The Sun Also Rises

Certain legendary actresses and models have that quality. I had never experienced it before. But I recognized it right away in her.

I felt something stir south of my belt. It was a fucking miracle, no pun intended.

Meanwhile I thought Cohn was going to go over and propose marriage.

We slid into the outside seats. Mike was kind of slumped against the wall with his arm around the woman sitting next to him. Cohn beat me to the seat next to her.

The woman regarded Cohn with the same interested gaze that a cat might give a tasty canary and said in a very plummy Belgravia drawl, "Lady Brett Ashley, and WHO are you."

Even sitting across the table I was smitten by Lady Brett. She had perfectly proportioned features, huge sexy eyes a kissable rosebud mouth, long pointed aristocratic nose and a wheaten waterfall of golden blond hair.

The hair framed the kind of flawless patrician face that Reynolds and Gainsborough immortalized.

She was dressed casually but expensively. The perfume she was wearing gave every hormone in my body an erection. It was unmistakably very costly. And she was wearing enough gold to make Montezuma jealous. Her $20,000 Rolex Yachtmaster with the hours picked out in diamonds finished off the ensemble.

But it was those smoky grey eyes that held both Cohn and me captive. They simultaneously communicated both generations of class superiority and obscene pagan mating rituals. Cohn's tongue almost unrolled across the floor like a classic cartoon wolf.

He sort of stuttered, "Robert Cohn, at your service My Lady." I had never seen him flustered around a woman in my life.

Mike was the one who had brought her. But since he was hors-de-combat Cohn was the new beneficiary of her attention. And he was eating it up.

She turned to me and gave me the same blast of amused sexuality and said, "And you might be?"

I said, "Jake Barnes, Lady Ashley. Cohn and I are all in the same boat as Bill and Mike."

She laughed huskily and said, "You Americans have such funny archaic slang. Does that mean you ALL want me?"

That was accompanied by a smoldering glance that would have made Old Lucifer stand up if my bitch wife hadn't already cut him off balls and all.

So I said offhandedly, "SOME of us want you in the way you are implying. Some of us are just here for the cheeseburgers. You can't get a good burger in France except at Bugsy's."

At that point I excused myself to fetch both me and my buddy a mug of beer, which was ALSO excellent. The French are surprisingly good at beer.

The bar was the usual rat race so I was gone for a while. I couldn't get anybody to wait on me. That wasn't because I was American. It was because it was Paris. All of the waiters in the City have the same condescendingly rude attitude toward customers.

When I returned Lady Ashley was leaning back into her date while flirting outrageously with Cohn on her other side.

Lady Brett was the entire package, outstanding face and exceptional body. She was oriented toward Cohn because she was resting on Mike's chest with her head on his shoulder.

He had his arm over her left shoulder with one hand draped across her front resting idly on one of her massive boobs.

Some women would have been embarrassed by her date absentmindedly cupping her left tit, but not Brett. She was treating Mike's groping like an homage to her perfection.

Cohn couldn't take his eyes off her. And she was giving him the full treatment. I wondered if Campbell could see what was going on.

She was doing a good job of multitasking, letting Campbell think that she was with him, while giving the impression to the rest of us that she wanted to fuck Cohn right there on the table.

Indeed, it was hard to conclude that the Lady had much in the way of a moral compass.

I reserved judgement on that since Brett was being blatant about her sluttiness, not hidden and sneaky like certain other bitch-whores of my acquaintance.

I plopped the beer in front of Cohn. He glanced at me with a wicked smile and went back to seducing the Lady.

His devil-may-care blue eyes were sparkling with mischief. Hers looked like they were mainly stoned with lust.

Gorton and I exchanged an amused look as I slid in next to him. I knew that he didn't think that Mike was the sharpest knife in the drawer. But watching Cohn trying to nail Brett right in front of him qualified the boy for Guinness.

I really like Gorton. He is ALWAYS an airborne trooper, high and tight, mid-thirties and tough. But mainly he has a sense of humor. And that quality is right there on the surface at all times.

He was practically laughing out loud at the virtual-three-way that was happening on the other side of the table.

With all of the sexual tension in the air it was getting hard to carry on an intelligent conversation. But I asked Gorton what the two of them were up to anyhow.

He told me that he and Campbell were planning on driving down to the Grand Prix in Monaco in three weeks.

He said, "We've got a buddy who has a boat parked there and he invited us to join him. He says that the race cars go right past where he's docked. It's going to be a party man! Why don't you come along?"

I was wondering how Gorton knew anybody rich enough to be able to get a prime place for an event like that.

But those two got around a lot in their military days. Plus they had that macho thing going for them. So it wasn't hard to believe that some wealthy dilatant would want to have them around as display items.

It turned out that the guy who owned the boat was Kuwaiti. That made the connection even more interesting, given what Bill and Mike had been doing in that neck of the woods.

The more I thought about it the better I liked it. I had spent waaaay too much time staring into my own bellybutton thanks to Janet. And I could never in my wildest dreams imagine hanging out in Monaco, least of all for something as famous as the Monte Carlo Grand Prix.

I would have never gone there by myself but Bill Gorton was somebody I could actually enjoy hanging with and Mike Campbell was a fun guy even with his drinking. So we made arrangements.

Meanwhile Cohn and Lady Ashley had finished figuratively humping each other's legs.

Some sort of understanding had passed between them. Gorton and I didn't care what it was and Mike was far too drunk to notice.

We all went our separate directions in the rainy Paris night. I trudged back to the Hotel. Bill and Mike and the Lady left for their rundown quarters in Montmartre.

Bill told me that the two of them would keep him awake most nights loudly fucking. But he couldn't afford to move out.

Cohn took off on his own for parts unknown. I got the impression there was a lady waiting for him somewhere. In fact I didn't see Cohn again for a while.

________________________________

Monaco is an all day journey down the A6 and A7 from Paris. And Bill and Mike shared a used Peugeot 107.

There was no way I was going to sit in that sardine can for 9 hours. So I bought a Range Rover Evoque for the trip.

I told them that I had rented it. They wanted to know where I got the money since the rentals on that vehicle are $500 a day. I told them that I had a rich uncle who died and left me enough cash for one gross indulgence.

I had arranged to stay at the Hermitage. But I didn't want the guys to know how wealthy I was, so I told them I was going to sleep in the car back in the hills.

I didn't feel bad about lying to them. My money is nobody's business but my own.

They were staying on the boat with their friend.

I dropped them at the water taxis, which were zipping out to the moored boats. I told them that I would see them at the Explorer's Pub for lunch the next day. That would be an easy walk for them since it is right next to Port Hercules.

Then we could plan the three days we would be in town. I think they felt sorry for me because there was no room at the inn - so to speak. But it didn't stop them from leaving me at the quai.

The boat that they were headed out to was only slightly smaller than an aircraft carrier. Their Kuwaiti friend must have been rolling in oil money.

I drove up to the Hermitage, which was only a short distance from where I dropped the boys. The maze of streets leading to the hotel was a little hard to navigate but fortunately the French drive on the same side of the road as we do.

I checked in. It was still only 8PM so I wandered down to the Crystal Terrace for a nightcap. I was sitting there looking at the boats in Port Hercules thinking, "Maybe I should buy something like that? I could afford it."

I was sipping a Pernod when I sensed a disturbance around me. It was a craning of necks roughly similar to what the gazelles and emus do on the Serengeti when the lion appears.

What had caught everybody's attention was an absolutely beautiful couple. They had just appeared hand-in-hand on the terrace.

He was tall, very well built and exquisitely handsome. But his partner's sheer beauty eclipsed him.

Even though I had seen her before I still had to gape. She was a once in a lifetime sight. Her face and figure were just that exceptional and she simply radiated sexuality as she walked.

Her partner went through one of those, "can't believe my eyes" moments. That was followed by a look of real pleasure. It was like he was actually happy to see me.

The two of them came over to where I was sitting. He was grinning and she was looking as inscrutably wanton as ever.

I smiled affably. The whole point was to give them the impression that I knew that they would be there all along. I had semi-suspected it. But I wasn't sure. Now I was.

I said, "Sit down Robert. It's been a long time. Then I rose to offer the Lady a chair."

As she sat she gave me a glance that was so hot that it nearly melted the soles of my Topsiders. She said, "Robert told me that you were very wealthy but I didn't believe it until now."

I looked at Robert. He gave me a mischievous shrug and said, "My father runs the hedge fund that your man in DC invests your money through."

I sat and said, "I haven't seen you in forever buddy. I assume that she is the reason why." And I nodded in Lady Brett's direction. She was settling in her chair. Even doing that her breasts jiggled.

She said, "Yes, Robert took me to Ibiza for three weeks. We have been getting to know each other a LOT better."

I said to her, "So have you talked to Mike Campbell recently?"

She said, "I last spoke to Mike the day after I met you two. I told him I was going home to visit my family." And she favored Cohn with a lustful smile.

I said, "Well he and Bill Gorton are here for the Grand Prix. I assume you are too. Is that going to be a problem?"

The Lady looked at me like I was an idiot. She said, "I certainly hope not! He was just a temporary distraction. He knows that."

Her face was absolutely serene as she was announcing that she viewed my buddy as nothing more than a self-propelled dildo.

It was a grey area in the slut code of ethics. She and Campbell were not married, or even exclusive. But the Lady seemed to have the honey bee thing going, flitting from flower to flower.

I wondered what Cohn thought about that. Of course the opportunity to spend three weeks in paradise with a woman who looked like Lady Brett was probably worth whatever he had to put up with in terms of tolerating her behavior. And I didn't imagine that the Lady just lay there when he fucked her.

Plus Robert was a bit of a manwhore himself. I got the impression that they deserved each other.

We were sitting there catching up when I sensed another person approaching the table.

It was a woman. She walked up, kissed Lady Brett on the cheek and threw her arms around Cohn from behind and squeezed. He chuckled lecherously.

She said cheerfully, in an accent that had personal significance to me, "What a lovely evening and who is he?" She nodded in my direction.

The thing about the Brits is that their accents are even more distinctive than ours. And the mystery woman sported an accent that I knew intimately. That's because I had studied with herds of them in my Cambridge days.

Whether they graduated from the Oxbridge colleges or someplace else, every academic woman in the United Kingdom sounds exactly like our visitor.

It's called "received pronunciation" and it practically screams educated British elite.

She walked briskly over to me and extended a hand. She said, "Britannia Ashley but everybody calls me Britt. I am Brett's younger sister. Our parents had a taste for alliteration."

I took it blushed and mumbled a reply to somewhere around her kneecaps, "Jake Barnes."

It was perhaps the most singularly spectacular display of bad form ever perpetrated on the Crystal Terrace. But I'm a nerd and this woman had totally overwhelmed my limited social skills.

She was as beautiful as Brett, in a smaller and less blatantly sexual package. Her thick honey blond hair was cut in a preppy bob with understated feminine bangs. They perfectly framed her oval face while still seeming natural and unassuming. Her features were as even and proportional as her sisters but her mouth was wider and full of mirth.

She had those same uncanny grey eyes. But unlike Brett hers just radiated intelligence and a sense of humor.

The rest of her was, as they say "flawlessly put together." She was not as dramatically full-bodied as her sister. Instead she was long legged, lithe and pantherish.

Her boobs were round and perfectly proportioned to her curvy body. I admit it I always look at the boobs first. I might be a geek but I am still a man.

Britt's breasts wouldn't cause traffic accidents like her sister's might. But in many ways hers were fuller shapelier and better arranged on her chest.

And they were in total harmony with her exquisite beauty. They didn't distract, only added to it.

At a passing glance Brett was the more spectacularly attractive of the two.

That was until you compared them side-by-side and realized that Britt was the entire package, looks, intelligence and poise.

Brett was sex personified. Britt was a whole lot MORE than that.

I was as tongue tied as usual. So I just sat there.

Brett said dismissively, "My sister is the smart one. She is at Oxford doing something utterly boring. She works far too much. We had to drag her away from her stale old computers for this weekend, just so she could have a little fun."

I looked at Britt and she actually blushed. She said defensively, "I LIKE to work. My sister is the one who likes to party."

I glanced over at Brett. She was making serious, "in heat" eye contact with Cohn. I hoped she wasn't planning on fucking him right there on the patio. I was afraid even the French wouldn't tolerate that.

Brett snapped out of her reverie and said to the two of us, "Robert and I have to go up to the room. Can you entertain each other for the rest of the evening?"

Then even before she had gotten an answer she rose and began to pull Cohn toward the exit. I looked at Britt, she cocked her eyebrows quizzically at me and said, "Shall we order a drink or are you leaving too?"

I flagged down a waiter and requested another Pernod. Britt ordered a white wine. Then we lapsed into silence. I could actually hear the crickets chirping and the sound of the port a couple of hundred yards in front of us.

The silence was getting embarrassing so I said, "I'm sorry I'm not very entertaining but I am not social at all and I don't know what to say to a woman as beautiful as you."

She looked astounded and said, "You think I'm beautiful? I have always seen myself as the ugly sister. You have no idea how difficult it is to grow up in the shadow of somebody like Brett."

I said a little overly effusive, "I think you are the most beautiful woman I have ever met."

Shit! That was suave indeed. I could understand why Janet couldn't wait to dump me.

Britt looked at me thoughtfully and asked the age-old woman question, "So, are you married?" Maybe she wasn't TOTALLY repelled by me after all.

I said, trying to remain non-committal, "I used to be but she traded up."

Britt looked sympathetic and actually covered my hand with hers. It was electric. I had not had a single thought about a woman in over a year. But her touch reminded me of how it used to feel

She said with sincerity, "That must have hurt a lot."

I said, "I don't know whether to call it hurt as much as it was marginalizing. I'm in the wild now. I just don't trust anybody anymore."

Damn, that was too much information. I was talking way too much.

So I said, "Enough about my mental state. What do you do at Oxford?"

That question perked her up considerably. She spent 15 minutes telling me in great enthusiastic detail what her research was. Needless to say Lady Britt Ashely was an accomplished scientist.

That state of affairs was WAY too perfect to be plausible. Normal people don't accidentally run into beautiful fellow travelers with a coincidental interest in software, and a handy sister to throw the two of you together.

I almost asked her if she had been hired by Cohn to play the part of heartbreaker.

I lapsed back into silence. She looked a little concerned and said, "What's the matter?"

I was going to do the usual, "Oh nothing" and then it dawned on me that I had a better way to distract her while I mentally edged myself toward the door.

I said, "Your sister is a very interesting woman."

She looked disgusted and said, "Interesting is one way to put it. Brett is a tomcat. She has no concept of morality.

"The only way she can tell right from wrong is if she feels good after doing it. She has always been wild but her extreme attractiveness gets her out of the situations that would ruin most women. Any man who invests anything in her is going to get hurt."

She looked at me with sudden apprehension and said, "I hope you are not one of her many admirers."

I laughed and said, "I'm nobody's admirer. I gave up women the instant my ex-wife sold me out. In fact I am not a big fan of the human race in general."

She looked saddened and said, "So is there anybody you feel close to? You have nobody?"

I looked at her open sincere face and I almost said, "Maybe you."

But I was aware that might lead somewhere else. And I knew that I couldn't perform. In fact Old Lucifer had been DOA since that fateful day.

I recognized that it was psychological, not physiological. But I simply had no control over my responses.

I was rational enough to acknowledge that Janet was damaged. And that there were probably decent women in the world, women who I could trust and love. But the other part of me knew with certainty that every woman I met would eventually betray me.

Plus, who was I to expect any better result anyhow? I am sure that every single one of the lemmings in the Stade de France was just SURE that things would work out for them too.

So in some ways it was a blessing. I had no lustful urges. I could enjoy life without having to please a single soul except myself. And companionship with a woman was just an unnecessary distraction.

Nevertheless, I still had memories and I remembered how good it had been when Janet and I were together. It was just that I knew how THAT story ended. And I simply couldn't write another conclusion.

So no - I was not going to start anything with this stunning woman. Even on the off chance that she was the genuine article, which I truly believed she wasn't. She was really too perfect.

I rose and said, "This has been the best evening I have had in over a year and you are a fascinating person. I hope I run into you tomorrow."

Then I turned and walked back toward the elevators and my room. I glanced over my shoulder as I opened the patio door. Lady Britt was still sitting there. She looked both sad and disappointed. It was almost like she had hoped for something more. Poor woman.