Travelling round France visiting local museums, I had stopped for a couple of nights in the old walled town of Langres, at the northern end of Burgundy. The night I arrived, I saw a poster for a concert in one of the churches, which seemed like as good a way as any of spending a solitary evening.
I first saw her outside the church, picnicking and talking in a group of people beneath a statue of Joan of Arc: short-cropped vivid carrot-red hair, a large face with strong, high cheekbones and a tip-tilted nose, wearing jeans and a loose shirt.
The group turned out to be the choir which was giving the concert, and she was the lead alto, her sonorous, clear deep voice somehow matching her looks, and matching, too, the austere black garb she was wearing for the performance itself, which gave her a slightly androgynous look.
I took her image to bed with me that night, assuming that it would soon fade like all the other images of faces seen on my travels. But, the next afternoon, there she was, in the sun by the local lake, with another woman and a man, and wearing a black single-piece bathing costume, tight but discreet above, but when she rolled onto her stomach I could see how high-cut it was on her hips.
When she stood up I could at last sense her form, so completely sheathed at the concert; she was not tall, but with a strong figure, broad shoulders, a slightly fleshy stomach, tiny breasts that were just shallow swellings beneath her tight costume, but with a magnificent full bottom -- wide hips, deep and rounded, with richly fleshy bum cheeks that were virtually bare as she walked down to the water across the little beach. She swam strongly, far out into the lake, and, when she came out of the water, she showed something else: huge, hard nipples, swollen in the cool water and stretching the material that was pulled tautly across her chest.
Of course I watched her and her friends, wondering who was with whom; the other girl, slight and dark-haired, and sunbathing topless, seemed very relaxed and at ease with the redhead, as did the man. They lay chatting for half an hour; then the other two stood up, and I heard the redhead say she'd stay a little longer.
I had never picked anyone up on a beach, let alone speaking my halting French; but last night's concert was a possible pick-up line, and, of course, looking as she did, she would expect to be recognised; but I realised I could not have approached her if she, too, had been sunbathing topless. My first moves were trite: nice concert and so on; at least she didn't tell me to fuck off, and I sat down near her; Helène -- that was her name -- sat up, her knees up and her arms round them. With a wry smile, she talked about the vocal group, and how difficult it was to find suitable voices in a small town like Langres. After a few minutes, I made my next step.
"Would you like to have a drink?" I said, pointing at the café at the top of the beach.
"Yes, but not here; I am going back to Langres and there is somewhere nicer there; follow me as I drive."
As we went, I imagined the worst, a group of her friends, much French chat, and me soon making my excuses. But, when we arrived, she didn't seem to know anyone there. We talked over a bottle of wine, about Langres, where she had been for less than a year, and about my work, studying French art, which seemed to interest her. I didn't like to mention dinner, in case she suddenly said she had to leave; but then she asked me if I had seen the town's ramparts, and asked me if I'd like her to show me them.
Down on the beach, she had slipped on a loose skirt and a sleeveless black vest-like teeshirt with deep-cut armholes, over her bathing costume. When we had ordered our drinks she excused herself for a moment and went to the toilet with her bag; it was several minutes after she returned before I realised that she had slipped off the bathing costume and was wearing nothing beneath the vest, but, seated as we were face to face, I could see little more.
It was now after seven o'clock, the sun was lower -- it was mid-May. As we walked along the ramparts, Helène began by talking a lot, but soon seemed to realise that not much needed to be said, and we walked quietly together, relishing the evening light and the panoramic views. I kept glancing at her, and, when she was a half step ahead, I could glimpse her skin around the armhole in her teeshirt, which hung loosely, free of the shallow swelling of her breast; in the shadows, I glimpsed the vivid deep red of her nipple -- again, it seemed so huge in relation to the flatness of her chest, and its colour was so intense.
At a look-out point on the ramparts, we paused to look at the chart of the surrounding sights, and she did not flinch as our bare arms brushed; further on, we reached the large bastion which, I knew, was virtually the end of the circuit. Here again we paused, and I realised I had nothing to lose; I took her arm in my hand, and swung round to face her. For a disarming moment she looked quizzically up at me, and then dissolved into my arms, her mouth feeling up for my lips, her arms responding as I held her to me. With one hand I explored the firmness of her back, and then slipped my hand down to her flanks, feeling the beginning of the swelling and the softness of that marvellous bum that had amazed me on the beach. After a couple of minutes she came up for air and half pulled away from me.
