Stranger in Paris

A soft purple dusk was creeping out like smoke from beneath the trees by the Seine when I saw her. A small, pale figure with a mop of black hair, sitting on the right bank, knees drawn up, a big pad of paper in her lap, her upward glance fleeting. Sketching. Sketching me.

I was leaning on the parapet of the Pont Neuilly, watching the shadows fall over the river, the lights on the barges berthed along the banks painting the oil-black water with streaks of yellow and white. Behind me, the homeward-bound traffic of Paris roared, yet I didn’t notice it. My mind was tired, in neutral, all thoughts of college and home and family drifting like the dusk across the water. The last thing I expected was to see the face of the girl who had watched me having sex with my flat- mate and her boyfriend two weeks ago...

She was only fifty metres away and I hadn’t paid her much attention when I reached the bridge; yet as the dusk gathered her face took on a familiarity that surprised me. Then I realised I had seen it before, across the Place Bicêtre, when I had gone to the window for a breath of fresh air that wild night.

My sense of recognition must have flown to her, for as I straightened up she rose to her feet and stared openly at me, her pad clasped in her arms like a shield. After a moment’s pause, she turned and ran along the footpath to the bridge.

I thought she was running away, so I ran along the bridge in pursuit. I felt an urgent need to talk to her, to find out why she had watched us. As I neared the end she emerged onto the path - and faced me. I stumbled to a stop a few metres from her and we stood staring at each other for a long moment.

I saw she was older than me by only a few years; early twenties, perhaps. She wore white culottes with training shoes; slender calves showed pale in the streetlight and her feet were bare in her shoes. A loose cotton top of some sombre shade of taupe covered a boyish figure. Dark gamin hair swirled about her head like a thundercloud as she peered at me from beneath dark lashes. Slowly, she lowered her pad until it hung by her side.

‘You were watching us,’ I said at last, pitching my voice to carry above the traffic’s roar.

‘No,’ she replied in English, ‘I was watching you.’

‘Why?’ I asked, not bothering to ask how she knew my nationality. My French is good, yet a native always seems to know...

She looked around, then grimaced at the cars passing on the road a few feet away. ‘We cannot talk here. Won’t you come with me?’

I hesitated. She looked sad and began to walk away.

‘Wait!’ I called, and hurried to walk alongside her. She looked along her shoulder and flashed me a smile.

‘Who are you?’ I asked.

‘Annette Duchesne. I’m an artist.’ She shot me a quick glance. ‘And you’re Christie Ellison.’

I was stunned. ‘You know me?’

‘My aunt told me. She’s your concierge.’

I had asked the woman if she knew the girl who had spied on us, yet she denied any knowledge. Madame went down a little in my estimation then.

‘What made you ask about me?’

She stopped and gave me a level stare. ‘For the same reason I suspect you asked about me!’ Annette shrugged one shoulder. ‘We would have met before, but of necessity, I was at my parents’ house in the Auvergne these last weeks. I come here to escape.’

With that she turned away and walked in the direction of the Place Bicêtre, with me trailing her by a few paces, my mind in a whirl.

I didn’t know what attracted me to her. Since I had begun college in Paris that Autumn my eyes had been opened to many things I wouldn’t have dreamed of before. My Australian flat-mate Helen had introduced me to lesbian sex at the same time she introduced me to the three-way. The experience had left me hungry for more. Although I had dropped hints about trying a repeat, we hadn’t slept together since. She was too taken up with Alain, her French actor boyfriend.

And now this strange girl out of nowhere was taking me back home.

She could have just wanted to talk; she may have wanted to have a drink with me, to make friends. Somehow, I knew she had more in mind than just social niceties...

We returned to the Place and Annette led me to No. 9, the apartment building next to mine. I was half-nervous of being seen by one or other of my friends about the place, yet the few people we saw were strangers.

Annette led me to a fourth floor apartment. When she opened the door I was greeted with the smell of old cooking, underlaid with the sharper tones of oil pigments and spirits. She turned on the lights and dropped her pad carelessly on a table, turning to reach past me to close and lock the door. Her firm breasts brushed against my arm as she moved, something we were both very aware of.

Her gaze was level as she regarded me. ‘Would you like to go through to the sitting room and undress?’ She smiled as my mouth dropped at her boldness. ‘I wish to paint you.’ She tipped her head to one side and regarded me. ‘Would you not like that?’

I shrugged. ‘I’m okay with that,’ I managed to say.

‘Good! Just relax. I’ll be with you in a minute or two.’ She headed off to the bathroom. ‘Oh, and make sure the shutters are closed!’ she called back over her shoulder.

The sitting room overlooked the Place. I hurried to the window and quickly drew the shutters closed, then turned on the only light I could find, a table lamp standing on a low shelf. I looked around.

It was an uncluttered room, with all the signs of an artist at work. Finished canvasses stood against one red flock-papered wall, their drying paint redolent on the still air. Palettes were stacked neatly on a small blue ceramic-tiled table alongside boxes of pigment tubes. I looked at the paintings; all were portraits, none of them nude. In the centre of the fine beech-wood floor were two rubber mats, like those used in gymnasia. An easel stood on one side, a cheval glass on the other.

Only one painting hung upon the wall, and I went over to look at it. It was a colourful portrait of a plump young woman, blonde ringlets trailing down her cheeks, merry green eyes of a startling hue looking out at the viewer as if about to burst into laughter. From her fine green dress, I guessed the period to be mid to late 19th century. The title of the piece was “Isobel Duchesne.” I looked at the artist’s signature, then stepped back in shock.

‘Renoir?’ I whispered, staring in awe at the vibrant colours, the brushwork. I know a bit about Impressionism. Who could live in Paris for any time and not be aware of it? Everything about the little painting screamed original, yet it hung like any old work on the wall of a simple apartment in Monceau.

Shaking my head I retreated to the mat and undressed slowly, nervously glancing up at the door for Annette’s return. Perhaps she did just want to paint me; I didn’t mind posing, although I felt a small, sharp stab of disappointment. I laid my clothes over the back of a chair, then, nude, I perched on the edge of it, my hands on my knees, my thighs pressed together.

A few moments later Annette appeared in the open doorway. She was naked. I admit, I gaped at her, for the light cast her fine figure in planes of light and shadow. Surprisingly full breasts were topped by deep red nipples. Thick erect teats became small mesas of sensuality, inviting touch, and taste. The thick black knot of her pubic hair made a dark triangle on her belly, hiding her sex as she leaned in the doorway to gaze at me, her hands on the lintel above her head, a soft smile on her lips when she saw my confusion. My heart began to beat strongly.

Cat-like, she stalked across the floor to stoop and plant a quick kiss on my lips, before turning away to her easel. ‘I will paint you now,’ she said, taking up a palette and squeezing pigments into the hollows with practised ease. ‘Although, I think you have never been painted before - especially like this!’

‘How do you want me?’ I stammered.

‘Kneeling on the mat, so.’ She knelt, stood a water jar beside her and gestured for me to kneel opposite. I did so, my heart beginning to pound harder. Taking up a large sable brush, she looked at me, then dipped it into a bright carmine red.

Reaching out, she began to paint my body, swirling the colours over my skin with soft, sensual strokes until I trembled with the touch. ‘You have a fine, smooth skin,’ she sighed, drawing the brush over my right nipple until I thought it would explode. ‘Like silk, smoother than any canvas. I can feel your warmth.’

I gulped. Annette drew her brush down, down over my ribs and belly, gazing into my eyes as it reached the edge of my pubis - and kept going.

‘Uhhh!’ I gasped, wide-eyed, as she slipped the brush between my thighs and drew it back over my pussy lips.

‘Hush...’ she murmured, raising the brush to sniff delicately at the bristles. To my astonishment she licked it! ‘Mmm!’ she grinned. ‘I like your taste and smell!’

‘But... isn’t the paint toxic?’ I gasped stupidly.

‘Oh no!’ She held the brush to my lips. ‘Edible body paint. Try it. You’ll be amazed at what you can buy in Paris.’

I licked the brush. It tasted sweet, and in amongst it I could taste my own juices. Before I could try more Annette drew it away and dipped it in the water jar, then loaded it with yellow.

I trembled as she continued to paint me, changing pigments the while, slowly drawing the brush over my breasts, belly, thighs, arms - and then my pussy and around my swelling bud until I began to shake. As soon as she saw the signs Annette dropped her palette and held me against her, writhing sinuously against me, rubbing my clit with her finger and kissing me until my pussy exploded.

‘AhhhhHHHHHH!’ I cried, clutching her against me, her fingers digging into my pussy.

As I came back to reality I could feel the pigment and our sweat slick between us, and Annette drew back to smile at me. ‘Let’s see the result of my work!’ she laughed.

Drawing me to my feet she led me to the cheval mirror, and stood back so I could see myself. My body was smeared with a wonderful rainbow of colour. Bright splashes of red trailed up from my sex and around my breasts; deep greens and blues shadowed my arms and thighs, intermixed with streaks of flame orange and yellow. The peaks of my breasts and my belly were a curious muddy brown where the paints had merged when we clutched each other.

‘A unique work, special only to you,’ Annette whispered in my ear.

‘I like it!’ I laughed, turning to hug her.

We kissed, and the world faded away. Her arms came up to hold me close, and our breasts met and crushed each other in soft delight. I could feel the hardness of her nipples pressing into me, and stooped to take one in my mouth, sucking and licking it until she growled.

Somehow we found ourselves on the mats, clasping, stroking, nibbling. Annette raked her nails down my back, making me shudder. I took a firm breast in my hand and squeezed it until she gasped in pain.

Feeling another woman’s breast in my hand again drove me onto wilder shores, and I pushed Annette back onto the mat and pressed down against her. I kissed her from her lips, down, to her breasts, over belly, pubis, to...

‘Ahhhhh...’ she groaned, her hands clenching in my hair as I licked a long, wet trail over her pussy lips and over her clit, pulling, sucking on the hot little nub, the paint sweet on my lips. ‘Mon Dieu!’

Sinuously I slid up to lie against her and slid two fingers into her pussy, meeting a little resistance until her juices covered my fingers and I could push them inside her up to my knuckles. Annette shuddered and reached down to grip my wrist with both hands, stopping me from pushing deeper until her pussy had loosened enough to take me.

Pushing against the front of her sex I found her G-spot and her back arched in ecstasy as I pushed in, and out, in, and out, fingertips brushing her cervix. I slipped another finger inside, stretching her further...

‘Ahh! Ahh! AH! AHHHH!’ she screamed, twisting on my hand to clutch me against her. One-handed I held her until her trembling subsided, then I renewed my onslaught, working Annette like a glove-puppet until she came again, writhing on the floor like a woman possessed...

Slowly, her orgasm subsided, and she rolled onto her side to take me in her arms. Her dark green eyes regarded me with affection. ‘For a neophyte, you’re very good at this!’ she whispered, pecking me lightly on the lips.

I shrugged and held her close. ‘I know what I like to do to myself. And if it works for me...’

Annette grinned and slid her knee between my legs. ‘Yet I feel you did not like the blond girl’s dildo?’

I was mortified to remember how much of our three-way she must have seen from the very window of the room we were in, yet I just shrugged, as if fucking my flat-mate happened every day. ‘It’s too big for me, and Helen’s not that responsive to the needs of others. She just got between my legs and pumped away.’ I pulled a face. ‘I could get that sort of thing from any man.’

‘So I saw. And I? Do you think I am more responsive?’ she whispered, rolling me gently onto my back and lying upon me. Firm breasts brushed over mine, the nipples writing little messages of delight on my skin. Her black bangs hung about her face, casting it in deep shadow from which only her eyes glittered.

‘Oh yes!’ I smiled, kissing her.

Annette’s hot tongue slipped between my lips, and her hand caressed my breasts and belly, soft, velvet touches that sent shivers through me. My thighs parted of their own accord and she rolled into the saddle, her pubis rasping lightly against mine. We kissed, lightly, delicately, our tongues flicking to meet and twine from time to time, running over teeth and lips; moist, loving kisses.

Then she began to work down my body, kissing and nipping my nipples until they burned hot with lust. Soft licks, butterfly touches over my ribs and belly, her nose rubbing lightly over my taught skin, until she nuzzled my pubis. I could feel the rush of air as she inhaled my scent and my thighs spread wide, inviting her to go further.

When the tip of her tongue touched my clit I felt ready to explode and I grasped her head and tried to pull her against me.

‘Non! Non,’ she said, softly, looking up at me and shaking her head. ‘Too quick. Here, like this...’

I groaned and forced myself to lie still, as she delicately spread my pussy lips with her fingers and began to lick me, up, and down, and around. My body burned, and I felt feverish, tremors surging through me at the sheer sensuality of Annette’s expert tongue on my lips and clit. She brought me close to the peak several times until I began to cry with frustration, yet she would stop, contenting herself with soft kisses along my inner thighs until I subsided.

Then she moved in, her tongue sliding up along my crack, probing deep, sucking at my lips, up, until her lips fastened about my clit and drew it into her mouth. Annette’s hot tongue flickered over my bud as her lips sucked it deep.

‘Oh Goddddd! NyeeeaahhhHHH! Uh UH UHH UHHHH!’ I screamed and bucked as fireworks exploded in my head, my pussy mashing into Annette’s face in my frenzy...

I returned to the apartment I shared with Helen and Dominique hours later. Dominique popped her head out of the little kitchen to regard me with amusement. ‘Here comes the face of someone who has had a good day!’ she grinned, emerging to kiss me on both cheeks. She looked down at the roll of paper I held. ‘What have you there?’

‘Oh, just a painting someone did of me.’ I blushed. ‘It’s rather naughty.’

‘But I must look!’ Dominique laughed, teasing the paper from my fingers. I blushed deeper as she unrolled it. ‘Mon Dieu!’ she whispered, then nodded her head in approval.

Before we dressed, Annette had pressed the thick creamy sheet of vellum paper all over me, transferring the pigments from my body to it. It bore the colourful impression of my torso from neck to belly, with my breasts, nipples and pubic hair quite plain in a riot of swirling colours mingled with our sweat and juices.

‘Now that’s what I call a nude portrait!’ Dominique grinned.

I still have that sheet, nicely framed, on my bedroom wall...

The End.