This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Dennis Milholland – All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Careful! This is a work of fiction containing graphic descriptions of sex between males and critiques of religion and governments.

Love It or Leave It

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

Forty-eight

(Thursday, October 20th, Friday, October 21st)

When we arrive up at the top and enter our home for the first time, I know why Marty reacted the way he did. It's not like you can see the Eiffel Tower from our living room; it's like the Eiffel Tower is part of the furnishings. Our view of the bottom of the illuminated structure is blocked by Palais de Chaillot. All the same, our living room, which opens out onto a terrace from where you can see the top, is dominated by the spectacle. To say that it is distracting is an understatement.

I turn to Seph. “Do you get used to it?”

“I hope you do.” He laughs. “I'd miss it, if it weren’t there. When I'm staying here, it's my early-morning verification that the world is still intact."

Raph can't take his eyes off it. "I suppose it's less conspicuous during the day.”

“But we do have drapes, which we can close.” Seph seems concerned about the impact, which this is having, but apparently can’t restrain himself from remarking: “The view is even better from your bedroom.”

Somehow, that breakes the spell. Marty, Raph and I withdraw our attention from the magnetic attraction of the puddle-iron structure.

This is where I notice the interior of our home. The walls are 1930s beige; the four, well-used, leather and chrome-tube armchairs and sofa are Le Corbusier, possibly original; the slightly worn rugs on the herringbone parquet are probably North-African in origin, and there is his baby grand piano, which defies being overlooked. The feel is very homey. My immediate sensation is that I belong here.

I look at Seph, who now appears to be very relaxed. It's more than apparent that he feels at home here, as well. And, of course, my curiosity gets the better of me. “The modernist theme is not the original decor, is it?”

“No.” He pauses. “Are you a fan of modernism?” Seph sounds hopeful.

Not having given this much thought, I have to assess my sentiments. “Yeah, I guess, I am. Particularly, since they denied the existence of a benevolent deity." I snicker; Seph pulls a face. Then I have to know, whether the Le Corbusier furniture is original.

Geneviève hands him the bag in passing and Seph sits in one of the armchairs and rolls a joint on the small, round, glass and chrome end table. “I assume it is. De Jambleu ran with the modernist crowd. He was friendly with Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, and William Cook, so, I assume that he knew Le Corbusier, as well.”

“What was the theme, when you moved in?” Raph is casually looking through the sheet music on the piano.

“Basically, it was a variation on Art nouveau that then drifted into Art déco, which was all the rage in Paris, following the exposition in 1925.” Seph lights the joint and passes it to me.

“Then he, along with the in crowd of the 16th arrondissement, fell in with the modernists and had the place in part even structurally recreated to coincide with the demolition of the old Palais du Trocadéro in ’36 and the construction of Palais de Chaillot for the modernist expo in ’39.”

I cross to the piano to give the joint to Raph. He just takes a toke but not the J; so, I walk back to where Seph is seated with his right ankle resting on his left knee. “And since I like the stuff, I've never had it redone.”

“Neither would I.” Raph announces from the piano.

“Neither would you what?” Marty questions as he and Geneviève carry our dinner into the dining room, next door.

“Redecorate this place.” I tell Marty through the doorway.

On his way back to the kitchen, he stops at the double doors to the living room from the hall. “Like they said in the army: 'if it ain't broke, don’t fix it.”

Geneviève, en route from the dining room to the kitchen, stops next to Marty. "Why would anyone want to redecorate? I vote against it."

“It's unanimous, then.” Seph gets up and walks to the double doors, leading from the living room to the dining room. “Something smells exquisite.”

“It's chicken in wine sauce." Geneviève tells him. "I gave the concierge a shopping list before I left for England, so it's fresh."

“Chicken in wine sauce?” I click my tongue in admonishment. “Why aren't you speaking French?"

“For the same reason, I don't speak English at home in the States." She grins sarcastically. "I want to make it rough on the SOBs, who may have this place bugged."

Following dinner, since it’s getting on to ten, I suggest a walk before turning in. Although the suggestion meets with considerable grumbling, everybody concurs that it would be the thing to do.

Owing to the fact that the elevator can only accommodate three adults, Raph and I take the stairs. On every floor, there are two doors. My deduction is that each floor has two apartments. Only ours, on the sixth, seventh and eighth, seems to have one unit.

The three are waiting for us to come down the last flight. "Okay,” I address Seph. “are there two apartments per floor?"

“Yeah, we have the only five-bedroom double unit.” Seph explains as we leave the building and turn right and walk in direction of place du Trocadéro.

“What do you mean double unit?” Marty wants to know. “Where's the second unit?”

“On the eighth floor.” Seph takes his hand. “The rooms I leased from de Jambleu, when I was a student, are self-contained."

“Meaning?” Marty is confused and Seph is leading us across avenue du Président Wilson to the Palais de Chaillot.

“There are two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bath. It's the entire eighth floor." Seph's patience is wearing thin, probably from all the stress of the past weeks. Luckily, I don’t think Marty notices.

“So, the Lads can rent it out after we're gone."

“Martin,” Seph stops and gives him a kiss on the mouth, with two caped policemen, standing on the corner not thirty meters from us, watching. And nothing happens. There is no admonishment. There is no arrest. No one produces handcuffs and calls a paddy wagon. They, the cops, smile and walk off in the direction of the naval museum. "we're not going anywhere. You're being maudlin."

I don’t believe this. Two men just kissed in public and the cops on the beat walk off. And while this is happening, the two men involved are worried about who's going to fucking snuff it first. I look at Raph; Raph shrugs; we kiss. And no one can be bothered. Not the cops. Not the passers-by. Not the Dutch tourists getting off their bus. Literally, nobody gives a shit!

Of a sudden, Raph starts giggling and seems unable to stop. I put my arms around him, and he appears to be giddy from exhaustion. He gives me a peck on the mouth and pushes me away, pointing to the Morris column to my right. We're standing directly in front of the larger-than-life advertisement for the revival of the French musical comedy, Irma la Douce. Geneviève laughs along with us. “You're certainly right, Dan; we're not in Kansas, anymore.”

Once back upstairs, Dad shows us to our rooms, which are directly above the dining room and most of the kitchen.

He tells us that this was de Janbleu's master suite, which consists of, aside from the bedroom, an en-suite bath and a sitting room. The bedroom and bath are to the courtyard, and therefore, on the quiet side of the house, above the kitchen and corridor downstairs.

I toss my jacket onto the Le Corbusier couch. I open the two door-like, living-room windows, which open out onto a small balcony overlooking the avenue and, of course, across from the hypnotic Eiffel Tower. I also open the window in the bath to get a cross draft, since our bedroom is windowless.

Raph sets our suitcases as doorstops at the double doors between the bedroom and the sitting area. The door to the bathroom actually has a doorstop.

I plop down into one of the two armchairs, which match the couch, and light a cigarette. Raph returns from the kitchen downstairs with two bottles of Alsatian beer.

For some reason, in my mind, the words beer and France have to be mutually exclusive. But after we click bottles, both of us are very pleasantly surprised.

“Whoa, yet another prejudice down the toilet.” I chuckle and take another swig.

“And which one would that be?” Raph, sitting at a right angle to me, props his shoeless feet on my thigh and takes a long drink.

“That the French wouldn’t be able to brew drinkable beer. But this stuff is great.” I flip my ash into the ceramic ashtray, obviously a left-over from the Art-nouveau days, centred on the round, glass end table. “Guess that’s because in the States, beer always has a German name.”

“Hey, it's Alsatian. Used to be part of Germany." He reads the label. You see, here it says Brasserie du Pécheur and in parentheses Fischer, which would be pécheur if you left out the 'c’.” He giggles.

“Wow, my Raph reads German.” And I start to giggle. It is precisely at this moment, I realise that we are both ripped on this stuff and haven’t even had half a bottle.

He takes a huge swig, sets the bottle on the end table and lunges up at me. “And your Raph can read you.” He approaches, acting as if he were a predator. “And what I read is that you wanna get fucked, right here on this armchair.” I can’t tell, whether the beer’s talking, or if Raph is looking for other, kinkier angles to sex. I put out my cigarette, preparing for action.

He unbuckles my belt and forces my trousers and boxers down to my knees. My sexe is giving him rapid response. He strokes it with his tongue, while unzipping himself.

Scents created by nervous sweat from flying, mixed with the secretion of raw testosterone, give him more of an animal feel. His usually sweet breath, now mingling with whiffs of beer, gives him a more vulgar aura. He's becoming Stanley Kowalski.

I reach down and find his drooling cock and place it against my hole. But instead of massaging its slime around my opening, smearing it inside and out, he abruptly forces himself into me.

My trousers are around his neck like a harness; he's biting my left nipple. As sharp pain tries in vain to turn into great pleasure, my senses fog over.

He grabs my cock. He looks down upon me and spits in my face, « Hé, sale bâtard, tourne toi maintenant. » demanding that I turn to let him fuck me from the back.

He rams it in and shifts into frenzy. He bites my ears and slaps my ass violently. I feel welts rise.

He flips me over and spits into my face, pounding my ass with his pelvic bone. He pushes me over the edge and keeps pounding my ass.

Even when he notices my jizz soaking his shirt. He flips me over, face to the floor and we go at it like dogs. I cum a second time as he fills me to the brim.

He collapses onto his side, keeping me in close contact, keeping his dick inside me. I’m his bitch, if only for the moment.

There is no other man alive, whom I would have let do that to me. He pants into my ear. « Ç'allait, mon amant ? »

I nod, indicating that I’m all right physically. I kiss him on the cheek to tell him that I may not recover emotionally.

When I feel his dick deflate, I let it slip out, and I get up. I kick off my trousers and boxers from around my ankles and make it to the bathroom on weak legs.

With the need to be alone, I close the door and sit on the toilet and break down. Tears are flowing and uncontrollable sobs make my torso heave, as I prop my elbows on my knees, letting the contents of my ass, streaked with blood, flow into the bowl.

After several minutes, Raph knocks lightly, peeks around the door and then enters. “I'm sorry, Dan. We shouldn’t have gone that far."

My sobbing makes it impossible to reply. I feel used, but I also caused it.

He kisses my head, as he holds me to his chest.

When I try to get up, he undresses me and helps me into the bathtub. He gets the coal-tar soap out of his suitcase and washes me, taking particular care around my genitals. When I ask him to get in with me, he does, and we let the tub run full.

Soaking in silence, until the water becomes tepid, Raph releases the drain stopper and dries us off with our oversized towel from Emery, Bird's, which was packed in his suitcase. I sniff it, thinking that it’s possibly only just a souvenir of happier times.

Lying in bed, I prop my head on my hand. “What happened to make it so brutal?"

“No idea.” Raph is not making excuses, his inflection is pensive. The pause is lengthy. “I think that we need to set some limits.”

I get up to turn off the light. Within seconds of getting back into bed, we're both asleep.

***

From the light, I see reflecting off the walls and ceiling, coming in through our open sitting-room windows, Friday is promising to be another sunny day. I watch Raph sleep, wondering why he is changing, but then put it out of my mind.

According to what Seph told us, we have to register at the Mairie today, so we can open bank accounts. I’m curious as to what the one has to do with the other. We also have to take the last of our passport photos with us for a so-called Carte de Séjour.

Seph told us late last night, before he showed us to our rooms, that our telephone number is Trocadéro 22-15, which translates as TRO-22-15 on the dial. I have never understood why there always has to be an exchange name.

And precisely at this thought, Raph slowly opens his eyes. « Bonjour, mon amant. » He kisses me. « Comment vas-tu ? »

I give him a short peck on the cheek to tell him that I’m not doing very well this morning, when there comes a rapping at our chamber door. “Breakfast in fifteen.” Marty is apparently on his way down to the main kitchen. And I pull myself away from Raph and go into the bathroom to relieve my bladder from its built-up pressure, instead of giving my man the attention he generally gets of a morning.

After our shower and while dressing for the day, I discover that our clean clothes, which we brought with us from Kansas City, seem totally out of place here. So far, I haven’t seen anyone wearing jeans, neither in Paris nor in London. And Raph confirms my observations.

So, we decide to wear our trousers and jackets from C&A in Brighton, which we were wearing when we arrived. The only things from the States we have on are our underwear, socks and my oxford-cloth shirts. This time he chooses the red, and I the blue one.

At breakfast, we could draw a boundary line across the table. Marty and Seph are having their so-called Full Irish Breakfast, consisting of fried eggs, fried bacon, links of fried sausage and fried black pudding, the real stuff Seph brought over with him along with the invariable toast and baked beans. Geneviève, Raph and I are eating fresh croissants from the bakery just across avenue Kléber, strawberry preserves and an assortment of cheese.

Since Marty keeps glaring at the cheese plate, Geneviève puts the glass dome over it and smiles. Marty looks apologetic. “That’s one helluva far cry from Velveeta.”

“Yes. Fortunately.” is Geneviève’s quiet reply, as she sips her coffee.

“Uh-hem,” Seph clears his throat and gives a little cough. “We have horrible bureaucratic errands to run this morning. Are you going to come with us or do something else, Vievie?”

She leans over and pulls a well-used tailor’s fabric tape-measure out of the canvass bag, which she has lying by her feet and dangles it in the air for all to see. “I’m going shopping for my boys.” She grins somewhat mischievously. “And that includes you, Martin. The three of you need something other than tweeds and jeans.” Marty blushes and gives her an ‘aw-shucks’ look.

Seph nods, coughs again and grins at her. “You do realise that your measurements will have to be in centimetres?" He chuckles.

“So I’ve heard.” She laughs at him. “And this has both.” She is still dangling the tape-measure. “But I have enlisted some expert help in the metric department,” She glances at her watch. “who should be arriving in--” And before she can say ‘a couple of minutes’ the bell rings and Geneviève, still chuckling, goes to the main door.

In less time than it takes for any of us to vocalise our various questions, we hear the cage door to the elevator clank shut and those female squeals of joy you hear when a surprise is about to be sprung. A broad grin of anticipation is crossing Seph’s face, when a tall, slender woman, who resembles a mixture of Mame Dennis and my father in drag, appears in the double doors of the dining room.

“Seph, Darling, how good to see you.” She rushes to him and throws him into a sort of body-lock hug. "You must be Martin." She lets go of Dad and grabs Marty.

Marty is more than speechless, he actually goes limp in her arms, surrendering. He starts with a stammer, but finally gets the question out as to how she knows who he is.

“I'm the one, who arranged Seph's visas and travel arrangements to Vietnam.” Auntie Françoise releases him, to let him breathe. “He sent me some pictures of you at that waterfall near your home in Lebanon."

When Marty gasps, she laughs. "The ones with your clothes on." I assume that her guess was an educated one, which has now uncovered a secret or two.

« Et Yves-Raphaël, mon petit neveu, bienvenue dans la capitale du monde francophone. » He looks just short of panic, as she grabs him, welcoming her little nephew to the centre of the French-speaking world.

And here she comes. It's unavoidable, so I stretch out my arms, surrendering to the bear hug, which turns out to be not as physical as it appears. “And Daniel. The image of Seph. It's lovely to meet everyone at last.”

“Did you know Geneviève before now?” I can't keep my curiosity at bay. Raph and Marty seem to be just as puzzled as I am.

“Of course.” Auntie Françoise acts as if she's astonished that I wouldn’t know that. "I first met Geneviève and Maurice, when they were playing here back in the ‘forties.” She looks at Geneviève for confirmation. “That was in ’47, I believe.”

Raph looks at his mother with the kind of disapproval only a teen-age son can muster. "I didn't even know that my parents had ever been to Europe."

“Whoops, there I go again.” Françoise actually looks ashamed, as she turns to Raph and me. “I have a habit of blabbing. If there’s something you don’t want the world to know, don't tell me."

“That’s not true, at all.” Seph takes up her defence. "During the war, you managed quite nicely to keep secret the fact quiet that you were working for British intelligence."

“You were a spy?” My astonishment makes my voice crack.

“Hmm, as it were.” She goes into the living room, where there’s an ashtray. “Mata bleedin’ Hari, I was. The Gestapo frequented my house, so the British approached me to do my part for their war effort.”

She offers her cigarettes around; I join her in the sitting room and take one. “But after the war, the prudes didn’t want to know anything about me. Even refused to renew my British passport, so I applied for a French one and got it.”

“And why would the Gestapo frequent your house?” I didn’t quite understand. Seph chuckles; Geneviève giggles silently. Marty and Raph again look puzzled.

And Auntie Françoise looks baffled, as well, but for a different reason. “They were clients, of course.” Then it dawns on her. “No one has told you that I’m a pro.”

“A professional? As in lawyer or maybe accountant?” I’m judging by her sleek figure, expensive business wardrobe, perfectly done, elegant makeup and understated hair style.

“No, no, my sweet, naïve Darling.” She takes a long drag on her cigarette and slowly releases the smoke, letting her sonorous voice reduce its volume. “Pro as in prostitute.”