In their respective hotels that night, Hector and Louise did a great deal of thinking.
Hector's thinking was coloured largely with relief, relief that Louise seemed quite prepared through her own suggestion to condone his marital infidelities. And he had to admit it, they had been frequent.
Indeed, the way she seemed to have the situation planned, there was even promise of fun in the prospect.
She's an odd girl, he thought. Beautiful, that went without saying. Beautiful of face as she was of figure. But today she had given him insight into a mind he had never credited her with. Here she was almost prepared to encourage his peccadilloes! And to think of the scores of times he had crept, conscience-stricken, from the beds of his various mistresses!
He wondered idly how Claudine Ferrandi would measure up to the strict standards Louise would doubtless set. Claudine was quite fascinating, but that only meant that she was quite fascinating to him. How fascinating she would prove to Louise was another matter altogether.
Claudine's world was that half-world of the theatre. Her circle of friends was peopled with actors, producers, variety performers, songwriters, musicians, men and women and those "in-betweens" of the profession who, Hector had to admit, were often quite incomprehensible to him.
Yet Claudine herself seemed able, when she was with him, to shed this aura of the "theatre", as they called it. With Hector she had proved flexible, accommodating and entirely satisfactory in her role of his mistress.
Louise, lazing in the luxury of cool black silk sheets in her bed in the Negresco Hotel, had dimmed the light in her boudoir. Through venetian blinds, moonlight seeped into the room. From outside rose the traffic symphony that is the Promenade des Anglais.
It was of Andrew that she thought. Andrew, an ordinary hotel waiter. Well, not ordinary then. On the contrary, quite extraordinary. What would the suave, cosmopolitan Hector think of her lover, when she had to explain that he was merely a menial-servant – to whom, on nothing more substantial than a passing whim, she had so recently surrendered her glorious body?
And yet, she thought, there was a latent something about Andrew, a something on which she could not place her finger but which nevertheless reassured her. His behavior, while he wore his uniform, had been perfect. There was in it the competent subservience of the skilled hotel attendant at all times.
Once he had discarded his clothes, however, he had become a person in his own right. He had become Andrew Somebody – Andrew the Man… all man, in fact. Who was he, she thought, when he was not working for the Negresco? He had said something, she remembered, about being in Nice "only to train in hotel service".
Certainly he was a brilliant hotel servant, courteous and with polished manners, deferent yet efficient. Could it be that these were innate qualities, rather than the veneer laid on him by his calling, she thought? There was no doubt about it, when he shed his uniform, he became wonderfully different, wonderfully more exciting!
Yes, she thought. Hector will doubtless approve of Andrew. She decided to introduce the two of them, her lover to her husband, at the very first opportunity. Perhaps a day or two would not be too long to look forward to that meeting.
And as sleep claimed her, she smiled.
But in the end it was Claudine who intruded first into the Henderson menage. Hector, always quick and firm in his decisions, saw to that. No sooner had he accepted the terms imposed by Louise than he created the chance to put her plan into action. He telephoned Claudine.
"Claudine?" he said into the mouthpiece, when he heard her musical, French accented voice. "Hector Henderson, you remember? That's the one. Back, yes. But only for a fortnight or so. No, honey, Louise, my wife, she's with me this time. But all isn't lost; look darling, she has an interesting proposition. At least, I think it's interesting. You might too, at that. How about lunch, today if you can. You will? Wonderful! I'll tell you all about it then. No! I can't spend the morning with you. Your trouble is, you have no darn patience! What's that? You have? Well, what's it they say about patience? Bound to be rewarded, or something? Be with me, honey. Yours will be. Fine, then. By all means, drive yourself in. Sure – here at the Ruhl. Looking forward to it, darling. 'By, now!"
Hector put the phone down. Then he asked for Louise's number. He told her of the arrangements he had made and Louise agreed at once to the lunch.
She then rang for room service, hoping secretly that it would be Andrew who would be sent. She was right. It was Andrew, suave as ever and giving no hint of the intimacy that had occurred between them on the previous day, who knocked at her door, and entered at her bidding.
She ordered tea, croissants, a boiled egg, marmalade and butter, watching Andrew gravely noting down her requirements in his service pad. The sight amused her, and she laughed gaily so that Andrew looked up in surprise.
"Oh Andrew, forgive me for laughing, but you're so sweet, standing there as if nothing had ever happened between us!"
"Madame?" he queried, in genuine puzzlement. Ever since yesterday he had been in a turmoil about this woman, Louise Henderson, and the unforgettable incident that had taken place in that very room.
There had been fear, too, on his part. Just what, he wondered, had got into this guest, to have caused her to permit intercourse between herself and her room steward? Certainly, it had been irresistible. Even more certainly, it had been quite delightful. But ever since it had happened he had been uneasy about it. And now she was laughing at him! But, he sensed with inner relief, it sounded like a happy laugh.
Louise rolled over, presenting her back to him in her merriment, and Andrew noticed, with a pang of recognition, that she was naked against the black of the sheets. Her flawless back was entirely nude.
"Honestly!" Louise panted, between peals of laughter, "but you, Andrew, you're quite perfect! So absolutely the room service waiter, how do you manage it?"
Andrew felt her amusement was genuine and decided to risk participation.
"Well," he began. "You will admit that the situation isn't absolutely normal. After all, Madame, yesterday…"
"Yesterday," said Louise, "was only the start of something, Andrew. Don't worry. I understand. If you're feeling a trifle guilty, that'd be natural. But I promise you, you needn't."
The black sheet had slipped over Louise's shoulder, and the voluptuous curve of her breasts became deliciously visible, almost down to the brown circle of their areola.
Andrew gazed at it in reverent rapture and Louise, noticing the look, made just the slightest wriggle necessary to reveal even more of her titties to him.
"You see," she went on, "it's like this – but I hardly think it's necessary to impress this on you that I just don't idly give myself to any man. You were an exception and what happened yesterday, I assure you, happened because I think there is a lot more to you than just the room waiter you seem to be. Also there is the fact that, considered purely as a man, you are a damned attractive one. So yesterday was only the start of something between you and me. Right now, for example, would it interest you to know that I have one hell of a craving for you, right at this very moment?"
The sheet had now been deliberately slipped so that one entire breast was exposed in all its beauty. Andrew had eyes for nothing else. Quickly, he crossed to the bedside.
"Madame…" he began.
"Call me Louise," she told him. "And come and sit here by me. Caress me. Let me feel your hands again on my body. Take my breasts into your hands, kiss me!"
He did. Passionately he clung to her wet, parted lips. He let his hands rove in sheer bliss over the urgent flesh as he drank in the thrill she imparted with her tongue-darting kiss.
"Christ!" she murmured, "Oh, Andrew, have you the time? Can you fuck me now, right now. My God for six months I've been starved for it! And now that I've had the taste for it aroused again, Christ, now I can never get enough of it!"
Whatever she might implore, Andrew had not the time. He knew it. It was past nine o'clock. His duties from now until the guests left their rooms for their morning divertissements would be many. But nothing could have stopped him from making love to Louise as he was doing at that moment.
"No, my darling Louise," he replied, "I haven't the time. Damn it, but I haven't. But how can I leave you like this, all hot and passionate and unsatisfied. Come."
Urgently he tore the sheet from her naked, writhing body. Louise was arching her hips so that her cunt stood out, a veritable chasm, redly disappearing into the black of its darkened depths, gaping there between its luxuriant growth of black pubic hair.
He bent his face down to it, and flicked his tongue into the warm wetness of her vagina, licking first one then the other, of the labia, until Louise was near to going demented by the torture of it.
She literally threw her cunt at him as she went through the movements of fornication upon his tongue, seeking to grip it and to tear it bodily from his mouth, but losing it each time in the slipperiness of his spittle and her own flowing cunt juices. She moaned, low, in randiness, and Andrew, fingering her two nut-hard nipples, knew superbly well how to prolong and accelerate her passion.
Backwards, forwards and sideways Louise writhed in her agony, calling out obscenities to him.
"Oh, fuck me! Suck-fuck me, my wonderful, my darling! Ah, if I could only stuff your whole prick right up my cunt right this moment! Your cock, your prick, your penis, even your balls! Oh, to have you suck me, deliciously, like you're doing now, oh, Christ – forever! Oooh-h-h-h, but this is wonderful! Christ! Andrew – I'm so close to coming! Yes! Now I will come! Oh, but I'll come, I'll piss into your mouth! I'll drench you with piss, I swear I will! Ah, suck me, suck me off till I scream, please! As you love me, darling, fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
And Andrew persisted till he felt that her undulating hips were really coming to the fever pitch of her orgasm.
And then, there it was – throb after throb, as she moaned and screamed. Andrew seemed to suck out her very clitoris, seemed to drink the whole structure into his mouth, until her ability to bear the torture was strained beyond her endurance. She thrust at him. She strove with all her might to break away from his mouth. But he held on with his lips, to the raging furnace that was her cunt. She shouted. She rolled. She tried desperately to push away his head from where it was, cushioned busily between her thighs – and finally, she could bear it no longer. With one long, shuddering sigh of defeat, she subsided limply against the sheets.
And there Andrew left her, satiated beyond her wildest needs. His own penis was a spear of red hot flesh against his fly. But he knew it would go down again. Besides, at two in the afternoon, he would be off duty. Then, who knew? There were plenty of women in Nice who would welcome him eagerly to their beds for the siesta, even if it should happen that Louise herself were not available for him. What did matter was that he had managed to satisfy this wonder-woman for the second time.
Andrew withdrew silently from the room.