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Order this writing in the 2009 book Crawling Through the Dirt |
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Andre had stayed at this particular Paris hotel many times in his diplomatic career. He was drawn to its mannered atmosphere. Its art deco architecture. Especially its bar. Reminiscent of something from an old black and white movie. Bogie or Hemingway would feel comfortable there. After a long day of service he liked to stop there late in the evening and have a relaxing drink before going to bed.
To be honest, he liked to pick up women there as well. Given his fairly handsome and distinguished appearance, his sophistication, and his bearing of obvious importance, he was usually successful. The presence of his two bodyguards often helped, also, betraying the fact that he was a VIP of some sort, a person women might like to know.
He tried to be discreet about it. After all, he’d been married for thirty-five years and still loved and respected his wife as a friend and companion. But, their sex life was over. It had died in the fire of his career and his constant traveling. He probably hadn’t been at home for more than a few years, in total, in all the time they’d been together. He knew she likely had a lover of her own, and he didn’t deny her the same right as himself. They tacitly agreed to forgo jealousy and keep up appearances for both their sakes. They both had public images to maintain.
Andre scanned the crowd in the subdued light of the bar as he walked in. He decided to dismiss his bodyguards at the curb tonight, despite their protests. He didn’t think he needed them for ‘show’ tonight, and he wanted to be left alone to drink his drink and to ‘hunt,’ as he liked to call it. He felt safe enough at the hotel and at the bar. The hotel was more like his home than the large mansion he shared with his wife and two nearly grown sons.
Immediately, as he sat down in his favorite booth, he saw her. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties and was beautiful in a very striking manner. Long dark hair, very good figure, and a finely featured face, accented by deep blue eyes. He could not decide her nationality, though he was usually good at figuring out where people came from. He believed he could tell a Russian woman from a German one, from a French one, and so on. But, he could not pin her down. Despite this slightly troubling mystery, he felt driven to introduce himself to her.
He picked up his drink and stepped directly up to her, fueled by the confidence of his long romantic and cosmopolitan experience. “Excuse me, miss,” he said as he sat down next to her at her table. “Can I join you?”
She looked up, at first appearing a bit startled, but then quickly relaxing. Andre smiled to himself. He knew he had a way of instantly making people feel at ease. It was the reason he had entered the diplomatic service to begin with. “Why not,” she answered, invitingly, looking him over with interest. He couldn’t make out her accent either.
“I always have a drink in this bar after I finish my day’s work,” he confided. “I always stay at this hotel when I’m in Paris, and this is my favorite bar.” He introduced himself, shaking her smooth, delicate hand. He explained who he was, knowing it would impress her.
“Oh, really,” she replied, her growing smile suggesting that the information had had the desired effect. “Power and position always gets them,” Andre winked to himself.
“I’m a personal assistant,” she said, not adding for whom. Still, her expression hinted that it was someone famous, probably a celebrity, likely a guest of the hotel. “I’m here for the week with my boss.” Suddenly, she laughed at herself. “I forgot to tell you my name, didn’t I? And you forgot to ask,” she playfully pouted, wagging her finger at him. “It’s Marie,” she said, shaking his hand again, this time more tightly.
Andre couldn’t tell her that he didn’t really care what her name was. He just wanted to make love to her. Although she was surely the most beautiful of the many women he had encountered, and also the most mysterious, she was still merely one in a long string of conquests over the years.
They continued to make small talk for an hour or so, ordering a couple of more drinks in the process. Their conversation and body language became increasingly familiar and intimate, and developed into verbal foreplay. As she began to touch him and place her hand on his leg and face, Andre realized that they were destined for bed. The mystery of her nationality and accent still troubled him slightly, but he was still intent on sleeping with her and finally asked her up to his hotel room. She followed him eagerly, grasping him around the neck, and breathing hotly into his ear.
As soon as they arrived inside his suite and closed the door behind them, they began to kiss and caress each other passionately and remove each other’s clothes. Her body was even more striking naked. Her breasts were natural and unbelievably full and firm. His manhood betrayed his excitement, standing more erect than it had in recent memory, particularly for a man of his age, as his underwear dropped to the floor.
She moved to the bed and lay on top of the covers. She rolled on her back, propping her head on the pillows and spreading her legs. “Come here,” she purred, “I want you inside of me.”
He climbed onto the bed, shaking like a first-time schoolboy, and worked his way on top of her. “I’m going to enjoy this very much,” he almost said out loud. “This might be the best I’ve ever had,” he wanted to shout. “And I deserve it,” he continued to think. “After all of the long hours I’ve put into the peace agreement I’m brokering.”
“Come on, Andre,” she almost begged. “I can’t wait.”
Andre pressed his penis past her moist opening and then thrust it deeply into her sweet tightness. As it reached fully inside of her, its tip pushed against a triggering device near the mouth of her womb. An electrical signal moved up a short wire and set off the surgically implanted block of plastic explosive inside of her abdomen. In an instant, the bed, along with much of the room, was obliterated and Andre and Marie were vaporized, minute drops of blood and tiny pieces of flesh and bone spread like a fine spray across what remained of the walls.
Upon hearing the explosion and witnessing it from a hotel room across the street, an operative for a radical group in Andre’s home country opposed to the peace agreement sent an email to Andre’s superior. A message was quickly posted on the group’s international website claiming credit.
