The Book Lover Ch. 15

They all agreed and he took them to a small restaurant that overlooked the river. It was clear that it was not a place that many tourists knew about since the waitstaff spoke little English. Jean-Paul knew the owner and ordered for them. The wine was spectacular, and the food was even better. Once the wine started flowing, Jessie and Jean-Paul became less subtle in their flirting. As the young man noticed that it didn't seem to bother Tom, he began to be even more suggestive in his comments.

It was about half way through the dinner that Jessie felt the tug on her consciousness. This time Jaleh didn't ask permission to take control, she just pushed on Jessie's will, as though she were trying to slide her across the front seat of a car and take over the driver's seat. For the briefest of moments, Jessie resisted the loss of control, but she had already been thinking about how much she'd like to spend some time with Jean-Paul, and she knew that if Jaleh took control, that would be the inevitable outcome. So she simply yielded to the push and felt the now familiar shift in her perspective indicating she had become a spectator in her own body.

Jaleh wasted no time in shocking both men who sat at the table with her.

"Avez-vous une petite amie, Jean-Paul?" She asked in the nearly perfect French that Jessie knew that Jaleh could conjure.

Jessie loved seeing the look on the faces of both of the men at the table with her. They were clearly very surprised that Jaleh had led off with a question to Juan-Paul in French.

Jean-Paul looked from Jessie to Tom and back to Jessie.

"Tu parles Français?" He asked rather bewildered. He looked over at Tom.

"I didn't realize your fiancée spoke French," he said.

"I didn't either," Tom suggested, looking over at Jessie. Jessie felt as Jaleh just shrugged her shoulders as though it was perfectly normal for her to start speaking French out of nowhere. Jessie knew things were about to get very interesting.

From that point, Jessie experienced exactly what she had experienced the two previous evenings. She and Jean-Paul carried on their conversation in French. She heard the French being spoken, but she understood it exactly as if it were English.

"You didn't answer my question. Do you have a girlfriend?" Jaleh repeated the question to him.

"I don't,"Jean-Paul replied. "I used to, but we broke up a little while ago. Why the sudden switch to French?"

"Perhaps I want you and I to discuss some things that Tom doesn't need to hear."

"Like whether or not I have a girlfriend?" Jean-Paul asked.

"Like whether or not you are available," Jaleh suggested.

"Available for what? A walk along the river?" Jean-Paul asked with a smile.

"I've been thinking all day about how much I'd like to fuck you," Jaleh responded, "but if you'd rather we just walk along the river, I guess we could do that instead."

"I would much prefer your first suggestion," he replied with a grin. "I am most definitely available for that."

Jaleh immediately shifted her attention over to Tom.

"Isn't this a lovely restaurant that Jean-Paul has taken us to, Tom?"

Tom looked at her with his head cocked to the side, completely unsure of what was going on. Jessie knew that he had heard her speaking Spanish to the neighbor next door, and now he was hearing her speak fluent French, even though she showed no signs of speaking French in any of their trip in Paris up to this point. He clearly was wondering what was going on, but had stopped asking questions when it came to strange things happening with Jessie since she'd found that book.

"Ummm ..." he mumbled, taken aback by the oddness of the situation "Yeah. This may be the best restaurant we've been to the whole trip."

"That's what I was thinking. Aren't you glad we met him?"

"Ummm ..." he stammered, looking over at Jean-Paul a little awkwardly, unsure what to think of the question. "Yeah. Sure. I mean he made it so I wasn't bored spending countless hours in an art museum."

"Yeah," she agreed, "he is a very intriguing young man."

Jean-Paul seemed to be quite amused at the way Jaleh had looked at him when she said that he was very intriguing. Jaleh shifted her attention back to Jean-Paul.

"You know, Jean-Paul, my fiancé and I don't exactly have a traditional relationship."

"What kind of relationship do you have?"

"You'll have to ask him to find out."

Then she shifted back to English again and spoke to both men at the table.

"Now if you will excuse me," she said to them, "I need to visit the little ladies room."

She then stood and headed off to the restroom to let Tom and Jean-Paul talk for a moment.

-This young Frenchman is quite handsome, don't you think? I saw the way you looked at him and flirted with him all day. I assumed you were interested in getting to know him a little better?-

-Indeed. I knew you would be able to arrange that much easier than me.-

-Would you like to listen to their conversation?-

-You can do that?-

-Of course I can. I am not even sure why you would need to ask me that. You have multiple options here. I can put you inside of either one of them. I can let you just witness their conversation from either perspective, or I can allow you to feel everything they are feeling and think everything they are thinking, like what we did with Alejandro.-

For a moment Jessie thought about the invasion of privacy that this represented, but then she thought about how reluctant Tom had been to talk about his feelings regarding her having sex with others. She figured this would be a really good way for her to understand what was motivating him. In the end, she found herself unable to resist the temptation to understand what was making her fiancé tick.

I'd like to see exactly how Tom is feeling about all of this. Can you let me see everything that's inside his head right now?"

Of course I can. This should be quite interesting.

Jessie found herself back at the table, but looking at Jean-Paul from a different angle. For a long moment she felt completely disoriented, but she was getting used to that feeling, it had been happening a lot lately since she'd let Jaleh take more control. She realized that part of the reason for her disorientation was simply that what Tom was experiencing was so very different from her own experiences that it took her a moment to make sense of the input she was getting from him.

The first thing she observed is that jeans aren't really a very comfortable thing to be wearing when the front of them is filled with an erect cock. Perhaps guys got used to it, but experiencing it for the first time, it was almost painfully uncomfortable.

This, of course, led to the realization that Tom was extremely turned on by what had been happening at the table. She could feel that he knew what it meant when Jaleh started speaking in French. It meant her connection to the book was involved, which meant she was likely arranging to have sex with Jean-Paul, and that fact turned him on immensely.

And then she noticed that the mix of emotions swirling about inside of Tom was very complicated, which is likely why he was always reluctant to talk about it. At the very base of all the emotions was the feeling of shame. There was a part of him that felt as though the desires he felt were fundamentally wrong. This is what drove him to lock these feelings away from himself and hope that they would eventually just go away.

But, or course, emotions don't really work that way. They need to be dealt with, not ignored. Ignoring intense desires for a long time typically only makes them stronger when they reappear. Jessie experienced something very similar. She'd been cut off from sexual desire for so long that she never learned how to control it, so when it came to her in a sudden burst it had overpowered her almost completely.

Shame was just the foundation of the intense mix of emotions, however. On top of the shame that Tom associated with these desires, there was a layer of all the negative emotions one might typically expect to be present when a partner is going to have sex with someone else; anger, jealousy, disappointment, embarrassment, anxiety, resentment. These are all the emotions that Tom's shame told him should be the dominant emotions in this scenario.

But what sat on top of all these other emotions was an intense feeling of lust. Many people learn at some point in their life that there is often a fine line between pleasure and pain. Pain, on its own, is not usually something that people desire. But a certain amount of pain, when mixed with pleasure, can actually intensify the pleasure response substantially. Everyone has a different threshold for the amount of pain that can be tolerated. Above this threshold the pain overrides the pleasure and takes it away, usually almost completely squelching it. But below this threshold, pain actually feeds pleasure and makes it even more intense. For instance, some women might like it if someone nibbled lightly on their nipples during sex, others might like someone twisting them, even others might really enjoy something more intense, like biting, or pinching or even nipple clamps. Everyone has a different threshold. What leads to someone being considered a masochist is simply a very high threshold of pain that still increases rather than suppresses their arousal.

In Tom's case, the emotions that most people would consider painful, negative emotions, like jealousy and anxiety and embarrassment, actually fed his arousal rather than dampening it.

It was almost as though there was a seesaw inside of him, with shame on one side of the seesaw and arousal on the other. The other emotions were free to slide along the length of the seesaw. Once his arousal reached a certain level, those negative emotions would slide down to reinforce that arousal and make the shame seem insignificant. But take away the arousal, like what happens to nearly all men when they orgasm, and suddenly the seesaw switches sides and all those negative emotions feed his shame instead of his arousal.

Suddenly Jessie fully understand why Tom would always define his feelings as complicated. He never dealt with the shame he felt his fantasies should represent, so his life had become a constant seesaw between arousal and shame.

One thing was clear, however. In that moment the arousal dominated and the negative emotions associated with an unfaithful partner were feeding it, almost like gasoline on a fire. Tom's threshold for that emotional pain was much higher than most when he became aroused, and those emotions intensified his desires, completely overriding any shame he might feel for having the desires in the first place.

Of course, what Jessie wanted was to dive deeper and figure out the source of the desires in the first place, but that was when Jean-Paul spoke up.

"Tell me about the nature of your relationship with Jessie," Jean-Paul said to him.

Jessie could sense, immediately, that this question increased Tom's anxiety. He looked over his shoulder towards the restroom, seeing if maybe Jessie would be coming back soon. It wasn't enough of an increase to cross his threshold and swing the seesaw the other way, but it was enough that he noticed it starting to weigh against his arousal. It made him want to avoid the question. He picked a stalling tactic.

"I'm ... I'm not sure what you mean."

Jessie sensed instantly that this was a lie. He knew exactly what Jean-Paul meant. He just felt the need to avoid the question for fear that answering it could be enough to take away from his arousal and tip the seesaw back over to the side of shame.

"Well," Jean-Paul went on, "the two of you are engaged to be married, right?"

"Yes," Tom agreed readily.

She sensed him feel a sense of relief at having an easier question to answer.

"And do you have a date set yet?"

"No," Tom replied. "We actually just got engaged our first night in Paris."

"So you're engaged to Jessie, but surely you've noticed that she has been quite openly flirting with me in front of you, and that I have been just as open in flirting back?"

Once again, Jessie felt that this question increased Tom's anxiety, although still not enough to tip the scales of his arousal. He still looked around to see if Jessie was on her way back so he could justify stalling on giving the answer. But with his fantasies still driving the balance of his emotions, he decided to just answer the question.

"Yes, I had noticed that," he said quietly, unable to look Jean-Paul in the eyes.

"Well, that's what I mean by my question then. Explain to me the nature of your relationship that makes it so that you are okay with another man openly flirting with a fiancée you were so recently engaged to."

"It's complicated," Tom replied. Jessie was now personally aware of just how complicated that mix of emotions was to him. It was why he'd always given her a similar answer when she tried to probe into this subject.

"We have a few minutes," Jean-Paul said to him, "women always take forever in the restroom."

"Jessie and I have agreed that ..." Tom replied very quietly, "that we are not going to have an exclusive relationship."

"So you allow her to have sex with other men?" Jean-Paul asked frankly.

Jessie sensed another surge in Tom's emotions. Jessie could see Tom imagining Jessie and Jean-Paul having sex, and this caused a substantial increase in his arousal which overrode any desire he might have had to avoid answering the question.

"Oh god," he whispered under his breath. Jessie was aware of this expression of his arousal, but she didn't think it was loud enough for Jean-Paul to hear.

Instead he looked over at Jean-Paul and answered him, although quietly.

"ummm .... yeah," he said to the Frenchman.

Jean-Paul smiled at him. Just then the waiter passed by and Jean-Paul ordered a Bourbon. Tom quickly chimed in that he would like one as well. While they were ordering, Jessie had another disorienting moment as Jaleh came back to the table while Jessie was still observing things from Tom's perspective. It was, quite literally, an out of body experience for her as she watched, with Tom's eyes, her own body walk up and sit down at the table.

"I like this non-traditional relationship you have with your fiancé," Jean-Paul said to Jaleh in French. Apparently Jaleh was able to continue translating this for her experience even though she was observing from Tom's perspective.

Tom clearly didn't understand it, however. The fact that Jean-Paul immediately switched to French after confirming that Tom was okay with Jessie having sex with other men made Tom suspect that he was trying to get Jessie to agree to have sex with him. This was definitely fuel to the fire of his arousal. Jaleh responded to Jean-Paul's comment, also in French.

"I'm sure you do."

"Are you going to invite me back to your hotel, then?" Jean-Paul asked.

"No," Jaleh answered quickly and definitively. Even Jessie was surprised by that response, but not as much as Jean-Paul. He had clearly been expecting a different answer.

She waited a long moment before clarifying.

"You need to get him to do it," she said.

Jean-Paul just smiled at her.

Suddenly Jessie was aware of an image that popped up in Tom's head. It was of him sitting in the chair in their hotel room watching as Jessie aggressively rode Jean-Paul's cock on the hotel room bed. She was quite confident she knew exactly where that image came from.

-Of course it was me that put it there. Pay attention to how he responds to it-

And Jessie did. She could feel his cock twitch in the front of his pants, she could feel his heart rate increase. She sensed an inaudible gasp as he took in that image. It was incredibly exciting to him. She knew that one would find it's way into Tom's consciousness, although she suspected he would have arrived there even without Jaleh's help.

At that point Jaleh changed Jessie's perspective back into her own body.

-Did you enjoy getting a peek inside his thought processes in all of this?-

-Yes. Thank you for that. It was very enlightening. I see now why it is difficult for him to talk about his desires. They really are quite complicated.-

-I sense a strong desire in this young Frenchman to take charge of this situation soon. I would be intrigued by that-

-As would I-

-Then I think I am no longer needed. I am going to give control back to you and we can both just see what he does here.-

-That sounds like a wonderful idea-

Jean-Paul turned to look at Tom.

"So it seems to me there are only a couple of questions left to be answered," he said. He was ecstatic that what he'd daydreamed about all day long - fucking Jessie - looked like it was really going to happen.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Tom replied.

"Well, it's quite obvious that your fiancée would like to have sex with me. Personally I've been thinking about almost nothing else all day long. You've said to me that you allow her to have sex with other men, so the question is, will you allow that tonight, with me?"

Jean-Paul could see that Tom was a little uncomfortable talking openly about this over the dinner table, but eventually he chose to simply admit the truth.

"Yes," Tom finally said.

"Excellent. So it's resolved. I'm going to fuck your fiancée tonight, Tom. So the other question is just about logistics. What time do you fly out tomorrow?"

"2:30," Tom replied.

"So that gives us options," Jean-Paul said. "I can take her home with me and have her back to you first thing in the morning. Or ... we can go back to your hotel ... you know ... in case you want to watch."

Jean-Paul was actually totally okay with both options. He would love to be alone with this fabulous woman, but the thought of fucking her right in front of the man who proposed marriage to her a little over a week ago also thrilled him. It would be something he'd likely never get to do any other time in his life.

"I ... um ... I think I'd rather we ... uhh ... all go back to the hotel."

Jean-Paul smiled.

"You want to watch?"

This question clearly made Tom more uncomfortable than the last one. He didn't even attempt a verbal response, instead just slowly nodding his approval.

"Well okay then. I'm good with that."

He turned to look at Jessie.

"I assume you're okay with him watching as well?"

He watched as Jessie looked over at Tom and smiled at him. It was a wicked little smile indicating she was more than okay with it.

"Definitely," she replied, still looking at Tom, and not Jean-Paul.

"Then we are all in agreement here," Jean-Paul said, "so there's just one more thing to resolve."

"And what's that?" Tom asked.

"For tonight, I intend to take your fiancée and make her mine. When it comes to sex, I very much expect to be in charge. This will not be a Mènage à Trois of equal partners. If you want to be there, Tom, you'll have to agree to only get involved when I ask you to, and otherwise be a silent, unobtrusive observer. If you're not okay with that, then we can call this all off or you can let me take her home and send her back to you in the morning. Is that clear?"

"Yes," Tom agreed.

"Good," he said, then turned to Jessie.

"Do you agree to give yourself to me, totally and completely? I promise I won't hurt you in anyway. Your pleasure will be my top priority, but it will always be on my terms. Can you handle that?"