Chapter 6 #2
The restaurant was noisy and busy at lunchtime, with people crowded at almost every table.
The hostess found them a table where they could watch the crowd come and go.
And an hour later, they were back on the chairlift for another run.
They managed three before they gave up for the day.
It had been a heavily athletic day and they had skied hard.
They were both pleasantly tired when they got back on the shuttle bus to the hotel.
Dominique had called her mother that morning, and called her again when they got back to their room.
She sounded fine, and said she was busy doing something on her computer and trying to figure out how it worked, which made Dominique smile.
Her mother was not adept with technology but willing to learn.
Her granddaughters had tried to help her several times, and Tommy too.
“Dinner in or out tonight?” Bill asked her, and she was tempted to stay in again, she was tired and it had been a challenging day. But she thought she should make an effort for him.
“Out? If you want. I’m happy either way.”
“I like going out with you,” he admitted. “I love showing you off.” He looked boyish as he said it.
“I love showing off with you too.” It made her feel like a couple to go out with him, as if he belonged to her and wasn’t just borrowed. They looked like a married couple, given their ages, and they seemed so well suited to each other, and at ease.
They booked a table in the hotel restaurant, so they didn’t have to bother putting boots on.
She wore white slacks, a white sweater, and high heels, and he wore slacks, a black turtleneck sweater, and a black cashmere blazer.
Heads turned as the headwaiter walked them to their table.
They were a striking couple, and she was wearing a pair of gold and diamond cuffs Bill had given her, and she loved, with diamond studs in her ears.
He was happy to see her wear them. He loved spoiling her and knowing she enjoyed his gifts.
Eileen had never worn anything he had given her, and had finally admitted to him that she didn’t like jewelry, which made sense since she never wore any.
She thought it looked too showy, but Dominique knew just how to wear it, enough to look chic, but never too much.
Unlike her daughter-in-law Marlene, who looked like an overdecorated Christmas tree when she went to Hollywood events with Tommy, in sexy gowns with too much jewelry.
Dinner in the hotel dining room was excellent, and like every restaurant in Courchevel, it was crowded and noisy, with the beautiful women and the plainer wives, large groups and smaller ones.
It was fun people-watching, and Dominique made Bill laugh about them.
They walked through the lobby afterward, and then went back to their room, sat by the fire for a while, and wound up back in bed shortly after, making love.
It was the perfect end to a perfect day.
* * *
Felicity and Taylor had a good day on the slopes at Sugarbush too.
They ran into friends and skied with them for a while.
Taylor was a competitive skier and loved racing everyone.
He skied faster than Felicity, but she was an excellent skier.
She just didn’t like to push herself as hard or take the risks that he did.
But he was equal to the challenges he set for himself.
He introduced her as his fiancée to the people she didn’t know.
He was very proud of it, and it touched her.
Their days skiing together were fun, but their evenings were less entertaining than Dominique’s in Courchevel.
The senior Whitfields expected them to dine with them every night, which made for painful evenings, struggling to find subjects of common interest. What they preferred was gossiping about the people they had seen that day, and Elizabeth loved knowing little gossipy tidbits about them.
Felicity found it tiresome listening to her.
Taylor liked gossiping too, but he was more charitable than his mother.
Taylor and Felicity provided a captive audience for her, since her husband didn’t seem to listen to anything she said.
He had learned to tune her out and concentrate on his dinner.
He rarely contributed to the conversation.
Felicity asked Taylor if they could dine out one night and he said he thought it would be rude to his parents, so she was stuck with them every evening.
They were in bed by nine o’clock, and Taylor was eager to make love to her, and was more athletic than usual.
She felt lonely being there alone with him and his parents, with no one else to talk to.
She missed talking to her mother and sister, who were hard to reach in exotic locations in foreign time zones, so she didn’t try, but by the end of the first week, she felt as though she’d been there for a month with no one to talk to.
They skied all day and Taylor didn’t talk to her at night, he just wanted to have sex and fall asleep the moment he finished.
It hadn’t been a terrific vacation so far, although the snow was great.
They were going to spend New Year’s Eve with Elizabeth and Phillip, although they’d been invited to dinner by friends nearby, which Taylor declined so as not to offend his parents.
Felicity felt as though she was marrying them as the days went by.
* * *
Jamie and Violet were having the perfect vacation in St. Barth.
They were staying at the Cheval Blanc on Flamands Bay, with a heavy discount and Jamie’s promise to get them a mention in the press.
In exchange they had a private villa with its own pool, and were languishing in total luxury with a butler to serve them, in perfect cloudless weather.
They sunbathed naked and made love whenever they wanted.
The butler only came when they rang for him, and the rest of the time, they had total privacy in exquisite surroundings.
It was paradise, and Violet loved being with him.
They talked a lot, and made each other laugh.
Jamie had a sharp mind and a great sense of humor and she was an even match for him, and he loved making love whenever they wanted on vacation.
He was a passionate and considerate lover, and it was impossible not to be happy in the luxurious accommodations he had gotten for them.
Violet felt like a princess in a fairy tale, “or a high-class porn movie,” she said, and he laughed.
“Do you realize we made love four times yesterday?” she said as they lay by their pool, having just made love again.
“I wasn’t counting,” he said, “but now that you mention it, I think it was five or six. Are you complaining?” he asked innocently. “Should it be more?”
“Only if you want to kill me. I’ve never made love as often as that in a week, let alone a day.”
“It seemed about right to me,” he said, grinning, and put a hand on her breast, and she slipped gracefully into the pool, and swam away to tease him.
He jumped in and followed her, cornering her at the steps on the far end, and she could see that he was aroused again.
She dove under the water, and put her lips around him, and after a few minutes came up for air.
He gently pulled her toward him, and they made love on the steps in the water.
“I think you’re putting an aphrodisiac in my food,” he said in a husky voice after he came.
“I’ve never made love this often either. ”
“Is that a complaint?”
“Definitely not. I think we’re setting world records here,” he said, as they got out of the water, went back to their lounge chairs, and lay down next to each other.
He was smiling at her and looked like a happy man.
“You’re an amazing woman, Vi. Not just the sex, I mean everything you do, you’re smart, you’re fun, you’re brave. I’m never bored with you for a minute.”
“Yeah, me neither,” she admitted, “with you. I’ve never been seriously in love with anyone, but I think I might be with you,” she said hesitantly.
“Only might be? Oh God, how many times a day do we have to make love for you to be sure?”
She looked pensive for a minute. “Maybe twenty? That sounds about right.”
“You’re a monster,” he said, and leaned over and kissed her. “I’ve never tried to find the perfect woman, but I think you may be it.”
“You’re pretty cool too. So what are we doing tonight?”
“Let’s go dancing,” he said with a grin.
“I saw a samba bar the other day. That would be fun.” He knew she liked to dance and so did he.
He was having the most fun he’d ever had with anyone on vacation, or at any other time.
He was crazy about her, and knew without a doubt that she was the one, but he didn’t say it to her.
He didn’t want to frighten her. She always said she didn’t want to get too serious, but Jamie already had. And he hoped she would too.
* * *
Dominique and Bill decided to spend New Year’s Eve quietly in their room, without hordes of people around them.
All the bars and restaurants would be crazy that night, and everyone would be drunk.
They loved the idea of spending it quietly together.
They had another week together after that, and Dominique didn’t want to waste a minute of their time alone.
On the stroke of midnight, they were making love, oblivious to the time and the sound of horns and noisemakers outside.
They were in ecstasy in each other’s arms. It was the perfect way to start a new year.
They heard the fireworks after they made love, and went to the window to peek at them exploding in showers of brilliant colors in the sky.