Marianne

The indigo sky of the horizon darkened to black overhead where faint wispy traces of high, shadowy clouds finally dispersed and the emerald and diamond stars began to appear. The majestic, flaming beauty of the sunset was suddenly just a memory and Marianne’s pulse quickened a little in spite of the best efforts of the warm Mediterranean waves to soothe her, as they gently kissed and caressed her feet. A brief flurry of breeze tried to be warm, but it contained an element in it that was chill and made her shiver, causing the tiny, soft, blonde hairs on her tanned, naked body to stand erect in response to the temporary drop in temperature. Her nipples responded in the same way and a small thrill of recalled passion ran through her.

Marianne turned and walked back a few steps up the beach, bent easily to retrieve the thin dress from the sand and slipped it over her lithe form where it clung to her shape and did little to hide her beauty from the prying stare of the stars. “Bastard,” she murmured under her breath. She smiled faintly, noting, not for the first time, that in spite of all the years she had lived on the Cote d’Azur with her mother, whenever she was angry, she thought and spoke in English. It was something that always annoyed her mother, that automatic return to the language of her early years in England, when her father had still been around.

“In French!” her mother would often scold her, but these days she would only smile and continue to do just as she wished. No one, not even the mother she loved, was going to tell her how to live her life now that she had turned eighteen.

Deliberately sticking to English, she would reply, “I’m an adult now and I’ll swear in whatever language I like.”

As she bent to pick up her sandals, Marianne thought she heard a sound in the darkness at the back of the beach and her pulse speeded up once more.  For the first time she realised just how late it had got and how isolated and vulnerable her situation was. What had been warm, inviting and romantic less than an hour before, now had a new feeling to it and there was unseen and unspecified menace in the darkness that surrounded her, threatening to engulf her. Nervously, she peered into the gloom at the back of the beach and, as a brief, lone cloud drifted away, allowing the cold beauty of the moon to brazenly display itself, she could just make out the entwined figures of two lovers, to the right of a large sand dune, engrossed in their own desires and oblivious to her presence, or perhaps they were just consumed by passion and cared nothing for whoever might observe their lovemaking.

The salty dampness of tears that she refused to release stung her eyes and she repeated, “Bastard. I’ve waited for you.”

What hurt, or perhaps more accurately, annoyed, Marianne the most was that she had known all along that she was hanging on to a fantasy. Her mother had told her so, but, of course, this had only strengthened her resolve to believe that he would come back, just as they had promised each other three summers ago. She was beautiful now, where she had merely been pretty, three years before. Blossoming womanhood had completed what had only been hinted at before and all the local young men wanted her, but she remained aloof and unavailable. Not for her some local stud. She belonged to her artist, Jean-Pierre. Six years her senior, he was her first and only love and she shivered again as she remembered the fuss there had been, when a relative had spotted his portraits of her, naked and wanton, in a small Paris gallery. Jean-Pierre was a good artist, brilliant perhaps, and the raw lust staring out from the eyes of a fifteen year old in his paintings was far too knowing for the family to accept.

They had been lovers, that was obvious from the paintings, and her yearning expression, the fire in her eyes and the openness with which she clearly wanted the man who was painting her were all too obvious to pretend there was anything left of innocence there. If she, or he, had been even a little more subtle, then the family could have buried their heads in the sand of the Cote d’Azure and been pleased that he was so clever and their Marianne so pretty. As it was, he had been literally run out of town and she had been virtually caged for a while, until she appeared to have accepted the situation. For three long years she had secretly pined for her lover and waited impatiently for her eighteenth birthday, when he would return as they had agreed and meet naked on the beach at sunset, close to the dunes where they had first made love.

On the evening of her eighteenth birthday, Marianne had come down to the beach, as she had done this night and every night for the past three weeks. By the third night, her mother had guessed what she was about and tried to warn her that she was living a dream, but she had refused to discuss the matter, except to say, “I’m an adult now and I’ll do as I please.”

Fearful that her daughter might run off to Paris and who knew what dangers with which she could not cope, her mother had just shrugged her shoulders and sighed, understanding far more of the pain and anguish her offspring was suffering than Marianne even dreamed she could, for the young always believe it is they who have discovered love and sex and pain for the very first time.

Another sound startled Marianne as she strolled along the beach towards home, lost in thoughts of passion and betrayal. The moon was a little higher in the sky now and she could pick out the shadowy figure of a man to her right, behind the dunes. The beach was narrow at that point and she had little choice but to walk close to where she had seen him dart away. Her heart leapt at the idea that it might be Jean-Pierre, but her head and some sixth sense told her it was Andrew Southbury, the seventeen year old son of a couple of well-to-do ex-pat Brits, who lived in a big old villa just outside the village. She quickened her pace a little since the Southbury lad gave her the creeps. She found the way he was always furtively watching her unpleasant, although she was not in the least fearful of him and regarded him as a pest, rather than any kind of threat.

Perhaps it was imagination, she thought, but she could feel his eyes burning into her as she made for the steep, uneven path that led down to the secluded beach from the village. In fact, she could imagine him licking his lips in some fantasy of anticipation of the delights her body held in store, but not for him. At the very beginning of the narrow path, she suddenly found her way barred by another, slightly older youth with whom she was vaguely acquainted. He smiled, but it turned into more of a leer. “Hey, what is ze ‘urry, Engleesh?” he asked. “Stay an’ ‘ave some fun with us, eh?”

This one did make her a little nervous and she felt obliged to explain more than was necessary. “No, thanks, Andre. I’ve got to get home. I’m late. I, er … forgot the time.”

Suddenly, she latched on to the “us” in his remark and was instantly aware of Andrew Southbury coming up behind her. His hands clasped her waist and then slid round to her breasts. “Aw, come on, baby. You know you want it and your artist bloke isn’t coming back,” he said in a whining tone. “We’ll give you a good time.”

“No thanks – and get your filthy hands off my tits.”

Andrew kept his hands where they were and began to squeeze harder. “Aw, baby. That’s not very friendly, is it?”

“It wasn’t meant to be.” Marianne was much stronger than she looked and grabbed Andrew’s hands, pulling them away with relative ease. She spun round and brought her knee up hard into her assailant’s groin. He screamed in pain and swore, nastily, calling her names she did not like at all. She reached out instinctively to slap his face, but such was her fury that she clawed it instead. Then she made to run back onto the beach, but the older youth grabbed her from behind. He almost missed her and caught hold of her dress instead. Marianne was not about to hang around and wrenched herself free, but the flimsy dress tore and remained largely in Andre’s grasp.

For precious moments he stood transfixed at the sight of Marianne’s naked form running away in the moonlight. “Christ,” Andrew breathed at last, now that breath of any kind was returning and the sick feeling in his stomach was abating just a little. “She hasn’t even got any knickers on.”

Andre smiled nastily. “It is ze nudist beach. You ‘ave seen ‘er before like this, you say.”

“Yeah, but this is different. Wow!”

“Come on,  my friend. We get ‘er, yes?”

“Not half. Christ. I want her first.”

Andre repeated his nasty grin as they began to give chase. “We see who goes first. Maybe I let it be you, eh?”

Marianne sprinted for all she was worth towards the dunes where she had seen the lovers, but they were gone. “Shit,” she breathed, her chest heaving. For a moment she considered trying to hide, but she knew they would find her. A shout from one of them to the other warned her not to delay any further and she sped off once more, following the only other route the lovers could have taken off the beach – towards its far end where it was possible to climb over a rocky outcrop and thus up to the lane that wound out past a couple of farms, before it turned back on itself and ran into the far side of the village. She raced on along the beach.

Spurred on by long repressed lust, the two youths were close on Marianne’s heels by the time she reached the rocks and it was then that she regretted kicking off her sandals in order to sprint faster on the sand. She bounded on to the rocks determined to ignore the pain that immediately assailed her bare feet, but, moments later, her left foot caught a sharp piece of rock and was badly cut. With a cry of pain and fear, she fell, cutting her thigh as well as she did so.

Then they were upon her. The older and stronger Andre grabbed her arm and dragged her, stumbling and in pain, back from the rocks and onto the sand. He leered unpleasantly as he pulled her arms above her head into a prone position in the shadows on the beach and then dropped down, pinning her arms with his knees. “Okay Engleesh. Now you get it. I think I let my young friend ‘ere go first. Then you get ze real man’s cock after.”

“Bastard! Arsehole!” She screamed, and began kicking out at Andrew, who was at her feet and removing his trousers.

The younger youth stared at his prize and then at his swollen groin, where she had kneed him. He winced. “Christ it hurts,” he told Andre.

Andre snarled. “Get on with it, if you are going to do it to her, or I will go first.”

“I’m… trying. It’s…”

Andre grinned, undid his belt and zip and, very close to Marianne’s face, began to masturbate. “You ‘ave ze one minute, or I take your place. You like what you see ‘ere, Engleesh? I ‘ave very nice big c… Merdre!”

Andre never saw the owner of the boot that struck him in the side of the head. At Marianne’s feet, Andrew stood with his mouth open and his hands still at his inoperative groin, until the fist smashed into his face and fireworks exploded in his head.

Marianne rolled around into a kneeling position and then leapt to her feet, ignoring the pain in her leg. Then she flung her arms around the neck of her saviour. “Oh, Jean-Pierre,” she murmured excitedly in his ear. “I knew you would come back to me.”

 

© Copyright Adam Frayle 2002 all rights reserved