A Hint of Jasmine and Lavender

He again kissed the softness of her shoulders as he explored her body with one hand, then the other.  When she was once again fully aroused, he led her back to the bed, and repeated what he had done moments before.  Just at the moment when she was about to begin her second climax, he leaned her back on the bed, lowered himself on to her, slowly penetrated her, and they came together in one long eruption of sound and passion.  Hours later, on her way back to her own apartment, his ejaculate still wet on her thighs, Marie-France was aglow with pleasure and wonderment.  “Who was this man, this American?”  “How had she allowed herself to become his lover so quickly?”  She told herself that she knew very little about him.  She had so much she wanted to learn about him.  Two weeks later, after lunches, dinners, walks along the Seine at night, and visits to museums and sidewalk cafes, Marie-France, prompted by what seemed to be Frank’s sincerity, moved in with him at the garret apartment in the Latin Quarter.

Marie-France knew that she was attractive, and she had taken other lovers, not many, and none of them were ever considered serious.  But, Frank, this American, this former soldat de la marine, was different from the rest.  Frank had made sure that Marie-France was completely satisfied before he allowed himself to fully enjoy her body by venting his passion inside her.  There were even times that Frank would only make love to her, bring her to climax, then simply hold her without satisfying himself.  No other man had ever done that with her.  And, the bliss both of them enjoyed lasted until they went to the Marche aux puces, the largest flea market in the world located at Clignancourt in the eighteenth arrondissement in Paris.

If you were to describe the Marche aux puces to someone who has never experienced it, you might say that it is the largest garage sale on the planet.  Open only on Saturday and Sunday, thousands of people, Parisians, tourists from every country in the world, children who come to play and run among its stalls, pickpockets who specialize in lifting passports and foreign currency, and those who are looking for anything from a Louis XV writing table to an eighteenth century copper bathtub used by some member of the aristocracy in pre-revolutionary France, all these people and more move in huge