Fata Morgana by William Kotzwinkle Read Free Book Online Page B

arm beneath her ribs and wrapped his right arm around her waist, so that he could squeeze both her breasts.
    “Especially the left one, Monsieur Fanjoy,” she said softly; he gave it careful attention, laying his palm against the nipple and rubbing it quickly and lightly. The sewer crew blasted again, rattling the street, the foundations, her few dishes.
    “Is it me, Fanjoy?” she asked, putting her hands between her legs and taking hold of him, putting him where she wanted him.
    “Yes,” he said, kissing her shoulders and stroking her gently. She pressed back against him; it was his favorite position, for he knew he was too heavy for women, and he was also lazy. This way he could lie like a magnificent pig, fondling her breast, fondling her little wet beard. He’d seen a painting somewhere—the Empress riding to Fontainebleau—it came to him now, then faded, and other things came and went, a gondola, the smell of lime-tree flowers. Is it her perfume, the essence of lime-tree flowers?
    “With the whole hand, Fanjoy,” she said in a gently pleading voice.
    He could feel the rhythm of her pleasure and he toyed with it, steering it with his fingers and his slow deep thrusts. He was in control; one learns certain things only after the hair on one’s balls has turned grey; he was happy to steer her, concentrating completely on her pleasure. Her breasts were small, the left one extremely sensitive; the blasting powder made the candle flame dance again, and she moved her hips faster, as if the explosions were indeed taking place inside her.
    “Stop,” he said softly, into her ear, and she stopped while he caught his breath and cooled a little, but he didn’t let her cool; his fingers moved between her legs, slowly, and her wild racing became a dreamlike coiling and uncoiling. He felt her place exactly, knew just how far she had to go, and he took her there as slowly as he could, making her desire double up against itself, crash and magnify itself. As she coiled toward the edge, just as her spring began to snap, he stopped and she hung suspended over the depths.
    The Empress came by again, in a boat filled with her handmaidens and a Turkish oarsman. They sailed slowly along, disappearing into the black reaches of his mind, trailing only a few bright bubbles.
    “Oh, please, Fanjoy, Fanjoy...”
    He pressed his face into her hair; it was dry and stiff from acids and curling irons, like the hair of a mare. “Please,” she groaned, “please, I can’t wait...”
    He slid his fingers back into her slippery lips, drummed his fingertips, lightly, as he’d been doing when she first saw him, drummed her over the edge. She fell with a long laughing moan, tangled her ankle back around his, trying to drag him with her. He let go, into her laughing chasm, his body dissolving in ecstasy, madness, annihilation, and out of the darkness he heard the voice of Madame Lazare speaking softly in his ear, There are secrets, she said, and Duval echoed her voice, As you say, madame, there are secrets.
    Picard gasped, felt himself in Lazare’s clutches, felt lost and disintegrating, a fool with a girl in the night, caught in a trap he cannot see, a trap which closes softly, and then it was over and he felt only the soft, gently closing lips of the young woman, opening and closing on him, draining him sweetly and completely. It’s only a screw, one of a thousand, a million, the night, the night. The stairway rattled again, he thought perhaps someone had fallen down it, perhaps I’m falling down it, down it. He reached far into the blackness, discovering lime-tree flowers, candlelight, the young girl’s bare shoulders. He was looking at them, she was soaked with sweat, and he was already feeling the morning train to Vienna.
    “Stay there... just a moment more,” she said. He liked her sobbing laugh, knew that he could easily fall for her, and was anxious to clear out before it happened. After a few weeks with this one, I’d be