I would like you to come to bed with me."
"What makes you think it would be any different with you?"
He looked into her eyes.
"Because I am a man, not a boy.
Because I would want to please you.
Boys are like bulls; they think only of themselves. In this you are right.
But because of this, do not think that it is only women who know how to make love.
There are men also who are aware of the sensitivities."
"Like yourself?" she asked sarcastically.
"Like myself.
Do you think I see you again and again only because I have a purely intellectual interest in you?"
She laughed suddenly. "At least you are honest."
"I am a great believer in the truth."
A few months later, on a rainy afternoon, she went to his apartment and it was just as he said.
He was kind and gentle and she did not hurt at all.
And all the while, she felt the power in her, the power to bring him to a point of ecstasy from which he would never return, a power that could never turn into terror for her because she could always control it or him.
She watched him buttoning his shirt in front of the mirror.
"Jacques."
He turned. "What is it, my sweet?"
She held out her arms to him.
"Come here, Jacques."
He came over to the bed. He bent swiftly and kissed her naked breast.
"When you make love, my darling," he said, "your nipples are full like bursting purple plums. Now they are like little pink poppies."
"It was like you said it would be, Jacques."
"I am glad."
She took his strong brown hands in her own and looked down at them.
His gold wedding ring shone up at her.
She looked up into his face.
"I think I would like to be your mistress," she said softly.
"Bon," he said. "I had hoped you would say that.
That is why I took this little apartment.
You can move in tonight."
She was surprised. "Move in here?"
He nodded.
"If you do not like this place, I will get another."
"But I can't do that! What about Peggy?"
"What about her?" He shrugged. "It is fini."
"Can't we just go on like this?
I’ll meet you here whenever you like."
"You mean you will not move in?"
She shook her head.
"I can't.
What would Peggy do?
She needs my help to keep the apartment.
Besides, if my father ever found out, he'd kill me."
"But he does not worry about your living with that – that lesbienne?" he said bitterly.
"You don't know my father.
Back in Boston, they don't ever think about things like that."
"What does he think she is?"
"What she has always been," she answered. "My teacher, my companion."