I totally am always up to challenge myself with a new prompt from Marie, whether it goes along with my story plot or not!!! This week however, I think to continue with Eliza’s story since she has done a bit of traveling…and traveled a lot mentally last week while she was having a cappuccino with Sally…I think we should revisit her time with Oscar in Paris and Shanghai.
We also need to revisit her connection to Adrien. Adrien was a character I developed on a prompt from Exhibit A, because he knew I am a Francophile. Adrien was transient, and now who knows? Depends on Marie’s next prompt!
Here is how Eliza and Adrien met…
She scrolled on her phone after she got off with Rafe, wiped a tear on it as she tried to call the car service she used there. The number should have been in her contacts, but she had never put it there and always had to look it up. While she was looking it up, she saw something about a motor taxi and clicked on it. It was cheaper than her car service, would probably get her to Paris faster and she just wanted to do something that would take her out of herself.
When her taxi arrived, the guy got off of his motorcycle, took off his helmet and smiled. Eliza inadvertently licked her lips. He handed her a helmet, and she told him in a rush where she wanted to go.
He smiled at her they way that most Parisians did when she spoke in French.
“You are American!” he said in heavily accented French.
“Oui!”
“I speak some English. I will help you get to your hotel, and you will help me practice English?”
“Sure,” Eliza smiled as he bent over to pick up her luggage, and put it in the compartment on the motorcycle that could hold it.
They got on the bike.
“Are you ready?” he asked her as he put on his helmet.
“Yes, as I will ever be!”
He smiled, and they were on their way. Eliza closed her eyes at first, and then the the rush came over her from France flying by her, and at this point the closeness of her driver. His hair was curly and shaggy where the helmet was not covering it, and his scent was of a cologne that she did not recognize the notes of. The scent however was a sweet harmony for her senses. They did not talk a lot, but there was a smattering of English and French coming from both of them. Coming into to Paris like this was magnificent.
When she got to her hotel, they took off their helmets outside.
“You are here.”
“Oui,”
“You did not get to help me speak a lot of English.”
“No, I did not,” she smiled.
“Here is my card, in case you have time while you are here…or of course when you are going back to New York you said?”
She nodded, she felt so nervous because he was so good looking that she could not speak a word. English or French.
“Well, you have it.”
Eliza closed her fist about it.
“I do. Merci beaucoup.”
He smiled as he got on his motorcycle, and put on his helmet. His smile filled her in a way she had needed to be filled when she left Shanghai, and which she had sought when she called Rafe.
Adrien’s card would have burned a hole in Eliza’s purse, she had not forgotten him for her whole trip. She did not want to call him, but she knew that she had to.
When he arrived, he looked even sexier than when she had first met him. His hair was a bit wilder, and he had stubble on his face.
“What time is your flight?”
“Cinq.”
“You have time to kill?”
“I thought I would help you practice English.”
Adrien smiled.
She led him through the curtains that divided the lobby, and down the stairs to the door marked “Privé,” which he pressed her up against. She closed her eyes and rubbed her face against the stubble on his face, loving the burn, needing it to make her feel alive and know she was doing this.
The roughness of his stubble and his coarse hands under her dress,made her growl low in her chest. She did not know how to say condom in French, so she frisked him. Her hand grabbing at his ass, trying to feel for any signs that he might have one. He dangled the condom with a laugh above her face like mistletoe, and she laughed deeper than she usually did.
And what followed was more excitement than when the ball dropped in Times Square for New Year’s.
More Wicked Wednesday here:
travel via wicked wednesday
I am constantly impressed with the way you spin these flash scenes and flesh your characters out using these prompts.
I don’t think I’ve ever said before, but: I also really like how each installation is more a vignette than a chapter or sequencing. Under different authorship, this approach might feel fragmented. But you have such an amazing knack for threading your storylines that your writing always feels very inviting.
I admire your talent. 🙂
Mrs Fever!!! you have so humbled me, thank you kindly!!! *blush*