CultOfTheBlackVirgin (27 page)

“Well, what is it?” asked Carol, who was walking directly behind.

“Uh, I’m not sure,” he lied. “It’s Spanish, and I don’t understand.”

Besame. Besame Mucho
—he understood it quite well, Jo knew. So did she.
Kiss me. Kiss me many times.

Jo hid her smile, happy to have rendered him speechless once again. She knew that Iris and Carl were behind her, watching and listening, but she didn’t care anymore.

Everybody knows.

Ignoring the women behind him, Luc asked her, in a low voice that made her tingle, “You’re very quiet today. Are you feeling all right?”

Jo turned off her music.

He’d sent a few inquiring looks her way that morning, but had no chance to speak to her until now. As she looked up at him, for the fiftieth time that week she marveled at his beauty. She wanted to walk into him, wrap her arms around him, and lay her head against his chest, to feel his arms encircling, protecting her. Protecting her from the heaviness of her own sins.

And she wanted to fuck him. Again.

The idea started her heart hammering in her chest. Did he have any idea of her feelings for him? Would she ever get a chance to say how deeply he’d moved her, last night—body and soul? She wanted to tell him that, until today, she’d never consciously referred to her own
soul
as a part of her. She was a profoundly unspiritual person, she’d always thought. But now she felt differently. She responded to him with more than just her body and her heart.

After their lovemaking last night, as she lay exhausted against him in the bath, three words had kept going round in her head.
Now I know. Now I know
.

He had just shown her how beautiful and profound sex between two people could be. She had no idea sex could be like that. Hackneyed phrases like
earth-shattering
and
mind-blowing
did it no justice.

Of course she could communicate none of her thoughts and feelings to him now. And maybe she’d never have the chance. The thought made her sad.

* * * *

Behind her ears, where she smells so good. And the back of her neck, just under the hairline. On the tip of her nose. The top of her head. The inside of her soft forearms. Higher up, alongside her biceps. Under her arms, damp with sweat. All around her breasts. Her nipples. Then her taut belly. Then lower…

Luc was a little shocked at the intensity of emotion he’d felt last night. An emotion that still lingered, today.

But he was happy. He felt energized—high—as if he were walking several inches above the stony path beneath his feet.

Around her navel. The soft space between her hip bones. The neat little triangle of soft hair—where my tongue can dip into her wet fold. Her sweet juices flowing…

In his exhilaration and self-satisfaction, Luc was slow to recognize that his new lover did not share his mood. It was impossible to talk to her while they walked alongside eleven pair of ears eager to eavesdrop, so he had to wait for the right moment to approach her.

As soon as she had fallen behind far enough, he stopped on the side of the trail to wait for her for catch up. His heart began hammering as she drew nearer. She had always looked lovely to him but now he thought she was so beautiful that his breath caught in his chest.

He noticed that a few of the other women had slowed down enough so that they might overhear, so he was cautious. But he had to talk to her. He could see quite clearly she was unhappy.

Pourquoi? When I feel so great? What’s wrong? If I asked, would she tell me?

As he fell into step beside her, she lowered her sunglasses and intimated that people were listening and all was not well. Her eyes sent him the message that things were a bit sensitive, and she was afraid. He nodded, and lightly touched her shoulder in a move that was halfway between a pat on the back and a gentle caress.

At first he thought she was was overreacting when her body language indicated she was afraid of the others overhearing. Then he recalled some of the signals he’d picked up that morning. And now he realized the group had divided itself along male/female lines, which was unusual. But what was really odd, he thought, was that Jo had been walking alone most of the day, listening to music.

Something’s changed.

Then he understood. The women, except Jo, were clustering together like a flock of geese—talking, talking, talking—their tone more excitable, yet paradoxically more hushed, than usual.

Conspiratorial. That’s it.

Does everybody know?

He snuck a peek at Jo as he walked beside her. She didn’t meet his gaze and her expression was grim. He began to feel uncomfortable.

But there was nothing he could do.

In a loud voice he began to relate the history of Martel as they approached its outskirts.

* * * *

After a few moments Luc distracted the sports fans in the group by introducing the subject of European football, which Jo understood as soccer. Over the previous few days, the men had already discussed the relative merits and weaknesses of various FIFA and international teams. Ron was a diehard Chelsea fan, Edward was attached to Manchester City, rather than United, for some reason, and Duncan, as a Glaswegian, supported either Rangers or Celtic, as long as one of them was winning. The Aussies’ Soccer’oos were highly touted by the Evans, and Luc, although he feverishly supported the Hibernian while he was living in Scotland, now sang the praises of
Olympic Lyonnais
.

Soon, all of the men, except for poor Thomas, who hated all sports on principle, were talking football as they walked. Jo was grateful for the common ground established by the topic. At least the male half of the group, she hoped, could momentarily forget whatever it was that was making them shun her. Of course, all this sports talk left the women to their own devices, but Jo just plugged her earbuds back in and trudged on alone.

Her walking holiday had hit a bump in the path. Over the next few days she had to salvage her damaged reputation. But she suspected that there was little she could do. Luc was the only one who could make the repairs. Everyone respected him—or at least they had until she entered the equation—and they would likely do as he asked. He would have to tell them he was not married, and therefore free. As she was.

He wouldn’t like it—his privacy was at stake. But she had to ask him. She could see no other way to stop this poisonous environment from getting worse.

And the next time she came together with him—for there was no question of ending this now—she had to be more discreet.

While the men were talking, Carol caught up to Jo on the path, causing Jo to groan silently. She found Carol the most irritating person in the group. But Carol seemed oblivious to anyone’s likes or dislikes, unable to read any but the most obvious of social signals. Out of politeness, Jo had questioned her about Australia a few days earlier. She said she would like to visit Australia and New Zealand one day. Subsequently, Carol’s descriptions of Australian culture took up the better part of the next hour.

Now, Carol hadn’t said a word to her all day, but for some reason she broke free from the other women to heap unsolicited information on Jo.

“Did you know,” she said as if she were confiding a great secret, “that Luc is the main cook in his house? He says he does almost all the cooking, and most of the shopping. Can you imagine? What a lucky woman his wife is, wouldn’t you say?”

“Um, well, yes. I guess so,” offered Jo, reluctantly.

She wasn’t going to tell Carol that she wasn’t much of a cook herself. If it weren’t for the fact that she lived within walking distance of the Pike Place Market, she would never shop for groceries. She hated supermarkets.

Carol carried on, “I mean—
imagine
! Married to a strapping fellow like that, who not only brings home the beef roast, but cooks it too! Some women have it all, don’t they just?”

“I know what you mean, but I don’t think roast beef is on the menu much in this part of France.” Jo realized she sounded petty when she said this, but she just wanted to change the topic.

“Oh I know, dear, but just
look
at him. He’s just so well built that I couldn’t help thinking of beef. He doesn’t much look like a little lamb, now does he?”

She threw her head back and brayed at her own wit.

Although Jo was amused by this, she was also annoyed that Carol felt that her lover’s size was a subject open for discussion. Her privacy at stake, she tried to steer the conversation to something less sensitive.

“So Peter doesn’t cook, then?”

“Peter? Ha ha ha—ooh noo. Not him. He eats, though. Can’t you tell?”

As Carol was laughing at the idea of Peter cooking anything at all, Jo confessed that her boyfriend James was quite a good cook. He even had a small collection of cookbooks.

Carol was amazed. “Your boyfriend’s a cook? Well really! Do all the men in the United States know how to cook, or are you just one of the lucky ones?”

“Oh I’m one of the lucky ones, all right.” She forced a small laugh. “I don’t know of many men who can cook as well as James. He’s much better at it than I am. Omelets are about all I can do well,” she finally admitted.

“Really? Well I just don’t know about you career girls these days. I think you should marry that lovely boyfriend of yours. Then you’ll have a right nice life, you will.”

“I already have a very nice life, Carol. I’m very happy and grateful for what I have. And I just might marry him after all.”

Liar!

Jo had meant these words to deflect attention away from what was really being discussed. But as she spoke them she felt their falseness. She wanted Carol to go away.

But then the real subject was raised. Carol asked, “So tell me, what does your young man think of you running loose and free in France on your own? In Oz our blokes wouldn’t stand for it. They keep us Sheilas on a pretty tight reign, they do.”

Jo turned to give Carol a pointed look. “I’m not quite running around loose and free. I’m with you lot, aren’t I?”

Feigning a loose shoelace, Jo stopped suddenly at the side of the path.

“You go on ahead, Carol. I need to fix something.”

She’d had enough, and plugging her earbuds back into her head she let the music shut everyone out for the rest of the walk.

In Martel, a busy little town of commerce, Jo ran into a huge problem. Their accommodation was a
gîte
. This was quite different from the small hotels they had been accustomed to, for a
gîte
was an economical, but charming, way to save a few Euros. The idea here was that the married couples each had a private room, but the singles slept in dormitory-style rooms, one for men and one for women. This meant that Jo, Iris and Sarah shared, as did Luc and Duncan. There would be no sneaking into Luc’s room over the next two nights, Jo realized immediately after checking in. Or vice versa.

Oh great! Sharing a room with Iris is not high on my list of fun things to do. I might be strangled in my sleep.

The
gîte
was housed in a very old building, with low, beamed ceilings, and a rustic flagstone floor running throughout the main rooms downstairs. There was a garden in the back, graced with some ancient gnarled fruit trees and a lawn, of sorts. As Jo unpacked her bag, she could hear the sound of a panpipe floating up through the open windows into their room. Someone in the garden was playing a beautiful melody, which embellished the charm of the old stone building. But these details didn’t improve her mood.

After she got over the shock of having to share a room, she remembered to think about James. She hadn’t actually spoken to him all week and he’d be worried about her. And rightly so. But she really didn’t want to talk to him.

Perhaps an email would suffice, she thought, and she resolved to find an Internet cafe before dinner.

All she wanted to do was think about her new lover, the one she might not have a chance to be with again before she had to fly home.

When could she see Luc alone again? Tonight was out of the question. Where could they go? There were only three more days before their walk was finished. Surely they could manage at least one more tryst? But how? Was he already making a plan? Shouldn’t she just trust him?

She grew tired of wrestling with the problem. It would sort itself out. Somehow she knew he would sort it out.

But then the fact the tour was ending very soon caused her to panic. In a few days she’d be on her way back to Seattle. Right now, her home, and the life she lived there, seemed millions of miles away. She wasn’t ready to go back.

No. Luc had moved in and pushed everything else out of her mind. She’d let him virtually take over her life. She didn’t want to go home. All she wanted was more, more, more of her French lover. She felt disgusted with herself, as if she had eaten too much rich food, heavy with the lethargy of being over full. But even though she felt sated, she still craved more.

And she was so tired, she realized as she sank into the narrow bed in her shared room. Not up to the task of thinking about anything much at all, she would let her body direct her now. And Luc. She would let him determine what she would, or wouldn’t, do over the next three days.