Chapter 3: Money Makes the World Go Round

Three months after making the first batch of LSD I was a rich man – or rather a rich boy as I was not yet 17 years old – earning over 2000 francs a week. I had streamlined and tweaked LSD tablet production so that it was more efficient in the usage of the basic materials and my overheads were paltry compared to the profit being made. Two, sometimes three, evenings a week Gaspard, Sybil and I opened up the LSD laboratory and made up a batch of 200 tablets. I sold the batch to Claude for 5 francs per tablet and he doubled the buying price so he was even a richer than me.

Word had spread around the campus of a secret laboratory on site not long after I produced the first batch and we had inquisitive visitors. Claude arranged that one of the campus security guards would be on station outside the lab when we were working to keep rubberneckers and other nosey people away. George, the guard, was younger than most of the security men on campus who were all retired gendarmes eking out their police pension with the low paid but simple job of policing students. I wondered how George existed on the pay but discovered he also tended bar besides driving a taxi, but obviously not at the same time. He and Sybil became quite close although he must have been at least 10 years older than her.

Sybil’s life had changed dramatically since the day she took her first LSD tablet. She had been under the gaze of Gaspard when she swallowed the tablet in case anything untoward happened but Sybil’s first trip was a good one.

“I discovered who I really am,” she declared the next morning in college. “My inner eye was opened up and my mind expanded by the psychedelic colours and shifting shapes. I saw myself in a different light and determined to become the person I was meant to be.”

Over the following weeks and months Sybil, fuelled by full strength LSD tablets, transformed from anorexic and asexual to a well formed and definitely heterosexual female. She put on weight; her formerly non-existent bosom became appetizingly rounded, as did her buttocks. She had long legs which had been shrouded by shabby baggy jeans but were now displayed in all their smooth, slender, and shapely splendour by the miniskirts she wore. Her once lank dark brown hair, cut raggedly around her jawline, was now a sleek, glossy, waterfall of lustrous locks hanging halfway down her back. She retained her pale complexion but her mouth was now inviting highlighted by glossy red lips, and her light brown eyes, fringed with mascaraed lashes seemed huge in her delicate, feline shaped, face. All in all, in the three months since she first took LSD, Sybil had evolved to be a most desirable female. She was still a virgin at 18, and I was astounded when she asked me to take her virginity.

“I’ve always admired and respected you, Philippe,” she said. “And I hear you are a regular visitor to the House of Joy and an expert in all matters sexual.”

That was partly true. Now I could afford to I was spending more time, and money, at The House of Joy, where Jacquelynne must have thought I had broken the bank at Monte Carlo as I visited her, two, three, sometimes four, times a week. Even so I didn’t think I was the man to take Sybil’s virginity, for although I admired her shapely form and fine features I regarded her more as a sister than a lover or sex object. However I had the wit to know Sybil would not be pleased to have the truth told her so I gave her a near truth version.

“My, err, girlfriend, an expert in all aspects of love making, was no virgin when I first met her. You do me a great honour, Sybil, but I have no experience in deflowering young women and fear I would hurt you, something I would never wish to do.” I thought for a moment. “Claude boasts he has popped the cherries of several girls at univers...”

“I don’t want that pig anywhere near me, “she snapped. “He has no respect for females and uses and abuses them merely for his own sexual gratification, with no thought for their feelings.”

“Well, Eleanor seems to...”

“The poor girl is bewitched by his money and his prick. One day she will wake up, smell the coffee, and then kick M’sieu Claude Montplaisir in his balls!”

The following week when Sybil and Gaspard joined me in the lab I noted an air of satisfaction on Sybil’s face. I raised an eyebrow, and she gave me a huge smile, nodded her head and then raised her thumb in the gesture the English use to signal ‘OK’, ‘all is well’, ‘job well done’. Her smile told me everything I needed to know other than who had been the lucky man to breach her hymen.

The mystery was solved later that evening when George turned up for duty. He and Sybil shared a lovers’ kiss; Gaspard and I didn’t exist as the two, wrapped in each other’s arms, indulged in a torrid embrace that Rodin would have wanted to sculpt. I had to clear my throat loudly, and several times, before the two eventually broke lip contact but kept their arms about each other. “We have work to do, Sybil,” I said. “Business before pleasure!”

George patted Sybil on her delightfully rounded derrière. “Go to work, chérie. I’ll take you home after you finish making your drugs and we can continue our ... discussion ... then.”

Sybil kissed him and then nodded at me. “OK boss. Let’s go make some acid!” and with that she strode into the lab.

Gaspard and I exchanged amazed looks; he shrugged and smiled. “She deserves to have some fun,” he said quietly to me as we followed Sybil into the laboratory. “And George seems a decent sort.”

“But he’s much older than her.”

“Yeah, and that’s exactly what Sybil needs, a real man not some loud mouthed, conceited undergraduate but someone who has seen life, suffered hardship and comes through it a better person.”

“George has done all that?”

Gaspard nodded. “Yes, he had to escape the authorities in his home country, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia.”

“He’s a Russian?”

“Call him a Russian and he will probably hit you. He is Georgian, which is why he is called George.”

“So what’s his real name?”

Gaspard shrugged. “I have no idea but I expect Sybil knows.”

She did, and also gave me more details of the relationship between her and ‘George’.

“His name is Marcus Aurelius and he is from Georgia, which is why...”

“That’s never his real name! Wasn’t there a Roman emperor named Marcus Aurelius?”

“Marcus is now a French citizen, and that is the name on his official documents and the name he gave when enlisting in the Foreign Legion...”

“The French Foreign Legion?”

“Well of course the French Foreign Legion. How many foreign legions do you think there are in the world? And why else would he be a naturalised Frenchman?” She gave me an exasperated look. “Sometimes, Philippe, you ask the most asinine of questions!” She saw I was suitably deflated and continued, having made her point. “Yes, Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor and a very good one, and Marcus is a very good man, who I love with all my heart.”

“But you hardly know him.”

“I’ve known him for the three months he has been our security, and I know him in the Biblical sense, which is probably the most important way to know someone.” She saw the questions in my eyes and answered without me having to articulate the question. “I was walking back from classes one evening when he pulled up alongside me in his taxi and offered me a lift to the female Halls of Residence. I had talked to him a few times since he became our security and felt safe with him and accepted. I was feeling rather low as it was just after you had turned down the offer of being my first lover and...”

“I’m sorry if I upset you, Sybil, but I did what I thought best for you.”

She beamed a smile at me. “You certainly did!”

“So it was Marcus who took your virginity?”

“Not taken but freely given. He was gentle, tender, and experienced. He played on my body like a virtuoso; kissing, sucking, and licking every square centimetre of my flesh. When he eventually entered me I was ecstatic with joy and felt only a twinge of pain. We spent the rest of the night making love...”

“Not at the halls of residence surely?”

“No, In the back of his taxi, which is a stretch limo and far more comfortable than my bed.”

“So you now are a pair even though he is older than you?”

“He is no more than twenty six and I have just turned eighteen. The age difference is slight, and anyway difference in ages doesn’t matter when in love.”

“But you have fallen in love with the first man who made love to you...”

“As you did with the first female who made love to you, and you have to pay her for the privilege. Marcus and I spend only our passion into each other!”

She saw I was hurt by what she said and quickly made amends. “Forgive me for being so cruel, Philippe.” She put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “You should look for a girlfriend among the female students here at the university. You are not bad looking and girls like a tall man even if you may be a bit skinny, and I’m certain you can talk on subjects other than chemistry and cross country running.”

She was right of course. I was in love with a whore. How pitiful does that make me? But I knew in my heart Jacquelynne did love me. It was not just my money that made her so amorous and inventive, or so wet and horny, was it?

I was glad for Sybil that she now had a lover. Marcus was not the typical security man, or taxi driver or bartender for that matter. He spoke passable if roughly accented French and better English than I did, besides several other languages including Russian and Turkish. Obviously, he was an educated person, yet the Foreign Legion was the last resort of criminals and ne’er do wells, or so I thought. For reasons I cannot explain I felt I owed it to Sybil to question Marcus about his life. Perhaps I did have romantic feelings for her, or was it a sense of guilt because I was using her to manufacture illegal drugs that I believed I had some responsibilities towards her? Whatever the reason I cornered Marcus one evening after finishing in the laboratory. Sybil had gone to the gymnasium for a Tai Chi work out and Marcus would pick her up after her lesson.

“So you and Sybil are a couple?” I said.

He gave me an amused look. “Acting the concerned parent are you, Philippe?”

I flushed, realising I was at least a year younger than Sybil, but answered his question. “I feel I have some sort of responsibility for her. She...”

“Because of this?” He jerked his thumb at the laboratory and I nodded. “Sybil thinks very highly of you, Philippe. She said she offered you her virginity but you turned her down because you were not experienced enough and were worried you might hurt her. That shows a maturity beyond your years and I salute you.” He did more than that, he enveloped me in a bear-like hug, a gesture I thought typically Russian but did not share that thought with him. He loosed his grip, allowing me to take a breath, and continued. “I love Sybil. I can’t explain why as she is nothing like any of the other females I have known – in all senses of the word,” he added with grin. “But you want to know if my intentions are honourable; what are my prospects, and if can I keep Sybil in the manner to which she has been accustomed...”

“You’re taking the piss,” I said in English.

He grinned and replied in the same language. “Yes I am, but I respect you for having such regard, consideration, and affection for Sybil. Let’s go to a bar and I will give you a potted history of the man you know as Marcus Aurelius.”

“I’m under age and will be refused entry.”

He punched me lightly on the shoulder. “Now you’re taking the piss!”

Marcus, as I now knew him, had been a student at Tbilisi University until a campus protest concerning the gangster-like governance of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Georgia was broken up by the police. As Marcus had been one of the organisers of the protest his name was now known to the KGB, something you would not wish on your worst enemy.

“What were you studying at university?” I asked.

“Philosophy. I was also studying theology in an unofficial seminary, with a view to becoming a priest in the Georgian Orthodox Church.”

His answer completely threw me. “You were to become a priest? But I thought religion had been abolished in the Soviet Union?”

“The USSR did not abolish religion but they have destroyed churches, created anti-religious propaganda, promoted atheism, and harassed the clergy. The Patriarch of Georgian Orthodox Church is under house arrest, and has been for almost twenty years. As long as the church keeps quiet all is well, but if a priest speaks out against any particular government rule retribution is soon visited upon him and his church. Over the years thousands of priests have been sent to the Gulags in Siberia, including my father.”

“Your father is a priest?”

“Was; he died in exile.”

“I am so sorry, Marcus.” There was a period of quiet reflection and I could see tears forming in Marcus’s eyes.To break the silence I asked a question. “Obviously you didn’t take Holy Orders?”

He shook himself out of the brown study he had been in. “No, I had been marked as a dissident by the KGB. If I had stayed in Georgia sooner or later I would have been carted off to a gulag, unless I went on the run. But then I would have been on the run for ever, and my family and friends would face continual surveillance and harassment. I could have kept out of the hands of the authorities; Georgia is a wild and mountainous country. I would have found safety and shelter with the country people – Georgia has been a Christian country since Three Three Seven AD, and being ruled by atheists for several decades has not changed the Georgian peoples’ beliefs one iota. But the trouble and hassle my family and friends would have suffered from the KGB and their minions was too much for me to contemplate.” He ordered another round of drinks. A Georgian red wine for him and Rhone Valley red for me, each of us supporting our countries’ grape growers.

“Shouldn’t you be drinking a French wine?” I insinuated slyly.

He nodded, slightly abashed. “Old habits die hard,” he said, and then grinned. “I chose to join La Légion étrangère as I knew after serving my time I would receive French citizenship. My French was weak but I have good English, but unfortunately the British do not have a foreign legion and...”

“There is a British Legion,” I blurted out. “I saw one of their depots in Accrington. There was a large sign saying ‘Royal British Legion’ and a Union Jack flying from a flagpole at the front of the building.” Marcus was obviously having difficulty in suppressing a laugh and I looked at him coldly. “Have I said something amusing?”

“I apologise for my rudeness, Philippe. The British Legion is a Veterans’ organisation. I would not have been accepted, although I believe both legions are renowned for the amount of alcohol they consume!”

“So the British Legion is nothing like the Foreign Legion, other than their capacity for drink? A typical misdirection by the English. Who else would call an area ‘the Forest of Bowland when it has no trees?” I blustered. “But I interrupted your story of how you became a member of the Grenoble University Security Force.”

Marcus gave a small smile at my attempt at humour and continued. “Rather than face a life time of being on the run, and if captured face exile and death in Siberia, I decided to escape to the West. I made it to France and enlisted in the Foreign Legion. After five years’ service I was eligible for French citizenship, which was granted me. If Britain had had a foreign legion I would have made for the British Isles. I speak better English than I do French and would have had no problem finding employment. Unfortunately the British Legion does not grant British citizenship after being a member for five years, or at all.”

“But you speak French, after a fashion...”

“Yes, but as soon as I open my mouth and any prospective employer hears my Legion French I am classed as an uneducated man and any worthwhile job is beyond me.”

“Your accent will improve over time, and now you have Sybil to teach you.”

“I have been out of the legion for less than a year, and what you say is true.” He gave a sigh of resignation. “Legion French is only a benefit if I wanted to become a body guard or a drug dealer’s goon. It seems I have achieved my ambition by default.”

Not only was Marcus an English speaker but also had an English sense of irony.

I left him at the bar, from where he would go and pick up Sybil from her Tai Chi class, and walked back to my room at the halls of residence where I found Claude and Gaspard with an air of tension between them. “Anything amiss?” I asked.

Gaspard pointed to Claude. “He was asking me about Sybil and George...”