The Red Door

Chapter One Ravel comes by my flower stand every day at three o’clock and buys a lily, each day a different kind. After kissing its petals, he hands it to me as a gift. I blush and bite my lip, embarrassed, and then smile like an innocent coquette. He’s honoring me and my name, Lily. I can only think of s*x when he’s nearby. I watch his eyes, how they comb my body as if he adores me, though I often wonder why. So slight of build, my breasts will forever be pubescent, mere handfuls in a man’s grasp. I never wear bras. When he stares at me, I know my small n*****s contract and press against the softness of my shirts like tiny pebbles poking through the sand. I can’t imagine what he thinks of my slim waist and hips, though I often suspect he strips away my clothes in his mind to view my pubis. I’d shudder to think he sees my prominent labia and the snippet of purple flesh that appears between them—or that he imagines me wet there, when I certainly am. My heart flutters every time he appears walking up the street toward the kiosk where I work. I wonder at his broad smile, his jaunty step, and the grand twinkle in his pale blue eyes. He is a man of leisure, I think. Mr. McCauly, my employer, has told me he’s a man of means, a dealer of antiques, who combs through Europe for months buying treasures he sells in his shop down the street. I haven’t been brave enough to step inside his odd place of business, though I’ve stood outside and peered into the windows where gold gleams on gilt picture frames, and the crystal is polished like pieces of stars fallen to earth and the tainted metal of ancient swords glows with a dull luster from the dark deeds of their past use. I confess that it is the other door to his shop that intrigues me even more than his front entrance—this one off the alley. I can see it from the sidewalk, painted with Chinese red enamel, sometimes dusty from the street, sometimes radiant when it’s just been washed. I suspect this door leads to Ravel’s private quarters and I wonder what women he’s had there. Such a dashing fellow, enough charm to woo any female. I see his women as languid creatures that spend their afternoons reclining naked on his bed, the curls between their legs moist, their enormous breasts swinging in unison against the creamy skin of their torsos. My own skin would be flawless if it weren’t for the pattern of freckles that are scattered down my chest and thighs, like tiny stars flung into the sky. I had a lover once connect them with a purple felt-tipped pen until I looked like a child’s drawing. He kissed each one—so many kisses that day … Ravel cherishes my name. When he speaks it I think it will float into the air and me with it, and all the lilies in my street side stand following along. My surname, Matisse, he says belongs to a famous French painter. And one day he brought me a beautiful book with pictures of this artist’s work. The colors that man used remind me of my flowers. Ravel assures me that one day I’ll see an original Matisse. He has one hanging in his shop. I was shocked the day he asked me to join him for coffee, shocked even more when I agreed to accompany him to an open-air café down the street past his storefront. He talked to me of his latest trip to Italy and his visits to the countryside where the landscape defies any painter to render it with as much passion as it has naturally. While he talked, he fondled my thigh, his hand never straying higher than mid-way up. Running a finger down my inner leg caused my body to breed wild thoughts—of Ravel taking me home, past the red door, to the room where we’ll find his bed and lay together with thighs tangled. Every day, after he leaves my flower stand, I imagine our making love, how I’ll fit inside his muscular chest, how my fragile form will melt to his will, how his forceful erection will spring from his groin, how I’ll take it in my mouth then inside my cunt. I think of our bodies fused as one, my hands exploring his skin and the hair on his chest, the gentle sway of his belly and the spongy softness of his genitals. I missed Ravel one day at three. By four I assumed that he’d taken another trip so I wouldn’t see him for several weeks. But when the clock on the Episcopal church across the street chimed five, I saw him come from his antique shop and walk my way. “You’re late,” I told him, as he paid for the lily—my comment a small reprimand. “Only because I have plans for your evening,” he told me as the lily brushed my cheek. “And what are those?” I wondered, grinning like a child. “A glass of claret in my studio.” I trembled nervously. The heat of the summer day was most intense at five. I could feel sweat on my brow and a ready dampness between my legs, the silky hair beginning to itch. “I should turn you down,” I replied, thinking of my boyfriend and the plans we’d already made. With Todd just being a boy in my eyes, and Ravel a man, I knew I’d cancel whatever we were going to do in favor of a glass of claret with my more gallant suitor. Ravel watched me as I drew my flowers inside McCauly’s shop, then pinned up the sides of the kiosk until it was nothing but a simple square box. Feeling his gaze on me, the hairs on body stood on end, prickly with anticipation of my daydreams coming true. I scurried as fast as I could to complete my task, aware that twice I practically stumbled over my feet out of nervousness. My pink high heels, that men say sway my ass end provocatively, wouldn’t move as fast as my feet desired to go. Twice I looked at Ravel with a sheepish grin, his broad one forgiving to a fault. “It’s permissible to be nervous when you’re going to a man’s room,” he said, as we finally walked arm and arm from the corner flower shop toward his home. “And it would take a blind man not to notice my anticipation,” I replied. “That’s why the claret, to put you at ease.” Once we crossed the street I could see his antique shop, how the three story house with the tall gabled roof looked strange wedged between five story brick buildings on either side. There, a few feet down the narrow alley, was his red door, and the entrance to his world. My imagination so acute, having envisioned what lay beyond that door a hundred times, I was flustered when there was nothing but a stairway inside—that and a padlocked door to my left that would have taken us into his shop proper. At the top of the stairs a second door opened into an enormous loft filled with dozens of Ravel’s precious finds. Walking amid old mirrors, dressers and lavish armoires, the loft soon gave way to a cleared corner where there was just a bed and a table and two wooden chairs. Simplicity of form, I thought, seeing the way he’d arranged that small space, like the furnishings from a painting are arranged into a perfect order. There was nothing hanging on either wall, but there was light from the adjacent window throwing the shadows of trees against the plain surface. I hadn’t remembered there being such a tree in the middle of the city, but there it stood outside his window, tucked between these tall structures, resplendently green. As the shadows danced in the fading light, we watched them, sitting at his table drinking the claret from wine goblets he said came from Germany. The wine was bitter to my tongue and the dark wealth of its aroma tickled my nose. A third and fourth sip, and it was sliding down my throat more easily, and with my stomach empty, the alcohol went to my head, quickly making me dizzy. There was a plate of brie and crackers between us, but I preferred the feel of my empty stomach, how it pulsed sexually in an excited rhythm, waiting for Ravel to take me to his bed. “I should like to see you naked before we make love,” he said. The nervous twitters in me augmented. From somewhere else in the building I heard the sound of a tenor voice rising in an operatic aria. To remove my clothes before Ravel, accompanied by such sound, felt almost holy, as though what would happen would be a consecrated act, not something carnal. The church bell across the street, as if to mock my feeling of holiness, chimed the half hour. That quick sound only lasted a few seconds, and I was in my opera again and my sensuous reverie, my s*x coming alive. Rising from the chair, I stood before my suitor and grabbed the bottom of my knit blouse. Pulling it over my torso, I stood for some seconds waiting for his response. There was only his gentle smile. Unzipping my skirt, conscious of every move I made, I wiggled the short piece of fabric over my hips and let it drop to the floor at my feet. Ravel picked it up with a swipe of his hand, his head coming within inches of my crotch. Feeling the heat in me rise, I lifted the edges of my white lace panties and drew the silk down over my groin. Letting that also drop to the floor, so I was naked except for the pink high heels. “Come to me, Lily,” Ravel beckoned me with his voice and his hand. Just two steps until I was between his parted thighs, it was easy to traverse even as nervous as I was. Laying his face against my belly, I felt his hand at my pubis, there with fingers prodding between the plump folds of flesh finding my c******s hard, my whole snatch damp with s*x. I jerked against his hand, sure to orgasm with ease. Finding my v****a, my anus and my pulsing clit, he journeyed at will until he heard my gasps and felt my weak body nearly faint in his arms. At the moment of climax, he backed me off a step, held my hips in his hands and leaned forward to press his face over my pubis. With his mouth feeling the juices spurt and his tongue lapping freely, I let go with a shower of lightning raining down through my body, shudder after shudder greeted happily by his attentive mouth. I remained on my feet in my pink high heels as he massaged me. With hands playing with once satisfied orifices, kneading my youthful breasts and grabbing heartily for the meat of my ass, he forced another desire from me. How I longed for his c**k between my legs. Overcome with such need, I dropped between his legs and madly dove for the prick I saw swelling beneath his pants. With the zipper finally open, I nearly melted into the throbbing organ, wanting to swallow the man whole. Forcing myself to let it slide down my throat, I took him deeply inside me and mouth-f****d him until he took charge again. We’d use the bed. That had always been Ravel’s plan. When my suitor pulled me off of him, I landed on my back against a velvet comforter. My legs wide and raised, he entered me with his stiffness, driving it as deeply as he’d been inside my mouth. I gasped, at first because of the pain, and surely because of the intensity of the screwing, and then because I realized that he was as pent-up with need for me as I was for him. Months of courtship ended on his simple bed, with my legs flung far apart for him, my body wrenching wildly to satisfy his raging c**k. I thought I would die with him firmly thrust inside me. When he pulled away from my perspiring body, I saw his smile, easy and genuine. Then, from a half-full bottle of claret, he cooled me, pouring the liquid over my skin. With Ravel licking the wine with his tongue, I found another orgasm ready to peak somewhere between my bellybutton and my pubic hair. All wet with c*m and satisfaction, with wine and sweat, every lick sent me closer to the outer edges of my bodily lust. A second time with his mouth at my c******s, I could take no more. The spasm didn’t want to die away and Ravel’s fingers continued playing until everything in me released. We lay like old lovers on the bed. I would have died for a cigarette, the look and smell of the smoke rising above our nakedness. But Ravel refused me. He said another glass of claret would do, the other was bad for my lungs. I drank from the glass he offered feeling a little more woozy with each sip down my throat. Begging for a bite of cheese, he fixed a cracker with some brie and my head settled. “When you come again, Lily, things will be different,” he said. “And how is that?” I asked. “I want to show you the insides of your fantasies.” His desire confused me. “I want you to understand your s****l self, for you to nurture your body with the sensations it needs. And your mind, that I will fill with the romance you court so many hours of the day.” I thought it was uncanny that he had such knowledge of my heart and mind. At the moment however, it was just the feel of my body that intrigued me. “So, when do I return for this?” I asked. “When you’re ready.” “And it won’t be like this?” I asked. “Would you like all lovemaking to be the same?” Pondering his question I could concede he was right. “Then I’ll come back soon,” I said. How he smiled adoringly. His sandy hair was in such disarray that I pushed it back into place, combing it with my fingers. His skin, tanned and youthful for a man nearly twice my twenty-three years, felt foreign to my touch. I am experienced with young men, but his maturity scared me still, even though I desired it for many months. “I should warn you of this place behind my red door,” he said. Seeing his eyes narrow, I knew he was serious. “Warn me from what?” I asked. “I cannot control what happens here. Some things might shock you.” “How could being shocked be bad?” I said. “When you’re here I feel safe.” “Then safe you’ll be because I’ll not leave you.” Though I had every reason to fear this place, he said no more to make me fearful. I could leave that day, a woman beyond myself in lust, glad to throw off a boy in favor of a man.