As she zipped it up she caught Marie-Helene's eyes on the bag. "La!" the girl said. "You are staying there?" Nan looked up to find the girl's eyes first large and impressed, then narrowing to a certain squint she could, perhaps, blame on the slanting rays of the late afternoon sun. She knew the look, she thought. When people found out you were in an utterly different financial bracket from them they often tended to look at you in a correspondingly different way.
"Why…why yes," she said. "I…my late Husband's business manager got me reservations." It was a fie but it seemed the right one to tell now.
"Oh," said Marie-Helene. "You must be..sfie smiled the impish smile again…"the poor little rich girl."
Nan couldn't not smile back now. "I suppose I am. But how empty my fife has been. I'm sure your life must have been much richer, much happier. You're so assured, and I have to…oh, you know…drink a lot before I can force myself to do anything odd or new."
"My poor little rich girl," Marie-Helene teased, grasping Nan's hands impulsively. "No, there, pauvre petite. I will not tease you." And, standing on tiptoes-how tiny, how delicate, she was, after all-she reached up to give Nan a sisterly kiss on the cheek.
"Now let us go. I am…how you say…starving to the death."
At dinner they sat head-to-head like a pair of teen-aged girls, sharing each other's meal. "Here, try a bit of this…a morsel of that…" And Nan, under the influence of her new friend as much as that of the excellent wine the waiter had brought, found a warm and mellow glow spreading out over her as the meal drew to an unhurried close. She found herself confiding in the girl about some, not all, of her recent mental ups and downs. She told about her sexy fantasies, but not about poor Helga. She told of dreaming of an incident like the one at Nice…but she did not tell of its actually happening, and she placed the dream safely back at Bal Harbour. And as she talked, the pretty brown hands came across the table and held hers, and-this was surprising in its intimacy-a pair of supple bare feet, kicked free of the beach clogs Marie-Helene had been wearing, sought hers under the table, warmly rubbing her insteps and ankles. Under the influence of the wine, Nan's mental protests slipped silently away; the contact seemed so innocent, so much a piece with Marie-Helene's unashamedly tactile approach to life, that she abandoned herself to the sensation and, squeezed her friend's hands back.
A glass of brandy afterwards: "Nan, my dear," the girl said, "you know what Td really like right now? Tonight?" Her brown face with its flashing eyes was inches from Nan's. But, strangely enough, Nan got very little of the sort of vibrations from Marie-Helene that had surfaced in poor Helga after months of repression. "I'd like…I'd like to call up a couple of men friends of mine. To…well, you know…have, how yon say it, a party?" She squeezed Nan's hand. "Would you like that?"
Nan blinked; then the brandy got to her, and the new and more daring Nan took over for a moment "Yes, I…I think I'd like that" she said, blushing again. Her head was a little giddy; they'd had the better part of a magnum together, and the brandy topped this off splendidly. "You…you know a couple of nice men? Young, handsome?"
"Lovely men," Marie-Helene said. "I have been with both. They are both wonderful lovers. May I call them? Marc works in a bar; he will be off duty at… " she looked at her watch. "In an hour. We can drive down to Louis's house and… "
"No," said Nan impulsively. "I have this marvelous big suite of rooms, with this lovely romantic balcony. Let's go to my place." What was getting into her? She could hardly imagine herself saying these things. "I…well go through my wardrobe. I have some lovely sexy things for us to wear."
Marie-Helene smiled; her own face was flushed from the wine. "Oh, yes…well drive them crazy." She reached forward and caressed Nan's face with an innocently sensuous gesture; her bare soles, under the table, clasped Nan's foot warmly as their knees touched. 'I'll call the waiter…"
The hotel management would undoubtedly have complained violently at having to supply champagne and the makings of a midnight snack-caviar, pate-the whole spread-so late in the evening except for the intervention of Lucien, the steward, who had, during the day, bothered to inquire through banking channels about the mysterious Mrs. Mikell who could so easily get reservations at the exclusive hotel When the word came down, however, the staff responded with that special panache hotel men reserve for the sort of guest whose bills are paid at a distance by people hired to do that sort of thing. The appointments they managed, on a moment's notice, were lavish; the staffs disappointment was visible as the girls dismissed the servants the hotel had sent up to keep a fresh bottle of champagne forever on the ice, and fresh hors d'oeuvre on the little silver trays.
Nan and Marie-Helene shooed them out happily; an air of eager anticipation hung over the entire venture. Nan poured champagne for the two; they toasted Nan's new-found freedom and admired each other's looks as the wine went through them, casting a delightful glow over it all. "You look marvelous," Nan said to the girl "You should dress this way all of the time."
And to be sure, Marie-Helene was a delightful sight. Nan had dug out a diaphanous gown, meant only for the boudoir, for her, and she'd donned it over nothing more than her bare skin. Now, the sensuous-looking brown nipples peeped out through the thin cloth, and the nudity of her belly was accentuated by a golden waist bracelet Nan had found for her. Nan had blushed, during their toilette, to see the girl borrow rouge from Nan's makeup bag and deftly enhance the pink glow around the outer lips of her vagina with it She fancied the rosy tint was almost visible through the girl's all-but-totally-transparent outfit
Marie-Helene had insisted on dressing Nan, from the skin out Beneath the cloth, she insisted, Nan must wear nothing but jewels, and she proceeded to empty Nan's jewel box to deck her out in a rich assortment of golden trinkets; through the translucent gown Marie-Helene had picked out for her, one could see not only the secrets of Nan's lovely body but the rich treasure trove of rubies, diamonds and emeralds Ed had bought for her. "But Marie…" Nan had said. "All of it together? All of it? Isn't it a little much?"
"No," the girl had said, bending to kiss her pertly on one nipple. "Think of how much fun darling Marc will have taking it all off you." And thus, neck and belly and fingers and toes glimmering through the floor-length gown, Nan awaited her date for the evening. Standing on the deep pile rug, she rubbed her sensitive, all-but-naked bottom against the refreshment table, her heart pounding with excitement Was this Nan Mikell doing this? she wondered, her head reeling somewhat from the very dry champagne. And, more than once as she waited, she'd have run away…if there'd been anywhere to run to.
Marc-big, thick-necked, shockingly virile, a former boxer, he said-and Louis, a rough-diamond type bearing a striking resemblance to Jean-Paul Belmondo, were excitingly domineering and brusque in their first dealings with the girls. Marc's first kiss was hardly tentative, exploratory; his lips bruised hers, his long thick tongue explored the inside of her mouth with a proprietary bluntness. And his big hands were immediately on her body, not touching but grasping. Almost immediately she felt the shock of having his hand invade her body-which only showed how wet and receptive she already was down there.
How exciting! she thought And, her head reeling from the champagne already, she downed another goblet of the bubbly stuff; a new, abandoned, silvery laugh issuing from the new Nan, a strange and independent creature brought forth by the holy drunkenness the wine had brought upon her. "Here," she said, putting down the glass and unbuttoning Marc's dark shirt to show the thick mat of hair on his chest Tm glad to see you. Let me." He didn't understand a word of English, and she hadn't made out a single complete phrase of the rough waterfront argot in which he and Marie-Helene conversed. No matter. They were entering a stage where words did not make the slightest difference…