L'Aimant
Summary:
A group outing to the flickers proves to be a revelation – in more than one sense.
Set after "Broken Souls". November 1944.
The story continues at 31 Steep Lane on Sunday morning, 5th November. Foyle wakes up in bed alone, having slept separately from Sam.
Disclaimer:
The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.
Author's Note:
I make a reference to the ARP and AFS in this. The abbreviations stand for Air Raid Precautions and Auxiliary Fire Service respectively. To learn more, read up about The Civil Defence Service on Wikipedia (or watch Bill Pertwee on Dad's Army ;o).
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As late as the 1930s, latex condoms actually leaked when filled with water.
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Re the writing: it goes out questionable, dancesabove betas it; it comes back publishable…
Previously, in "L'Aimant"
"Well, would you rather that I left, then? Since obviously I make things difficult?" Sam's voice was hurt and huffy, but he noticed that she didn't move a muscle as she lay against him.
He closed his eyes and stroked her hair. "Nope. Since you ask. I'd much sooner you stayed. I'm even ready for a life of difficulties, if they come wrapped up like you. But I've learned my limitations. 'No' isn't an easy word for me, when you say 'please'. Or even if you pout and huff."
"I'm pleading and huffing now and you're not having the slightest trouble saying 'no'," observed Sam, pertly.
"Yep, but upstairs with you in my arms is an entirely different matter. Besides," he continued mischievously, "I'm not as young as I used to be. If we had a repeat of last night, I'm not sure my poor old ticker would be up to it." Foyle opened one eye a crack, squinting down to gauge her reaction at his ham performance.
"Is this how it's going to be from now on, then?" sighed Sam. "Every time I want my way, you'll play the Poor Old Man?"
"Pretty much. It's my only defence against determined young ladies."
They slept in separate rooms that night.
Chapter 6
Sunday, 5th November 1944
Foyle awoke in Andrew's bed at around seven on Sunday morning. It was still dark outside, and the room was cold. He lay there for a short while, putting off the evil moment when he would have to slide a toe out from under the covers and feel for his slippers underneath the bed-frame.
He reflected on the previous evening: the caresses he had shared with Sam on the settee, and the small victory of sense prevailing this time round. It had felt bad to quash her romantic and unlikely notion of a night together in the same bed, wrapped somehow chastely in each other's arms. But his genuine distress at the discomfort she had suffered on their first occasion had left him nervous of being drawn into making love to her a second time. This wasn't lack of ardour on his part. Rather, it was fear he'd be unable to control its intensity.
He imagined Sam was sound asleep in the main bedroom still. The night had safely passed, and with it, he presumed, any further risk of disaster. So Foyle was starting his morning with a positive disposition, and with every expectation of surviving through to evening without causing Sam, or himself, any further trouble. And, naturally, he was looking forward to a day spent with a very lovely young woman, who appeared to dote on him.
Life, bluntly put, was sweet. But in his mind, a pre-condition of that sweetness was his own restraint around his eager and persuasive younger lover. In many ways, the happenings of their first night had left him far more vulnerable than Sam. Whilst she seemed eager to forget and try again, his faith in his ability to control the repercussions of his passion was severely shaken.
Here, in Sam, was something precious that he treasured, and his fear of causing damage far outweighed his natural instincts. Though those instincts were, in simple terms, to make unbridled love with this extraordinary woman who so effortlessly robbed him of his self-restraint, he was hoping, praying, that his higher functions would prevail until he felt a little braver.
Prepared, and steeled, to meet the challenge of the day ahead, Foyle fumbled for his dressing gown and sallied forth like Captain Oates into the icy wilderness, intending to be gone some time.
After a quick visit to the bathroom to relieve himself and briefly splash his face to life with water, he wandered downstairs to stoke the coal fire in the living room and put the kettle on the hob to boil. Padding back upstairs again, he crept into the main bedroom. Sam was still fast asleep, her peaceful face framed by a halo of blonde locks on the pillow. He paused to take in the vision before him, a tender look upon his face, then he bent and lit the burners in the gas fire to banish the November chill.
The kettle had begun to sing, and called him to the kitchen. This is becoming a regular routine, he told himself, catching sight of his reflection once more in the hallway mirror. The gaunt and miserable countenance that had returned his gaze just yesterday, seemed now to be a calmer, more collected (if somewhat stubbly) human being – with just a smidgeon of a chance of restoring dignity and order.
The tea prepared, Foyle carried the familiar tray into the main bedroom. Placing it on the dressing table as he had done the day before, he crossed the room again and knelt beside the bed.
"Morning, Sweetheart," he lowered his lips to whisper in Sam's ear. She stirred, and he was rewarded with a glimpse of her brown eyes peeping open sleepily to meet his own.
"Izzitdaytimealready?" slurred Sam, blinking in the dullish morning light.
"Just before eight," replied Foyle softly, then added "Rise and shine. Tea up!" He pushed himself up from the floor, switched on Sam's bedside lamp, and walked across the room to pour the tea.
Sam rose to sit upright in bed. He gazed at her across the bedroom, thinking how her hair shone in the lamplight, and taking in the striped flannel pyjama jacket she had worn to bed. Must've gone through my chest of drawers, he smiled to himself. Not a soul has done that in above a decade.
"The cup that cheers." Foyle slid the welcome brew into Sam's waiting hand and gave her a look of warm admiration that melted her insides. She stretched her neck up towards him, seeking contact.
"Do I get a good-morning kiss?" she asked.
"Certainly, madam. All part of the service." Foyle lowered his mouth to hers and nipped gently at her lips for a few seconds before pulling away. "Drink up, before it gets cold."
Foyle settled into the armchair near the window and sipped from his own cup, enjoying the sensation of the hot, refreshing drink.
Sam observed her lover over the rim of cup and saucer, taking the measure of the day that she supposed in store. Foyle was smiling as he watched her, all benign and loving – this was good. Annoyingly, though, he was sitting all of eight feet away. Last night had also been a washout from the contact point-of-view. No cuddles, no shared bed, and separate rooms! True, this morning he had pampered her with tea in bed, and shown consideration in his actions by warming up the bedroom – but he'd granted her no physical embraces other than a – what to call it? – 'prolonged peck' on the lips.
Sam's powers of deduction therefore told her that she'd been assigned short rations for the remainder of the day – which, incidentally, amounted to the rest of their precious weekend together.
This sorry state of affairs was not, she decided, compatible with her own agenda. Since rising above their first painful tumble, she had made a resolution, as it were, to climb back on the horse and ride again. Moreover, her soreness had subsided overnight and she was very eager for a chance to erase that miserable memory and forge a happier one in its place.
Something told her, though, that the direct approach she had originally employed on Foyle – demanding and cajoling – would not work this time around. No; if she were going to break down his resistance and engineer a better outcome, her approach today would need to be more subtle.
With this in mind, Sam set about planning a scheme for her day – and a theme for Christopher's.
"Gosh, I appreciated that. Thank you, Christopher. So thoughtful," chattered Sam, placing her empty cup and saucer at the bedside.
"Care for another one?" asked Foyle, reaching for the woollen-cosied teapot.
"No, thanks. I rather think I'd like to wash my hair, if that's all right with you?"
"Be my guest. Bathroom's yours," said Foyle. "I'll clear these things away, then when you're finished I'll come up and shave." He hauled himself out of the armchair and turned to gather up the tea-things.
"Right-oh, then!" Without further ado, Sam leapt from the bed. In that instant, as Foyle turned to leave the room, he saw she wasn't wearing the pyjama trousers which would have lent some common modesty to her outfit. Unprepared for this, and, registering her slender limbs, revealed up to the thighs by her semi-undressed state, he lost hold of the tray.
"Whoops! Butterfingers!" cried Sam, bounding back across the bedroom. Her unfettered haste did nothing to conceal the pale, sleek beauty of her bare legs as she ran.
That was enough. First, the tea-strainer toppled to the floor, as did one cup, a saucer and a spoon. The sugar, milk, and teapot, plus the second cup and saucer, were, happily, saved in time.
"Whoops again!" said Sam, grinning up at Foyle from his waist-height, where she'd landed from her earlier leap. Her hands were on the underside of the tray, supporting it. From where he stood, Foyle had a prime view of her breasts down the gaping neck of her (or his) pyjama jacket. He couldn't stop a sharp intake of breath.
Eventually he cleared his throat. "Don't worry. Um, I'll sort this out. You go and wash your hair," he said.
"Right-oh!" she rose before him slowly, making sure he didn't miss a thing. Once she had left the room, Foyle tore his eyes back to the task in hand and bent to gather up the broken pieces. Then he straightened up and walked, stiff-legged, from the room.
He had barely reached the kitchen when he next heard Sam's voice, calling from the bathroom.
"Christ-o-pherrrr, I wonder if I could borrow you for a moment…?"
Up the stairs he went, and hovered at the bathroom door. "Should I come in?" he asked.
"Yes, please. Oh, this is proving awfully awkward." There was the slightest note of irritation in her voice.
Foyle stepped into the bathroom. "How can I help?" he said.
There stood Sam, wrapped in a bath-towel. All bare arms, legs and shoulders, bent over the washbasin with a beaker in her hand, hair dripping wet, a mass of sodden blonde locks.
"I've tried to manage," she implored. "My landlady has a rubber shower-attachment, but there's nothing like that here. Please, would you help?"
"Um, yes, I'll do my best," he said. "Where, um, are you up to?" He approached the basin tentatively, drawing close behind Sam.
"Soap. The Lux Flakes next." She gestured blindly to the side, where stood the battered box of soap flakes from the day before.
"Right. I've got it," Foyle assured her.
"You'll need to get a handful of the flakes, and work them into my hair, pouring water over with the beaker," she explained. "I'll stay bent over with my head held down."
"Right," said Foyle, a little tightly, reaching for the box.
Soaping Sam's hair turned out to be a contact-sport involving far more body-parts than just her scalp and his fingers. In order to achieve the correct angle and leverage, Foyle was obliged to lean forwards over her body as she was arched over the basin. Inevitably, his groin made contact with her bottom, and the effect on him was sudden, causing him to swallow hard and pull back half a step.
Beneath him, Sam was smirking under soapsuds, and took the opportunity to adjust her footing, deliberately wriggling her bottom. "Oops! So sorry. Almost lost my balance there," she lied.
Foyle was biting on his lip by this stage, trying to ignore both his speeding pulse and a certain swelling problem. Christ! he admonished himself. Not even started breakfast and she's got you at attention.
He stood behind Sam, a condemned man, massaging soap-suds into her hair with one hand and dispensing water from a beaker with the other. Even as he felt the frisson of his hand caressing her delicate scalp, he was fighting the emergence of the BlackpoolTower between his legs. By the time they had completed a second rinse with clean warm water, he had just enough time to quickly push a towel into her hands and flee the bathroom, with the parting lame excuse: "Um – need to check the breakfast. You can finish on your own now, can't you?"
She may have answered, but he didn't hear, because in seconds he was down the stairs and at the kitchen sink, shoving his head under the cold-water tap.
Upstairs in the bathroom, Sam towelled her locks, and shared a Victory V sign with her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
"That was really helpful thank you so much, Christopher!" she called down to Foyle as she crossed the landing to the bedroom.
"Welcome." came the muffled, strained response from Foyle, drying his face with the dishcloth.
"Christopher, your hair's wet. And, oh dear, you haven't had a chance to shave yet," Sam observed as she entered the kitchen fully dressed ten minutes later.
"Well, um, if you've finished up there now, I'll just…" Foyle pointed to the ceiling and withdrew upstairs to shave.
When he returned, there were five separate bits of bloody tissue-paper sticking to his chin and cheeks where he had cut himself.
"Oh, Darling, you were clumsy," commiserated Sam, as she reached to stroke his cheek.
"Um, yes. I couldn't seem to keep a steady hand," Foyle passed the matter off and glanced around, reviewing his earlier breakfast preparations. "So, then!" he clasped his hands together firmly, in an effort to shake off the shakes. "I'm going to make some toast and a soft-boiled egg. You can have the egg." He stroked her shoulder.
"Nonsense, Christopher, we'll share it. It'll be fun! I'll make the soldiers!" Sam jumped up from the table to take charge of the toast, while Foyle set their one precious fresh egg to soft-boil on the hob, keeping a close watch over it.
Right. Things are bound to settle down now, reasoned Foyle.
He had reckoned without Sam's provocative approach to egg and soldiers. If narrow, buttered strips of toast could ever be said to hold erotic associations, Sam's actions were the living evidence. Foyle sat in muted thrall and watched her, languidly dipping soldiers into her soft-boiled egg. The sunny yolk ran down the sides of the eggcup, and as Sam raised each strip of toast to her mouth, licking the butter from her soft lips, Foyle was at pains to keep control beneath the kitchen table. He quite forgot to eat his share of egg.
"Aren't you hungry, Christopher?" Sam leaned, concerned, across the table to offer him a bite of buttered soldier.
Starving, he whimpered inwardly. "Um… er, no, not very," was his actual voiced reply.
She watched him rise and move towards the sink, plate and cup in hand. He appeared to be moving slightly awkwardly, with a trace of a limp.
"Christopher? What is it?"
"Um – nothing. Just a twinge. It'll wear off."
Not if I can help it, thought Sam brightly, and took a sip of tea.
Sam's campaign of torture stepped up after breakfast when they moved into the living room. Foyle was treated to a vision of her, arched over forwards in front of the coal fire, tossing her still-damp honey locks back and forth until they dried. He sat behind her on the settee, chewing absently on the corner of the large Sanderson's chintz cushion he was holding in his lap.
They listened to music on the Light Programme after lunch, and Sam curled up against Foyle on the settee, toying with his shirt buttons. Things stayed fairly calm until Sam complained of feeling chilly and slid from the settee onto the hearthrug, tugging him down alongside her.
It was around four o'clock, the daylight all but gone, and they fell to reminiscing about Bonfire Nights that they remembered from before the war. Foyle was sitting with his legs tucked away to one side, gazing at the fire, and Sam was leaning against him.
"People have so little pleasure these days," she said, stretching herself the length of the rug and sinking down to lay her head sideways in his lap. She was facing towards his middle, and Foyle's hand caressed her hair.
"As a little girl, fireworks fascinated me. My father used to make me hold my mother's hand and stand at a safe distance while he let the rockets off. On the run-up to the big day, he used to store the ones he'd bought in an old biscuit-tin down in the cellar. He said you had to always keep them cool or they might explode."
Foyle was silent. Sam's hand moved to stroke his upper thigh, her fingers pushing in between his legs. Her face was inches from his lap. His breathing quickened and his knees began to fidget.
Sam giggled at a reminiscence, squeezing the muscle of his inner thigh, and formed another lazy question: "Christopher… what are the ones called that erupt in a fountain of sparks and shoot fizzing missiles up into the air?"
That was the straw that broke the camel's back for Foyle. His hand came down and rested solidly upon her arm.
"Enough now, Sam." It was a quiet admonition, but a firm one. Grasping her by the shoulders, he lifted her up off his lap and laid her carefully down on the rug, leaning in over her and peering candidly into her face. She was immobilized beneath him. "You have been teasing me ALL DAY," he growled softly. "What do you want of me?"
"You know perfectly well, Christopher." Sam's answer had an air of studied calm. Her face was serious now. Pinioned beneath his body, still she had the upper hand.
"Sam," he pleaded. "Help me not to do this, hmm?"
"Not on your nelly, Sir." Sam's eyes were steely.
"So that's it, then? No mercy? No compunction?" Foyle's face was a panoply of martyrdom.
"Absolutely none. And if you must know," she continued, "I'm really pretty browned off with you at the moment."
"You… you are?" Foyle's eyebrow spelt surprise – he'd thought himself the injured party.
"I am. Let's just see why, shall we?" Sam lay completely slack beneath him, and, ignoring Foyle's face, inches from her own, enumerated for the benefit of the ceiling: "You make love to me; leave me in an altered state – not entirely sure HOW altered yet; then you agonize over it all day, making me worry about you; then you kiss me senseless for an afternoon; then you tell me that it's all too much, and make yourself scarce in a separate bedroom; and then you spend all day treating me like the virgin I no longer am. Yes, Christopher, I'd say I'm jolly well browned off."
Foyle heaved a sigh, and pushed himself up on one elbow. After a beat, he moved and hovered his face over hers so that she could not avoid his eyes.
"Sam," he pleaded, "Darling, understand how afraid I am to make you hurt like that again. I thought I knew what I was doing. There was never anything like this with Ros – " He stopped dead, cursing himself for the gaffe.
"With Rosalind. You can say it." Sam paused a moment, then continued gently: "Christopher, it's nice that you were happy with your wife. But I'm concerned with now, and with the future. I don't want to leave your house this evening with just last night's tremendous upset as a memory. I want us to have put things right before I go." She took his free hand in her own. "And by the way, I'm not sore anymore," she told him.
"I see." He chewed his lip. "Glad to hear it." He kissed her hand. "But the other thing, of course, is safety. If by any chance we cheated Fate last night, I wouldn't want to tempt our luck a second time."
Sam's annoyance returned suddenly with a vigour. "Christopher Foyle, you were in town for two-and-a-bit hours yesterday. Do you seriously mean to tell me that you came back here without a pocketful of serviceable johnnies?"
Foyle was so taken aback at her frankness that he didn't even bother skirting round the issue. "Um, well of course I, um, bought some. But they can't be totally relied upon, you know."
"Christopher," – Sam was calm again, and confident, reminded of her father's special fondness for empirical evidence – "think very carefully now: what did you and Rosalind use after Andrew, your only child, was born?"
"Johnnies."
"There! I rest my case! Now PLEASE will you make love to me again before our Sunday's well and truly over and I have to go?"
Foyle sighed and reached to stroke her hair. He had fought a doughty battle, but was helplessly besotted in defeat.
"As my lady wishes. Just one small problem with your logic, though…"
"And what's that, Darling?"
"You didn't ask me what we used before Andrew was born…"
Thus, Foyle exposed the faulty reasoning in Sam's deductions. But, as often was the case with Sam, some extra bit of information up her sleeve made all the difference to an argument.
In her view, Christopher's distrust of contraceptive sheaths, although quite understandable in the circumstance of his personal experience, was quite likely to be out-of-date.
"Christopher," she took his hand, and peered up at him earnestly, "you know, everything's improving all the time, isn't it? Even johnnies. And if it weren't for improvements in, um, science, I wouldn't even be here, would I?"
"Don't quite follow."
"Well, when I had the anthrax, I would have died if not for strepto – "
" – mycin. Yes. Oh Sam, I thought that I would lose you." Foyle embraced her and brought her head to rest on his shoulder.
"Well, you got that new medicine for me. And it wasn't even known about three years ago, was it?"
"It wasn't."
"Well, if medicines have come on so much in the last three years, how much do you suppose johnnies have improved since before Andrew was born?"
Foyle had to smile at her now-incontrovertible logic. He held her for several minutes, calming his own thoughts, then kissed the top of her ear and whispered, "Be right back."
Outside, in the hallway, he delved into the inside pocket of his overcoat, still hanging on the hall-stand, and retrieved a couple of packets of insurance.
Sam had made a nest of cushions on the hearthrug. Every piece of stuffed chintz and chenille from around the room was assembled there. The curtains of the living room were already drawn against the blackout, and the table lamps and standard lamp were lit.
Foyle reclined on one elbow, facing the glowing fire, and drew Samantha to him so that they lay spooned together. "Roman candles," he said.
"Pardon, Christopher?" Samantha waited for the rest.
"The fireworks that shoot fountains of sparks and fizzing missiles," he continued. "You asked about them earlier. Called Roman candles."
"Yes, I like those" said Sam. "My father would put on a grand display every year at the vicarage for the parishioners, and we always used to have some of those."
"My favourites, too," said Foyle.
"It must be six years since I've seen one. Hitler's really spoiling all the fun." She paused. "Sorry. That must sound so selfish and silly."
"Well, you might also want to add that he's destroying lives across five continents, and giving every one of us a glimpse into the mouth of Hell…" Foyle held her close, inhaling through her hair. "But 'spoiling all the fun' is on his list of crimes as well. And so we can't have that. Suggest we engineer our own display."
"For the parishioners?" Sam was smiling.
"For the ornaments," said Foyle. With a quirk of his mouth, he added wryly, "I wouldn't want your father's congregation watching anything that we're about to do."
Chapter continues after…
this Author's Note:
I haven't written all the detail here, because this is a T-rated fic. If you're curious to "know the blow-by-blow", change your search filter settings to "Rated - M" or "Rating: All", click GO, and you will find a supplementary fic entitled "L'Aimant – Chap 6a (M)". Nip across and read it if you like. It's not essential to the plot – just a little incendiary action in honour of Bonfire Night, but eventually it brings you back to where you are now, so that you can continue reading with the next chapter.
If you prefer to skip erotic detail, just keep on reading here…
End of Note.
They made love on the hearthrug before a blazing fire, with a layer of flimsy latex for insurance and the upstairs eiderdown for warmth when Sam's flank began to freeze on the side furthest from the fire.
It was fun, and loving and, reassuringly, quite comfortable for Sam. Foyle felt the love and comfort with her, melding them together in shared ecstasy, and banishing the painful memory of their troubled first experience.
Sam bound him to her with a fierce determination, and Foyle's mind, detached above the paroxysms of completion that shook his body, acknowledged she could truly read his every thought.
Minutes after, as she lay wrapped in Christopher's arms, Sam stirred beneath his snoozing form, and sniffed inquiringly. "Christopher? Christopher! Can you smell something burning?"
"Mmm – what? Oh, NOT the bloody eiderdown!" Foyle shot up from the hearthrug like a scalded cat to stamp barefoot on the corner of his smouldering quilt.
This impromptu and undignified dance, punctuated by little cries of Ouch! Damn! caused Sam to erupt into giggles
"What's so funny?" he growled, rubbing at soles of his bare feet. "It's the only one I've got to fit the bed, and you'll be sleeping under it."
And so Encounter Number Two ended with a minor bonfire on the hearthrug, narrowly avoiding intervention from the ARP and AFS.
But on the whole, allowing for the awful smell of singed and smoking duck-feathers, there was a new-found calm about the couple as they kissed and dressed and kissed again. It seemed as if some bargain had been sealed about their future.
Around six, they roused themselves and cooked their evening meal, sharing a simple dinner round the kitchen table. They ate with just their forks, so they could continue to hold hands throughout the meal.
At nine the time arrived for Sam to return to her digs. Foyle summoned a taxi to convey her home, and rode with her in the rear of the car, sitting sideways-on, his arm extended along the back of the seat, just as he often did in the Wolseley.
Mindful of appearances, Sam sat straight-backed, facing forwards, and held her hands immobile in her lap.
When they arrived outside her lodgings, Foyle reached down for Sam's hand and raised it to his lips. "Tomorrow, business as usual. Don't be late, Miss Stewart."
"You can rely on that, Sir."
When she withdrew her hand to leave the taxi, he felt a tug inside himself, as if a little piece of him was leaving with her.
"Lovely girl, Guv!" offered the cabbie amiably once she'd gone, looking through the rear view mirror at his remaining passenger.
Foyle met the driver's eyes, sizing up the man and the remark. Finding no animus or innuendo there, he smiled and glanced away. "One of a kind," he said.
****** TBC ******
More soon.
Giu C