Naughty Paris. Jina Bacarr

I gave to La Comtesse du Chalons. Hélas, you must be mistaken, mademoiselle. La comtesse took the portrait with her to London.”

      “No mistake, Monsieur Borquet,” I say, playing the game and enjoying it. Evidently the portrait I saw in the modern art studio traveled from one owner to another through the years. “I like the real thing better.”

      “Pardon?” he says, not quite understanding me.

      “American humor.”

      “Ah, so you’re une Americaine, mademoiselle.”

      I nod. “Autumn Maguire from—”

      No, don’t tell him any more. Not now.

      Paul raises his eyebrows, then laughs. “It doesn’t matter to me where you’re from, mademoiselle. You’re not like the English girls who raise their skirts in the dance halls. Cheap and bawdy with a smirk on their lips and fat arms and legs.” He leans closer, looking at me curiously. “You have the body of a goddess, made pour faire l’amusette, love play.”

      He lifts my petticoat with his cane and rubs the inside of my thigh with his walking stick. What took him so long? I tingle all over, warm and happy and very aroused. I don’t pull back. I try taking slow, deep breaths. Instead, my breathing becomes wildly ragged.

      Don’t get turned on, kiddo. You don’t even know where you are.

      My eyes dart around the ancient courtyard. I can’t deal with this insane situation until I find the courage to accept the fact I’ve traveled back in time. I have to do it quickly before my angst swells into a panic I can’t control.

      Face it.

      This is Old Paris.

      Grime-crusted towers and turrets, broken cobbles. A medieval atmosphere hangs in the air like an old tapestry fraying at the edges, its faded glory begging for a second look. I see several ramshackle town houses huddled together around a small square of broken stones with piles of rags neatly lined up in a row around the perimeter.

      Suddenly the rags move, and tiny, taut faces peep out from underneath their dirty shells of clothing. The smell of unwashed, diseased bodies overcomes me. The scene is like a curtain opening on the final act, where the near-dead play at living.

      This is Old Paris.

      In a instant where I am, who I am, why I’m here, are all erased in one breathless sweeping moment when Paul draws me into his arms and does what I’ve been wanting him to do again. Kiss me. Hard. Deeply. Like a man who doesn’t like his pleasure to be hurried. A man who knows what he wants. It isn’t like any kiss I’ve ever experienced. His mouth moves slightly over mine, his tongue touching the insides of my lips, exploring. Damn him. I can’t move. Arms pinned behind my back. Breasts pressed up against his chest. My whole body is tense. I feel breathless but for all the wrong reasons.

      I try to wiggle free but he pulls me closer.

      “Don’t be afraid, ma belle.” The handsome artist laughs, spreading his arms wide, opening his black cape like angel wings reaching up to the heavens. “No harm will come to you with Paul Borquet as your protector.”

      “Who’s going to protect me from you?” I look hard into his dark blue eyes. They hold secrets I must know, but they’re impossible to read.

      “When the time comes for you to fulfill your part of our bargain…

      That lascivious act I mentioned earlier.

      “…I will arouse you to such heights you will feel no pain.”

      “Why would I feel pain?” I have to ask. A whack on the butt, okay, but let’s not get carried away.

      “Your cunt is hot and tight, even for a girl so young.”

      Young? Can’t he see I’m a woman, not a virgin schoolgirl? Though I admit, I’m a woman falling ridiculously in love with a man younger than myself. Much younger. He can’t be more than his midtwenties. I haven’t given it much thought until now, due to the lingering effects of this entire fantasy on my brain.

      Yet I have to admit I feel different. I put my hands on my waist—it is smaller—place my palm on my stomach—flatter. Damn, I wish I could find a mirror, find out if the Egyptian god Min worked his magic on me.

      Paul has no idea what’s going through my mind and thinks I’m teasing him.

      “Mademoiselle feels sexual excitement, n’est-ce pas?” he says, placing his hands on mine, squeezing my waist, moving his hand over my stomach, down…down…lower. Is he counting the rows of ruffles on my petticoat hiding my pussy from him? If he’s not, I am. Okay, I’m stalling. I can’t let myself get carried away. Who knows who’s watching us? All I have to do is part my legs and he’ll move his head between my thighs to my cunt. And you know what happens next. Tickle and tingle. Big-time.

      I shake my head. “Not with everyone watching, monsieur,” I say firmly, looking around. “Where are we?”

      “These are the homes of the truands, the beggars, the lame and the blind. They’re my friends.”

      As if on cue a tiny rag-covered child—or is it an adult?—hurries up to Paul and whispers in his ear. I watch silently as he draws a coin out of his pocket and gives it to the beggar. Then he grabs me by the arm and pushes me into a tiny alleyway.

      “Vite, quickly,” he says, “we must leave here.”

      “Why?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

      “Word is out on the streets Monsieur Renard is looking for a girl with red hair wearing only a red velvet cloak. They will look for you here among the beggars. Vien, come—”

      “Where are we going?” I ask. I won’t listen to the little voice in my head, telling me if I am young and beautiful, then I’ve sold my soul. Telling me what I don’t want to believe. All I feel is the sting of the artist’s kiss lingering on my lips.

      I have no choice but to follow him, hugging the doorways and staying close behind the artist as he heads down the twisting rue des Halles toward the Seine. Everywhere I look citizens attend to their daily lives—going to the market, the cafés, the shops, their offices, cleaning the streets. I slip in and out of reality, a worrisome fear bobbing up and down in my stomach. A fear that grows with each moment.

      After a few blocks, Paul slows our pace, though I stay close behind him as we walk along the edge of the Seine near the Pont Neuf. Standing on the quay under the trees shading the banks of the river, I look out over the Seine, puzzled. In my time, the river is filled with foam plastic cups, ducks, even used condoms. Now it ripples along its mile course through the city filled with boats carrying cargoes of grain going upstream, wine going down. Heavy traffic of brightly painted barges, bateaux-lavoirs for the city’s washerwomen, as well as commuter boats, congest the canal. People scurrying about, everyone is caught up in their daily lives.

      I grow cold all the way through my cloak to my petticoat to my bones. I hug myself, shivering all over. “Tell me, monsieur, what year is it?”

      “Alors, mademoiselle, it’s 1889.”

      1889.

      I start to laugh, choke on the laugh, then seek refuge in incessant babbling. I’m alive in 1889 Paris and the artist in the portrait is also alive and here with me.

      Silly words, meaningless words to Paul Borquet. Puzzled, he takes a flask out of his jacket and the violent whiff of alcohol pushes through the stale air, its scent making me dizzy. The artist holds the flask of strong liqueur out to me, its heady bouquet making my eyes water. He passes his hand over it, as if to make it disappear, then sniffs it with approval.

      “You need a drink, mademoiselle.”

      “Why not?” I say. Something, anything that will help the throbbing in my head go away so I can think out this whole crazy situation.

      I inhale deeply, then take the flask Paul offers me, drinking the liqueur down quickly,