Dial M for Merde by Stephen Clarke Read Free Book Online

so deliriously happy with the promise of a few pickled fish.
    4
    After my second snorkelling trip of the day, I got back to the hotel to find M’s clothes strewn across the bed. Steam was billowing out of the bathroom, and I could hear the roar of a full-open tap.
    â€˜Honey, I’m home,’ I called out.
    â€˜Come into the bathroom if you are who I think you are,’ she replied, and the tap clunked off.
    She was lying full-length in the tub, only her face, breasts and knees above the surface of the soapy water.
    â€˜Come on in, the water’s lovely,’ she said.
    â€˜So is what’s in it.’
    I threw my own clothes on the bed, and we spent a few awkward seconds deciding how I could slot into the bath with her. It wasn’t exactly a jacuzzi. Finally, I got in behind her, and sat with her head on my chest and a breast in each hand.
    â€˜Good day?’ I asked.
    â€˜Oh, lots of talk,’ she said. ‘The Banyuls people think I’m nuts, asking about sturgeon instead of their local species.’
    â€˜You look tense,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it would help if I rubbed some of that ginger and honey bath gel over you?’
    â€˜You could give it a try.’
    Now I may be speaking only for myself here, but there aren’t many more pleasant things to do with your hands than massage scented bath gel over the body of a beautiful woman, especially one who lets you know how good it feels, with words and miscellaneous other sounds. It felt pretty good for me, too. My hands gliding over her hips, down on to her stomach and then up to cup her breasts. Perfectly shaped breasts, too, heavy but firm. It didn’t take long before both of us felt the urgent need for her to slide backwards and sit astride me. Soon her rocking hips were causing tides of water to wash over the side of the bath and on to the floor.
    It was only now that I noticed something strange about her body. Watching her in the mirror, I saw that her breasts were exactly the same colour as the rest of her. She was golden brown all over. She really was a Bond girl, a less glittery version of Jill Masterson in Goldfinger , the woman who asphyxiates because Oddjob covers her in gold paint. Unlike Jill, though, M had left a gap in her all-over colour scheme. Thanks to her bikini thong, she’d kept a tinytriangle of pale skin at the base of her spine. This I could see very clearly, because it was bouncing up and down right in front of me. Thank God for that, I thought, she’s not going to asphyxiate. At which point her breathless gasps cut off, and she sank back lifeless on top of me. It’s what the French call orgasm, isn’t it? La petite mort.
    Â 
    When we left for dinner, two almost identical guys were sitting side by side at a table in the hotel courtyard, reading newspapers by the light of a lamp hanging in the tree overhead. They were both wearing cardigans to protect themselves against the early autumn chill. Their woollies, like their hair and their shirts, were white. If it hadn’t been for the black newsprint in their hands, they would have been invisible against the pale stone of the courtyard floor and the white of the garden furniture.
    I wished them ‘Bonsoir’ and they nodded in reply.
    M, in a boisterous post-lovemaking mood, wasn’t satisfied with this, and repeated a loud, accusatory ‘Bonsoir!’
    The men answered ‘Monsieur, Madame,’ and smiled as they watched M walk past.
    Yes, I thought, she was looking good enough to turn gay men straight. She gripped my hand and I felt a surge of happiness. I was experiencing that irreplaceable thrill you get when you go to bed with someone and then find that you want to do so again. And again. And again.
    I’d reserved a table at a restaurant in the old town. It was a tiny, dark place in a narrow street that had caught my eye because its menu was so short. In touristy areas, restaurant menus can seem too eager