Portia

During my visit to Paris for a travel article, I encountered a woman named, Portia. Her elegance was immediately obvious in every graceful movement of her statuesque body. She appeared to be 5' 10", with long legs, slender arms and delicate fingers. Her hair was a rich, raven, split in the middle and falling half way down her back. Her wardrobe didn't quite do justice to her ample boobs, and her beautifully rounded bottom immediately grabbed my attention, making her most striking feature unforgettable. In her curve hugging, short dress, the graceful arc from her waist down to the base of her hips was evident, like a delicate swoop drawn by an artist. Her ass cheeks were adorably firm, shaped like teardrops with a rounded base, offering pleasing symmetry and a subtly suggestive furrow. It was a heart-shaped masterpiece, reminiscent of a finely crafted posterior from an elegant marble statue.

Her steps, though measured, suggested an athletic confidence, and even as she stood on the far side of the patio, at this half-empty cafe on Saint-Germain-des-Pres, the way she folded herself into the chair, when shown to her seat was a performance of unconscious, exquisite control time tested to conceal the beautiful secrets between her legs. She crossed one leg over the other, and I instantly watched the fabric pull at her hips, the dim, honeyed light emphasis all her soft curves and the exquisite creaminess of her skin.

Portia noticed my interest but like all refined French women was not entirely opposed to it. She had a small, enigmatic smile, the kind that could have signaled complicity or simple amusement at my transparent admiration. She set her handbag on the chair next to her with stylish nonchalance, and I realized I was waiting to see what she would do next. Clearly aware the other patrons on the patio noticed her as well, Portia drummed her fingers several times on the tabletop, expecting the waiter to immediately take notice. When that didn't happen she fixed her gaze on me. She had blue of glacial eyes, intense but in the next instant, melting as she expressed interest in me.

"Alors (So)," she said, and wrapped her tongue elegantly around the lone syllable.

"You're American."

It wasn't a question.

She paused for the waiter, to order vermouth and water and declined a menu with a casual flick of her wrist. I understood my own gestures to be too clumsy, my posture too casual, my senses flummoxed by her interest. I had not come to Paris expecting adventures or encounters; I had come to write about travel, and found myself unable to respond to her simple statement.

Portia waited smiling, chin propped on her hand, watching me squirm like an idiot. Finally, she leaned towards me, her earrings catching the sunlight and scattering flecks of gold. "I would have easily guessed," she said, "by the way you dress." She paused for emphasis, then grinned slyly. "Every American I meet, even if they wear a suit, does not look as good as a Frenchman."

Something in her forthrightness unnerved me; I managed a laugh. "I hope I could disguise my origins," I said.

"Ah, but fashion is life and voyeurism is spying only with better manners." She took a sip from her cocktail, her fingers circling the stem of the glass like a pianist. "So. Did you see anything you liked, earlier?"

I understood what she was asking and wondered if I would be reprimanded for my clumsiness. This was the moment her dress hiked up another inch, revealing a lack of tan line above her mid thigh. I covered my confusion with several coughing. "I was looking at two older men playing chess at a nearby table," I said, and this lie tumbled from my lips so easily it almost sounded plausible. "Those men, they remind me of my grandfather."

Portia's lips parted, a softening of her entire face, then skepticism returned. She turned in her chair, chin still balanced on those elegant fingers, and surveyed the men looking at a chessboard while sipping coffee. "Chess is international," she said. "You wish to watch the game but do you want to play." She twisted back to me. "Tell me, were you good at chess?"

"No," I admitted. "My grandfather never let me win."

She seemed pleased at this, as if something just confirmed order in the universe. "He was wise, your grandfather. He taught you how to lose." Seeing if I accepted her words. Our conversation, for a while, was nothing beyond the mundane: the cost of rents, the chaos at Gare du Nord, the recent elections and the past dreary winter of which I knew nothing. Yet in these unremarkable topics, Portia's voice, turned into something more pleasant, something charged with wit.

"You were looking at me," she asked straightforwardly.

The question sat in the space between our tables and was meant to expose me?

"Only a little," I said, unwilling to acknowledge defeat.

"At least you're honest." She rattled the ice in her glass thoughtlessly. "And earnest. Americans always remind me of a piece of paper. You can see through to their intent, even when they're trying to hide it with words." The compliment, if it was one, made my tense. I considered the different levels of performance taking place: she, immaculate and poised, possibly rehearsed, and me, uncertain whether I was the audience or part of her theater.

Portia let me stew, allowing the late-afternoon air to fill the moment like poured syrup. She selected a small cracker from the basket and applied Camembert from the plate.

She asked what brought me to Paris, and I could sense the disappointment when I said, "Travel writing," though she hid it with a quick, feminine smirk. "It's a very American thing," she said. "To travel. To wish for reinvention. To write about it."

"And the French?" I asked.

"We do not reinvent. We improve, sometimes. Or we simply live with the flaws, embracing them because they are ours." She smiled, which pleased me immensely. "You have a flaw, you know. Not in your clothes. I can see it in your eyes."

The honesty rattled me. I wanted desperately to know what she meant.

Portia drummed her finger against the stem of her glass, eyes fixed on me with cool dissection, as if she were intent on extracting and naming all my flaws. "You observe, but you are afraid to be observed," she said finally. "Americans are like that. Curious, but anxious at the first moment attention is reversed."

I felt a flush gather under my collar, the embarrassment of being so shown up. I wanted to protest, phrase something clever about American forthrightness but her gaze paralyzed my thinking.

"It's not so bad," Portia continued. "It means you see beautiful things but sometimes do not realize they are looking back."

She offered this admonishment so gently and without malice, that I felt myself liking her small barbs. Me, a stranger to the city, searching for an angle for my article, meeting someone who'd taken an interest in me. What could be more fortuitous.

The waiter approached and mumbled to Portia in French. She responded rapidly in French but excluding me from the exchange. I saw her eyebrow lift, a gesture that swept me into her conspiracy. There was no rush to close the bill, only an unhurried return to our conversation, which now felt very interesting, as if I had passed a test. Portia's glass was nearly empty and her tongue, when it licked the clinging droplet from her lip, made her seem uncharacteristically vulnerable.

She leaned towards my table, she said. "You see, I am curious about you. But less shy about it."

"Oh," I said giving her a reason to finish her thoughts.

She laughed. "Ah, my dear American! Always so hopeful. Maybe it is travel that gives you courage. Or maybe its your glass of wine." She drummed the table. "Come. Walk with me down the Boulevard. I'll show you my little part of Paris."

With that, she stood and retrieved her bag from the chair, placing Euros on the table. For a beat, I floundered, fumbling for my wallet and tried to leave my table without knocking it over. She stood statuesque on the curb, her attire and demeanor consistent with a most fashionable Parisian woman. I paid and followed her, and as I caught up, she slowed till we fell into step.

The world outside the cafe seemed subtly different, more real. Portia enhanced every space she occupied. She glanced in my direction and caught me studying her, so I let myself continue, the way I might take in a painting, as if each detail were sacred and no to be missed. Her bare legs, the play of her shoulder blades beneath the dress, the way her boobs bounced with each step and oh, the magnificent way her bottom rolled and swayed. She paused before the crossing a side street, turning her head, to ask,

"Do you mind if I smoke?" then producing a slim cigarette and lighting it from a gold lighter. The first exhalation carried a fragrance completely unlike any American brand, something aromatic and faintly floral, not at all unpleasant. "It keeps men at the proper distance," she said, then flicked a teasing glance at me, "unless they are very determined."

She exhaled and I wondered whether I could be a man who was very determined, or if I would be her American, passive observer. We walked further down the tree lined, Saint-Germain-des-Pres Boulevard. It was late May and the light had a brand new quality, the sort that made the neighborhood seem vibrant. Portia set our pace: never too fast, as if she'd discovered that every step was to be cherished. She narrated the city in small, perfect doses. 'Here is the bookseller who hates tourists. Here's the bakery with lemony, angelic cakes.' She led us past places I'd imagined were only for insiders, threading through the uncrowded sidewalk with a flawless air. People noticed Portia; the elderly waved, a cyclist chimed his bell twice and called out her name, a glassy-eyed boy slouching against a lamppost, was happy to be acknowledged by such a pretty woman. Portia recognized each gesture but never gave them a reason to go further because her attention always returned to me.

We finally reached her apartment building.

"I live on the second floor. It is quite nice. My modeling work pays me enough to live in this desirable part of Paris. Might I convince you to see my apartment? We could have a coffee. Then I'll let you take me to dinner later," she said without any hesitancy. She locked arms with me as we climbed the front steps. Her arms, entwined in mine, and she smelled surprisingly sweet, even after a cigarette. The stairwell was not the romantic spiral I'd expected, but a modern, institutional shaft smelling of lemon and dust. She led the way, in a deliberately showcase of her calves and the oscillating hemline of her dress which came dangerously close to exposing her most delightful bits. By the time we reached the second floor, my face showed the exertion.

Her apartment was curated with select items, the only noise was the echo of the front door closing. Portia flipped on lights: not the harsh white bulbs of my cheap accommodations but warm, amber lamps, veiled by linen shades and gold filaments, each perfectly positioned to throw light and shadow with painterly effect. The windows were open to the street, with no screens, there were high ceilings and the kind of long, shallow balcony only the French could exploit: two chairs, a table, and a ceramic ashtray heaped with evidence of previous afternoons sat by the balcony doors. Portia quickly cleared the ashtray for view.

Her high heels made a precise, measured click against the wooden herringbone floor as she moved through the two bedroom space. I noticed, the meticulous arrangement of books and framed magazine pages featuring Portia, the leaning canvases and dried bouquets, and above all, the enormous mirror that dominated the wall above the fireplace in the salon. Portia caught my eye in a kitchen mirror staring at her behind, when she bent slightly to plug in an electric kettle. I could see her smile. She didn't ask how I took my coffee; she simply made it.

"Sit," she directed me. She gestured to the small table near the balcony. I obeyed, feeling the give of the chair's rattan webbing as I sat. Portia turned on the espresso, letting the machine come to temperature and pressure.

"If you don't mind I want to take off this dress and get more comfortable. I'm making tea and coffee," she said in her delightful French accent. Which ever you prefer."

The tone immediately because 'get more comfortable' is an intention. She clickity-clacked into the bedroom, leaving the door ajar. I listened to the faint clatter of hangers, the hum of the electric kettle from the kitchen, the light sounds of traffic below the windows. I didn't know what posture to assume in her absence, polite interest in the books on the table, or outright curiosity in the objects of her life, the things she'd placed around to be noticed by others. I removed my jacket and hung it on the back of my chair. I saw a quick glimpse of the side of her naked bottom.

The walls displayed nicely framed art, that had more in common with street artists or lovers. One work, a very precise pencil and charcoal nude, looked very much like Portia, laying on a day couch, her tempting bottom facing the viewer. A delicate arm rested on her side, part of one boob was visible, her head was upright on her bent arm, eyes fixed on the viewer. If this was Portia, her bottom was exquisite, perfectly proportioned with the most enticing anal cleft. I was so mesmerized by the drawing that I didn't hear her walk up behind me, I only felt the pressure of her gaze. Her body was draped in a loose flowered, silk robe that fell a little too easily open at the chest and thighs. I heard my own startled fright at being caught.

"I see you found something interesting," she said. Her amusement was pitch perfect, like a violin string struck at exactly the right note.

I floundered and ended up nodding at the canvas. "It's a beautiful piece," I said.

"Do you think so?"

I tried to look at the art as art and not as a study of Portia's bottom but my face revealed my appreciation. Portia went to the kitchen and made two espressos. She advanced towards me with the coffee in a demitasse and saucer. Since she was holding a coffee cup in each hand, she had no way to prevent her robe from parting. Her boobs were rippling with each step and I saw a hint of labia from between the ajar robe. She passed me the coffee and we both sat at the small table near the window. The breeze cooled the apartment. Portia sat opposite, gathered herself and folding one leg over the other showing a superb amount of leg. The hem of her robe floated three-quarters the way up her thigh ready to fall open with the slightest provocation. She smiled at me. "You grew up in the Midwest, non?" she stated, dropping a sugar cube into her cup.

"No." My espresso was very hot and sour, just as I liked it. "New England. Connecticut actually, then college in Boston." I watched her observe me, seemingly trying decide something.

"Ah, Connecticut. I can see it, now." She leaned into the table. "People from Boston, never apologize for staring. How long will you be in Paris?"

I shrugged, feeling suddenly unformed.

"I haven't decided," I said. I swirled the espresso in my cup, trying to buy a few seconds. "I would stay, if I had a good reason."

This pleased her. She reclined and tucked one arm behind her on the chair, elongating her entire right side so the silk robe audaciously loosened, opening a triangle of skin from her clavicle to belly button. The soft heaviness of her breasts challenged the fabric, threatening to expose the natural beauty gravity created. She watched me uncomfortably trying my best not to stare but losing.

"Maybe I'm a good enough reason, eh?" She smiled, then turned her face to the window not expecting an answer. Below, the afternoon traffic had grown, the city's sounds softened inside the apartment. She exhaled and brought the espresso to her lips, painting them chestnut.

"Am I even interesting enough for a Parisian model," I asked her? "You must constantly have offers."

"Oh, stop it." She said, sound exasperated with my stupidity. "You Americans believe that if we are beautiful we are unapproachable. I'm not Parisian. I was born in London, then my parents moved to Lyon, following my schooling in Antwerp. You see? I am not so pedigree as you imagine." The French accent lent a touch of enjoyable self-mockery to her confession because she absolutely seemed of refined pedigree.

She finished her espresso in a single, fluid motion. With deliberate calm she set the cup on the saucer and reversed the question. "Do you find me interesting? Am I attractive?"

Everything in her manner suggested that the answer was a foregone conclusion but I made myself look at her as a person, not as an artistic painting. "Yes," I said. "Very much so to both questions."

"Good." Portia smiled a wide grin, with her eyes crinkling as she smiled. "You know," she continued, turning several rings around her fingers, "I let very few men up here. Or women, for that matter." She stopped to observe my reaction. "Only when I'm convinced we'll have an entertaining conversation and there are not a shit." She toyed with the word.

She finally started to open up, how she'd started modeling at sixteen and supported her younger sister through university. In Antwerp, the food that was either too rich or too sparse, her schooling. She was brought to Paris by a photographer who made her beautiful and sought after. She was now 27. The conversation shifted onto the balcony, where she smoked another cigarette and she point out some minor architectural curiosity.

"So do you like me. Do you find me sexy," she asked.

The renewed candor jolted me, her words getting more direct, almost abrupt, as if she was growing impatient with the slow boil of flirtation and was ready to ladle it out, in steaming hot bowls. I was only able to muster a, "yes. I find you extraordinary," I admitted. "My words don't do you justice."

Portia giggled and at once the remaining tension dissolved. "You're sweet when you're embarrassed," she admitted, flicking the stub of her cigarette over the balcony.

"Some men can't risk there egos." The robe shifted, exposing the clean, graceful length of her bare body and this time I didn't look away.

"You are gorgeous. Every bit of you is sexy, graceful and you smell amazing," I said.

She shrugged the compliment away with a practiced gesture, but her eyes loved my admiration and did not disguise her pleasure. "Men say these things, but I should warn you, women know when they are true." She took me abruptly took me from the balcony, back to the chair and before I could say anything she walked past me and delicately let her silk robe fall from her shoulders. She turned and let me stare at her body for several beats. Her full teardrop boobs, her thin slender features, the flat stomach that smoothly descended to her bare labia, the lovely gap between her legs.

She walked behind me pressing her fingers into my shoulders, digging in to test the boundaries of my body. I stiffened and she laughed, then leaned forward, so her hair spilled around my cheek. "You're too tense. Paris is for being lazy and to teach you to waste time." The perfume of her, mixed with smoke and espresso, was very arousing. The massage was not sexual, just skilled but it made my cock hard, none the less. When she stopped, it left me happy and relaxed. "You see," she said, "now you're more French." She walked passed me again, I'm sure to entice me with her bottom.

I watched the muscles of her hamstrings stretch, the cleft of her bottom so pronounced and the impossible movements of her glutes. I was thrilling feeling my cock harden for her. I crossed one leg over the other at the knee, but she caught me in the act of trying to hide my erection. Portia smiled, and this time she looked not like a poised Parisian but a mischief woman, thrilled by her effect. She sat in the chair facing me, arms at her side, boobs displaying their natural heft that comes only from a really, feminine woman.

"I guess you're shy after all," she said by someone whose life was spent among exhibitionists and was obviously one herself. She went to the kitchen to refilled our espresso, and watching me watching her. It was the attention she craved, like the photographer's camera focused just on her. When she returned to the table to place my cup down, she stood with her vulva at eye level for more time than was needed. Her labia was perfect, perfectly symmetrical with a meaty inner lips extending out a quarter inch.

"Do you see anything that interests you," she asked.

"I'm interested in everything," I said but I went further.

"I have to tell you, Portia your bottom... is... exquisite. It does something to me," she smiled, when I said that.

"Wasn't my charcoal well worth the money," she asked, happy with herself?

"I think men who like ass are just the best," Portia purred, arching her back as if to put her exquisite butt even more in the light. "There," she said, gesturing at the drawing, "I am more honest than that, the artist's eye betrays none of my moods." She grinned, in a flash of feline pleasure. "That is why it's on my walls. It is a trap but you know must know that, non?"

She removed the demitasse from me, set it off to the side, place a foot on my chair and climbed onto the edge of the table seated in front of me. She was completely nude save her necklace and earrings. She steadied herself with her feet, purposefully opening her legs. I was acutely aware that my hands were trembling as I watched Portia enjoy her full displaying to me. She was proud of her body and now wantonly showed it off.

"What are you thinking," she asking in the most understated question.

It was a trap, an invitation, and a dare all rolled into one. I was thinking of course of her body but also of the strangeness of being so intimately observed by some as shamelessness as Portia.

I wanted her, obviously, anyone would have but she seemed susceptible, so I needed to be cautious. To be sensitive to her needs. So I now spoke with total honesty and directness.

"When I came to France, I never expect to meet someone so beautiful," I said. "I almost feel unworthy when I'm with you." I looked directly at her flushed labia, her belly, her boobs, then her eyes, exactly what I thought she wanted. I could tell she enjoyed her little show. She certainly was not self-consciousness about total nudity or being on display. It was probably normal in her career but in the context of sex, this was different.

"Mais c'est gentil (But that's nice). Too many men, see sex with me as a conquest. They never conquer me, I take them. You, I think, want to be a participant and a witness. That feels about right." She flexed her toes like a dancer on the chair's edge, then pressed a foot into my crotch. "You can touch me. I give you permission to do what ever you most enjoy," she offered, in the strongest sexual tones. The bluntness of it, the invitation so upfront or lacking in pretense was so exciting.

My hands continued to tremble. There is a line in these moments, between the roles you expect to play and the ones you're offered by the alchemy of encounter. My fingers hovered centimeter from the puffy, glistening lips between her legs. She was dripping liquid onto the floor. To actually touch her pussy was beyond my previous experiences. I had my share of lovers but this was on another level.

She gasped softly, in genuine surprise, as I began to caress her labia. I loved the feeling as my fingers traced it. Her feet pressed at my hips, and her hands grasped my hair. I inserted two finger inside, feeling the velvety interior and the delicious hard ridges. I marveled at how shamelessness she could be splayed in front of me and the preternatural slickness I found among her folds. I spread her juice everywhere. I let the pads of my sticky fingers lightly dance on her clitoris, painting it with her wetness, then glancing up to see if this was to her liking and saw enjoyment, in abundance.

Portia never showed a single moment of hesitation, not even the smallest withdrawal or reluctant stutter. She leaned back until her thick, black locks dusted her vertebrae. Her body became less anatomical and more like a sumptuous rendering by Botticelli, her cheeks reddened, her flushed arousal, accompanied by growing wetness. My fingers circled her clit and spreading lubricant everywhere. Her body rocked gently back and forth while I pleasured her, and she said

"Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Right there," her pleasure arrived slowly. She opened her eyes and fixed me a look that spoke volumes for her desire.

She took my wrist, withdrawing my hand, and held it in hers. She bent and sucked my gooey fingers clean, once, then twice, her lips warm, and her tongue silky enjoying her own taste.

"You are so easy to read," she said, "I see no malice in you and that is good. I want you to do everything to me."

She slid off the table onto my lap and straddled me, her knees tensing, the weight of her gently pressing me into the chair. Her whole body was pressing against me. Her hands went to my back of my hair, pulling it, and she deeply kissed me. I could feel a wet spot developing in my lap. Her mouth was more forceful than expected, and then I tasted espresso and tobacco. She crushed her full, soft boobs against me, no longer interested in teasing, only devouring. I felt myself subsumed by Portia, who had, for all her apparent indifference, staged our encounter like a military campaign but here, there was no possibility either of us would lose.

She nipped my lower lip, drawing blood but she didn't care. Her hair hung around my face in a black curtain, her cheeks were radiant, I was completely immersed in Portia's body and it was amazing. Gone was her fashion sense, her grace, her charm, her many lovers, she became to me something urgent, completely desirable, a woman focused only on her sexual appetite. She was a wild delicacy.

She ground her pelvis against me aggressively, like she meant to take her own pleasure. I needed to get out of my clothes now, and do my best to make love to her.

She must have read my mind because she pulled at my tie and unbuttoned my shirt, her fingers making quick work of it. She let me up so I could remove my clothes. I suddenly became self-conscious, aware of my own unremarkable body, my leanness, my slender long cock and low hanging balls. Portia acknowledged none of this. Instead, she leaned to kiss my chest, her lips moist, her tongue drawing small, hot circles and I smelled the unmistakable scent of arousal coming from Portia. Her hungry mouth was everywhere, biting at my nipples, my neck, then licking my ear. She crouched, knees spread wide, holding my cock, she flicked her tongue across the head. She bit my cock. I mean she really bit and chewed it but without breaking skin. I watched her, still half disbelieving, as she sucked me into her throat, her glacial eyes fluttered. She was nonchalantly, like this was well practiced, hands pulling my buttocks towards her, lips and tongue tight against my shaft, the wet sounds of her mouth, her lips finally reaching my body as my cock entered her throat. She sucked my balls, then sucked on my cock like a straw, as if searching for a new flavor. She couldn't prevent herself from swatting my ball sack a few times because it hung so low. I understood the temptation. The air smelled of perfume and cigarettes, and the window let in enough traffic noise to make it clear that life went on outside, unaware of our private obscenities.

It lasted a few short minutes, then she stood, mouth wet and smiling.

"Did you like it," she asked smiling. "I love sucking cock."

Her candor undid me. "If this is your idea of a job interview," I said, "I don't know if I'm qualified." She laughed, a single silvery sound, and pressed her body deliciously closer, lips grazing mine in a way that made me flush with excitement.

"My qualifications are different," Portia said, each word articulated by the rubbing of her wet pussy along my leg. "I do not trust resumes. Only, interviews."

She pulled me to the bedroom. Her bed was large and low, tucked against a far wall full of antique postcards and a shelves of books. She climbed on and sat, her long body folded and upright, then she beckoned me. I joined her and she immediately lay on her stomach waiting for me to do something unusual. Splayed before me was her bottom, her derriere, her ass. Her creamy lobes of perfections with that secret hole hidden inside. It was the culmination of my hopes and wants. You had to see her, I couldn't even describe what it did to me inside. She spread her arms and her legs like a snow angel, giving me access to everything.

She was the Basilica of flesh and the sacred chapel of prayer was her bottom, twin, elliptical orbs, that curved into a ravine running up the middle. Her pussy's velvety skin peaking out and the soft femininity of her boobs spread from her chest.

"You like to look," she murmured, to me.

"I love to look. I love it when my partners lets me look but I love to touch, too," I said. My voice firm and confident as I confessed my most intensely personal desire.

"Alors, show me," she said.

I shimmied beside her, tracing the lines of her bottom with kisses and worship, letting my hands wonder over its delightful firmness, the perfect dimples at the cleft and the roundness at the bottom of her derriere. Her skin was warm, as if lit from within, when normally this part of a woman would be cool. When I ran my palm up the length of her thigh, she squirmed and her hips pushed her bottom towards the ceiling demanding to be touched.

"You see, you have a perfect your bottom for worship. It is firm, round, firm and elongated. It's in perfect harmony with all others parts of your body. Your anal cleft is lengthy and deep. It is perfect for this," and I demonstrated used both hands to spread her delicious cheeks and I pressed my face flush into her divine crack. My nose went deepest into her ravine and touch her most perfect, pink corkscrew. I kissed my way slowly along her anal crack, describing how much I loved what I was doing this. She wiggled and squirmed the more I described my actions. I kissed her asshole and ran my tongue several times around the rim.

"Oh, fuck, fuck that feels so good," she wailed. "You're wonderful deviant."

She writhed, arching her body in a feline but artful way. She was like a plucked bow, vibrating and ready to snap. I ran my tongue the length of her cleft, tasting her saltiness. I circled her asshole again, flicking it lightly, before pressing my thumb on it. Portia moaned and dug her face into the tangled bed sheets, surrendering her last drop of Parisian reserve.

"You must promise to do this forever," she said into the mattress, "or until I beg you to stop but that will never happen." I continued to diligently worship her extraordinary bottom. I adored her total lack of inhibition. She rocked her hips, the motion so natural, almost meditative, as if she were aligning our frequencies. When my tongue flicked the top of her asshole, she bucked so hard it nearly broke my nose. I steadied her, holding her hips and pushing her into the bed, then I pressed my lips fully over her and planted slow, circular kisses around her anus. The effect was dramatic. She began crying, and her body melted. I'd never seen a woman so open to physical pleasure, so vividly alive. I pushed my forefinger into her anus and felt the warm, sexuality of her body.

"I've never felt like this," she said. Suddenly she rolled to her back and pulled her knees toward her head fully exposing her anus and vulva to me.

"Eat me. Eat me, completely, baby," she said. "Eat and make me cum, again." It took only several minutes for her to roar into a second body shaking orgasm. When she move again, Portia grabbed me, hair wild and face flushed, eyes, shining with intensity. She pulled me to her mouth, kissing me like she was sealing a blood pact. Tears ran down her cheeks. Portia tasted herself on me and said, "Yum," then laughed saying. "La vie est courte (Life is short), and I want to spend all of it, doing this with you."

I was beside her, she on her side, I behind, watching her breath, and then, in a moment of boldness, I ran one hand over the smooth arch of her hips and around her most perfect bottom. I knelt on the bed and moved her top leg so it was bent at the knee and her pussy opened.

Seconds passed, the kind only lovers can share after such an electric intimacy. I worried the spell would break; instead, Portia wept slightly again, know what I would do next and she opened herself to me.

"So," she said. "Are you taking notes," she giggled?

I shook my head. "Impossible," I replied. "No one would ever believe it." I took my hard cock and placed it at her opening and shifted the head of my cock to squeeze past her fleshy labia. I felt her the opening to her pussy.

"Aaaah," she said.

"Does it hurt," I asked?

"No, I said, aaaah. It feels good to have you finally inside me," she said. She gripped the bed sheet tightly and let her head fall to the mattress, the black waterfall of hair over her cheek. Her breathing matched the rhythm of my thrusts, each slow movement pressing deeper into that exquisite pocket. I never wanted this to end. It hardly mattered that I was slightly out of practice, awkward or more familiar with solitary, self pleasure. Portia body made up for it, hips rising at every slow thrust, hands grasping for mine, with a constant song of vocal encouragement. She pulled at her boobs, stretching her nipples to the maximum.

"Fuck me, baby. Fuck me. I want you just where you are."

I suppose I made noises too. She turned her head to watch and smiled through the sheen of sweat. "You're far better than you think," she said. "I can feel your entire being." She giggled. I had no technique, just the very real desire to make her feel good. She came ahead of me again but that only boosted my ego. I was about to cum so I pulled out and covered her boobs with my cum. Three or four strong loads of cum all over her boobs. They had spent most of our time being ignored so I now I corrected that error.

Portia became an inexhaustible host and mentor to me during my time in Paris. She took me to bars both seedy and sophisticated, always watching to see how I felt. At night, in her apartment, she taught me more useful French than I could have learned in a year on my own. In the morning, she made just the first coffee of the day and expected me to do the rest, under penalty of mild ridicule. We went out to local boulangerie or patisserie for breakfast. We continued explored each other's bodies with the fervor of two people who had just discovered sex. She was so delighted by her own capacity for pleasure it was contagious, and by the end of several weeks, it seemed impossible that I could ever have been shy, or she, cold and standoffish. Portia took every opportunity to let me study her nakedness so I made sure she receive an abundance of anal worship. We fucked everywhere we could, in the apartment or out, trying to fit a lifetime of sex into the precious time we had.

Portia made sure I saw the real Paris but it was also her Paris and it grew irresistible, in her company. My travel writing mutate with my experiences, the notes on public architecture and city history now shifted to interesting stories about travel and its affects on your personality. Gone were the top ten sights to see.

I transition my writing to match the way Portia spoke about her adopted city. Not her literal dialogue but the way she consolidating wisdom into a single line, which I dutifully scribbled onto hotel notepads, the backs of receipts, metro tickets and napkins. "French people are pessimists who dress like optimists." "Beauty is less interesting than the flaws that surround it." "You cannot escape what you are, but you can be amused by it." I wrote articles based on miniature aphorisms, always with an undercurrent sensuality and desire, and to my surprise my editor responded enthusiastically.

"Keep this up, you're on to something," they wrote. "Find a way to make Paris new." But Paris was only new to me through Portia's eyes. I had found a way into my stories, instead of merely reporting on it at a quiet distance. From my vantage point, the cafes and tourist haunts faded in importance. I wrote about dinner with Portia on the Île Saint-Louis, where the servers were so old-fashioned they flirted with her even as her bare foot was playing with my groin. I wrote about afternoons in the Jardin du Luxembourg where we lay on the grass, unashamed that her skirt flipped up in full sun. In these fields we shared pastry and she let me study geometry using her boobs. I failed to capture the tone of her private jokes, especially the way she pronounced my name: never quite American, never quite French, as if she was trying on dialects to see which one suited her.

She refused to say she loved me, because, as she would explained, only the most provincial of lovers mistakes intensity for permanence. But she let me inhale her scent every night, came to bed completely nude, made love to me with wild abandon, and rested her head against my shoulder, when we went to sleep, as if she'd always belonged there.