Chapter 11: Arlette

Arlette, my room mate, arrived a few days before lectures were due to start. She was from Nice, where her father was a well-known plastic surgeon, catering to the whims of the rich and famous.

Her father was obviously quite wealthy but had decided that it would be a good education for his daughter to spend some time without the luxury she had grown accustomed to and had arranged for her to stay at the university rather than renting her an apartment. He had also decided that she should learn the value of money and was sending her only a modest monthly allowance. She was not at all pleased about these decision and spent hours complaining about the student accommodations which she considered below her standard.

After she had calmed down a little, she told me that she had just returned from cruising the Mediterranean with her parents and some friends on her father's yacht. It seems that she spent most of the time on the sun deck working on her deep seamless suntan which she would eagerly display to me later on. When I asked her if she didn't feel embarrassed to be naked in the presence of her father she just said, "No. Why?"

I explained that my father would get very upset, should I ever show him even as much as half a nipple. Arlette said, "You see, in his job he gets to see some of the most beautiful women in the world without clothes on. He won't get excited about a blotchy teenager like me."

It made me think of Ramon who - at least in my imagination - spent his working day surrounded by semi-naked models but got still very excited by me - although I didn't exactly consider myself a blotchy teenager.

I asked her if she had a boyfriend in Nice and if she was missing him. She answered that there had been a few young men she had been sleeping with - if that was what I meant by boyfriend - but that she had no commitment towards them and would probably soon find new sex partners.

"I'm a liberated woman," she declared. "I'm not interested in a long lasting, steady relationship with just one man which inevitably leads to marriage and the slavery known as being a housewife and mother."

On occasions like this, when Arlette made it quite clear that she considered herself the owner of the truth and wouldn't accept any different point of view, I found her unbearable and considered her a stupid little brat. It probably had something to do with the fact that she thought of herself as superior to 'ordinary' students like me.

I reminded myself that we were only room mates, we didn't have to become close friends or even agree on all aspects of life. I simply informed her that I had a steady boyfriend and, as I was extremely happy with my relationship, I didn't see any need to look for anyone else. I also told her that I was spending the weekends at his place and that she was free to bring whoever she wanted to our room when I wasn't around.

That seemed to please her and she soon got into the habit of spending Friday and Saturday nights with a man of her choice. Sometimes she would tell me about her adventures but more often than not her comments were confined to calling her partner an egoistic male chauvinist pig. I gathered that meant he wasn't in the running for a future weekend encounter.

I didn't talk much about my own sex life to her. She knew that I spent the weekends with my boyfriend, so she probably deduced that we were sleeping together but I didn't comment on the kind of things Ramon and I got up to. Only once - I don't know what devil possessed me - did I give her a hint of our love marathons.

She had complemented me on my good figure and asked what the secret behind my lean, trim body was.

"There isn't any secret to it," I answered, "you just have to remember to eat only as many calories as you burn; or burn all the calories you eat, whichever way you want to look at it. A little care when you eat and some physical exercise should do the trick."

"I hate physical exercise!" she exclaimed.

"Well, it all depends on which exercise you choose. Did you know that making love for one hour burns twice as many calories as one hour of jogging?"

"One hour of making love!" she gasped.

She probably meant to say that she considered herself lucky when her partner lasted as long as the statistical average of eleven minutes, but I deliberately misunderstood her exclamation and said, "Well, sometimes we are in a hurry or have an appointment to go to and there isn't time for more than an hour. But we usually make up for it at the next opportunity."

I checked her face to see if my comment had had the desired effect and left the room smiling.

We were two liberal-minded women and didn't see any need to hide our bodies from each other. Therefore, it was nothing unusual for either of us to walk around the room naked before or after having a shower, when getting dressed or before going to bed. Arlette usually put on a nighty to sleep whereas I had become fond of sleeping without a stitch on, a freedom which I had not been able to enjoy in my parent's house.

Arlette was particularly keen on displaying her top-to-toe suntan and stayed naked whenever she had a chance. But I saw this more as a show-off than an exhibitionist streak or an attempt to get me interested in her. She was very proud of achieving such a uniform colour and had told me on several occasions that her weekend partner had been completely knocked out when he discovered that she was tanned all over.

Arlette had a very pretty face and her body had all the right things in the right places, but I found her a little overweight and a bit too short to be perfect. My impression was that she had never made love to another woman and wasn't particularly interested in trying it.

But maybe I was wrong. One Friday afternoon when I was getting myself ready to go to Ramon's apartment and had just put on a new bra and panty combination he had given me, Arlette came closer and said, "Oh my, that's some sexy underwear you've put on, where did you buy it?"

In fact, the set I was wearing was a particularly beautiful creation, a mere whisper of brilliant white silk and lace which caressed rather than restrained, emphasized rather than hid, and made my curves appear in the best possible light.

In the early stages of our relationship I had made a point of not wearing any underwear when I went to meet Ramon. It was my way of paying homage to our first encounter when I had removed my panties and handed them to him before I even knew his name. But Ramon had showered me with presents of sexy lingerie, much of which he had designed especially for me. While I was still living with my parents I refused to take the presents with me for fear that they might be discovered and lead to loads of tricky questions. But since I had moved into my own place there was no longer any reason to deny Ramon the pleasure of removing these delicate garments from my body - which was the real reason for giving them to me in the first place.

As I had put on the bra and panties my mind had already raced ahead to the moment when he would take off my clothes ever so slowly and ever so gently while covering my whole body with kisses and making my heart pound in anticipation of the pleasures to come.

"I didn't buy it, I got it as a present from my boyfriend," I said.

Arlette had put her hands on my breasts, gently rubbing my nipples which had already hardened as a result of my daydreaming.

"He gives you underwear? Doesn't he like to see your naked body?"

"Of course he does. He considers this as a gift wrap and he enjoys unwrapping his present very much."

One of her hands moved between my legs and started stroking my pussy through the thin material.

"Oh, he's one of those men who consider women their sex objects, a present for their male ego. I wish I could be your lover tonight."

"To tell you the truth, I too consider myself a gift to him, just as I consider him a gift to me. Giving yourself to your partner - isn't that what love is all about? And as for you being my lover, maybe another day, today I've already got an appointment."

With that I removed her hands from my body and proceeded to get dressed. Then I left, wishing her a pleasant weekend, just to show that there were no hard feelings on my part.

Arlette would take me up on the 'maybe another day' promise during the following week. I had been to the gym for a thorough workout and returned to the room, dripping with perspiration, dying to have a shower. I stepped out of my track suit, peeled off the skin-tight leotard and went to the bathroom, only to find that Arlette was in the shower.

She didn't usually take a bath in mid afternoon but I hadn't exactly reserved that time for myself, so I had no reason to complain. I returned to the bedroom and sat on my chair, waiting for her to come out of the bath. My body temperature soon returned to normal and my nipples hardened in response to the cool air.

When Arlette came out of the bathroom, dressed in a white towelling robe, she said "You look so beautiful when you come back from the gym, covered with sweat, your breasts still heaving from the effort. This is when I find you most attractive."

The sweat had already dried and my breasts were no longer heaving, but that didn't stop her from cupping them with her hands and rubbing her thumbs over my nipples. I couldn't help getting turned on by her words and touch but I felt uneasy about my sweat covered body - I had never thought that sweat could be a turn-on. As she pulled me up from the chair and embraced me I told her that I needed a shower first.

"Let's shower together, shall we?" she said and dropped her robe to the floor.

The shower booth was tiny, it obviously hadn't been designed for two students having a bath at the same time. The only way we could fit inside was by standing very close and putting our arms around each other. Arlette had decided to give me a treat. She put copious amounts of shower gel into her hand and then applied it to my skin, working up a rich lather. This gave her an opportunity to caress every part of my body.

The only problem was that our position limited her reach to my back. With a few careful moves and our arms raised above our heads we managed to change position so that Arlette was standing behind me. She told me to keep my arms lifted and applied more shower gel to my front. This time she really went to town. She ran her hands all over my body, exploring every part of it. Particularly my breasts were visited innumerous times and my pussy had probably never before been cleaned that thoroughly.

After the shower Arlette dried me meticulously with her fluffy bath towel, again making sure that no part of me would be forgotten. Then, after having dried herself and having slipped her bath robe back on, she told me to lie on my bed belly-down and rubbed moisturiser into my skin.

When she had finished my back she made me turn around and treated my front with great attention to detail. I was quite surprised by the treatment she gave me and it certainly had the desired effect. I got increasingly aroused and arched my body towards her hands. I hadn't been pampered like this by another woman for a long time.

When she finally started to apply the moisturiser to my pussy, I could no longer remain passive. I opened her robe and started to fondle her full breasts. Then I slipped the robe completely off her shoulders and pulled her onto the bed, next to me. We embraced tightly and pressed our naked bodies against each other. Soon we were stimulating each others nipples, making one another moan with delight, and it didn't take long for our hands to find each other's pussy.

Arlette opened my pussy lips and started to stroke my clitoris and I did the same to her. She pushed a finger inside my vagina and I returned in kind. Everything she did to me, I would do to her. With this tit-for-tat stimulation we brought each other slowly but steadily to a climax. When we finally came, almost simultaneously, we embraced and lay still for a while.

When I replayed in my mind what had happened, I realised that there hadn't been any kissing. Not on the mouth, not on the breasts, nor between the legs - nothing. It reminded my of an article I had recently read. It stated that in a survey of 14 to 18 year old girls, a large majority had thought of kissing another woman as a lesbian act.

The same majority had considered lesbianism 'unacceptable' or 'best avoided'. (This survey may already be out of date, thanks to Madonna's and Britney's valiant efforts.) The same group had found nothing wrong with mutual masturbation among girls. So, on reflection, what Arlette and I had just enjoyed was innocent schoolgirl sex: clean harmless fun.

I was trying to decide whether this was the right time to treat Arlette to a 'Jacqueline's special', driving her out of her mind by exploring every part of her pussy with my mouth, when she said, "Have I told you that I now have a steady boyfriend?"

"No, you haven't. How did this happen?"

"Well, I realized that I was dating a large proportion of real arseholes and I didn't have much hope of finding any better material. So I decided to go steady with one of the less bad guys, kind of 'give him a chance to improve', you know? That's how I ended up with Claude."

"Well, let's hope that it turns out OK for both of you," I said, wondering why she would bring up this subject right now.

"He says, for our relationship to grow, we need to see each other more often, not just on the weekend."

As I didn't comment on her observation, she continued. "So I've taken the liberty of asking him around this evening."

I started to smell a rat, but just to be sure I hadn't misunderstood, I asked, "So when is he going to pick you up?"

"Well, he isn't exactly going to pick me up," she said sheepishly, "I thought we might be able to use this room for a while."

That confirmed my suspicion. "Oh, I understand. When he says you ought to see each other more often he doesn't exactly mean 'see', he means 'fuck'".

She was feeling uncomfortable about my direct language. "Well, you know how it goes."

I realized that I was in danger of being misunderstood. So I explained, "Look, I'm not criticising you and your boyfriend for wanting to have an active sex life. It's just that we share this room. And what do you want me to do in the meantime? Sit in the reception until you're finished?"

"Actually, I thought you might want to join in."

This remark took me by surprise. I could feel my anger rise but tried to remain calm. "I wonder if you realize what you are suggesting. 'Joining in' wouldn't just mean you having sex with your boyfriend and me having sex with you. It would also mean me having sex with your boyfriend whom I have never met. I'm not in the habit of having sex with anybody I've never met before. Maybe you ought to contact one of those women who do it for money; they don't care who they do it with. I have sex for pleasure, so I have the right to pick my partners."

"I'm sorry," she said, becoming aware of my anger, "I didn't mean to offend you. It wasn't really my idea. Claude suggested it."

"Claude suggested it? He doesn't even know me!"

"No, he's never met you, but I told him what a beautiful, sexy creature you are, so he suggested I should try to seduce you."

"Thanks for the compliment, but the answer is still 'no'. If I had met him before and come to the conclusion that we tick together, sexually, there might have been a chance, but I don't go for seduction by proxy."

We were still lying naked side by side on my bed, one arm around each other's shoulders, the free hands resting on each other's upper thigh. Looking at us made me feel a little more conciliatory.

After a short silence I said, "Listen, what we did today was really wonderful. You were very sweet to me. I enjoyed it tremendously when you took me to the shower, when you dried me, rubbed moisturiser all over my body and when we climaxed together. I had even thought of taking it a little further. It's a pity it had to end like this."

It was my way of telling her, and especially myself, that 'Jacqueline's special' was definitely off the menu for today. Arlette was touched by what I had said about our lovemaking and hugged me, which softened me up a little more.

"I suppose he'll be coming in any case?" I asked.

Arlette just nodded without saying a word.

"I guess, room mates ought to be flexible enough to let the other one use the room on her own sometimes. It's just that I have to get up early tomorrow, I have an important lecture first thing in the morning which I can't miss, so I don't want to go to bed very late tonight. I don't think it's fair of you to spring this on me without giving me any choice.

"Anyway, this is what I suggest: I'll leave in a short while and let you have your privacy. But I'll be back at eleven sharp. I'll ring the doorbell, but I won't come in straight away. I'll give you ten minutes to finish whatever you're doing, clean up, get dressed, whatever. Then I'll ring the doorbell again. If you're finished, you open the door, if not, I'll give you another ten. When I ring the third time it means I'm coming in, no matter what. Is that acceptable?"

"Thank you, Jacqueline," she said, giving me a little kiss on the cheek.

I had a meal at the students' restaurant and then went to the cinema around the corner. They were showing an old Hitchcock film which was probably very interesting, but I was unable to focus on the plot. My mind kept wandering back to the events of the afternoon.

Were Arlette's advances towards me really just a ploy to get me to agree to a threesome? And had I been foolish to believe that she was interested in sex with me? I decided that she had been interested in me all along without admitting it to herself and that her boyfriend's suggestion had given her a motivation to do what she wanted to do anyway.

But what kind of a boyfriend was that who wanted to grow their relationship by including another woman? Sure, I had read about couples whose sex life had become stale and who had managed to put some pep back into it by including a third person in their love life. But their relationship had only just started. Did it need a booster already?

I also examined my own attitude towards the situation. Had my steady relationship with Ramon turned me into an inflexible bore? After all, my sex life before and with Ramon was anything but conventional and would probably raise quite a few eyebrows if I were to tell anybody the full story. So why should I sit in judgement of other people's attitudes and behaviour?

Also, it wasn't true that I only had sex with partners I picked myself. Most of the boys I slept with in the early stages of my sex life had been chosen by Charlotte and I had obliged without much protest. I had no reason to get on my high horse over her suggestion. Was I just venting my frustration about not getting to eat her pussy? I concluded from all this that I needed to watch out for any signs of intolerance in my attitude towards other people's sexual behaviour and fight this attitude before it became a problem.

I returned to the room at eleven and rang the door bell. As I turned away to give Arlette and her boyfriend some more time, as agreed, a lanky young man opened the door.

"Hi, you must be Claude, I'm Jacqueline," I said, holding out my hand to greet him.

But he just stood there, shell-shocked, ignored my hand and looked at me with a face from which all signs of intelligence had disappeared. I said, "Do you mind if I come in? I live here." With that I walked past him into the bedroom where Arlette was sitting on her bed.

Claude came eventually out of his stupor and followed me into the bedroom. "Haven't we met somewhere before?" he asked.

It made me laugh. I retorted, "Surely, you don't expect me to react to such an old pick-up line. And in case your next question is 'do you come here often?', the answer is, 'yes, I happen to live here'".

"No, seriously, your face looks so familiar, I feel like I've seen you many times before. Do you appear on television? Is your picture in the papers? Or maybe on the cover of a magazine?"

When I shook my head to all his questions he said, obviously puzzled, "That's strange. I could have sworn that I've seen you or your picture somewhere. And not just once, many times."

As far as I was concerned this was clearly a case of mistaken identity, or maybe a vague similarity with someone else that I wasn't aware of. But he kept racking his brains and, suddenly, he snapped his fingers in the air and exclaimed, "I've got it! Caroline!"

Arlette, who had been watching the whole scene with amusement said, "Her name is Jacqueline, stupid, not Caroline."

"I know that. Caroline is a colleague at work, in fact her desk is next to mine, and she's got a poster with your picture hanging on her wall. The reason it took me so long to make the link between you and that poster is that on that picture you are... ," he hesitated for a moment, blushing slightly, "well, you are not fully dressed."

"Oh yeah? What is the woman on the picture wearing?"

"Sexy lingerie. A black bra and black panties. And you look extremely appetising, if I may say so."

Something dawned on me. But, if it was the picture I was thinking of, how would it end up on some civil servant's office wall?

"Is there anything written on the poster?" I asked.

"I think so, but I'm not sure I remember exactly what it is. Something like 'jolie jeune fille' maybe."

"Vous êtes trés jolie," I offered.

"Could be. And then there is the name of some guy, but I can't remember what it is."

"Ramon," I said, confirming to myself that the picture was the one I had been thinking of.

This gave Arlette, who had been fairly quiet so far, a chance to join the conversation. "So you admit, that it's you! Jacqueline, you surprise me! Have you been moonlighting as a semi-nude model! Or is this another gift wrap?" she asked mockingly.

"Yes, it's me," I said, sitting down on my bed. "The explanation is really quite simple. I just don't know how this poster ended up in the possession of this colleague of yours."

"You mean someone took your picture and then used it without your permission," asked Claude, hoping for some detective story.

"No. It's all one hundred percent legit. The picture was taken for a test launch of a new line of luxurious ladies' underwear. The posters were distributed to a small number of selected shops which specialise in this kind of product. The idea was to display the poster inside the shop in a place where it would be easily noted.

"When a customer asked about the garments on the poster, they would be informed that they were not yet available on the market, but the shop assistant would then ask the customer a number of questions. Would they be interested in this style of sexy lingerie? Which kind of garment would they consider buying? How much would they be willing to spend? What size did they require? Etc. This information was then used to estimate the potential demand and to finalise the product range. You see, it's quite straight forward. No murder mystery, no body."

"Oh yes, there is a body," said Claude, "Yours. And it's very beautiful."

I gave him a big smile. His compliment was rather clumsy, but it was a compliment nonetheless.

"This still leaves us with a question. How did your body, or rather, how did you end up on an advertisement for fancy knickers? Are you pursuing an alternative career?" Arlette wanted to know.

"The sponsor who finances the project didn't want to invest a lot of money before he had an idea of how much demand there is for this type of product. There wasn't any money to pay a professional model. I agreed to be the model and Ramon took the pictures himself."

"So you know this Ramon whose name is on the poster?" Claude wanted to know.

"Yes. He's my boyfriend." I said. It felt like I had just given away a state secret.

"Ah! Mr. Gift-wrap!" Arlette beamed. "Now it all starts to make sense."

"But how did this picture end up on Caroline's wall?" asked Arlette after a short while.

"Maybe she went into one of the selected shops, saw the poster and liked it so much that she asked for it and the shop owner gave it to her. Maybe she knows someone who works in one of the selected shops and they gave her the poster instead of putting it up in the shop. There are probably many other possibilities. The only way to know for sure how it happened would be to ask her."

As I spoke I thought about what might have happened if one of these posters had found its way to Villiers, but I wasn't overly worried.

"Why don't you ask her?" suggested Claude.

"I don't think it's that important. Besides, I don't know the woman."

"Let me tell you what I know about her and then I'll rephrase the question," said Claude.

"She's about twenty years old and really good looking - and I mean really good looking: tall, black hair, charcoal black eyes and a mouth that just seems to be begging to be kissed. I think you get the picture.

"When she joined the department all the men - and that includes me - literally fell over each other asking her out for a date, but she gave us all the brush-off. It almost seems that she's embarrassed about her good looks. She seems to consciously select clothes which de-emphasise her curves, hide her beauty.

"Anyway, one morning she arrived at the office with a bunch of photographs, all showing beautiful women in sexy underwear, and put them up on her wall. Your poster got pride of place, bang in the middle of them all. Now, when someone asks her out for a date, she just points at the pictures and says, 'I'm surrounded by so many beautiful creatures. Why would I want to go out with a man?'"

"You mean she's a lesbian?" Arlette interrupted.

"Well, she never used that word and nobody has ever seen her in the company of another woman. I suspect that it's only a ruse to distract her male admirers, keep them off her scent, so to speak.

"The other day, when I suggested we go for an ice cream during the lunch break, she turned me down as usual. So I pointed to the poster, Jacqueline's picture, and said 'I get the impression you'd sooner go out on a date with her than with me.' 'You can say that again, ' she replied, 'but then this wonderful woman is probably a world famous fashion model and wouldn't want anything to do with me.'

"So to come back to my question: would you be willing to meet Caroline if I manage to talk her into it?"

"I don't quite understand what you expect to get out of this, but I won't stand in your way."

I turned to Arlette. "But what do you think of all this, Arlette? Doesn't it bother you that your boyfriend is plotting to date another woman?"

"I'm a liberated woman," came the answer, "and besides, if she's really that good looking I might want to get into the action as well."

So we all agreed that Claude would tell Caroline that he knew the woman on the poster and that he could arrange for Caroline to meet me but that he and his girlfriend would want to come along as well."

After that was settled Arlette asked, "Where are you going to take her? There isn't much fun in inviting her to the movies and going to a restaurant for a meal offers also very limited choice for seduction. It would have to be some sophisticated place, maybe with dancing."

"I've got an idea: Le Chambre Séparée," I announced.

Arlette shook her head. "Three months waiting list." And Claude added, "And much too expensive for the likes of us".

I wasn't dissuaded that easily. "We can eat somewhere else before we go there and we don't have to order Champagne," I said. "If we stick to orange juice it won't break the bank. And as far as the waiting list is concerned, I may be able to work something to get us in."

There probably isn't a person in Paris, or even in the whole of France, who hasn't heard of Le Chambre Séparée. However, for readers from further afield, it might be useful to say a few words about this unique place.

It takes its name from the private rooms which were available to noble and illustrious visitors to some theatres and ballrooms in times long gone. They were directly accessible from the boxes in which these guests were watching the spectacle and allowed them to retire, with their respective companions, to an intimate area where they were protected from the prying eyes of other members of the audience.

What exactly happened inside the chambres séparées of old is anybody's guess but it probably wasn't much different from what happens anywhere in the world between two people who are attracted to each other.

The new Chambre Séparée was the brainchild of six young enthusiastic Parisians. They had discovered an old-style ballroom which had shut its doors many years ago and fallen into disrepair. They tracked down the owner and persuaded him to sell them the building for a modest sum. That purchase ate up all their savings.