ALEX

It turned out to be a mild concussion. The next day Alex stayed in bed with the curtains closed and the lights out. Louise came by several times to bring him food. She sat in a chair next to the bed, and when he was awake, they made small talk. No deep conversations yet, which was fine with Alex. Nevertheless, the small talk and her relaxed attitude had a good effect on him. The night of his fall, after the doctor and Louise had left, he had felt sick to his stomach, both from the concussion and the prospect of having to face her again, but hearing her talk about her day and the weather gave him hope that perhaps the world wasn’t going to end now that she had seen his erection.

Alone in his bedroom, he tried to remember the events of the night before as accurately as possible. What had happened? What was said? Silly boy, that’s what she kept saying. And that he shouldn’t be ashamed of his penis. Those words, in combination with her gentle attitude today, gave him the impression that he might have been a bit of a drama queen lately. Now that he thought about it, his reaction to her seeing him naked did indeed seem exaggerated. Of course she had seen a naked man before. She was forty-four years old, for Christ’s sake, and had been married twice. And that was not even counting the tennis player she had had an affair with.

Now that he thought about it, he felt ashamed of his stupid reaction. Trying to make a run for it with his hands covering his dick. How ridiculous was that? He should have just said, ‘Hi, Louise, let me get dressed first, okay?’ And then calmly walk to the bedroom to put on some clothes. He could see it now, but he hadn’t done it at the time, had he? Instead, he had made a complete fool of himself and now he was here in bed with a splitting headache. If only he had kept his calm, he wouldn’t have slipped and she wouldn’t have seen his erection.

Had someone asked him two days ago, what do you prefer: a mild concussion or Louise seeing your hard-on, he would have chosen the concussion without hesitation. Hell, he would even have preferred a severe concussion! Today though, with his head hurting like crazy and Louise’s laid-back attitude toward last night’s events, he realized that having an erection ‘in public’ might be uncomfortable, but it still felt a lot better than a concussion.

She was right; he shouldn’t worry too much about what happened last night. Who knows, perhaps she didn’t even make the connection between his excitement and the fact that he had looked up her skirt. Perhaps she thought his hard-on was some weird, physical reaction to his head hitting the tiles on the floor. He doubted it, though. She wasn’t dumb. She had also said they should have a talk to help him get out of his misery. He could imagine what that talk would be about and although the idea of it still scared him, he also knew that it was the only way forward. He would really have to be less of a drama queen from now on and more of a grown-up.

They didn’t have one big talk though, but instead, there were several small ones spread out over a number of days. They had the first one in a very informal setting while they were playing a game of pool. Later Alex wondered if she had planned it that way. After all, he loved playing pool, and since it was basically the only game at which he could beat her, he felt comfortable and confident with a cue in his hands. Good circumstances for a sensitive chat.

It was the evening of the first day that Alex was on his feet again. During the day he had done a lot of work and later Louise had cooked dinner for both of them. He expected her to want to talk while they were eating, but instead they just chatted about some local artist who had misbehaved at a fundraiser and how everybody in Cannes was now gossiping about that. The way Louise told him was really funny so they laughed a lot.

By the time she suggested a game of pool after dinner Alex had more or less forgotten what lay ahead of him, so it did come as a surprise when she asked him out of the blue, just after he had scored the winner in their second game, if she was the first person to have seen him naked. She asked him in such a casual tone that he didn’t even get spooked. He nodded and began to collect the balls while she observed him from across the table. Rolling the cue in her hand, a thick, black sweater hiding most of her bosom. She was wearing jeans and sneakers too, so yes, in hindsight it was a good moment to broach the subject.

As he was putting the balls in the triangle, it occurred to him that his answer also told her he still had no experience with girls whatsoever. Something he would have felt ashamed of before, but now, well, he didn’t mind so much that she knew. She had probably known it all along anyway.

‘I had forgotten that you are circumcised,’ she said.

Now he did blush, but still he stood his ground and looked at her.

‘So you knew before?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I lived next door when you underwent surgery. I think you must have been two or three?’

‘Something like that,’ he said, his voice sounding a bit thin now.

He picked up his cue and opened the third game.

‘You think that’s part of the reason you’re so shy?’

‘Possibly,’ he said. Then he shrugged and corrected himself, ‘No, probably.’

It was Louise’s turn to play then. She walked around the pool table, deciding which point would be the easiest to score. Without looking at him she asked if he knew that millions and millions of men were circumcised. She added that there was absolutely no reason to be ashamed of it. Alex shrugged. He had heard it before of course, but still, he had always felt embarrassed about it.

She took a shot and a ball disappeared in a hole. She laughed though and said, ‘I was actually aiming for another one. I’m really not good at this game.’

And that was that. They didn’t do any more psychoanalyzing that night. They just played a few more games, and then each of them went back to their own living room, Louise to watch a movie, Alex to roll a joint and think things over. He did feel more relaxed somehow. A sense of relief, as if a weight had been lifted off his back. With just a few casual questions, asked at the right moment, she had taken away a lifetime of worry. He felt grateful to her and decided to honor her and not masturbate to her image that night.

An hour later though, when he was in bed, he remembered seeing the purple panties underneath her pantyhose and then he just couldn’t help himself.

A few days later he accompanied her on a visit to an artist who lived in Fréjus, a coastal town about twenty miles west of Cannes. It was raining, so he couldn’t work in the garden anyway. When Louise had asked him to come along, he had agreed immediately. A little road trip sounded good, even though the weather wasn’t ideal for it of course.

The artist was a German woman who was dressed extravagantly in contrasting colors and a Rastafarian hat. An artsy type, his mother might say, but his dad would probably call her an attention seeker. She was kind of theatrical, speaking in a loud voice and making wild gestures. He got the impression though that Louise really liked her work. The two women agreed on an exhibition in the spring.

Afterwards, they went for lunch in the center of Fréjus. The German artist had recommended a restaurant, but one look at the waiter’s attitude and dirty fingernails was enough to make them turn around and look for another place. They walked around town and settled for a nice and quiet bistro on a small square. The food was nothing special, but it was good enough for a quick lunch. While they were eating, the sun was coming out, so they talked about making a stop somewhere on the way home.

‘Perhaps,’ Louise said, ‘I could show you Cap du Dramont. The coast is beautiful there. What do you say?’

They took the coastal road in the eastern direction. Near Dramont it cut across a small peninsula, and here Louise took a right turn, heading toward the cape. At some point, they parked the Mercedes and continued on foot.

‘It isn’t far,’ she said, and she was right. Soon they came to a beautiful viewpoint. To their right was a small island with a tower on it.

‘That’s L’Île d’Or,’ she said. ‘Apparently, it features in one of the Tin Tin books, but I haven’t read them. You?’

Alex nodded and looking at the island with its distinctive tower he thought it seemed familiar. He walked a bit further and tried to see what was down there, but all he saw were rocks and water.

‘Are there no beaches here?’

Louise said yes, there were a few, but as he could see, it was mostly a rocky area.

‘There are nicer beaches on the Côte d’Azur than these,’ she said.

Although the weather had improved and it was nice to be out here, Alex couldn’t imagine wanting to go to a beach. Even when he arrived some weeks ago it had already been too chilly for sunbathing. He asked Louise when the beach season was.

‘That depends, of course,’ she said. ‘From May till September, I would say, but some years April and October are fine too.’

‘Where do you usually go? Cannes?’

‘Most of the time I go to Antibes,’ she said. ‘The beaches are nicer there than in Cannes.’

‘They’re probably more crowded than here though, right?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘Why? Do you prefer deserted beaches?’

‘I think I do,’ Alex said. ‘At home, I usually look for peace and quiet when I go to the beach.’

‘In England, it’s too cold to go to the beach,’ Louise countered.

She looked up at the sky and said, ‘Here it’s getting chilly too. I think it might start raining again soon. We should go back to the car.’

As they were walking she said, ‘Speaking of deserted beaches, the other day, just before you arrived, I went on a boat trip with my friends Francis and Monique. We went to a place west of Saint Tropez, a beach so beautiful you wouldn’t believe it. Quiet too and the water was just perfect. Blue like in the Caribbean and warm enough still to swim without getting cold.’

‘That sounds fantastic,’ Alex said.

‘Yes, I think you might like it a lot. It’s hard to get to that area without a boat, but perhaps we could go with my friends. You have already met them. They’re nice people.’

He remembered them, of course, and agreed with her. They had seemed nice indeed. A boat trip to unspoiled beaches with them did sound good, as long as annoying Rob wasn’t coming too.

When they got to the main road and already saw the Mercedes in the distance, Louise stopped walking. Her hair was blowing in the wind. She looked so healthy and beautiful, with her cheeks a bit red from being out in nature.

‘You know, I just remembered something,’ she said. ‘When we were on the beach I just told you about, you should know that most of us were ‘au naturel’, as the French say.’

Alex didn’t understand.

‘We were naked, Alex,’ sounding a bit impatient with him and even more so when he must have looked incredulous and she felt forced to defend herself.

‘Look, this is not Suffolk and it was just our group of people. On a beach like that, beautiful and secluded, it feels only natural not to wear a bikini. At least it does to me.’

He didn’t know what to say and could only stand there and stare at her while he tried not to imagine her naked. He didn’t want to, not while they were getting along so well again.

‘The reason I’m telling you,’ Louise said, ‘is that while we were there I talked to Monique about you. You were arriving later that week, so she was curious about our arrangement. What I just remembered is that I briefly wondered then what it would be like between us in that sense.’

‘In what sense?’

‘If you and I could go to a beach like that and take our clothes off.’

‘Oh,’ he said, taken aback now. ‘Take all our clothes off, you mean?’

She laughed and said, ‘Jesus, Alex, sometimes you’re really slow. You know that?’

He thought about what she had said, looking first at his feet, then at the dark clouds at the horizon and eventually at Louise’s pretty face.

‘I don’t know,’ he mumbled, feeling like a shy teenager all over again.

She nodded and said, ‘That’s okay, of course. There is no pressure and I would never have asked you if not for what happened the other night. I mean, now that I’ve seen all there is to see, there is no reason anymore for you to be shy, right? Perhaps I’m the one who would feel self-conscious with my forty-four years and big bum.’

She smiled at him and he said he doubted that, but he sounded more grown-up than he felt, because in truth the idea of going to a nudist beach with her scared the hell out of him. Thank God it began to rain then. Louise gently tapped him on the arm and said, ‘Come on, let’s go home.’

The story continues with Obedience, the second book of the trilogy.