For those who came in late, Matt McCoy — now Madeline Moreau — is on the run for a crime he did not commit, and a murder which she did…after returning to Paris, Maddy confronts her demons as she reclaims her destiny with the man who turned her into a woman.
I was on cloud nine all the way to the apartment, even my taxi driver commented on how radiant I looked! I tipped him handsomely and tripped up the stairs while he carried my suitcase into the lobby, where the doorman greeted me like a long-lost daughter. “Maison bienvenue,” he beamed, and indeed it did feel like I was home - my second homecoming in less than forty-eight hours, although all things considered I preferred Paris to Winnetka.
It was wonderful unpacking my suitcase and putting away my things, for good this time. My cheap woolen coat and boots would be unbefitting the mistress of a prominent Paris physician, and I made a mental note to donate them to charity as I drew a bath and poured Mistral bain moussant into the steaming hot water. Luxuriating in the mountain of suds was heaven on earth, and I took my time shaving my deeply tanned legs.
“Put on your prettiest dress,” Jacques had commanded me. My white tulle confection wouldn’t do in winter, and my slinky black dress would be inappropriate for luncheon...after I patted myself dry with a thirsty towel and wrapped another around my head into a turban, I rummaged through my closet until I spied the Burberrys dress that I’d picked up in London. Perfect!
I thought back over all I’d learned from my mother as I went through the now-familiar rituals of styling and drying my hair, putting on my makeup and selecting my lingerie. No wonder I’d taken to being a woman so naturally, indeed it was a wonder that the feminization I’d experienced during my boyhood had stayed buried so deeply in my subconscious. I wondered if my inner woman would have found her way to the surface somehow, someway if I hadn’t been forced to find her?
“Don’t ask, it’s dangerous to know what end the gods will give you....Carpe diem!” I said to myself as I eased on an obscenely expensive pair of real silk stockings and snapped them into their garters. On my way back to the closet to get my dress, I stopped to admire my reflection in the full length mirror. The woman looking back at me had magnificent breasts, a perfect butt and long legs enhanced by her sexy black lingerie. Poor Madam Bochy!
My Burberrys check sheath dress was sleeveless with a straight skirt and a belted waist. I zipped it up in the back like I’d been doing this all my life, stepped into my Gucci stilettos and rummaged through my jewel box for just the right bling. A Hermes scarf, a spritz of L’Air Du Temps, and I was ready for the kill.
Another homecoming at Le Relais, where the maitre’d and two of the waiters hugged me before I was led to the booth that Jacques and I used to haunt. There he was, as debonair and distinguished as I remembered him…a touch more gray in his hair perhaps, and a few fine wrinkles framing his deep brown eyes, but at that moment to me he was the handsomest man in the world. Before I could speak, he said what I was thinking: “My God, how I missed you!” I slid in next to him before he could stand up, and gazed contentedly into his eyes while he took my hands. “Madeline, I’m…I’m….”
“Shut up and kiss me,” I said, and he did, right there in the restaurant, to the applause of half the wait staff and some of the customers. It was a long, lingering kiss and I felt his hand playing with the hem of my dress under the booth, sliding up my delicious silken thigh, and coming to rest on the soft flesh at the top of my stocking.
When we finally came up for air, I wiped a smudge of lipstick off his face with a linen napkin and sat back in the plush booth, the happiest woman in the world. “I missed you too,” I said, and we just sat there and stared at each other until the sommelier broke the spell. Jacques ordered our usual champagne while I repaired the damage to my makeup. “I take it you’re pleased with your creation?” The last time I’d seen him, we’d been on a manic dash from the hospital to the airport, and my mental state and adaptation to my sex change were very much in doubt.
“My dear Madeline, you have exceeded my every expectation. Against my better judgment, I allowed myself to become intimately involved with a patient, and the results have been spectacular. Clinically speaking, of course.”
“Of course. Jacques, would it surprise you to learn that my mother secretly dressed me as a little girl and treated me as her daughter, until I was almost five years old?”
Jacques pondered the question, and answered it with one of his own. “And you didn’t know this until recently?”
“Two days ago, I was reunited with my mother. Actually, I surprised her at my father’s funeral, and once she got over the shock of seeing me alive, as a woman, she told me.”
“Mon Dieu. It sounds like one of your dreadful American reality shows.”
“Tell me about it! Except it really was kind of miraculous, I mean one minute she’s a grieving widow, and the next minute her dead son turns up as her daughter…she blamed herself for screwing me up when I was little, until I told her that what she did to me wound up saving my life.”
“Indeed. I’m sorry to hear about your father, Madeline.”
“He disowned me before he died, and who can blame him? It’s so sad that he went to his grave believing that I was a murderer who fled the USA in a dress….”
“And your mother?” Jacques asked gently.
“That’s the miraculous part. It was like I was her missing daughter, suddenly found alive after all those years. We talked and talked, about everything, and she even helped me get out of the country. The FBI is still looking for me,” I sighed.
A waiter materialized with our menus, and Jacques ordered my favorite entrée from memory. After we were alone, he took my hands again. “Madeline, you are safe here in Paris. Nobody knows about that apartment but you and me, and in a city of this size you can hide in plain sight indefinitely as a beautiful woman.”
“Don’t worry, Docteur. I’m not going anywhere.”
After lunch, Jacques drove us to the apartment, and he bounded up the stairs after me like a teenager. As soon as we were in the door, our passions were unleashed, and for the third time in my life, I made love as a woman. Not with a ripped ballplayer, or a randy pilot, but with a mature, sensitive Frenchman who knew how to please every inch of my body. First he undressed me, slowly, tenderly, until all that was left was my garterbelt and silk stockings, and the velvet choker around my neck. Then I undressed him. His arousal was less intense than a younger man’s, almost languid, and it took him much longer to rise to the occasion, which only intensified my anticipation and enjoyment. By the time he was ready to climax, I was out of my mind with desire, and when he finally came, he stopped thrusting and let me feel him pulsating deep inside me, which triggered my own simultaneous spasms of ecstasy. I will never forget the way it felt to be loved, expertly, by the man who had turned me into his woman.
Afterwards, we lay in each others’ arms, smoking contentedly and sharing our innermost thoughts as we snuggled under the duvet. “Thank you,” I said at one point.
“For what, cheri?”
“For making me your woman.”
“It is I who should thank you.”
“Why?”
“Do you remember the last thing I said to you that first night, at the Plaza Athenee?”
I closed my eyes and it all came back. “You told me when my body matched my psyche, you hoped you’d find the courage to fulfill your destiny.”
There was a long silence. We both knew what Jacques was thinking about: Madam Bochy. Should I put his mind at ease, assure him that I was content to be his mistress, and not wreck his marriage? Or should I go for the gold?
This was no time for words. My body answered for me, in a wicked appeal to his limbic brain. Sliding down under the duvet, I took him into my mouth and sucked on him until I could feel him begin to stiffen. My sharp fingernails tormented his nipples until he moaned, then I climbed on top of him and gently guided him in, straddling him and sliding my legs over his shoulders so I could tease his ears with my silken toes. Up and down, in and out, slowly at first, then faster and faster…his breathing became shallower and shallower, and for a moment I thought he was going to have a heart attack until he cried out in ecstasy and his whole body shook with the throes of a shattering orgasm.
Panting from the exertion, I rolled off him and snuggled up against him again, entwining my silken legs in his. “When’s the last time you made it twice like that?” I whispered, nibbling on his ear.
“Eons,” he sighed.
“Shall we go for three?” I giggled as I played with his exhausted manhood.
“My god, Madeline, do you want to put me in the hospital?”
I played with him some more, until I could feel him stirring once again. “I promise I’ll visit you every day. After all, the last time I saw you, I was the one in the hospital,” I purred, blowing into his ear.
“You are incorrigible! I should have known this would happen when I turned a man into a woman…melding a man’s libido with the body of a goddess was a terrible mistake. No wonder you strayed when I sent you alone to St. Martin.”
“You make me sound like the Bride of Frankenstein!” I pouted. Reaching into the nightstand drawer, I found the vibrator which Jacques had packed in my suitcase the day I left the hospital. I switched it on and zeroed in on his G-spot, a place which I knew only too well…Jacques groaned when the first waves of pleasure overwhelmed his resistance, and once again he grew hard in my practiced hands. When I felt him beginning to twitch, I pulled him on top of me and wrapped my silken legs around his neck. After he entered me once again, I jolted his aching balls with the vibrator until he finally reached the point of no return, and I joined him in a Never Neverland of exquisite pleasure as my own orgasm consumed me.
This time I kept him inside me as we slowly came down to earth. “I’m sorry I was a bad girl in St. Martin,” I finally said.
“I’ve only myself to blame. Turning you loose in that tropical paradise was a recipe for infidelity. Tell me, was your lover…younger?”
“If you must know, he was a baseball player from the USA. It was just a one-night stand, Jacques. You are a much better lover than he’ll ever be,” I lied. That seemed to satisfy him, and of course I didn’t tell Jacques about my tryst on the airplane that morning. Some things are best kept secret.
We must have dozed off, because the next thing I remember is Jacques fumbling on the nightstand for his Cartier wristwatch. After he saw the time, he staggered out of bed, and I do mean staggered — the poor man could hardly stand up straight! I tucked a pillow under my chin and watched him struggle into his clothes, wondering what he must be thinking…
“What time is it?” I asked as he tied his tie.
“Almost six o’clock.”
“Are you going back to the office?”
“No, thank God I cleared my schedule for the afternoon. My wife is expecting me, we’re hosting a dinner party for some friends.”
“That’s nice, you worked up quite an appetite. I hope Madam Bochy isn’t feeling amorous this evening,” I couldn’t resist saying.
“That, my dear girl, is the least of my problems.” He bent over and kissed me on the forehead, and then he was gone.
I lay there with a satisfied smile for the longest time…round one to the Mistress! Eventually I wrapped a robe around my shoulders and made my way to the kitchen, where I fixed myself some leftover quiche from the freezer with a split of Chardonnay. I was on my second glass of wine when I decided to check my emails.
There was nothing from Tracy, and I almost erased it before I realized that there was a message from Mom mixed in with all the junkmails and spam. My heart jumped when I saw it, and sank when I read it:
Maddy, I am back in Chicago where I was greeted at the airport by your FBI friends. They gave me the third degree about why I left the country and returned the same day. I’m not a very good liar, but I gave nothing away. Please be careful, since they know I went to Paris I’m sure they’re looking for you there. Love, Mom
I pounded the keyboard with both hands in frustration. Would this never end? It was only a matter of time before the FBI retraced Mom’s steps, determined who she traveled with and smoked out the forged passport that I’d used to travel with her. Damn! I felt terrible about getting her involved, although there was little chance that the FBI was about to prosecute a 70 year old widow for aiding and abetting her son/daughter. The problem was all mine, and unless I put some distance between myself and Paris it was only a matter of time before I got caught in the net and dragged Jacques down with me.
Think, Maddy…how could I get them off my tail, once and for all? I thought about heading to a country that didn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States, but a quick web search ruled that out: I’d no intention of spending the rest of my life in Yemen, Chad…wait! Morocco was on that list. Morocco, the country that Matt McCoy had pretended to visit before he faked his death, only now it was obvious that the authorities hadn’t bought it.
I spent most of the night on the Internet, researching travel arrangements and visa requirements, as well as seedier websites specializing in phony identification documents. The sun was just coming up when the last details of my plan fell into place. After a long, hot bubble bath washed away the remnants of my sex marathon with Jacques, I dressed in a simple skirt and blouse and fixed myself an omelet and espresso. Then I retrieved the woolen coat and boots that had been destined for charity, and took the Metro to Montmartre.
Later that morning, I returned to the apartment with my acquisitions: a forged French identity card in the name of Mayyada Mansoor, a long black wig, and an airline ticket to Casablanca in the name of Madeline Moreau. There was a message on my answering machine from Jacques, inquiring as to my availability for lunch at Le Relais. I really didn’t have the time, and besides it was time to play a little hard to get, so I called his officious receptionist and when she told me the doctor was preoccupied with patients, I asked her to leave a message that I was unable to see him today.
It took me longer than I anticipated to pack my suitcase, as I pondered the climatic and cultural requirements for a woman’s wardrobe in Morocco, and I just had time to send this message to my mother’s secure email address:
Mom, I’m so sorry that I dragged you into this! I have a plan to get them off my tail for good, you will get a phone call from me in a few days that they will probably be listening to, just go with the flow, okay? I love you and I miss you! Your daughter, Maddy
I didn’t have time to change into something more stylish for my flight, although I did ditch the cheap coat and boots, which had been perfect for the back alleys of Montmartre, for my Burberry’s trench coat and some comfortable Ferragamo flats. The doorman hailed me a taxi, and I beat the afternoon rush hour traffic and made it to Charles de Gaulle with enough spare time to score a Hermes scarf at the duty free to liven up my travel outfit, paid for with Madeline Moreau’s French credit card.
I settled into my business class seat, kicked off my flats, and was just about to switch off the cell phone in my purse when it started to ring. It was Jacques. As always on this phone, we spoke exclusively in French, as I recall the conversation went something like this:
“Cheri, I missed you at lunch today!”
“Didn’t the receptionist give you my message?”
“Yes, of course, is everything all right?”
“Couldn’t be better, my love! How was your dinner party last night?”
“Deadly, as always. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, all night….”
“If you talk in your sleep, don’t mention my name.”
He laughed heartily. “Madeline, what am I ever going to do with you?”
How about marrying me? I thought of saying. No, it was much too soon to say that, although now that the game was afoot, I liked my chances…keep your cool, girl! “The same thing you did to me last night, every night, for the rest of my life,” I replied.
He sighed with contentment. “I must say, I surprised myself. Medically speaking, you are more efficient than Viagra!”
“You mean you didn’t take one?” I asked in mock surprise.
“No cheri, last night I discovered the fountain of youth in your arms.”
“You were a fountain, all right…Jacques, I can’t talk much longer, and I wanted to let you know that I’m going out of town for a few days.”
He was obviously disturbed. “But you just got back. Where are you going?”
“I’ll let you know when I get there. Sorry to be so mysterious!”
“Really, Madeline, you must let me know these things,” he said in exasperation.
The flight attendant announced that all cell phones had to be turned off, and I’m sure that Jacques heard the announcement. “Must go, au revoir!” I said and switched off my phone. Round two to the Mistress! I tucked my stockinged feet under my skirt and reveled in the sensation of being a pretty woman in love.
The less said about my brief excursion to North Africa, the better. It’s all a blur: clearing customs and immigration as Madeline Moreau, checking in to the Hyatt Regency, sleeping past noon, a room service breakfast, a foray to the old market where I purchased one item of women’s clothing, and five minutes in the hotel sundry shop completed my whirlwind tour of Casablanca. At the sundry shop I purchased a postcard featuring the Old Medina and enough stamps to mail it to the United States. Once back in my room, I penned this note to Tracy:
Surprise! You probably thought I was dead. I’ve missed you. If you ever get to fly here, I’d love to see you, although being a woman in a Muslim country is not recommended for fun…love, Maddy
I hated myself for the turmoil my card would cause her, then again for all I knew she’d found somebody else. I was counting on the FBI reading it before she did. To make sure they picked up my trail, I placed a call from my hotel room before I left, dialing the old house in Winnetka from memory. One ring…two rings…“Hello?”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Maddy, where are you?”
“I’m back in Morocco.”
“Morocco?”
“Yep. It was so nice to see you in Chicago. I just wanted to apologize again for chickening out at Dad’s funeral.”
“That’s all right, dear….”
“Mom, I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you.”
She started to sniffle into the phone. Whether it was an act for the FBI, or genuine, even I couldn’t be sure. “I’m just glad you’re alive and well. Are you going to be there long?”
Perfect setup. “I’m afraid so, Mom. I just got back from Paris, but I was looking over my shoulder the whole time. Between Interpol and the white slave traders, I’ve got to watch my step.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think the feds bought my fake suicide, so I’m going to hunker down here for as long as I can, at least they can’t extradite me. If you don’t hear from me again, it will mean that I’ve been sold into slavery to some sicko sheik.”
“Don’t say things like that!”
“Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll stay one step ahead of them. I love you!”
“I love you too, dear.”
I hung up before she could stray off message, and tried to figure out how to put on my new outfit. The drape was all wrong, and it did nothing for me! When I tucked my hair under my new wig to complete the look, the transformation from chic to nondescript was complete. With my forged French documents in hand, I caught a taxi to the airport and steeled myself for the short flight to Algiers.
The following morning, I awoke from a fitful sleep to see the rooftops of Paris peeking through thick gray clouds once again. This time I was not in a private jet, but rather a window seat in the last row of coach on a crowded airbus. Several of the women seated near me had already transformed themselves in the lavatories, shedding their burkas to reveal jeans and high heels, and adding lipstick and mascara to hit the streets of Paris running. I was more circumspect, waiting until the plane was almost empty before retrieving my suitcase from the overhead and making my way into the terminal, down the long corridor to passport control. If my Internet research held up, a French citizen returning from Algeria endured no formalities, and sure enough I was waved through. As soon as I found a ladies room, I removed my dreadful burka and wig and threw them in the trash, a chic chick once more.
When I switched on my cellphone in the taxi on the way back to the apartment, a message from Jacques was waiting. “Cheri, I suppose it would be too much to hope for, but if you are free for lunch today, please surprise me.” The note of despair in his voice was encouraging, and I returned the call without delay. His receptionist instructed me to hold, and in a few seconds Jacques was on the line. Once again the conversation was in French, although I can translate it word for word:
“My darling, where have you been?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”
“Le Relais at noon?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
“Please don’t disappoint me. We have something important to discuss.”
Could the Mistress be on the verge of Le Knockout?
Back in my apartment, I sent a quick email to my mother while the tub was filling with Mistral bain moussant:
You were perfect on the phone! I think we’ve seen the last of Mutt and Jeff. Don’t forget about April in Paris! Love, Maddy
As I luxuriated in the soothing hot bubbles, the events of the past few days played back in my mind. With any luck, the FBI was already on the way to Morocco, where once again Matt McCoy’s trail would go cold. How long would they search for me? When I didn’t turn up, would they fall for the red herring that I’d been kidnapped as a sex slave? That was almost as plausible as disguising myself as a Muslim woman, taking the terrible risk of crossing the border into Algeria and returning to France in a burka. Anyway, with no extradition treaty between the United States and Morocco, it would be only a matter of time before they closed their file.
Now all that remained was to get Jacques to leave his wife and propose to me. I knew in my heart that he’d fallen for me hook, line and sinker, and all I had to do was reel him in. I suppose I should have felt guilty as I dusted my body with perfumed powder, slithered into my sexiest lingerie and stockings and selected a killer dress to wear for him, but he was clearly trapped in a sexless marriage, why not make an honest man out of him? “Carpe diem!” he’d said to me many times. I ignored Cicero’s warning: “Don’t ask, it’s dangerous to know what end the gods will give you….”
Feeling supremely confident, I stepped into my stilettos and went outside. It was an unseasonably warm winter’s day, and the morning clouds had given way to brilliant sunshine. A glance at my diamond watch indicated that I had plenty of time, so on a whim I decided to walk, even if my heels were killing me by the time I’d covered a few blocks. Just one of the joys of being a woman! I consoled myself as I made my way through the charming sidewalks of the Latin Quarter.
The closer I got to Le Relais, the more I began having second thoughts about what I was doing with Jacques. He was a wonderful man, and I loved every minute I spent with him, but did I really want to break up his marriage? I had enough on my conscience…besides, he was so much older! What would life be like for us when he retired, could I endure watching him age gracefully? I was a beautiful young woman with $3,000,000 in her bank account! The last thing I needed was to be tied down….
My worries melted away when I saw him seated there, at our familiar table, with an anxious smile on his face. “You look spectacular,” he said.
“Thanks to you,” I said, brushing his nose with my finger.
“Where were you, Madeline?”
“Morocco and Algeria.”
“You’re joking!”
“Au contrare.” Jacques sat enthralled as I related the message from my mother about the FBI, the plan I devised to foil them, and my return from North Africa in disguise.
“As I’ve said many times, you never cease to surprise and delight me,” he said, shaking his head. “Although I must say, I was less than delighted when you left.”
The sommelier arrived with our customary champagne, and after he filled our glasses Jacques got straight to the point. “Madeline, I have to tell you something, and ask you something.”
“Yes?” I asked after gulping down half my glass.
“My wife is leaving me.”
“Oh dear, I hope it wasn’t anything to do with me.”
“Of course it has everything to do with you!”
“Does she know about me?”
“Not in so many words…Madeline, I’m a Frenchman, and I’ve had many mistresses, whom she has tolerated over the years, as most Frenchwomen do. But you are different.”
“Well, that’s stating the obvious,” I said, a lame attempt to break the tension.
“That’s not what I mean, Madeline. The difference is that I’ve fallen in love with you, deeply in love, and I cannot disguise it from her, any more than you can disguise your beauty.”
“So she asked for the divorce?”
“It’s all very civilized. There are no children, and the financial settlement will be extremely generous. I’m afraid this means that I will no longer be a wealthy man, and I will have to keep working for the foreseeable future.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” I said hopefully, “if you like being a doctor.”
“I love my work, and I would be bored to tears with retirement, but it’s important for you to know these things, because now I must ask you that question.”
I gave him my most encouraging smile as he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and produced a box from Cartier. “My dear Madeline, will you marry me?” he asked as he slipped the ring on my finger.
by the author of Skylord
Comments
Now I have to reread the original
Thanks for the epiologue, enjoyed it thoroughly.
Grace & Luck be unto ye!