I decided that the only thing to do was to watch her myself and wait for an opportunity to catch her alone. It was a frustrating procedure. For two days I followed her at a distance, and always her husband was either with her, or observing her. Even when she went skindiving, he was always hovering around the area in a motor boat.
Finally, late in the evening of the second day, an opening presented itself. I’d been sitting in the cocktail lounge in an inconspicuous corner that afforded me a view of the table at which the Count and Countess Mauriac were seated. A waiter walked up to the Count with a message that he was wanted on the long-distance telephone, a business call. The Count asked to have a phone brought to the table, but when his wife made a moue signifying her displeasure, he canceled the order and excused himself to take the call in the hotel manager’s office. That left the Countess Simone alone.
I didn’t waste any time. I walked over to the table and greeted her. “We were introduced by the Baroness de Lorraine on the float the other day,” I reminded her.
“Of course.” She was flustered. But when I continued standing there, etiquette left her no choice. She invited me to sit down.
I ignored the chair opposite her and squeezed into the booth beside her where her husband had been sitting. There was no time to work up an approach. I launched a direct attack. “Forgive my bluntness,” I said, “but I am very much attracted to you.”
“Please, m’sieur!” She drew back in confusion and alarm. However, the booth was so constructed that by drawing the upper part of her body away from me, the lower part was thrust against me. The calf of her silk-stockinged leg was warm and cozy against me. And the flare skirt of the white voile dress she was wearing over-flowed out from under her to cover my right leg without being aware of it.
“Simone”-—I leaped to the familiar—“I have only been waiting for an opportunity to see you alone so that I might declare my feelings. Our time is short. Please don’t waste it. Tell me where and when we can arrange to meet.”
“M’sieur! You go too far. My husband is an extremely jealous man. He would kill you! He would kill me! Indeed, if he should come back and discern the ardor you display, it might go badly for both of us. He has already fought two duels over me—for less reason than this-—and won them both, I might add. I beg you! Leave before he returns.”
“My feelings leave no room for considerations of personal safety.” Hell, I really hadn’t had time to polish the dialogue.
“Then out of consideration for me -” She was quite frantic by now to be rid of me.
Flatly rejected, and pressed for time, I resorted to a ploy. Continuing to beg her for a liaison, I reached under the table with my left hand, slipped it beneath the drift of her skirt to the waistband of my trousers, and deliberately opened the zipper of my fly.
“All right,” I told her finally. '“I’ll leave.” She breathed a sigh of relief as I stood up. But I sat right down again.
“What’s the matter?” Her nervousness built up again.
“I am mortified,” I told her, “but I cannot leave.”
“Why not?”
“The zipper to my pants has come undone.”
“What! But if my husband should return and see. I beg you, m’sieur! Close it quickly.”
“Very well.” I reached down and pulled up the zipper. Deliberately, I caught a generous portion of the voile skirt in it. Then I proceeded to struggle with it.
“For God’s sake, m’sieur! What is the delay?”
“Your skirt. It’s caught in my zipper. I can’t pull it all the way up, and I can’t seem to get it down either.”
“Mon Dieu! If my husband should see this—-your fly open! My skirt pulled up and caught there! Mon Dieu!”
“There’s only one thing to do,” I told her. “We’ll have to walk out of here together so that nobody notices. Then we can go up to my room and get untangled.”
“But I can’t go to your room. My husband— The scandal--”
“Have you an alternate suggestion?” I asked.
“No. Oui! If we must go together, then we must. But we will go to my room, not yours.”
I’d rather she’d agreed to my proposal, but it was still progress. We stood up together and it became apparent that it was the back skirt of the dress that was caught. By walking in step and keeping right on her heels, I was able to maneuver us out of the cocktail lounge and into the elevator without anybody taking notice.
Then we were alone in her room and the first step in my blitzkrieg campaign was accomplished. The next step was to get us both out of our clothes. Step Three was seduction, and Step Four was to convince her to leave her husband for the harem. I led up to them by convincing her that it was necessary to sit on my lap in order for me to be able to work the material loose from the zipper.
This necessitated pulling her skirt up in back so that only the flimsiest of panties were between me and her enticing derriere. I let my hands rove freely over it under the pretext of manipulating the zipper.
“Is that necessary?” she protested, wriggling in a way that modified the protest.
“Yes, and also pleasurable,” I confessed.
“Are you getting anywhere?”
“Uh-huh!”
“I mean with the zipper.”
“No. I’m afraid not. I can’t seem to budge it.”
“I have scissors,” she said. “But how will I ever explain it to my husband if I cut up the gown?”
“If you’ll take it off, and I take off the pants, then it will be easier to manipulate the zipper and I can get it loose in no time.”
“M’sieur!”
“Please. Your husband will start missing you. We don’t have much time. It’s the only way.”
“All right then.” Distraught, she undid the buttons to her dress and stepped out of it. She stood before me in bra and panties. Both were transparent.
My eyes drank their fill as I took off my pants. The jockey shorts I wore were inadequate to the task of hiding my response to her transparent charms.
“M’sieur! You are too bold.” She tried to avert her eyes, but didn’t quite succeed.
“I told you that you attract me powerfully.” I moved towards her.
She backed away. “You don’t understand, m’sieur. It is not just that my husband is jealous. It is also that I could never be unfaithful to him. I am too afraid. He would know. My conscience would give me away. I beg you-—”
She had backed onto a small rug in the center of the floor. I stumbled as I approached her. The rug went out from under her and she landed in a pratfall. Her legs tangled in mine, and I fell on top of her.
It was just then that the door opened. The Count Mauriac stood there for a moment taking in the scene. Then, quite calmly, he closed the door behind him. Without comment, he crossed the room to a writing desk on the other side. He opened the desk drawer. When he turned around to face us again, there was a pistol in his hand.
“Please, André . . .” Simone was too terrified to continue her explanation.
“Can’t we be adult about this?” I suggested.
“There has never been a smirch on the Mauriac honor.” The Count spoke with a lecture hall detachment. “This honor demands that a faithless wife pay with her life. The penalty for the cuckold is also fatal.”
“But I have been faithful!” Simone walled truthfully.
“Honest she has, fella . . .” I told him sincerely.
“Please. The situation is distressing enough without insulting my intelligence.” He flicked back the safety catch of the pistol with a loud click.
“It was an accident!” Simone sobbed. “My skirt caught in his pants zipper.”
“And what was his pants zipper doing open?” the Count asked coolly.