Partners

She was smiling. I wondered if this whole thing was deliberate. It was as if the cheeky Benoit was trying to embarrass me, or even trying to lure me into some kind of ... I did know what.

We decided to dine in the hotel. Just casual I thought. But she said that she needed to change into a dress. And she wanted to put her hair up in a style she had learned from her new friends. She was late down to dinner, but she looked fabulous.

We talked wine over dinner. The hotel restaurant had a very respectable wine list of local appellations. We tried the smaller bottles that they serve in that part of France, so that we could sample three different wines. She talked regions, and sub-regions, soils and vines, the pitch of the land, the type of sunlight. It was fascinating and I was transfixed. Although not entirely by the words, sometimes it was enough just to look at her and watch her lips move.

I thought that when we went to bed I would be brought down from this weird romantic plane that I seemed to be living on. He would strip off the feminine costume and a man would be there, and at least overnight my wife would be dead again. And I would be at peace.

But the person who came to bed was her, not Benoit. She was wearing a nightgown and her hair was loose, but it was hers. She had cream on her face, and the eyelashes were natural only, but she looked no less attractive to me. She sat on the bed for a moment brushing her hair. When she saw me gazing at it she said: "No wig needed. It just needs some proper treatment. Including brushing before bed."

As she continued, in my loose-fitting pyjamas an erection was rising. I reassured myself that it was not the sight of a man that was having this effect. This was a woman, to all intents and purposes. She could not see it, I thought. I jumped in quickly and pulled the covers over it.

I had my hand on it when she finished and put the brush down. Just before she turned out the light she smiled at me and said: "Bon nuit" -- good night. I came immediately, soaking my pyjamas and the sheets. There was nothing I could do but sleep in the wet. I could not show her what I had done.

I found out later that she had seen the erection in the mirror, had watched my face and could smell the sex in the bed we shared. And she had found the dried semen on the sheets in the morning, but she did not let on.

In Grasse the small hotel had another double room, but this time the bed was not so big. We both laughed. As a married couple travelling together we should expect this, but this time I guess we knew one of us would be on the floor, but nobody volunteered. She spent some time getting herself ready to go out to dinner. She had a curling tool and she put her hair up in a wonderfully feminine style. She arranged her bra and padding so that she could squeeze into what I understand is called a "LBD" -- a Little Black Dress. She looked incredible.

We met Aldo at a village where the restaurant sat over the river. We took a taxi so that we could enjoy some wine. It was a warm night. We talked business. After the Eastern Provence we were headed to the Rhone Valley, to visit one problem supplier near the town of Orange, then the long trip to the Bordeaux region, to visit the other. Aldo would be headed back to Piedmont close to his home on the Ligurian Coast. But in addition to France and Italy he could supply us with wines from Spain and Portugal. Meeting him was fortunate indeed. It opened our eyes to so many other great wines. Aldo ended up being a major source of product for our business, but that was to come later.

Throughout dinner Aldo and Celeste seemed to be flirting with one another. Sometimes he said something to her in French, although she always replied in English so as to include me. I liked Aldo and it was clear that he would be important, so I said nothing and smiled. But I was getting increasingly upset with being disregarded in this way.

I said nothing on the way back, so she knew I was not happy. It was not until we got up to the room that I told her: "I am supposed to be your husband. You were flirting with him all night."

"You are my husband," she said. She reached into her handbag and pulled out her passport. Celeste's passport. Mrs. Celeste Pendarvis. My wife.

I felt somehow betrayed or cheated. I am not sure what I felt. It seemed that all night I had been a husband so proud of his beautiful wife, and now I was just a fool for believing such nonsense about a young man in women's clothing.

I looked at the bed. It was a double bed, but not with as much room as the king bed we had shared the night before.

"Dare I suggest that seniority gives me the first right to the bed?" I said.

"We are to be equal partners," she said. "We can share the bed."

"There is no equal partnership until you tell me what you did, until you tell me why the French police are looking for you," I reminded her.

"Very well," she said. "With all that has happened in the last few weeks I think that I need to tell you." She pulled some pins from her hair so that the curls fell around her shoulders. I felt my penis stir as it had the night before, but fortunately it was constrained by the clothes I was wearing. No matter what, she had that effect on me. It was beyond rational explanation. No man could have this effect on me. This was a woman.

"I am accused of killing a man," she began. "I did kill a man. It was an accident. But the circumstances were ... embarrassing. You see, I was dressed as a woman. He thought I was a woman. When he found out, he attacked me. It was self defense. But, I could not face a trial. It would mean disclosing my secret."

"So, you are telling me that you have dressed like this before?" I asked.

"Can't you tell?" She looked annoyed. "It was just a thing that I did. I liked to be admired by men. I wasn't looking for anything except admiration. But after the ... the death, I put all of it behind me. I cut my hair and I went to America, and I vowed that I would never dress as a woman again. I kept that promise to myself, until you asked me."

"So, are you gay?" I asked.

"I told you, I just wanted men to be attracted to me. That does not mean that I was attracted to men. I wasn't. Not until now."

I looked at her, uncertain as to what she was saying. I thought I knew, but I did not want to think it. I was bound to be disappointed. Was she saying that she was attracted to me? Were our feelings mutual?

I cannot tell how long we stood in that small hotel room looking at one another. Neither of us seemed ready to make the move that both us were praying the other would make. Our stares were accusing and begging at the same time. I am not even sure who moved first. But after what seemed like an age, there we were, in each other's arms. Just holding one another as if dangling by a thread 1,000 feet up.

We pulled apart to allow ourselves to look into one another's eyes, and then to understand and be fall back into one another's arms and to kiss as only lovers can do.

"I want you to make love to me," she said. "I know you want to."

"How is that possible," I replied. I could hear the bitter disappointment in my own voice.

"I need you inside me," she said. "I have done it before, before I left France. But that was for them. This I want for me. Just give me a few minutes and I will be ready for you."

Honestly, by this point I was so fiery that if she had been muscled and covered with hair I would probably have been all over her, but when she came out of the ensuite bathroom, after what seemed like an age, she looked so beautiful my heart leapt.

She was naked from the waist up. Her small panties were black, and obviously contained a package, but one ignored. Her body was pale and smooth, and on her chest were two very small but quite distinct breasts, with large feminine looking nipples.

"This is what is left over from my first attempt at transition, many years ago," she explained, cupping the tiny but exquisite orbs. "I could not afford surgical removal. Now I am glad of that."

I walked over to her to examine everything about her more closely. I ran my hands over her, she gasped and quivered with excitement. I kissed one perfect nipple and then the other. She whispered a groan. A woman's groan.

She reached down and unfastened my belt allowing my pants to fall to the floor. With seconds my prick was hard enough to cut a diamond. She held it and backed away to the bed. She only turned to arrange the pillows to keep her butt high enough for me to penetrate her and to make love face to face. She pulled her panties to one side so that I was spared the sight of her maleness, but the truth is that I was looking in her eyes.

"Slowly, my Darling," she begged.

That is what I wanted. For it to last forever. There was a warm hole, lubricated and twitching with anticipation. I entered her and heaven at the same time.

"We can share the bed now," she observed moments later.

We had. We did.

We woke in the morning in one another's arms.

She said: "I want to live like this forever."

I said: "Would you marry me? I mean really marry me?"

"Only if I could truly be a wife to you," she said.

I said: "I want us to be partners in every sense."

She kissed me tenderly, her sweet-smelling hair falling in my face. "Agreed'" she said.

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2018