he murmured against my ear as he swept me against him when I stepped off the train. The heat and strength of his body were always so thrilling to me. "Es-tu fatigué?" "Yes, I'm exhausted," I agreed after my brain slowly translated his French. "Why, do I look tired?" I'd made an effort to squeeze into the bathroom before they announced Paris, straightening, tucking in, re-touching make-up and combing my hair, but a three hour train ride, even on the Eurostar, was enough to make anyone tired, and I'd already been up for too long the night before with Don and Jo in London. "You are beautiful, delicious, good enough for eating" he replied, and as always when he spoke English (which, admittedly, with me, was most of the time, since my French was still unbelievably slow) with his sweet accent and curious translations, it sounded so earnest and genuine that I always believed him. "Eating?" I smiled, touching his lips with my finger as if to shush him. "Mmmm, I could use something to eat." "As-tu faim??" he asked, looking concerned. "Did you not eat your biscuits on the train?" He always called the never-ending supply of Fig Newtons in my purse "biscuits" no matter how many times I tried to get him to say "cookies." "They're all gone, before I even left Waterloo," I admitted sheepishly, pressing fully against him as someone with a luggage cart moved in behind me. His eyes brightened and his hands went immediately to my waist to pull me in closer. "Besides," I purred. "I was thinking of something a little more... filling." I slipped my hand between us to press the seam of his jeans and he smiled, his dark eyes growing even darker. "Ahhh mon Dieu, I missed you, ma chérie,," he said, his mouth finding mine, the entire station disappearing into his kiss. I left my hand where it was (it had taken my American sensibilities some time to differentiate between prudish London and wanton Paris!) feeling him respond, growing harder against the denim, my hand creating a slow, tantalizing friction. He buried his face in my neck, pulling my long dark hair back with one fist so he could find that tender, sensitive spot just below and behind my ear with his tongue and growled, "Tu es vachement bandante!" "I'm what...?" I asked, dizzy from the feel of his mouth and the hard, throbbing pulse beneath my hand. He chuckled, nuzzling me near my collarbone. An older man passed us and I saw his smile, his appreciative glance, and that unmistakably French lasciviousness. He saw two young lovers and was delighted. So different from America, where I imagined anyone at a train station witnessing our fervent petting would bump by and growl, "Get a room!" I kissed the corner of Ronan's mouth and then moved away to grab my overnight bag that I'd dropped when he gathered me off the platform. "So... what did you say? I'm what...?" I asked again. He shook his head, still smiling. "You need to learn French, Chérie," he said, reaching for my hand. "I know, I know," I agreed, slowly transitioning from my flushed and eager lust as we began walking. "I've been listening to the tapes. I promise, I'll learn. Mr. Zalar would be appalled... my two years of high school French apparently did me no good whatsoever!" "Maybe I'll stop talking English and you'll be forced to learn, no?" he smiled slyly. I startled, slightly panicked, before I saw the smile and realized that he was kidding. "No, that's not fair," I argued, feeling guilty. I had learned quite a bit from him already in our three months together, and noticed I learned much easier in context with him at the grocery or the restaurant than I did from the tapes. "But there's so much to learn! People and places are easy, even all the verbs, it's the vocabulary that kills me, I feel like a little baby learning it over again, pointing to everything and asking, 'what's this?' and 'what's this'?" I pointed first to my bag, and then to the light over our heads. "Ahhh, ma bébé," he squeezed my hand tenderly. "I will teach you. You will be mon étudiante?" "I've been your student from the day I met you," I reminded him, and I wondered if he was remembering that day in London. He was just helping out his friend Don, coming into a class I was observing and lecturing as an expert

about ecologically and environmentally sound building practices. I'd come to Europe to learn more about "green" (i.e. earth-friendly) building to take the ideas back to the American company that paid my salary but my real treasure was finding Ronan. He'd walked up to the podium like some god on a Greek isle. In fact, I was sure he was Greek, until he began to speak and I heard the thick French accent. Every woman in the auditorium (and some of the men!) were simply transfixed by him. I found out later, after a late dinner with Ronan and Don (who had started out as a colleague but who had, along with his wife, Jo, become a good friend) when Ronan escorted me shamelessly back to my London flat, that he was in fact partially Greek, on his father's side. It explained his beautiful, matter-of-fact body, the earthy, sun-soaked olive skin, the thick furls of wild black hair that wouldn't be tamed, much to his chagrin. I'd come to London on business and now found myself in Paris more often than not, experiencing more pleasure than I knew was humanly possible. And now, of course, I never wanted to leave, although I'd been here eight months, and was due to go back in four. I didn't like to think about it, and we didn't talk about it. "Le sac..." He pointed to my overnight bag. "La lumière ..." now pointing to the light. "Répète.." I repeated him obediently, my American accent, as always, completely slaughtering the beauty of the language. He nodded approvingly. "Très bien!!" "That's the other thing that drives me crazy... everything being masculine or feminine... how can you put some arbitrary gender on every object in the universe? It's maddening!" I cried. We had moved outside, heading toward the metro to take us to Ronan's apartment. "Ah, but Celia, look around you, everything *is* masculine or feminine!" he urged. I snorted, shaking my head. "But how are you supposed to know which is which? It's not like a puppy, I can't turn it over and look!" He laughed out loud at that, and stopped, pulling me off toward the edge of the sidewalk. "You can turn me over and look," he said lowly and I grinned. "And you just need to think... no... feel... how would you address l'arbre... tree... monsieur, or mademoiselle?" He pointed to the oak across the street. "Umm... feminine," I said, taking a stab at it. "Non, non, l'arbre... tree... he is tall et fort... strong... and straight, like me... he is masculine, chérie." "But Ronan, trees are part of the earth, the earth is feminine, everyone knows that." "The earth, yes... the ground, la terre... but not everything that grows from her, those things are mostly masculine. The tree, he is masculine. The flower, le fleur, he is masculine. The bush, le buis, he is masculine. They marry together, they are paired, like you and me, no?" He smiled, grabbing my hips and pressing them to his. "Comprends?" "Mmmm!" I ground my hips a little against his. "I understand this, yes!" "That is how you know whether something is masculine or feminine. Everything has l'âme, how do you say? A soul, a life, and yes, a gender. We are all paired, masculine and feminine, that balance must be maintained. This is what I teach, this is what I know avit the earth. The sun... le soleil, he is masculine, but the moon, la lune, she is feminine, no?" I listened to him, fascinated, nodding, something very profound clicking into place for me for the first time. "Teach me," I urged, inspired and roused by his stirring explanation. He nodded, leaning in to kiss me deeply, breathing me in. My hands roamed freely, sliding up under his shirt, feeling the hard planes of his back. "Tu est vachement bandante!" He murmured again near my ear, pressing his full body against mine, squeezing me so tightly I nearly left the ground. "Sexy, Celia... you are very sexy." I smiled, pleased, my hand slipping under to stroke the ridges of his abdomen under his shirt. I felt him shiver when I found his navel and teased the line of hair that extended downward under the waistband of his jeans. "Will you teach me?" I asked and he nodded. "Take me home." And he did. **************** Click here to continue to next page.