She moved her chair a little closer to mine. I had left the windows open, and a cool draft ruffled the drapes and swayed the curtains. “Is that what you heard?”
“It was more like a stir, a muffled sweep of cloth against cloth. That’s when I came to your room.” She looked at me deeply with her twinkling black eyes. A full head of long brown hair flounced about as she turned her face toward me. I studied her fine aquiline nose, her high, arched eyebrows, her freckled pink cheeks and rich red lips and wondered why I had never noticed her before. Her sweater’s rounded bulges of orange-sized breasts were equally noticeable. She smiled when she caught me looking at her. “I wish you would stay with me tonight,” she said with crimson cheeks. “I know that’s terribly forward and a bit hasty, but I’m afraid. Really, quite so!”
I leaned forward and kissed her. Her hands trembled as she touched my forearm. She pressed her soft, wet mouth against mine. I could feel her tongue. We each sipped our wine and kissed one another again. I studied her eyes. They were sparkling, yet demure.
“I need to go to my room for a few things,” I said.
“I’ll be waiting,” she kissed me gently with her warm lips.
When I returned, she was clad in a silky, rose nightgown. I could see the curves of her breasts and the indentation that her naval created, along with the lines of her thighs.
She stepped toward me and began unbuttoning my shirt. I slipped off my trousers and underclothes. She removed her slippers and I my shoes, and we lay down on the bed together. I put my arms under hers and around her back and rolled against her. We kissed and fondled each other and changed positions while emitting a series of pleasurable moans. I had not loved a woman this way since the breakup with the “beautiful girl” I had mentioned to Julene. I wondered if intimacy with Julene would be as lusty or glowing as this.
Christine adjusted her legs and opened them fully. Her hands guided me along. The rush came amidst a powerful throe of audible groans of enjoyment.
“Oh, God! Don’t let me go yet,” she whispered. “Please don’t leave for a while.”
“I’m here for the night, if you want.”
“Yes. Oh, yes.” She kissed my ears and neck.
We lay there for a long time; then rolled out of bed to wash off and pour ourselves the remaining wine. We propped ourselves up on her long French pillows, lay naked under the sheet, and sipped the wine.
After a while, she began to talk. “My mother was killed during the Blitz. My father died of a seizure while working at the plant, near our cottage. An elderly aunt raised me and put me through school. What about you?”
“I was reared on a farm in Virginia, of proud Scots-Irish and English descendants. They were proud relics of ante-bellum aristocracy, including the Civil War. Only the land remained after that fiasco, and now much of it is mortgaged to banks. But I loved roving it as a kid, fishing its streams, and hunting quail in the fall.”
“Sounds idyllic. You’re a born romantic.”
“That’s what everyone says, though I teach logic and arcane subjects as epistemology and metaphysics.”
“‘Inane’ might be a better word.”
“Thanks a lot. Just for that, I’m coming after those breasts again.”
I handed her my wine glass, while I rolled against her soft body and put my mouth over her right breast.
“Oh, God! I’m going to want to do it again, if you don’t stop,” she laughed.
She set the wine glasses down and we played with each other some more.
“What have I started?” she whispered. “I’ll probably hate myself in the morning.” She kissed my chest and stroked my loins.
“Why? Whatever evil lies in this?”
“No evil. Just pain. I’m not ready to have my heart broken again. You are beautiful, and your body is great. You’re quite a chap, you know.”
“That’s the kindest thing any woman has said to me in months.”
“You sweet man,” she signed, as she placed her hands between my legs. “How I needed you tonight!”
I fondled her with my tongue and kissed her naval.
“Snuggle against me and hold me. Put your arm around my bosom and let’s drift to sleep. I have to be at the Institut by seven.”
I slipped out of bed, closed the windows and fastened the latch. I turned off the light and climbed in beside her. I lay my face against her long hair, nudged my nose against a warm ear, cupped her breasts in my hands, and listened to her breathing. Soon, she was asleep. The darkness of the room slipped within my own dream world; mists of white fog lifted me skyward. I was flying, soaring like a great bird, gliding across Paris, the Seine, Notre Dame, the Ile de la cité. From somewhere a black girl was calling. I was scampering through the wheat, near a split-rail fence. I was a child once more on the farm. I could see the hay, the ripening corn, the green tobacco plants, the dust from the horses harvesting the wheat, the trout stream in the bottom meadow, and the cattle on the pastured hills.
The next morning, we kissed, and I returned to my room. That evening she passed my table, smiled, and placed her hand momentarily on my shoulder. She walked to her seat without glancing back. I knew she needed time, just as I did. But the memory of our sensuous liaison fired my heart for more. I knew she needed me as much as I needed her. Perhaps time would bring us together again. I would have to wait and see.
4
Two weeks passed. Not once did I hear a single word from Julene or Carl, or anyone. Even Christine had disappeared. I filled my days with matutinal walks about the Garden of Luxembourg, or through it, if it were open, studied at the Bibliothèque Nationale, translated Pascal and some Baudelaire, and began drafting the first chapters of a new book. I intended to entitle it: From Descartes to Kant: Exploring the Epistemology of Doubt. A university press had already expressed interest in the project, which brought great relief. Consequently, I was able to write every morning on the book, without the anxiety of wondering who would publish it. In the afternoons, I would take long walks through the neighborhood, or take the metro to different arrondissements to revisit my favorite museums, or quartiers and parks.
It was now the third week of April. As I sat in my room, I found myself intrigued by Sullivan’s exposition of the Minotaur story.
Let us tackle the transparency of this myth, first. It has to be at a time prior to Greece’s independence of the Minoan period. Tribute is still being paid to the Island of Crete. No unequivocal archeological evidence exists to support human sacrifice, but it might have occurred. The time frame appears to precede the Doric invasions, as well as the disappearance of fabled Atlantis. These “events” follow the massive volcanic eruptions that happened to the north of Crete and signaled, in turn, its own demise. Perhaps a date of 1500–1300 BC is not out of order. Troy is still on the horizon, but the displaced People of the Sea, who invade Egypt and the coast of Canaan, arrive at this time.
Also to be noted is the secondary role assigned to the labyrinth and the Minotaur. From the rise of the Akkadians to the decline of the Babylonian Empire, a male-warrior society begins to undermine the role of the Goddess. Her symbols recede in significance and are replaced by more violent and virile icons. Among these are the fierce bull, tiered crowns that point to heaven to a dominant Father Sky, to the epics that hail the victory of Marduk over Tiamat (maligned as a feminine chaotic force and goddess of water and the grave). Crete had heretofore been spared this diminution of the Goddess, as witnessed in the graceful depictions of both male and female acrobats, somersaulting over the backs of bulls, who serve the Mother Goddess. Now the bull has become a symbol of terror, of death to