Les signaux croisés (Crossed Signals)
An LLS Production
The morning saw Eve Moneypenny happily asleep in a wide bed lined with the finest off cambric lace, snug in her room and undisturbed by the idea of secret agents of the British Sovereign. Voices woke her, and Eve roused herself with ill grace.
She threw on a dressing-gown, and then sauntered out to regard the mise en scène of the drawing room, where her dear friend and partner-in-crime-and-work, Mr Geoffrey Boothroyd – addressed by all who knew him as Q – was arguing with the chambermaid.
"What's going on, Q?" Eve declared, wiping her eyes. "It's not even nine!"
Her neighbour and sometime friend the normally unflappable Q, he was rather put out, to place it on a rather large point. Pale, nervous and upset, the willowy man tore at his locks, the brushing of dark curls across his brow only drawing attention to the fact that Q was frustrated and... Distraught, perhaps? No, Eve supposed; this was the expression the English called 'lost at sea'. "I must speak to you, ma chère."
"Well, come in, then."
Q entered, and they embraced while the maid opened curtains to let in air and light. With that ably concluded – and once Eve received the signal that there were no eavesdroppers – Eve dropped the imperious act and motioned Q towards the chaise-lounge. "Well, go on, then."
Q blushed, even more attractive given his pale colouring and dark hair and exotic green eyes as he sat without too much weight on the seat of his pants, but stammered: "I- It's... well, I could just go, and come back..."
Eve sighed, cursing that the man she was supposed to have entertained yesterday had somehow gotten himself lost in the City of Light that she had to attend to this mysterious Frenchman, attractive though he may be. Q was of no help at all; he kept sighing and drawing his hands over his knees, steadfastly eyeing the floor and crossing and re-crossing his legs.
"I'm gratified you appear to be much pleased with my latest finding," Eve broke the oppressive atmosphere at last. "I thought it fitted quite nicely with the colour scheme of the room."
This provoked no other reaction than a more nervous fingering of the fine wool in Q's trousers.
Here, Eve decided, needed a change of tactics. "Q. You may begin."
Q hesitated, and then the dam broke with the story:
"It was four o' clock yesterday when it happened... you know my drawing room, Eve, the one that faced the Rue de Londres. I always sit there for faire la sieste and for the afternoon snack. Well, yesterday, I was sitting out in the window-recess. The window was open and I was letting my thoughts wander, just enjoying the fresh air. I was wearing my shirt and suspenders, but my jacket had been abandoned as a concession to the Paris skies and the heat wave, and my vest with it... please do not think less of me, ma chère. I love it; it's so gay and pretty...!
"Suddenly, I notice that, on the other side of the street, there's a woman at her window, a woman in red. I didn't know this woman − some new tenant, only there a month − but I realised that she was a tart. I found it amusing to watch her. She was leaning on her elbows, watching out for men on the street. Men were looking up at her, all or almost all of them.
"She looked almost bored, but then a man, dressed a little better than the rest of the passers-by walked up and, to my astonishment, I saw her make this little signal. No man stayed for more than twelve or twenty minutes, and she reeled then as surely as the experienced angler does a particularly stubborn salmon
"Twenty minutes later the man walked out and she opened the curtains before seating himself at the window once more. The angling women eyed up and down the street and then … and then she noticed me and threw me a little wave!"
"Quite," Eve drawled. Clearly it was a mere accident, and so far Eve had learnt nothing save that Q either held an aversion towards the idea of lying with a woman, or towards laying with a human being in general, quite like one of Nature's true bachelors. "Continue."
Q shuddered. "I found my opera-glasses to discover her secret. It was no more than a slight turn of the head really, accompanied by a barely noticeable wink. For the next part...I was bored, you see. Bored and sweating and it was so hot... I needed a distraction. Could I do it better than her? Something novel... I thought it might amuse me. I had nothing better to do anyway."
"Quite," Eve murmured in order to edge along. Q's singular demeanour piqued her interest, yet Eve was reluctant to show it.
"So I went to try it in front of my mirror," Q continued, smiling. "Ma chère, I did it better than she did, much better! I was delighted, and I returned to sit at the window. She wasn't hooking anybody now, the poor girl, nobody at all. Terrible, but entertaining, because, you know, some of them aren't so bad, the men you see in the street. They came along one after another, young men, old men, dark, fair, grey, white. It was so very tempting, that...cornucopia of humanity."
Eve forbore to mention that she knew exactly what Q was thinking, so absorbed in Q's narrative she was.
"So I said to myself, let's see, I'll try it on one man, only on one, just to see," Q narrated. "What could happen to me, after all? Nothing! We'll exchange a smile, and that will be it, I'll never see him again. I start looking out for the right man. I wanted one who was good-looking, very good-looking. Suddenly I see a big fair one, a very handsome young man. You know how I like the fair ones. I chose him; I gave him the signal, oh so subtly, so very subtly. He nods at once and, Mon Dieu, he comes straight in, ma chère!"
Eve caught herself leaning forward, straightening her back. The bone turned out to have marrow, after all.
"He comes right in by the main entrance of the flats!" Q started, his English blending with French to produce a cacophony of sounds. "What a fright! What could I do, tell me, what could I do? I hadn't counted on the subject actually wanting to enter! I thought that it would be best to run and meet him, tell him that it was a mistake, beg him to go away.
"So I rushed to the door and I opened it just as he was lifting his hand to the bell. I was going to tell him: 'Please go away, monsieur, please go away, you've made a big mistake! It's all a mistake, a dreadful mistake, I thought you were one of my friends; you look so much like him. Have pity on me, monsieur!' "
"And then?" Eve was avidly listening now.
"He barges right in. He closed the door, and as I stood there, terrified, in front of him, he embraced me, took me by the waist and led me back into the drawing-room, whose door I'd left open. I try to escape, he... he clung onto my shirt and- and my derriere!" Q nearly wailed. "He was very handsome: fair, blonde, with eyes of blue ice and a rugged charm like the Scotsmen across the Channel, with some hidden cruelty of person. You English have a word... de bon air? Yes, debonair!"
Eve twitched; she was picturing James Bond right there and then. "Yes. Please, do continue."
"He laughs, ma chère, and he says: 'Well! You're a real beauty. Come on, show me the way.' Before I could protest he-... he kissed me."
Q reached for his neck, paused, before he abruptly pulled his hand away to lay on his lap, fidgeting. "I- I wanted to fight him off, but I couldn't. He was... whatever he was doing, it was... highly agreeable. He was gentle and yet forceful about it. He pulled me against his...and I felt regret when he broke the kiss, but then he told me...he couldn't wait to undress me. He found your picture on the mantelpiece, the one with the ball gown, you know. He asked me who were you. I told him that was my friend. 'She's very nice,' he said. 'You'll have to introduce us.' "
Eve nodded, resolving to put the mysterious procurer of Q's virtue down if she received a proposition.
"Well, this was my chance, you understand," Q elaborated. "I told him that there was nothing, that he had been an experiment. He refused to believe me, he thought I was playing... that I was trying to drive up the price, you know?
"He asked for my name and laughed when I gave him only my sobriquet. 'It suits you,' he says. 'With those lips and that behind, it just needs a tail.' And he took my hands in his, and started kissing my throat, and he... at this point somehow we ended up in my room, and we were disrobed and laid upon my bed together. I suppose... I could have asked for help, but...he was so nice, but persistent, he kept kissing me on my neck and chest and...He kept fondling my derriere.
"S- So... I lost my head, completely lost it... I thought- I thought... the best way... was... of... of... getting rid of him a- as quickly as possible... The sooner it was over with... you understand... and... And well... well... since he had to have it... he had to, ma chère... and he wouldn't have left without it... Well, I... I..." At this point, Q seemed to have floundered to somewhere about the mess of blank ellipses.
Madame Eve Moneypenny burst out laughing, laughing madly; her head buried in her pillow, making the whole bed shake. When she had recovered a little, she asked: "He was good-looking?"
"Yes."
"Was the...act pleasurable?"
"I- I don't know," Q beseechingly looked to her. "I... well; I... have no basis of comparison. I know of the act... but the acts?"
Eve clucked her tongue; it seemed that Q had gotten lucky even in the loss of his virtue. "So what are you complaining about?"
A mess of garbled French syllables spilled forth, but then Q marshalled enough strength to break out with: "You have to help me get him out! Jacques is still here!"
Commander James Bond was a man of personality. When unneeded, he melded into the crowds as easily as a shadow, and when needed, his personality ensured that he stood out within a room of dignitaries. Today, the force of his personality resembled some highly satisfied predator looking for action in the form of a conquest. The coquet had fled, presumably to search for more customers, but there were clear, possessive markings of where Bond had partaken of delights on the bed, in the sheets, on one wall during that one time he attacked during Q's bath, and several accoutrements within that demesne that now held the heavy, palatable musk of sex.
James lay back now, inhaling the lavender of the sheets mixed with cloudberry and the scent of a coquet who would be addressed only with the sobriquet of Q. He was supposed to have met one of Her Majesty's agents here, in Paris, but somehow that flirtatious signal had drawn him into the bordello of a sweet male courtesan who cried so prettily and accepted so readily. It merited for a permanent visit, perhaps James could bring the man to England- the Commander stored that precious castle in the air away, laying it in lavender to be kept as a memory of a possibility, of a dream.
The door creaked open, and James smiled as Q sidled back in, shy smile affixed on an elfin, delicate face but peridot eyes affixed elsewhere. However, behind him trailed a familiar dark-skinned woman that could only be his contact.
The smile dropped.
"Commander Bond!" Eve groaned. "Why?"
"Miss Moneypenny," James greeted, warily regarding her despite his state of undress.
"So you're the one who..." Eve shook her head. "I asked for an agent to assist my movement across the Channel, and you sleep with my neighbour! Really, Mr Boothroyd did not need you to do the deed!"
James looked to Q, making only a minimal attempt to cover himself. "Will you please excuse us, Miss Moneypenny?"
Eve huffed, but stormed out to leave both men alone.
"Do the deed, Q?" James teased the little coquet who shrunk into himself, trying not to stare at a bed where James had had him in three different ways before penetrating.
The tease fell flat when Q blushed, stared up to the ceiling and forlornly nodded some more. "Geoffrey Boothroyd. Erm... I have a confession. I'm not actually a prostitute."
"What are you saying?" James shook his head. "That- If you're not a margery, then...? Why ever did you entice me? Wait, you just said... what did you do? For me to force myself on you... you must loathe me, Mr Boothroyd."
"S'il te plaît, Q," The willowy man fidgeted nervously, before shaking his head. "Not...quite against my will. That first kiss maybe, but my opinions on the matter were reversed soon enough. So... you'll be escorting Eve- Miss Moneypenny, I mean, to England?"
James considered. "Yes. Though, I suppose we must allow Miss Moneypenny some time to organise her affairs on the Continent..."
Q sighed. "You will be occupied, then, Monsieur Jacques."
"It's Bond," James offered as Q turned his back, walking up to behind Q. "James Bond. I'd like it if we began a mutual acquaintance."
"O- Oh..." Q briefly struggled as a thick-set arm corded with muscle managed to drag him back. "But, Eve- and England-"
"Commander James Bond!" her strident tones echoed in the wake of a door slamming shut.
Critique, s'il vous plaît!