Chapter 13:Fishing:Georges Du Roy and Lily Bart - Bel Ami and House of Mirth

Cezanne

Lily and I are walking through the meadow to the spring fed pond to catch some fish. The little ones that we can deep fry in olive oil and eat heads, bones and all. Tiny ones that are so delicious. She has never tasted them like this, fresh from the water. The sun is up and it is warm on our faces. I feel as I did when a child here. We are carrying a hamper with a picnic lunch in it, a blanket and I have a fishnet. It promises to be a lovely day. Lily is lighthearted as we listen to the insects in the field grasses and I hold her hand, happy to be with her like this, with no one else around to share her with.

We pass through the trees surrounding the water and it is cool and secluded here as we watch the movement of small creatures in the water. I spread the net over the surface and as the net becomes heavy with water, it sinks lower and lower until it is lying on the bottom. We sit on the bank and watch as little silvery fish swim up to it and nibble.

After awhile they are accustomed to it and swim over it looking for insects to catch. In an hour or so there is a school of fish on the surface and I begin  to close my trap by pulling up the corners slowly so as not to frighten them away. As the edges fold up and I slowly lift the net higher, the fish swim around still unsuspecting.

“Oh, look,” says Lily. “Now they know they are caught!” They have begun swimming anxiously. Just barely suspecting, then knowing that they have been caught, when they cannot swim off the edges.

I pull it up and close it getting ready to heave it onto the grass. Still concentrating on the net I say, “When did you know you were caught, Lily?” And I turn and look at her.

Her eyes widen and darken as she looks at me. “Are you asking if I am right now, or are you asking about the first time?”

Surprised, I laughingly say, “Both.” I turn back to the silvery fishes.

“When did you know you were caught?” She asks.

Still securing the fishes I say, “When you gave me your two endings to my story. You had accomplished the secret of journalism in a flash, which is to assert one thing while suggesting another, or to negate one thing but imply its opposite. In other words, never to be direct. I was dumbfounded, furious, and madly in love with you from that moment. I wanted to kill you. I had not intended to be caught by you.”

I heave the net onto the grass and turn back to her. I am dumbfounded all over again. She has taken off her skirt and has nothing on under it, and is unbuttoning the last button on her blouse, shifting it off her shoulders, leaving her breasts bare, standing there looking at me with her Wellington boots on. I groan aloud and close the distance between us, grabbing her and falling on the ground with her. She reaches for my pants and I slip them off, enter her quickly and feel her come as I enter, and then I completely let go in her like a seventeen year old boy with a rural girl and no experience.

“My god, Lily! What have I done to you? What have you done to me? I never intended this. How did this happen?” I kiss and lick her face all over, her mouth, her eyes, her neck and slide down to her breasts where I suck her nipples.

“I take an American Cinderella dressed for the ball in exquisite clothes and I bring her to the country, put her in peasant clothes and violate her in the fields like a wench. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Lily laughs her new throaty laugh. “I love it,” she says. “I never had a childhood like this. I shall make up for it. You can be my playmate. I think Cathy and Heathcliff spent lots of time playing like this, don’t you?”

I’m not paying attention. “Hmmmmm. I am sure of it now.” I nuzzle her neck, biting it and waiting to get hard again so I can ravish her more slowly in the warm sun under the blue sky. I lift my face and hold her face between my hands and look deeply into her eyes.

“So tell me, when did you know you were caught the first time?”

“When you said,  'Tell me now Lily. Yes or not. Now. Tell me now.' And I looked at the frozen faces and I knew I was ruined again. Somehow I would always do something, or be in a situation where I would be ruined. It would be inevitable. It was just like the time in Italy with Prince Verigliano, all the faces that became blank to me after he and his step-son began to fight over me. I knew none of it was my fault, but I would be blamed for it. I had no more resistance to you. I would have fallen in your arms right then, but I was still so unable to  behave any other way than what was expected. And you, you were so spontaneous, so uninhibited, so fully yourself, not under anyone else’s control, that I just knew I could never want anyone else.”

“You are making me free now. I love it. I love you. Have I told you that yet today? I love you,” she murmurs darkly.

“You haven’t told me enough today that you love me. I want more.”

I bring her back into my arms before I get up and spread the blanket under us. Then I hold her tightly and begin to fondle her again. I put my lips all over her, kissing and tonguing her, tasting her until I think I can’t get enough. I move my fingers around her ass and I feel her tense, so I still my fingers.

“I’ve been wanting you to touch me that way for so long now. I thought you never would again. I was getting ready to plead, to beg you to do that. Please, please, don’t stop.”

And my god, I am so ready for her. I wet myself with my semen and her juices, smear myself with them, wet my fingers and begin to enter her. She moans with pleasure and I place my cock at her entrance and begin to push. She is still so tight, but so ready now.

“Be still Lily. It will be very different this time, but just as wonderful. But very very slow, so you will feel so intensely, you will want to crawl out of your skin. You will feel so much more this time. I will take all afternoon torturing you.”

“Do you promise?” she moans and whimpers. And now she is in for it.