Twenty-one out of twenty, and I grin, sipping my cognac.
I write down eighteen. Lisette needs guidance, not hubris. Her wilfulness works against her intelligence.
Is this how I should spend Saturday evening? Through the tall windows, dusk deepens into night, and I hear raucous strangers enjoying themselves below. I have no one. Sitting at my desk, I reach for the anglepoise lamp to illuminate it. The settee looks inviting, but I will not procrastinate. The quiet lamentations of classical music float through the air, and my glass is empty.
Sighing hard, I have one more to mark.
It is Raphaël’s, the Joker, the Fool, the Lothario, the Sex Pest. Like my ex-fiancé, he is a heartbreaker.
A chill creeps over my soul, and the bitterness of old memories pours salt into the open wound. Looking out, surveying the lounge, everything has names: Billy, the bookcase; Kivik, the settee; Jansjö, the lampstand; and Ekås, its shade. We chose them to make this place homely; they failed. The half-bottle yields another slug of spicy fire. Perhaps this time, I will find the answer at the bottom of my glass.
Raphaël is a handsome man-child with naturally sunkissed skin. His dreamy eyes disarm. He is intelligent with a carefree precociousness. Tall, slim, and confident, when God gave out charisma, his hand slipped. Raphaël has enough for ten men, and it only works on younger women.
Why do I have to remind myself? I am still young. Turning twenty-eight, miserable, and rejected was a profound crisis. My best friend fucked my fiancé, and it diminished my self-worth. I am wiser by experience and misfortune. I sigh; it is an exhausting pretence to maintain. It has aged my soul. My features and figure are those of a youthful woman in full bloom. It is not egotistical to consider myself pleasing to the eyes. I inherited my mother’s good looks and figure, the long legs, tall body, fulsome breasts and curves.
If only I had her confidence, too.
My ex and Raphaël are the same stereotype, a walking-talking-erection. Raphaël is nineteen, and I imagine it is almost constant. My mind wanders; I superimpose new desires with old recollections. We would be inexhaustible, fulfilling my needs with his eagerness. A man-child of repeat performances and sweaty slam-slam fucking. Not a slow, laboured tickle with the lights off.
God! It has been months.
Raphaël is as obvious as the lamp light that I adjust again. Taking a sip and rolling it in my mouth, the fire does not temper my passions. The right thing is to remain guarded, and Mother Nature is not to be trusted. I judge any man by how he treats women and animals. They call it pastoral care at the University, and his rejected lovers’ tears have often dampened my shoulder. There are rumours about what he did to Simone Noiret, too.
Reading his assignment, I can see his conceit: he writes as an authority on the human spirit. A deft touch and innate arrogance kill my resistance one word at a time. I circle the vortex, spinning faster and faster. Raphaël describes desire with the wisdom of a seasoned lover and hints at the energy of his youthful passion. He pulls me in deep, and I have no will to fight it. I stare at the last full stop, aroused, and my fulsome breasts heave with a wistful sigh.
The bastard. Nineteen out of twenty, I keep back one; that is all the revenge I can muster.
The piano music muses at my fate. I drain my glass and glance through the opaque bottom.
God, I am thinking about fucking a student.
-=-
In the quadrangle, the blossom blooms, signalling the end of an austere winter.
“Attention, please,” I bang the table, “Attention!”
No one wants me to assert myself on a Monday afternoon, but their chatter stops.
“I have your marks from your last assignment.”
The Nouvelle Sorbonne is grandiose and modern, with buildings of ancient sandstone and lead roofs to the modern beacons of learning in white render. Tens of thousands of students sprawl out on a giant campus across Paris.
My name is Anaïs, and I am a lecturer in English Literature.
Today, I teach in the old building, dignified with its wood panelling and ornate cornices. Original romanticist art adorns its walls in vast slabs of colour. I stand in a roll-neck auburn knitted dress, looking out over rows of vaulted seats. It caresses my hips, ass, and breasts, and a delicate belt defines my cinched waist. I am tall with an hourglass figure and am proud of it. I can almost smell the sexual desire and frustration. I want their balls to boil or their panties to wetten.
As their sexual raconteur, I am a fraud. Yet, I want to embody the subject matter we will discuss later. Of course, I want to be desired, inside and outside of work. The knee-length black boots hint at the devil-may-care. I want to be their sordid night-time fantasy if they are inclined.
I pick up my marking book. “Lisette. Your best yet. Keep it up. Eighteen.”
From the warmth of her smile, I know she will top the class one day, and rightly so. I read the rest as I marked them; it keeps them on their toes.
From a side glance, Raphaël’s eyes undress me, and my strength ebbs away. I cling to my frosty demeanour as my cunt heats and read out a seven for a poor effort. I struggle to maintain authority when our eyes meet again through a patch of the mediocre to an excellent sixteen. There is one score left, and gazing at Raphaël, I fear exposure. It is obvious who delivered my strongest orgasm of the weekend.
I must not overcompensate; thirty women sit before me, eager to gossip.
“Raphaël. Congratulations, top of the class again. Nineteen.”
He shows those pearly whites and makes my insides flutter.
“Thank you, Madame.”
The conceited little prick and I endure the ripple of laughter. I am unmarried, not old, and seize on my irritation as a source of strength. I write her name with pride on the chalkboard, finishing with a flourish that snaps the chalk.
“Sylvia Plath!”
I will not be cowed by Raphaël leering at my breasts. Pacing across the front of the class, my wavy chestnut hair sways with my gait. I am their leader, shepherding this unruly pack of animals with my hands and arms.
Catching his eyes, Raphaël undresses me again. With Lisette, I recognise the female gaze of desire. She always shatters my taboos like panes of glass. Of all the young women here, she is the most striking. I lose myself in her exotic countenance of high cheekbones and smouldering eyes. As her personal tutor, I have lingered on her bee-stung lips too often.
I am a totem of strength, or I lose their respect. The hour passes as sixty minutes of sexual tension aided by Ms Plath’s works. My parting shot is a new assignment: write a short story in Plath’s confessional style, two thousand words. I am dangerous, and the subtext is clear. I dare them to write about sex. The Bell Jar, Colossus and Ariel are mandatory texts.
Dismissing the class, Raphaël hones in on his quarry – Lisette. She has done well to last a month.
My intuition tells me she is hiding a secret.
I pray for her sake that she keeps it that way.
-=-
Postponed from Saturday evening, it is a curious rendezvous for a Monday night. We met as a strange brew of unintended consequences three weeks ago. As a chance encounter at one of the University bookshops, he took the direct approach and asked me to dinner. Pascal is older, not by much, very handsome, and divorced. I adore confident men, and those as suave as him are impossible to resist.
Tonight is our third rendezvous, and there should be a few more before ‘it’ will happen. Choosing a tight-fitting dress, I poured my figure into it. I will make this easy, which goes against all my instincts.
From the first glass of wine, I am the timid shrew. After another, I am the mouse the cat must devour. By the third, I am the lioness that must mate with the lion, and Pascal understands what I need.
I need him to smooth out every wrinkle in my cunt.
My apartment is closest, and I break another rule, but my body overrules my head.
-=-
On the pretence of coffee, it remains in its cups, cold.
I am malleable clay in his hands, and Pascal is rigid in mine. He undresses me and admires my lingerie; he knows I wanted this all along. I remove it one garment at a time as a carefree striptease for my amused lover. He is shirtless, and his trousers are gone. He obeys a simple instruction and stands naked before me.
