane said. "We're supposed to be on the same side here, planning the party for Marie and Pete. I don't suppose you or anyone else has really done anything yet, but -"

"Morning," came a voice behind Alexandra, and she was delighted to turn around and see Leo and Francois.

"Guys, you found it!" Alexandra leapt up and surprised Francois with a hug - anything to get Jane to shut up for a moment - and followed suit with Leo. She was surprised to find she felt no awkwardness at knowing they'd both seen her naked. Indeed, it made her feel beautiful, and she welcomed the boost in confidence as she anticipated Tom's arrival.

As luck would have it, he was the next person to step into the café. Alexandra knew it before she looked up, for he was the first of their group so far to say, "Bonjour, monsieur" to the man behind the counter.

"What a loyal little French student," Jane muttered.

"It is true you are supposed to say that," Francois acknowledged.

"Morning, everyone," Tom said, helping himself to the seat across from Jane (and, to her chagrin, farthest from Alexandra). "Sorry I'm late."

"You're not, we're all rather early," Jane said. "Except Eric and Sandy."

"You don't think Sandy is going to show up at all, do you?" Alexandra asked.

"And miss a chance to kiss up to me?" Jane replied, drawing laughter all around although she wasn't joking. "In any event, we might as well get started. First, we'll need a venue. I know Marie and Pete are American and they probably hate anything too formal, but -"

"Uh!" Tom interrupted. "Stereotype much?"

"That was out of line, Jane," Alexandra added.

"Oh, I'm not talking about all Americans. I'm talking about Marie and Pete."

"Marie who went to Amherst?" Tom asked. "Yeah, they're not hoity-toity or anything."

"I know nothing about Amherst, including how to pronounce it," Jane said. "Marie doesn't say it the way you just did. But I mean, look, I'm just saying they're not the type who want anything too fancy."

"I disagree," Tom said. "They both usually look pretty put-together and coiffed. When Pete was a student, he was one of the few who always came to class in a dress shirt and slacks, not jeans."

"At the pub, too, Jane," added Eric, who had come in just in time to hear Jane's last comment. "I wouldn't worry about them thinking any place was too pretentious. It is Paris, after all."

"I guess," Jane said. "I just don't understand Americans, I suppose, even my close friends."

"We're aware of the 'ugly American' stereotype, for one thing," Tom explained in a gentle tone that sounded forced to Alexandra. "That's why, when I travel around Europe, I try to dress business-casual, you know? Sweater and nice shoes, not sneakers."

"Sneakers?" Jane asked.

"Trainers," Eric explained. "Two countries divided by a common language, eh?"

"Right," Tom chuckled. "Anyway, other Americans would know what I was trying to avoid. Just a week or two ago I showed my photo album to Sandy, and she took one look at how I was dressed in the pictures and said, 'Ah, you didn't want to stand out as American, did you?'. Anyway, Jane, maybe that's why and maybe it isn't, but Marie and Pete won't expect you to book a monster truck rally for them or anything."

"All right, all right, all right!" Jane felt like pounding on the tea table for order, but it was now laden with brimming espresso cups. "In any event! What I've been trying to tell you is, I've been thinking of renting a conference room at the Hôtel Porte de la Ville."

"That is a private club," Leo said. "You need to be a member."

"It's got a reciprocal arrangement with a Cambridge alumni club I'm a member of," Jane explained. "That's one reason why I think it'd be a good location. Normally they wouldn't let any of us in the door, except me. That'll make it more memorable..."

As Jane made her case, Alexandra gave Tom a wry look, and was delighted to see he seemed to share her feelings about the matter.

Once business was underway, things proceeded well enough. Eric knew of a fledgeling jazz band that would play for a fee within their meagre budget, Francois had a contact at a catering company who owed Marie a favor, Leo claimed to have a trick up his sleeve to get Marie to provide a list of her friends for invitations with no suspicions. Alexandra was just starting to get concerned that she was of no real use to the operation when Jane saved the day. "Alex, why don't you and Tom take care of decorations?"

"That'd be fine," Alexandra managed to say without sounding too happy about that most mundane of jobs.

"Here's to the poorly connected doing their share, huh?" Tom said with a grin. Everyone except Jane laughed.

The laughter was still ongoing when Sandy appeared at Alexandra's end of the tables. "Hi, guys," she said. She sounded - and, Alexandra now noticed, also looked - like she'd been crying.

"We started at eleven, Sandy," Jane said. It was nearly eleven-thirty.

"I know, but I just woke up." Sandy plopped down in the last empty chair in their corner of the café. "I was up till four last night trying to get a word with this guy Rajesh, and - God, he and his friends are such a bunch of chauvinistic jerks!"

"Rajesh again, Sandy?" Tom asked. "Can't you see those guys don't care about you?"

"He's right," Alexandra said, having heard several times about Sandy's clique of rich Indian and Pakistani guys, which she spent every weekend trying in vain to force her way into. "They know you'd do anything for them to give you a second look, and they're going to go right on milking that for all it's worth."

"And Rajesh especially sounds like a spoiled kid," Tom added. "He probably treats all the women he knows the same way."

"All right, all right!" Sandy buried her head in her hands. "Do I ask you guys to worry about my personal life at all?"

"Um, yes," Eric said. "Constantly, my friend."

"Whatever!" Sandy snapped. "All I'm saying is, I have bigger problems than being a little late for a meeting where I figure you'd already made all the decisions anyway, Jane!"

That brought on an awkward laugh, even a bit from Jane. Alexandra had to admit to herself that Sandy had a point on that one.

"I mean, let me guess," Sandy went on, "Black tie optional, or only white tie?"

"First of all black tie is less formal," Jane said in an exasperated tone. "But it's going to be at a club where, yes, you will be expected to wear something pretty. Is that all right with you, Miss I-don't-even-show-up-on-time?"

"Yeah, yeah, fine," Sandy said. "I just figured, it's you in charge, it'd be a little on the pretentious side."

"If that's what you call not looking like an American tourist," Jane said while the others stared into their by-then empty coffee cups, "Then you are correct. Tom was already kind enough to explain it's something Americans over here are very aware of, as you saw in his photo album."

Sandy shook her head. "I've never seen your photo album, Tom."

Tom looked heartbroken in that moment, and Alexandra gave him a sympathetic look, though she was privately delighted - maybe this would get through to him.

"Haven't you?" Jane hadn't noticed Tom and Alexandra's exchanged looks; she was still focused on Sandy. "In any case, we've got everything set except for one thing. I quite frankly don't trust you at this point, but do you want that one last job, Sandy?"

"Depends on what it is," Sandy said loftily.

"We'll need someone to lure Marie and Pete to the Hôtel Porte de la Ville," Jane explained. "I don't think it should be me, because Marie would probably see through it then."

"Isn't that a private club?" Sandy asked. "How are we gonna get in to begin with?"

"You'd know the answer to that if you'd been here on time." Tom surprised them all by putting Sandy in her place for once. Alexandra was privately delighted.

"He's right," Jane said. "In any event, I think you're the right woman for that job. No one would doubt you if you said you had a connection there. Now, can you at least do that?"

"Yeah, sure," Sandy said.

"Wonderful." Jane snapped her notebook shut. "Just wait until I let you know I've got the room reserved there, all right? That should be sometime this week."

When the committee adjourned just before noon and Alexandra and Tom were off to see about decorations, she learned right away that Sandy's failure to remember the pictures had gotten through to him, at least a little bit. "I can't believe she doesn't remember looking at my travel pictures," he said as they strolled down the boulevard. "We went through every page of the album and I explained just what I was up to in every picture in every city." He shook his head.

"I'm really sorry, Tom," Alexandra said. "I'd like to see those pictures sometime, if you feel like sharing again."

"Sure!" Tom said. "Sorry, I shouldn't whine about this, it's just that to me, it was such a nice memory. But to Sandy..."

"To Sandy, you're not a third world trust fund kid?" Alexandra offered.

A risky ploy, but it paid off with a laugh from Tom. "Got me dead to rights on that one, Alex. I just keep hoping she'll open her eyes and see who really does care about her. Instead, every weekend it's out all night with those guys, and the next time I see her she won't stop whining about what a bunch of losers they are."

"If you don't mind my saying so, maybe you ought to stop being sympathetic," Alexandra said. "I mean, she's never going to listen, anyone can see that."

Tom nodded. "My head knows that, but my heart doesn't, you know?"

"Yes, I do know. I know she's gorgeous, Tom, I think so too, but she's shown us all who she really is."

"You think she's gorgeous?" Tom looked at her in surprise. "Doesn't matter to me, but are you..."

"I'm bi," Alexandra said. "And I'm not out to the rest of the gang, so please keep that to yourself."

"Of course, of course," Tom said. "May I ask why not, though? Is Jane homophobic? Wouldn't surprise me."

"Yes, she is, and please don't ask how I know," Alexandra said. "I still don't like to think about it."

"I'm sorry." He gave her back a gentle pat, which made Alexandra's heart leap even through the thick fabric of her winter coat.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for," she said. "Listen, want to get something to eat? There's a great fondue place on the next block."

At the restaurant, Tom surprised Alexandra with his more-than-proficient French when they ordered. "I didn't know you spoke French," she said in English as soon as they were alone again.

"Well, we're in France, aren't we?" he said. "Actually, I minored in French."

"Minored?" Alexandra's own survival French had improved greatly over the past couple of years, but American academia remained a mystery to her.

"Oh, at American colleges, you can take half a major's worth of classes and call it a minor. I majored in math because my parents both grew up poor and never shut up about getting a well-paid job when I was done, but I always loved French. If only teaching paid better."

"Tell me about it!" Alexandra said.

"Sorry! I forgot what you did for a minute there."

"No, it's fine," she said. "You're right, it doesn't pay anywhere near enough, but it beats what I left back in Australia."

"What did you leave back in Australia?"

"A rather ugly love triangle and a job that bored me to death," Alexandra said. "But enough about that. So your math major, got you into business school anyway?"

"Yes, after a couple of years doing finance at a company in Memphis," he said. "Great town, but I always wanted to see Paris."

"Oh, you're joking!" Alexandra exclaimed. "Memphis...yeah, my ex-girlfriend, the one I was running away from when I came here, yeah, she had a thing for Elvis. Always wanted to see the Sunshine Studios."

"Sun studios, not Sunshine." Tom said it with a diplomatic smile.

"Right, thanks," Alexandra said. "Marlene was always saying she wanted to see them, and Graceland and so forth."

"Did she ever get over there?"

"I don't know. Haven't had any contact with her since I came here, and it's going to stay that way." She still didn't like to think about the events that had spurred her to come overseas. "It's like you said that night at the pub, Tom, about removing yourself from a no-win situation. Best to do it completely."

"You remember that!" Tom looked delighted.

"I'm not Sandy, am I?" Alexandra couldn't help herself.

"Got that right," he said. "Oh, that reminds me, you said you'd tell me what the big disaster was with Marie and Tom? Back when they first got together?"

So Alexandra told Tom all she could remember about Jane's accursed ex, Sam, and how he had blackmailed Pete into lying about having a fiancée back in Kansas City, and how it had nearly destroyed Jane's friendship with Marie as well. "Of course, I really don't know why Marie and Jane are so tight anyway, when they've got just about nothing in common," she said at one point. "But there's no accounting for taste."

"I know that feeling all too well," Tom said.

"I know you can't just snap out of a crush," Alexandra said, and she took the liberty of reaching across the table to give his hand a friendly squeeze. She had, after all, been just as unable to do anything about her feelings for him either. "But you saw Sandy's true colors today, and you just know she's not going to change."