Goodbye, Janette (14 page)

“I’ll be here.” She smiled. “Thank you, Johann.”

He came out from behind the desk. In a curious sort of way he felt good about her wanting to come into the company. Something had been missing ever since Tanya’s death. Now, perhaps, it would be whole again. “How is your sister?” he asked.

She looked at him. “Fine. Growing. I haven’t seen much of her since I came down from school. Her nanny hovers over her like a blanket.”

“It might be a good idea if you could spend some time with her,” he suggested. “So that at least she feels she has a family.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t much of a mother instinct,” she said. “To me, she seems like every other child.”

“Too bad,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “The poor can offer their children for adoption when they’re not equipped to bring them up, no matter what the reason may be. But what do the rich do?”

He was silent for a moment. “What we’re doing, I suppose. Hire nannies and hope they provide a love substitute.”

“Maurice said something about maybe we could work out an agreement and he would move back into the house. That would provide a more normal family life for her. After all, legally he
is
still her father.”

“And yours too,” he said.

“That’s right,” she said. “But in two more years, I’ll be legally of age, and free of him. Lauren still has a long way to go.”

He was silent.

“If something should happen to us—you and me—who would get her?” she asked.

“Maurice, I imagine,” he said. “There’s no one else.”

“
Merde
,” she cried. She thought for a moment. “I wonder what he has on his mind. Why do you think he’s being so nice to us all of a sudden?”

“I’m sure I don’t known,” he answered.

“I don’t trust him,” she said. “But then I never did.”

“In time we’ll find out,” he said. “Until then, be careful. Just don’t sign any papers, that’s all.”

She laughed. “Don’t worry. I know that much.” She started toward the door, then stopped and turned back to him. “Johann, you’re a nice man, why is it you never married?”

He looked at her without answering.

Suddenly she understood. “Mother. You were in love with her, weren’t you?”

He still didn’t answer.

“She’s dead now,” she said. “That’s over. Find yourself a good woman and marry her. Then you could give Lauren the kind of home she needs.”

He smiled suddenly. “I might surprise you.”

Impulsively she went to him and kissed his cheek. “It would be a lovely surprise,” she said, then went out the door with a wave of her hand. “Tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock sharp.”

He went back to his desk and sat down heavily. After a moment he reached for the telephone and dialed a number. A woman’s voice answered. He spoke in German. “Heidi? Eight o’clock all right for dinner? I’ll pick you up.”

***

“He’s too conservative,” Jacques said, placing the chilled glass of kir on the cocktail table in front of her. He sat down beside her, taking a small vial from his pocket. She sipped her drink, watching him as he skillfully spilled some of the white powder from the vial on the glass tabletop, then separated it carefully into four thin lines. Expertly he rolled a hundred-franc note into a straw, then sniffed one line of cocaine into each nostril. He held the bill toward her. “It’s good coke,” he said. “A friend of mine just brought it in from the States.”

Quickly she did the two lines and handed the bill back to him. She felt her pulse quicken as the coke exploded in her head. “It is good.”

“It’s not the crap they sell here in Paris,” he said, picking up his drink. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” They sipped at their drink.

“When your mother was there it was different,” he said. “She had ideas, there was a feeling of excitement. We were doing things. Now all that is gone. All Johann wants to do is keep steady, just hold on to what we have. Expansion costs money and he won’t take any chances.”

“But we’ve been making money, haven’t we?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said. “But we should be making a lot more. Compared to some of the other companies we’ve been standing still.” He looked at her. “Are you really serious about coming to work here?”

She nodded.

He smiled. “Then maybe there’s a chance for us yet. With you around Johann might be more venturesome.”

She looked at him. “I didn’t come up here to talk business.”

He pulled at the knot that tied her shirt closed. It fell open revealing the nipples already distended with excitement. “Jesus!” he said, leaning forward to take one in his mouth.

She turned his face up to her. “Shiki said my breasts were too big.”

“What the hell does he know?” he asked, burying his face between them, pressing them against his cheek with either hand. “They’re beautiful.”

“I asked him to eat my pussy,” she said. “But he wouldn’t.”

“You don’t have to ask me. Just get out of those damn jeans.”

She rose to her feet in front of him. She pulled the snap and then the zipper and pushed the jeans down over her hips. “He said my ass was too big too,” she said, turning away from him and bending slightly forward so that her buttocks were practically thrust into his face.

He was silent.

“Slap my ass,” she said.

He hit her playfully.

“Harder,” she said. “Like you mean it.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“You won’t hurt me,” she said. “Do what I tell you. Hit me hard.”

His open hand cracked across her buttock. He could see the white handprint on it. He hesitated.

“More,” she said fiercely. “Don’t stop.”

His hand began to rise and fall rapidly. He could see the white handprints turning red on her buttocks and suddenly he realized that she was grinding her hips and moaning, masturbating herself at the same time. Excitement began to rise in him and suddenly he was angry. The bitch was just using him to get off. Now he really began to hit her.

“I’m coming,” she cried. “I can’t stop coming!”

Angrily he spun her around to face him. There was a strange inner look on her face. She didn’t even seem to see him. Without thinking, he slapped her face. “What about me, you bitch?”

She stared at him, suddenly silent, then her eyes fell before his gaze. She sank to her knees before him, her fingers quickly opening his trousers. She thrust her hand into his trousers, freeing him, and then further underneath him until a finger found his anus. “I want you to come in my mouth,” she said, covering him with her lips.

A moment later he felt his testes explode and the semen bursting forth. The orgasm wracked his body and began to subside, but still she didn’t stop. With one hand she held him still rigid and kept drawing on his glans until he could no longer bear the agony, his penis feeling like nothing but raw nerve ends. He sank his hand in her hair and pulled her away from him.

Her cheeks and chin were covered with semen that had escaped her mouth. For a long moment he stared at her until he caught his breath. “You’re crazy,” he said.

Her eyes suddenly turned cold. “I’m not like my mother,” she said angrily. “Don’t ever say that to me again.”

She started to get to her feet. His hands on her shoulders kept her down. “I didn’t mean that kind of crazy,” he said quickly. “I meant crazy great.”

He felt the tension leave her. “You fucked with my mother, didn’t you?”

He nodded.

“Was she good?”

He looked at her. “Yes. But not like you. You’re fantastic.”

“She wasn’t really crazy,” she said. “She had a nervous breakdown.
She was working too hard and there were too many things on her mind.”

“I know that,” he said.

She rose to her feet. “Christ, I’m soaking wet. I must have come a thousand times.” She wiped herself with her fingers then raised them to her mouth and sucked them. Again she pressed her fingers into herself. This time she held them out to him. “Taste me.”

Slowly he licked her fingers.

“Good?” she asked.

“Like honey.”

“As good as my mother?”

“Better,” he said.

She laughed aloud and pulled his face toward her. “Then eat me,” she said.

***

Johann parked the car in front of her apartment house. He sat there a moment with the motor running, then reached across to open the door for her.

“It’s early yet. Why don’t you come in for a nightcap?” she asked.

He smiled to himself as he always did when she spoke German. The faint American accent gave the language a strange musical sound, a softness it did not ordinarily have. He answered in English. “Thank you,” as he switched off the motor.

The light scent of her perfume and the warmth of her body seemed to permeate him as they stood in the tiny elevator barely large enough for the two of them as it took them up to her apartment on the third floor. He felt a slight sense of relief when it finally stopped and he could hold the door to let her out. He followed her to her apartment and waited while she opened the door with her key, then followed her inside.

It was a small apartment, what the French called a “studio,” which consisted of a fair-sized room with a bed that doubled as a couch during the day, a kitchen in a double-doored closet, and a separate bathroom. A lamp was glowing in the far corner of the room, and that, more than anything else, showed that she was basically American. No Frenchman or other European would leave a light on while he was not at home.

She gestured toward an armchair. “I have whiskey, gin, vodka and cognac.”

“Cognac, please.” He watched while she opened the small kitchen doors and took down the bottle and two glasses from the closet over the sink. She poured the golden liquor into the glasses, then came back to him. He took one from her hand. “Thank you,” he said.

She smiled. “Are you always so formal when you come to a lady’s apartment?” she asked, speaking in English now.

“Habit,” he answered. He held up his glass. “
Santé.
”

They clinked glasses and sipped. “You can sit down now,” she said, crossing to the couch and sitting opposite him.

He sat down carefully as the chair was fragile and might break under him. It was deceptively comfortable and he sank into it. He swirled the cognac in his glass and sipped at it again.

“Dinner was lovely,” she said. “I really enjoyed it.”

“You didn’t eat much.”

She laughed. “I have to watch my diet.”

“Why? You look perfect to me.”

She laughed again. “That’s why I have to watch it. Every ounce I swallow turns into a pound on me.”

He was silent for a moment. “Anyway, I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“I did, really.” Then she too was silent.

He sipped at his cognac again. “I suppose I’d better finish my drink and go,” he said. “I have to be at work early tomorrow.”

“Johann,” she said. “I’ll be going back to the States next week.”

He nodded slowly. “I thought you might be. When do you plan your next trip back here?”

She met his eyes. “I don’t think I’ll be coming back. At least not for a long time.”

He felt a sinking feeling in his chest. “I’m sorry, Heidi. I’ve come to look forward to your visits.”

“I am too,” she said. “But only because I’ll miss you.”

He was silent again, swirling the amber liquid in his glass.

“I’ve been coming to Paris every third month for two years now, Johann,” she said. “And each time we see each other. Lunch, dinners. I can’t count how many times. I know how you feel about me, yet you never say anything. Never. Why, Johann? I don’t understand, why?”

He took a deep breath, meeting the hurt look in her blue eyes. “I’m forty-six years old, Heidi. Seventeen years older than you.”

“Sixteen,” she said quickly. “I’ll be thirty next month.”

He didn’t smile. “I’m a serious man, a respectful man. I’m not a playboy who would have a casual affair with you. I like you too much.”

“I’m not a child, Johann. I’m a woman. And a divorced woman at that. Don’t you think that I have feelings too? And desires?” She shook her head. “But you never said anything. And you still haven’t told me why.”

“I have responsibilities, heavy responsibilities,” he said.

“I know about that,” she said. “Janette and Lauren. I haven’t been deaf and you’ve certainly talked enough about it. But does that mean that you cannot have a life of your own? Or a family of your own if you should want it?”

“They have no one but me to protect them. I made a promise. First to von Brenner. Then to Tanya. I can’t go back on my word.”

“I’m not saying you should go back on your word,” she said. “I’m only saying that you’re entitled to have a life of your own, that’s all.”

“Heidi,” he said.

She heard the pain in his voice and rose from the couch. She sank to her knees in front of him and looked up into his face. “I love you, Johann, Do you love me?”

“Yes.” The words tumbled from his lips. “Yes, I love you.”

“Then, for God’s sake, kiss me,” she cried. “You know in all of two years, you never even once kissed me.”

He leaned down toward her as her arms went up around his neck, his mouth searching her soft lips and tasting the salt of her tears.

***

She found a place to park, jumped her car onto the sidewalk and got out and locked it. She smiled, pleased with herself. That was one of the advantages of a mini—it could be parked anywhere.

It was a little after eleven o’clock at night but in La Coupole it was high noon. The theaters were just beginning to empty and already the brasserie was jammed with people. She pushed her way through the crowds waiting for a table and went to the back of the restaurant. There was a table in the far corner that had everything but their names on it. From seven in the evening on, one or the other of their crowd was always sitting there. They had an unspoken rule that until two o’clock in the morning whoever was at the table could not leave until someone came in to take it over. If it was empty for even one minute, it would be gone, and then they would have to stand in line like the rest of the crowd.

Marie-Thérése and Françoise were sitting at the table, Coca-Colas in front of them, staring at Jean, whose head was resting on his folded arms on the table, his untouched pastis next to his elbow. She bent over and kissed both girls on the cheek, then straightened up. “What’s the matter with him?” she asked.