Chapter 24: Another Kiss

[Undated Entry]
Master Heathcoate’s Print Shop
Oxford, Oxfordshire

SUNLIGHT FROM THE small window burnished her skin with the gleam of obsidian. She waited for him quietly in the spot of afternoon light, a smile on her face.

“Bonjour, Mademoiselle Sandrine.”

“Bonjour, Monsieur Roger.”

He had two problems at the moment. One was his self-consciousness at addressing Sandrine in French, but she had insisted they greet each other in French almost from the first lesson. It did not matter to her if the remaining conversation was stilted and hesitant and just plain wrong. The important thing, she told Roger over and over, was that he open his mouth and speak, no matter how silly he sounded.

The second problem, if it could be called a problem, was the instant arousal he felt as he approached the house and the erection that manifested itself as soon as he saw her. They were alone this afternoon, he’d known they would be, and it would not be an understatement to say he had very high hopes for the supplementary lesson that might follow their French exercises. This supplementary tuition had begun slowly, three or four weeks earlier with a kiss, and had continued at the close of each language lesson since.

She smelled of rosewater today. He himself smelled of mostly not much. He’d bathed the night before, at least as much as he could, and he’d dressed in his least-soiled clothing, Compared to the average kid and the average person on the streets at that time and in that era, he was clean.

“Shall we begin, Roger?” She pointed to the chair near her.

Begin what, the thought came into his mind immediately, even if he knew she meant language.

“Yes, Mistress Sandrine.”

She patted his knee. “You may call me Sandrine, Roger, I’ve told you that. You need not be formal with me.”

She smiled. He wasn’t calmed by this. His mind churned overtime wondering what she might consider appropriate. He wondered what liberties she might permit. Most of all, he wondered what marvelous things she might do to him and to his body. It’s probably something of a wonder he didn’t spontaneously ejaculate even before they’d begun, much less gotten wherever they were going.

He put his hand on hers. As before her skin was warm, almost hot, to the touch, and he wondered if somehow women in Africa and in the Caribbean were literally as hot-blooded as they were reputed to be. Her skin, dark and smooth, seemed to transmit at the same time contradictory signals of calm and of excitement. Her face was in repose, her smile somewhat lessened but still present.

Most of all he saw warmth. Was it possible she genuinely liked him and looked forward to their visits? That had seemed unattainable, impossible, when they had first met. She was older than he was by at least five or six years, and a woman of the world. He didn’t know exactly what a “woman of the world” was, but he was pretty sure she knew more than plain kissing. That she appeared to be willing to share some of her knowledge had only become evident during their last couple of visits, the last one especially.

He knew his parents paid her for her time with him but he doubted, he strongly doubted, they would pay for the extra tuition she seemed prepared to offer him. Something told him as well that offering her additional payment for extra services would be the surest way to end the relationship entirely, and perhaps cause trouble with Master Heathcoate and his wife. Sandrine was no whore.

No, this was personal to him. He put aside any thought of what she might do with others or what favors she might extend to them. Not his business.

Nor was the extra tuition in evidence so far this afternoon. They worked on vocabulary and on something that confounded him—irregular verbs. English didn’t have them, he was quite sure of that. It had not occurred to him, a native speaker, that English was in fact filled with irregular verbs. In comparison with their French equivalents English verbs followed patterns that were extremely difficult to predict and to learn.

He watched her lips move as she pronounced the verbs and conjugated them and found his own lips moving at the same time. When it was his turn to run through the verbs he found it almost impossible, not because he was stupid but because he kept seeing her lips, her full lips, moving as she spoke. She was close enough he could smell her perfume. Once more it was rosewater. He felt himself tremble and he sat almost upright in his chair.

“Roger,” she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear her. “Roger, we are friends, are we not?” He nodded. “Friends do not harm each other, is that not the case?” she continued. He nodded again. He couldn’t speak. She put her hand on his knee again and he thought he would faint. “Roger, I will not hurt you, I promise. Do you believe me?”

This time he managed to croak his reply. “Yes, Sandrine.”

“Then do not worry, my friend. Worry about the verbs, not about me.”

He managed a small smile and she chuckled. “That’s better. Let’s go through them again.”

Her voice entranced him. Almost as though it bewitched him, even if he did not understand how that could be possible. It was as if it spoke of other wonders, as if each verb had another, separate, secret meaning, a meaning intended solely for him and solely intelligible by him. The trouble was, he was having difficulty translating those messages. Sandrine saw he continued to have difficulty.

“Come to the kitchen with me, Roger.”

He followed her through the narrow door and watched her put the kettle on the stove and add wood to the fire below. It would be some minutes before the flame was hot enough to boil the water. The kitchen was the warmest room in the house and the warmth began to ease his tension. He’d been alternately cold and sweating in the outer room.

“Come, sit, Roger.” Sandrine motioned to the chairs beside the worktable in the center of the kitchen.

Side-by-side they sat without talking for a few minutes. His erection did not subside, but his breathing slowed as Roger grew calmer in the warmth. Despite the proximity of this dark sultry epitome of beautiful womanhood beside him, her offers of friendship ameliorated, to a minor degree, the siren calls of her sexuality. Without thinking he put his hand up to stroke the back of her neck. When he realized what he’d done he jerked his hand away, but the memory of her warmth and the smoothness of her skin, and the crinkly hair above it, remained.

He heard her laugh. “Well, that was a surprise, Roger.” She put her hand on his neck and stroked. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” He nodded, and Sandrine continued to explore his neck and his hair with her finger. Like her skin elsewhere her fingers felt warm, almost hot, to him and left a burn everywhere they touched. A sweet burn.