From Dream to Destiny Read online

  “I love only you. Come here.” He kissed her tenderly. “Do you have time to go get a light lunch with me? I would like to spend time with you.”

  Sophie looked at him and knew it was true.

  “Oui that would be fine.”

  “Then let’s go. I think we both need some fresh air.”

  They didn’t talk about it anymore that day or that evening after work, because there was nothing more to say. In a very real way, it made his unfaithfulness easier. She now completely understood that it had nothing to do with love or caring. It had to do with Gastien having a need that burned until it was satisfied. Perhaps it never could be, and that was why he kept trying to put the hunger to rest.

  He was right, she remembered. This was his largest wart. Well, he was wrong that it would be too much for her. She loved him in spite of it, because she knew it was a problem he owned, not her. She was thankful he was not that animalistic with her. Given her size, she had no doubt that she would end up badly injured if he was.

  XXVIII

  It had now not only become possible for Sophie to get a job and to see Gastien sometimes after work, it had also changed their time together when she stayed. Once Tristan Michel started to crawl and then walk, he was a constant threat to everything around him. They spent several hours with him on Wednesdays, either taking him for walks with him riding on Gastien’s shoulders, going to a park, or playing with him in the studio.

  Gastien was not very good at playing with his son. He lost interest quickly, and the child could sense his boredom. Tristan Michel would start to act out in order to get Gastien’s attention back, which would make Gastien want to distance himself even more.

  He did, however, feed his son at times and held him often. When Tristan Michel was good, they got along fine. Being a little boy meant he was curious, though. He was constantly trying to get into paints or other supplies, and trying to touch paintings.

  Gastien felt like banging his own head against the wall in frustration. Yet, he did not want Tristan Michel left at home. That would not be fair to the boy. Plus, he did want to be in his son’s life. Gastien tried his best to be a good father, even though his patience wore thin and his attention was lost easily.

  Thank goodness for Cassie and Vic! They would sometimes take the boy for a few hours during the day on Wednesday, so that Sophie and Gastien could go places and just have fun. They also took him every Tuesday and Wednesday night overnight.

  Tristan Michel was used to his Cassie and Vic. He loved staying with them. Sophie and Gastien were glad that they got two nights a week to not only make love as long as they wanted, but to sleep next to each other as husband and wife. It was wonderful to wake up together. Because it only happened a couple days a week, it was even sweeter for them than for most couples.

  Those evenings they would often go out to a play, circus, or musical performance. Many times they went dancing. Sophie and Gastien became quite well known for their sexy interpretations of songs on the dance floor. The two had a natural connection, always moving together beautifully. They did not dance with others when they were both there; they only had eyes for each other. Besides, they moved so perfectly together that dancing with someone else would have seemed clumsy and intrusive.

  By the time the couple got back to the studio they were definitely in the mood to take those dance steps further, finally ending up where it was obvious they wanted to be: in Gastien’s bed.

  Usually on Sundays they would find time to quickly sneak away to his studio for a quick round of lovemaking, returning back within an hour and a half. If anyone suspected, they did not let on. Knowing they had a very limited amount of time lent a forbidden element to the encounter. Because of that, they always seemed particularly hungry for each other on Sundays.

  Gastien still went out some nights when Sophie was not around. If Mic was available they went out together, otherwise Gastien would meet up with other artist amis.

  Mic was off and on again with Alice, and there were others. Alice by now had a couple of children from Mic, but still they had not married. The way they broke up and got back together and broke up, it was probably just as well that they did not make it legal.

  Other nights, Gastien stayed home and read or painted, sometimes having amis over to join him. Many times he and Mic painted together. They also enjoyed card games. They would play at a bar against others once in awhile, losers buying drinks.

  Once Tristan Michel turned five, Gastien started teaching him how to fence. He enjoyed doing that with his son, and found his son a good, if very young, student. It was nice to have something in common. The little boy was too young to hold a heavy epee or foil, and it would be too dangerous. Gastien got him toy replicas; then taught him the stances and parries. That would be the one thing that Gastien felt relaxed doing with his son as the boy grew older.

  Many times over the years he would tell his son he was too busy for play or to listen because he was working on a painting. Gastien didn’t know what to talk to him about, since as Tristan Michel grew he showed no interest in art. Thankfully, they both always had time for fencing. Gastien also made sure that he told his son he loved him as often as possible. He hoped that would be enough; that Tristan Michel would understand that he had done his best.

  One would think Sophie would have grown tired of the living situation, of Gastien’s inability to give up women and flirting, his inability to communicate with their only child, and his need for all of that painting time. But she didn’t. She simply loved him unconditionally. In her eyes, he was a fabulous man and an amazing artist.

  Fate had not given Gastien many people to love him growing up, but now fate had given him someone who practically worshipped him. She let him live life exactly as he wished, without judgment. Gastien knew he was extremely lucky to have someone so perfect to grow old with when the time came to do so.

  Once his son was going to school, Gastien tried to go to school meetings and events as often as he could. He knew that it was important to feel like you belonged when you were a child. He attended so that Tristan Michel would have both parents there.

  When the boy got older, he would tell Gastien that he was embarrassed by Gastien’s appearance. That hurt Gastien deeply at first. Then he remembered how embarrassed he felt when he was a child and came to Paris. Oh, oui, it was important as a child to not feel different from others. He accepted the fact that he needed to be conscious of that. Moving forward, he made sure he dressed normally and wore his hair up under a beret when he attended school functions.

  The first time he came to school like this, Tristan Michel saw him and looked startled. He looked at his father with questioning eyes, wondering how badly he had hurt him. Gastien just winked at him and smiled. Tristan Michel never knew how much he had hurt his father.

  Gastien did not want him to feel bad asking for something that every child wanted desperately as they grew up: normalcy. His son had a large dose of the unusual to contend with regarding their living situation. If Gastien could make one part of life a bit easier then he would swallow his pride, hiding his hair and flair for the eccentric when coming to support Tristan Michel at school.

  XXIX

  In May of 1889 the Exposition Universelle opened in Paris. It was timed to take place during the one hundred year celebration of the French Revolution. The Eiffel Tower was built for this fair. The tower had been started in 1884. It was to be the entrance that people passed through to get into the Exposition.

  Many Parisians hated the building of this tower and saw it as an eyesore, especially those in the art communities. Several heated letters were written to French newspapers to protest this “eyesore”.

  Gastien, however, did not feel the same way. To him it was a sculpture. It amused him that so many people could not accept change, or a structure unlike anything they had seen before. He knew that feeling well from the responses he got to many of his paintings.

  Once the Exposition Universelle opened, Gastien and Mic decided t
o go, along with their women and children. They went and saw Buffalo Bill’s traveling Wild West Show. Everyone was excited about seeing Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley, from the USA! Mic, of course, wore his cowboy boots.

  Soon it was October 1889, and the whole area was abuzz about the opening of the Moulin Rouge. This cabaret was quite unlike anything before it, outraging many people in Paris. However, the artists of Montmartre embraced it, along with plenty of the bourgeois and gentry. The Moulin Rouge opened at the foot of the hill of Montmartre in Pigalle, the red light district of Paris. It had a windmill as part of its motif that even featured electric lights!

  Inside, such luxury had never before been seen in a cabaret. Extravagantly huge dance floors, gilded mirrors everywhere, and galleries of unsurpassed elegance were throughout. Out back there stood a huge, stucco elephant that only hommes could enter. Once inside, they indulged in opium smoking and private sex shows. There were circus acts on the grounds, free donkey rides for women, and a joyous, carnival-like atmosphere. Gentry sat side by side with bourgeois and louts drinking absinthe, other liquor, indulging in hashish, cocaine, and other drugs of choice.

  The girls of easy virtue were the biggest draw. Later on, in the early 1900’s, it became a place that was less notorious and more elegant. In the early years, though, the Moulin Rouge was a high class brothel and den of excess. This is where the can-can was made famous. The can-can started as a dance of the working class, but at the Moulin Rouge it became something different.

  It was at first performed there by the dancers individually on stage, and as they moved about the floor, to entice the male patrons into buying their “wares”. With the high kicks and flexible dance moves that were involved, there was little left to the imagination of what these girls could do with their bodies during the sex act.

  While most of the time these dances were performed with sensual, lacy undergarments that were very skimpy, many times the girls elected to not wear any undergarments at all. This exposed their genitals during the kicks and twists of their legs. Lifting their skirts, they would also turn their backs and bend at the waist, giving the hommes full view of their backsides and what lay between their thighs. To say these dances were much appreciated by the male clientele would be a gross understatement.

  The drinking, drug taking, and paid sex acts grew so excessive that many became hopelessly addicted. Countless hommes lost a great deal of money because of these habits, and the cost of their increasingly exotic sexual hungers. It was a time of great exuberance and fun on the surface. Under that surface were many people damaging their lives, and their health, within a very short time span. Quite a few ended up dead from overdose or suicide, many more financially ruined.

  Once the place cleaned itself up, it became a very respectable – if risqué – place to go for entertainment. The venue then featured wonderful choreography, concerts, world class singers, and dancing. However, in the 1800’s it was not respectable. This mattered very little to its patrons, especially the artists of Montmartre.

  Gastien was one of those people. He frequently ended up at the Moulin Rouge. There he would be seen drinking his beloved absinthe, high on his own hash, dancing, and enjoying the views provided by the can-can dancers. They performed near enough to touch, had he wanted to. He still had no desire to engage in sex with prostitutes, so he merely enjoyed the spectacle.

  At first, he also resisted the stucco elephant, and the alluring pull of the opium inside it. He had heard how wonderful it made you feel, what visions one had while high…but he also knew it was not cheap. People also tended to lose large amounts of time high on that drug.

  In the future, he would decide to try it, just to see what it was like. That would not be one of his better decisions.

  XXX

  When Sophie could find time to get away in the evenings, she would catch up with Gastien wherever he happened to be that night. He was always glad to see her. In fact, it made him extremely happy whenever Sophie happened to walk in. He did not want to pressure her to come out and leave their son, however, so he left it up to her when she would join him.

  It was hard enough on the child to be without his father most times, he did not want to pull Sophie away, too. Odette made it very clear that Gastien was not welcome there on school nights, saying it caused too much stress on Tristan Michel. The nights the boy got to stay at Cassie and Vic’s were considered fun and exciting, but pulling Sophie away from home and leaving him with his Aunt would not be seen as fun, as that was no adventure for him.

  Sophie knew all of Gastien’s favorite places. If she took a cabriolet to his studio and it was dark, she simply went the rounds until she found him. Gastien gave her money for that, as he did not want her walking around by herself at night. He had enough money to live modestly for many years, anyway.

  Gastien never waited around for Sophie, because she did not get away often. When he was at Moulin de la Galette or Moulin Rouge, he would still find other dance partners and flirt. He would also invite them to his table, just like he always had.

  The first time that Sophie walked in to the Moulin Rouge and Gastien had a woman sitting on his lap, his amis expected fireworks. As Sophie walked up to the table, Gastien stopped rubbing the woman’s arms. Looking at Sophie, his eyes lit up. His smile was so honestly happy, so free of guilt, that one would be hard pressed to be angry at him.

  “Sophie! Ohhh, my Sophi-belle has come out tonight!” He looked at the woman on his lap. “Be a good girl and get down.”

  The girl did not move. Gastien nudged her. “You are very nice company, but the woman I love is here. You can stay at the table if you wish, but I want my wife by me whenever I am lucky enough to have her.”

  The girl stared at him “You are dismissing me for another woman?”

  “Not any woman, chèri. This “other woman” is the love of my life. You are simply very nice entertainment. Now please get down, and either sit down at that empty chair or go away. The choice, of course, is yours.

  “Well, you fils de pute!” she exclaimed.

  “Non. But I can be a trou de cul,” he replied calmly. Gastien stood, and the girl either had to stand or get dumped on the ground.

  Sophie watched the interaction with her eyes sparkling. He was definitely one of a kind.

  “Don’t feel bad, darling,” she said to the girl. “You don’t have to put up with him like I do. He really can be quite a handful.“

  Sophie threw back her head and laughed, kissing Gastien boldly on the mouth “In fact, he is a couple of hands full and then some, hmmmm darling?”

  Gastien laughed and kissed her back. “You are so naughty, Sophie. I should take you over my knee right here. However, I think I will wait until we get some time at home. Let’s dance!”

  Out on the floor, Gastien held her tight. Sophie looked up at him. “Did I disappoint you, interrupting? I know you did not expect me…”

  “Sophie, I will never be disappointed to see you. Never. I am so happy now that we have more time together. Come closer.” She could feel his hardness against her.

  “Is that for me or the other?” she whispered.

  “If it was for the other, I would have lost it when you walked in.” He sucked her ear gently. “You make me so unbelievably hot. You look so innocent, yet you have turned out to be so very, very naughty.” He inhaled the sweetness of her. “Ahhh, Sophie….what are you doing to me? You are going to ruin my reputation.”

  “Loving you, Gastien. Loving you the only way I know how. You make me naughty because I want you so much every time I see you. I thought couples got over that!”

  “Well, most couples don’t have time apart. That keeps it fresh, I think.”

  She pulled his head down, whispering something so filthy in his ear about what she would like to do to him that he actually gasped. Then he chuckled. He moved slowly toward the edge of the dance floor. Soon, he had her off the dance floor and in a dark corner.

  “Would you care to elaborate on that sugg
estion you made in my ear? Perhaps by performing the suggested feat? It is dark and quiet here.”

  “Here? Someone could come!”

  “Well, oui, someone could. Me, to be precise. And you, if you do it as well as you suggested.“

  He unbuttoned his trousers. Then he sat down at a chair by the lone table in the dark.

  Gastien quietly commanded, “Lift the back of your skirt and move your underwear to the side. Then sit on me and show me what dirty things you can do while sitting in a public place.”

  She lifted, moved and sat. She gasped as he moved his hips under her. She felt his hand under her skirt and on her pleasure point.

  “Ohh – “ Sophie started to cry, but Gastien covered her mouth.

  “Shhhhh. You need to be very quiet.”

  She moved her hips in a circle on his lap, at the same time looking passively into the crowd. No one could see them, but if someone chose to come back there, they might guess what was going on. Gastien moved his hand from her mouth and held her hip. As she moved in a circle, he moved in and out. She felt him tighten his grip. He pinched her bud and then rubbed. Oh! Yessssssssssss…..ah, yes! That was definitely one of his talents.

  A few minutes later, she got up and Gastien buttoned himself. “We are both quite wet,” he whispered.

  “Oui. Come dance with me. I want you to think about how you are running down my thighs while we dance,” Sophie whispered.

  Gastien stood and looked down at her, shaking his head. “As I said, you are very, very naughty. I am going to have to spank you for sure on Tuesday night.”

  “As long as you do more than spank.” She winked and turned around, walking calmly out to the dance floor.

  As he joined her, he bent and whispered, “That’s a promise. Mon Dieu I am crazy for you!”