III

After more than a quarter of a century traveling the world over, he was confident he could greet in almost every language there was, so he stood there, all satisfied with himself. Yup, I still got it.

She realized there was nothing she could do to hide the blush on her cheeks. She wasn’t old-fashioned, but she liked those little details, and it had been a while since she had seen a man do that.

“Oh…enchanté”, she responded appreciatively, catching him off guard. “Parlez-vous français ?”.

“I’m sorry?”, he managed to ask, trying to recover.

Seeing Richie’s puzzled expression, she smiled demurely, trying to prevent him from feeling uncomfortable. She squeezed his hand and gave it a quick shake, she continued: “Nevermind…it’s…You can call me Frédérique”, and Richie softly released her hand. Her name sounded so easy to pronounce coming from her lips…

“Have you been here for long?” Richie quickly changed the subject. “I hope I didn’t lose track ‘a time out there”.

“Oh no, not at all – waving her hand at him - , in any case it was I who arrived a little earlier. Besides, it’s so beautiful here… – she signaled with her arm then hooking her thumb casually on the edge of her pocket - …I wasn’t having a hard time waiting”.

“I’m glad, you also have good company, I hear”, tipping his head towards the car behind her.

She chuckled: “Yes…”, she looked back at the car, but instead noticed the dark clouds on the horizon again. They were a little closer this time: there wasn’t time for small talk.

“I was wondering if we could start by walking around the site so I could take some pictures and check the information on my topographical map?”. She said, looking at him straight into his eyes.

“Um…sure, yeah” , Richie started moving towards the gate and opened it. He extended his arm, a broad smile on his face. “Welcome”.

“Wait just a second, please”. Frédérique leaned into the car to turn off the CD player.

Richie couldn’t help but stare: the tight jeans showed her perfectly toned legs, and the jacket accentuated her waist. Her ass must be the most perfect ass he had ever seen...on a woman: as a man as he was and confident with his sexuality, he had to admit that his friend Jon had been blessed with, among other things, a perfect ass.

Frédérique closed the car door and headed for the gate. She smiled and looked down as she passed through the wooden gate. The land had soft slopes, with beautiful, thick green grass. Some trees were scattered here and there and she could see the reflection of the sky on a pond in the lower part. The views were breathtaking, some bright-red barns splashing color into the scene.

“So what’s your idea for the construction?”, she asked as she kept walking, pulling her camera out from the case and setting it to make the most of the diffuse natural lighting.

“Well, I’m not very ambicious. My idea is just to have somewhere quiet to run away to when I need to relax or work without being disturbed, I wasn’t planning on it, but I came here for a photo session a couple months ago and fell in love with this place. It’s really something else”.

Richie looked around and then focused on her face. She wasn’t full-on exotic, but had exotic features like her almond-shaped eyes, and slightly prominent cheekbones. She was a full head shorter than him and, though not skinny, she was fit.

 “It certainly is…”, she agreed, giving Richie time since he seemed to be thinking about what else to say. She took advantage of the hault in the conversation to take some pictures from where she was standing. Her words brought Richie back from his ramblings.

Richie waited for her to finish and started talking: “Where was I? Oh, yeah. What I need here, is a house with maybe 4 bedrooms and a separate recording studio, nothing very flashy, just comfortable and cozy but also functional and low maintenance”. Richie put his left hand in his pocket, gesturing with the other one. Frédérique had stopped her walk in order to pay more attention to Richie and he turned so they could speak face to face, she listened with her head slightly tilted to her right and nodding from time to time. Her face muscles made a myriad of different movements, evidencing the intense activity going on inside her head, as the ideas flashed in front of her eyes.

“4 bedrooms? That’s a lot of space, do you have a big family?”

“Something like that, yeah”, he replied with warmness in his eyes. Before his mind drifted away he continued:  “I’m sorry, I don’t know squad about architecture, I’m gonna need your help here, Fré…drd…”, he stuttered and soon realized he wasn’t going to be able to pronounce it – “…is it inappropriate if I call you Fred?”.

She chuckled - Why not?- and shook her head. Then resumed the conversation “I think it’s better if you try to express yourself with your own words then we see where it goes from there, OK?, so you are not conditioned”, she encouraged him, gesturing with her hand and resuming the walk. “I want to know exactly what you want”. Did I just say that?

“Well, in THAT case, how much time you got?” Richie grinned, but decided not to pursue that when he felt her uneasiness. “I’m sorry – trying to mend his previous words - it’s just that I really feel like a fish out of the water”.

They continued walking as Frédérique listened to Richie express his ideas, trying to concentrate harder when he went adrift to incomprehensible details regarding the different recording equipments - besides their measurements and energetic demands, it was useless information to her, but she let him continue: his voice was delightful.

They continued walking down one of the soft slopes towards the pond. She took some more pictures and in her mind went over the topographical map she had back in the car and confirmed that it was accurate - she had a good photographic memory and remembered with a good amount of detail the information she had seen on the map.

All of a sudden Frédérique stepped on a mushy rock, slipped and fell on her knees and palms. Richie tried to catch her but it happened so fast he didn’t even have time to react. There was a moment of silence. Richie’s reaction was to quickly approach her extending both his arms in front of her, a concerned expression on his face. Frédérique, instead,  couldn’t help but burst out laughing, leaving Richie completely puzzled.

“Oh my God,  y’alright?” he asked, but she couldn’t answer she was laughing so hard. Then Frédérique sat back on her heels and put an arm around her stomach. She had perfect, small teeth and slightly longer fangs. Richie didn’t know what to make of the scene in front of him, but her laughter was so contagious he joined her as he pulled her up until they were standing toe to toe, their arms folded in the space between them, his hands still holding hers.

Frédérique looked down and took a deep breath to compose herself. Richie did the same, but the air he inhaled contained more than just oxygen – it was packed with Frédérique scent, and it went right from his nose down to his groin. Whoa. He automatically let go of her hands and took a step back.

“I’m so sorry, I’m really clumsy, I shouldn’t have put on these boots”, she took a look at the green wet spots on her jeans - just above the edge of her boots - and brushed her hands over them to take off the small bits of grass still plastered there. She was still having a hard time toning down her amusement. Richie did the attempt of helping her but she incorporated and looked back at him, her eyes still sparkling and what seemed to be tears running down her cheeks. He saw her extend her arm and turn the palm of her hand up. It wasn’t tears, but rain.

“We better get going…”, she said, putting the camera back in its case, “…or we are not going to make it to the gate before…”.

As if on cue, the skies opened up and in a matter of seconds it was pouring rain. They had walked, though at a very small pace, for more than an hour downhill, so they started to run back uphill. Richie instinctively grabbed her hand and tugged her behind him as he took long strides, he looked back at her and shouted:

“I can’t send you back home all battered and bruised, right?!”, his wet hair was already stuck on his face, but she could see his smile. Why wasting time resisting?.

During the fifteen minutes’ run back to the gate, Frédérique couldn’t taker her eyes off of Richie’s back: his soaked shirt was now almost transparent and stuck to his skin, she could see every one of the muscles on his wide back…the wet thin fabric of the cargo pants left nothing to the imagination.

Richie was taking them past the truck towards her car when Frédérique let go of his hand and waved it at him, shouting over the deafening sound of the storm as she continued to move forward with her head looking back: “Go!” – he didn’t move – “Richie, just go! We’ll talk tomorrow!”

Speechless, Richie stood there as he saw Frédérique get in the car, start it, drive in reverse, then forward again and speed down the road, disappearing in the thick curtain of rain. He frowned, and finally got himself inside the truck. He sat still for a few moments. He felt like a train had ran over him. What the hell was that? He combed his hair back with his fingers and wiped his face with his hand. He blew out the air in his lungs. He started de car.

He knew EXACTLY what that was. What she was: trouble.