Robin Schone Gabriel's Woman (best pdf ebook reader for android .txt) 📖

—she sucked in cold air— down the curve of her calf, pressed her ankle— “what any man prefers,

mademoiselle,” Madame René said in a deceptively distracted voice.

Madame René was not distracted either by the measurement she was taking or the conversation in

which she was engaging. She knew exactly what she was doing. To Victoria.

To Gabriel.

The encroaching fingers abruptly withdrew—from the juncture of Victoria’s thigh . . . from the inner

curve of her ankle. The scratch of a pencil scribbling across paper grated across her skin.

The silver eyes inside the mirror dared Victoria to continue.

How far will you carry this game, mademoiselle? he had asked.

Farther than this, Victoria thought.

“And what is it that men prefer, Madame René?” Victoria asked unsteadily.

The hurried scribbling stopped; it continued to echo inside Victoria’s ears.

A metal tab dug into the juncture of her left leg. It was icy.

“Men want to be wanted”—the silver eyes in the mirror followed Madame René’s busy fingers: they

mapped Victoria’s inner thigh, the curve of her calf—“for who they are as well as for their sex. Men,

mademoiselle, want to be loved. Just as we women want to be loved, out?”

Madame René rose as quickly as she had dropped down.

“Maintenant, pull your hair up off of your back, s’il vous plait.”

Victoria slowly lifted her arms, high, higher, at the same time reaching back with her hands and piling her

hair up on top of her head.

It was cold and heavy and wet.

Her breasts were cold and heavy and swollen.

The eyes watching her were cold and deadly and intense.

He was the proprietor, they said. He was a whore, they warned. He was a killer, they threatened.

Victoria saw an untouchable angel.

“How does a woman love a man, madame?

Tape stretched across Victoria’s shoulder blades.

“Does she kiss him, to show him that she desires him?”

Electricity sparked the air.

“Does she suckle his nipples, to give him pleasure?” Madame René’s fingers pressed the metal tab on

Victoria’s left shoulder, the measuring tape on her right.

“Does she take him into her body to show him that neither she nor he need be alone?”

Madame René’s fingers withdrew.

“A man’s body is not so different from that of a woman, mademoiselle. They desire the same attention

that we ourselves crave.”

More scribbling. Less oxygen.

“A woman, mademoiselle, is not afraid to explore a man’s body to find out what it is that pleases him.”

Michael and Gabriel had been friends.

The key to Gabriel, Victoria thought, lay inside that friendship.

“Is Monsieur Michel as well endowed as Gabriel?” Victoria asked recklessly.

Danger charged the erotic tension.

She was going too far, those silver eyes said.

Every nerve inside Victoria’s body agreed.

The metal tape dug into Victoria’s right shoulder. “They are both reputed to be built like des etalons” —

the measuring tape crawled down her spine to her waist, was held firmly in place—”like stallions.”

The heat of madame’s fingers dissipated; it was replaced by the scribble of figures.

Victoria’s breasts shimmied with the force of her pounding heart.

There was nothing Gabriel could not see in her position: the lift of her breasts, her unprotected armpits,

the ribs that stuck out too sharply, the protruding bones of her hips, the dark triangle of hair between her

thighs.

The dusky rose lips that peeked below.

What had been dormant before was now swollen with desire.

Did he see her?

Had the modiste seen her?

“Is it necessary for a man to be large in order to satisfy a woman?” Victoria asked, heart inside her

throat.

“Non. But a man who is un prostituee is not expected to be an ordinary man. Women do not want to

pay for une bite that is no longer than their own fingers, mademoiselle.”

Une bitte.

Victoria had no problem identifying the modiste’s French.

Did Gabriel refer to his member as une bitte?

Had he spoke French to the women who had purchased him . . . or English?

“How large does a man have to be, madame, in order to be compared to a ... a stallion?”

The metal tab dug into Victoria’s left shoulder. Madame René’s fingernails traced the tape, imprinting

the inches into Victoria’s back while she audibly counted.

“One inch . . . two inches . . . three inches . . . four inches ... five inches ...” The sharp fingernails

trailed over her shoulder bones. Victoria felt the measurements deep inside her vagina. “Six inches ... seven

inches .. . eight inches ... nine inches ...”

Victoria couldn’t breathe. The silver eyes inside the mirror were overlaid by the vision of a man’s

member—of Gabriel’s member— eight inches long, nine inches long. . .

“A man must have at least nine inches to be compared to un etalon, mademoiselle,” Madame René said

decisively. Her measuring fingers suddenly skimmed down Victoria’s back and pressed the tape into her

waist. And then they withdrew—the vision of a man’s burgeoning member, madame’s fingers, the

measuring tape.

The silver eyes did not withdraw.

The manual measurement of Victoria’s flesh was reflected in his gaze.

Gabriel had said that he was more than nine inches.

How much more? she wondered.

“Has a man ever begged you for