The Other Story Read Online Free Page A

way into Monsieur Roqueton’s office, armed with a stinking Camembert. He deftly unscrewed the mouthpiece of the man’s old-fashioned telephone and squashed bits of cheese into it before replacing the top. A few days later, the stench became unbearable. One could not use the telephone without retching. Nicolas grins, and nearly laughs out loud, remembering. They were never caught. It had been a triumph.
    There is another memory Nicolas is fond of. Granville, Normandy, summer of 1999. Nicolas and François were seventeen. François’s parents owned a half-timbered white-and-brown house, with a sloping garden giving on to the beach. Every summer, Nicolas went to spend two weeks in August with the Morin family. He felt like he was one of them. François had two younger sisters, Constance and Emmanuelle, and an older brother, Victor. His parents, Michel and Odile, gave a summer party each year while Nicolas was there. About a hundred people came. The girls wore their prettiest summer frocks. Odile went to the hairdresser. Michel showed off his tan in his favorite white jeans and a denim shirt opened to his navel. Victor, Nicolas, and François wore clean T-shirts and shorts. It poured one summer, and the party was held inside, an amusing squash. But that summer, the summer that Nicolas and François would never forget, Odile invited a new couple in town, Gérard and Véronique, who came with a Parisian friend of theirs, Nathalie. The women were in their early thirties; the husband was older. Véronique was plump and blond. Nathalie was tall, slender, and dark-haired, with the longest legs Nicolas had ever seen. They were wearing the same tight dress, but in different colors: black for Véronique and white for Nathalie. Gérard mingled with the older crowd, but Véronique and Nathalie took their drinks and crossed the garden, going out to the beach, daintily kicking off their high-heeled sandals. The sun was setting, staining the sea red. There was no one on the beach. The two young women waved, gesturing for Nicolas and François to join them. For a while, the four of them sat on the sand and chatted. When their glasses were empty, Nicolas rushed back to the house and smuggled a bottle of champagne under his T-shirt. The sun disappeared and the darkness drew inviting shadows around them. Nathalie, the long-legged brunette, puffed away on a cigarette, held delicately between two slim golden fingers. From where they were sitting, they could hear the music and laughter of the nearby party. Nathalie wanted to know if they had any girlfriends. This embarrassed François, who was less successful than Nicolas with girls. Véronique, the blonde, then asked, in a low, intimate voice, what they had already done with a girl sexually. Nicolas noticed how close the two women were, how Nathalie’s tanned thigh brushed against his naked calf every time she moved. In the soft blue light, Véronique’s cleavage was a deep, milky cleft. He told them, frankly, that all his girlfriends had been from the lycée, girls of his age. He had had sex with six of them so far, at parties, in a drunken stupor, in the bathroom or in someone’s bed. Only one of them had been a pleasant surprise, willing to try everything with the fierce energy of a Stakhanovite. Once the novelty wore off, Nicolas found her exhausting. The two women on the beach with them that night were in another league. They exuded a mysterious, languorous sensuality. “Does your girlfriend kiss you like this?” murmured Véronique, and before François could respond, she glued her lips to his, while Nathalie’s silken arm found its way around Nicolas’s neck. Then she kissed him in a way that Nicolas had never been kissed before in his life. Could they be seen from the house? he wondered fleetingly, stroking the soft skin under her dress, enraptured. Suddenly, Véronique was in his arms, and Nathalie moved to kiss François. Nicolas gave in to the new mouth on his. He could not