The Hunter's Prey (9 page)

I wanted to say yes but I knew that my landlady would never consent to a man visiting me after hours. She had standards that would put the minister’s wife back home to shame. I tried to explain this to Jean-Marie. He just smiled at me and told me not to be surprised if I had a visitor the next evening.
 

The next day was awful. My landlady had a list of chores for me that would amaze Cinderella’s stepmother. I didn’t even start scrubbing the oven until after doing the supper dishes. So there I was, newspapers spread over the floor and windows wide open to the cold winter air. Even with wearing an enormous apron over my faded pink dress and heavy rubber gloves, I still had smudges on my face. My hair was escaping from the bandanna like rats off a sinking ship.
 

You know, Joan, you really don’t have to laugh quite that hard! Why do you think I have a maid now?

So, that’s when my landlady came to tell me that a lady had come to call on me. I didn’t want to see anyone and told her to say no. But she kept insisting and finally I had to go see the person who’d managed to get the Landlady From Hell to carry a message.

You can imagine my surprise to see the most picture perfect lady waiting in the front parlor. She was wearing a peppermint pink suit with its full skirt carefully laid out over the sofa. Her outfit was complete down to matching hat, gloves, purse and shoes. Then she turned her head and I saw… Jean-Marie.
 

My mouth dropped open. I swear that he made a prettier girl than I ever have. Even his voice was gorgeous—like Ava Gardner with a French accent. I wanted to scream that it wasn’t fair. I wanted to ask him how he got his makeup to look that good. And I was suddenly miserably conscious of just how much I looked like Cinderella’s poor relation.
 

I was angry and upset that he was wearing a dress. I started to yell at him but realized quickly that my landlady would be furious. She’d probably throw me out if she knew that a man was visiting me in her house, a man who wore women’s clothes to make things even worse. I bit my lip, not knowing what to do or say.

Jean-Marie caught my eyes then. He looked tense, which didn’t match the self-confident student who’d aided me in the library’s stacks. He silently urged me to calm down.
 

I took a deep breath and sat down. I looked at everything in that over-crowded room except Jean-Marie.

Then I heard my landlady offering to finish in the kitchen so I could visit with Miss Marie for as long as I liked. Jean-Marie accepted that offer promptly, watching the woman serenely. He reminded me of our barn cats back home: they always presented themselves at the side door at the same time every day for their saucer of food. They never bothered asking for it; they simply expected you to provide it as soon as they appeared. Jean-Marie had the same overwhelming confidence that my landlady would provide what was necessary, just because he wanted it.

I studied Jean-Marie then, trying to see how he did it. How could he look so absolutely confident in a dress? He had been so masculine in the library.
 

My brother and I had lots of arguments about peppermint candy when we were children. You know, the red and white striped kind? We argued endlessly about whether it was a red candy or a white candy. I started to wonder whether Jean-Marie was masculine or feminine. I started to look for signs of him being a man, under all the stripes of women’s clothing.

I could see his shoulders, layered with muscle where a woman’s would be fragile bones and smooth skin under the dress. I noticed his wrists, rich with tendons and veins, unlike a woman’s delicacy. In fact, his hands reminded me of Errol Flynn in the old movies my mother loves: a swordsman’s hands, as quick to caress as to kill. His legs were an athlete’s legs, showing corded muscle rather than a woman’s sleek lines.

He sat on the boarding house sofa like a soldier waiting for a call to arms, ready to move in any direction at a moment’s notice. A lady would have alighted on the sofa, relaxing as if in her own home.
 

I saw more and more of the man as I stared at him: the strong neck, the hard lines of cheek and jaw, the eyes…

I swallowed hard when I looked into his eyes fully. He looked at me as if I were the most beautiful woman in the world. I blushed and looked down at my hands. Then my eyes returned to him.
 

Jean-Marie stood up with a rustle of petticoats, collected me with a glance, and moved smoothly upstairs. I followed, jealous of how much easier he walked in high-heel shoes than I ever had. He glided through the house like the cat he reminded me of. He made going up those steep narrow stairs look like the simplest thing anyone ever had to do.
 

I cast a quick glance back downstairs but couldn’t see That Woman. I took a deep breath and kept going.
 

My room was upstairs in the attic and looked like a disaster. Books and dirty clothes were scattered around until you could hardly find the furniture. Not that the furniture was much to look at but…
 

Anyway, I gestured helplessly for him to sit down. Jean-Marie sat down on the narrow bed like Grace Kelly and folded his hands. I started to ask questions but he held up one finger. I fell silent and waited too.

Then I heard my landlady huffing up the stairs. It was the first time I’d ever heard her climb the stairs. My jaw dropped when she appeared at my door, carrying coffee and cookies for two. I had no idea she owned a fancy coffeepot. Jean-Marie, of course, accepted the refreshments as a natural part of everyday life and then got the woman out of there. I shut the door after her and looked at Jean-Marie.

He began to chuckle at the look on my face. I started to laugh too. We laughed together until tears ran down my face and I couldn’t stand up straight. I collapsed onto the bed against Jean-Marie and hugged him. He kissed the top of my head and held me until I was calmer.
 

We had coffee after that and talked about history. Jean-Marie had some great stories about the Founding Fathers, stories that made them real people but that I’ve never found in a book. He made the Constitution come alive for me as the work of individual men trying to make a better life for their children. I fell in love with those men and their work that night.
 

Then he started quizzing me. He asked me all of the exam questions, plus a few more that were harder than anything the professor thought of. We worked on those questions until I was word perfect…

No more wine please, Joan. What with the banquet, I’ve had too much already!

When we finished, it was after midnight and you could see the full moon through the window. We were sitting on the bed together—well, it was the only place to sit in the room. Jean-Marie had his arm around me. His body was as hot and strong as a sports car on an August day but I could feel his underthings’ lace beneath the pink wool. His mascara still looked good even from that close. I could smell his cologne, something spicy and masculine.
 

I asked him who taught him how to wear pink wool and high heels like that. He smirked and told me that he’d learned from the Sun King.
 

I laughed at that. I know the men back then were fancy dressers but still! Then I leaned up and kissed him on the mouth. Well, he’d been so sweet, even if he did stretch the truth, and I had to do something to ruin that lipstick! His feminine disguise was driving me crazy and I wanted to see more of the man.
 

Jean-Marie promptly kissed me back. He kissed like an angel, as if he could spend hours and hours making love to my mouth. I figured out real fast that he was a far better kisser than Jerry Black, second-string tackle on my high school’s football team and the only fellow I’d ever kissed before.
 

I enjoyed his kisses and after a while, I started to do some of the kissing myself. Jean-Marie encouraged me to experiment and, well, time flew by.
 

Somehow we managed to lie down on the bed, both of our skirts sliding up to our waists. Jean-Marie got my dress open and started fondling my breasts. Pretty soon he had his hand between my legs and I lost all power of rational thought. I felt dizzy; my head was spinning as if peppermint candy’s red and white stripes were swirling around me.
 

When he moved his mouth back up from my breasts to my mouth, I just grabbed his head and kissed him hard. He gave a satisfied grunt and kissed me as if he couldn’t get enough. Mercifully, he was still kissing me when his finger slipped inside me. I screamed when he took me over the edge for the first time in my life but his mouth swallowed the sound.
 

When I calmed down a bit, he was lying between my legs. He’d put the pillow under my hips and his arms were under my thighs, lifting them up. He’d set aside that pink hat earlier but he still had the wig with its long brown ringlets flowing over his shoulders. His peppermint pink skirts rubbed my ankles. But somehow, he didn’t look feminine at all.
 

Then he took off the wig and dropped it onto the floor. His eyes scorched me. He looked like a pirate who’d just found buried treasure.
 

I swallowed, nervous but not ready to run. His finger stroked down my belly, then further until it started teasing that little part of me that he’d pleasured so well before. I melted for him.
 

The last thing I remember is the gleam in his eyes before his head bent down to me. His tongue started playing with me down there, spending more time and energy than he had on my mouth. I felt a sharp bite on my thigh just before I climaxed yet again...

Later that night, he taught me a few more things, such as how to suck a man like a candy cane. It was fun, like finding peppermint candy, hot and red and spicy, under those fancy skirts of his…
 

What do you mean, how do you suck a man like that? Lordy, Joan, I thought you’ve tried almost everything by now. Let’s see now; how can I explain it?

Jean-Marie and I were lying on the bed together, with his arms wrapped around me. We’d gotten rid of the peppermint pink dress because the wool rubbed my skin. Now his petticoat’s crinolines scratched my legs. I twitched restlessly and tried to move away. Then I just sat up and told him to take it off. His mouth quirked at my tone but he stood up and stripped the wretched thing over his head. My jaw dropped as I looked at my first naked man.

Do you remember that statue of David that we saw in Florence? Not the big marble one by Michelangelo but the elegant bronze one? David as a beautiful youth, with a winged helmet? Recall how you teased me for staring at it for so long and coming back the next day to see it again? Jean-Marie’s body was like that, slim and muscular. Creamy white, unlike the bronze, but deep red where his cock jutted towards me.
 

I touched it carefully with just the tip of my finger. He jerked slightly and hissed softly but didn’t step away. I swirled my finger around the tip, which was an even darker shade of scarlet, and felt its wetness. I tasted my finger and he groaned my name.
 

I wanted to sample more of him so I leaned forward and licked up the thick hard shaft. My tongue bobbed as it came to the fat head and I twisted slightly so I could explore the other side, before returning to the start. Jean-Marie said my name again hoarsely and his hands gripped my hair.
 

I did it again but this time, Jean-Marie’s hands directed my head as I swirled my tongue over him. Another time came under Jean-Marie’s guidance, curving my tongue around, over and down his scarlet shaft. I remembered sucking candy canes, how I followed a red stripe around the long shaft, then up and over the top, before sweeping back around to the base. I tried that motion on him and he growled approval, his hands tightening in my hair.
 

I did it again and again, enjoying how he began to rock under my mouth. My hands came up and echoed my tongue’s movements. Heat built under my attentions and I tasted his own sweet spice, better than anything I’d ever found under in a Christmas stocking.
 

His body jerked harder and faster as I sucked him. The rhythm reminded me of how my hips danced beneath his tongue. Then he tensed and shuddered. I lifted my head and watched thick white drops pulse out from the head of his cock. His cream flowed down his crimson shaft, red and white together like peppermint candy...

Well, what else do you want to know, Joan?
 

That night was when I fell in love with the law and the people who’d made it. The final went well, even though I was still bleeding a bit from that bite on my thigh. I found a new boarding house for the second semester and things got better at the University.
 

Occasionally, my thigh will start burning under a full moon and I’ll feel a little trickle of blood running down. Then I’ll go to the library and browse through the stacks, hoping to hear a French voice talking about the Founding Fathers…

A Tale Of Ethan Templeton

I’ve been working on a grandfather’s book of memories, which makes me feel ancient. The cowboy told me that I would remember but I could only speak of it once. So I am writing this now, while I still recall the details, just to prove to myself that even a tenured professor of mathematics and his wife were young and crazy once.