The Metropolis Case_ A Novel - Matthew Gallaway [48]
But his bedroom fantasies in no way prepared him for the reality of Cathérine Deville, so that when they arrived at her dressing room—not much bigger than a closet—and she turned to face him after shutting the door, close enough that he could feel every breath, he felt weak and thought he might faint as she traced one of her small fingers down the front of his shirt.
“Do I make you nervous?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m worried that you are, well … more knowledgeable than I.”
“That’s probably true,” she admitted. “Are you a virgin?”
He blushed. “I’m only sixteen.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You—sixteen?”
Lucien leaned back on the door and nodded; with a full beard and arms hardened from the better part of a year in the theater, he knew he looked older. He detected her skepticism and regretted that his curiosity had delivered him into such a tenuous predicament, in which he had to assume, like any performer taking the stage without adequate rehearsal, his humiliation could be the only outcome. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I should leave.”
“No, mon chère, stop—viens.” She reached out for his belt and pulled him a few steps forward, enveloping him in the fragrance of her hair, the top of which reached only to his chin. “Dis-moi,” she continued sotto voce, “do you find me attractive?”
“I think so.” Lucien immediately regretted the sound of this and quickly added: “Your voice is … superb.”
“Do you really think so?” She flounced her hair in a gesture that conveyed a mix of sarcasm and perhaps—he hoped—appreciation. “Of course, you know I didn’t invite you here to listen to me sing—”
“I didn’t mean just your voice.”
“You’re very sweet, but I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed with your first time.”
He tentatively placed his hands over hers as she steered him onto a small stool next to her dressing table. She ordered him to unbutton his trousers, which he did, and led her to note with approval that his nerves had not prevented him from functioning in the expected manner. She then took his hand and placed it under her loose-fitting chemise, resting it on the velvet folds of her stomach for a few moments and then moving up to a breast, which she told him to caress gently. This, too, he did, before she escorted this same hand on a trip below her waistline, where his fingers undertook a brief exploration that, to his regret, raised as many questions as it answered before she extracted him with a smile that again made him nervous, at least until she bit the top of his ear and whispered that he was doing fine.
She removed her own undergarments and, in one fluid motion that caused him to gasp, stepped forward to straddle him on his lap. “Don’t worry,” she said and squirmed a bit as she leaned down into him, burying his face in her chest and clasping her thin arms around his neck. “Ça va bien?”
“Ça va bien,” he answered, though wedged between Cathérine and the wall, he felt a bit constrained and hoped that she didn’t expect a lot more from him.
She laughed and began to pant and thrust. “Mon enfant, stop thinking so much!”
Only then did he understand what the poets meant by the boundless rapture of being everywhere and nowhere at once, as waters rushed and fires raged; he exalted at being initiated into this magical rite and wondered how he could ever have had any doubt; he swore his everlasting gratitude and devotion to Cathérine Deville, whose every pleasure would henceforth be his only occupation. Except as he returned to consciousness in the same uncomfortable position and watched as she, too, opened her eyes—which only seconds before had trembled slightly under closed eyelids—to reveal a frank expression that contained no hint of love or everlasting gratitude but simply the perfunctory appreciation of one who had just received a kind assistance from a stranger, he wondered if the waters had been more a trickle and the fire