The Maenad of the Maquis 2/3 - for lovesrogue36

[nfe-gremlin.livejournal.com]

Title: The Maenad of the Maquis (2/3)
Author: rthstewart
Recipient: lovesrogue36
Rating: Strong R
Summary: “He who loves not wine, women and song remains a fool his whole life long.” Martin Luther, 1777

AN: With gratitude to the woman who delivered this fabulous prompt. Thanks to the [my friends] for the handholding. Thanks to [my beta] for the final beta.

Part One

Part 2 of The Maenad of the Maquis

00oo00oo

Marie had laughed at his parting comment about Maenads, ducked out of the alcove, and rolled the pressoir back over the doorway. Peter stayed awake long enough to confirm that the sumptuous sheets and the mattress they covered had been the property of the Hotel Paris Ritz.

Peter did not often dream of Narnia but, in the presence of the wine god and in a place so special to him, it was inevitable. He returned to the Bacchanal on the night following their victory over Miraz and the Telmarines. Peter was Aslan’s champion and together they had restored Caspian and Old Narnia. Bacchus and the Maenads had called the celebration into being. Where they danced, where their bare feet stomped the good earth, such foods as had not been tasted in an age appeared. The waters ran with wines, cool and fresh, deep and rich, every one blessed by the wine god – his own special vintages created for that raucous, lusty night.

“High King!” Bacchus roared, shoving a wine skin into his hands. “Why do you hang back?! Your people wish to pay you homage! My Maenads are on their knees for you!”

Peter grimaced at the crude humor and took a deep drink, burying the pain of the parting he felt in his heart was coming. The wine tasted of a fine Château Haut-Brion. “My time here is ending, lord Bacchus. My mood is not a celebratory one.” A Maenad danced by, her hair so tangled it nearly obscured her face; her legs, arms, and one breast were already bared for him and to the firelight. She held out beckoning hands, but Peter remained where he was and she flounced away with a pout on her full lips.

“And so you will disappoint those who would honor you?” Bacchus challenged. The god’s face was glowing in the light of the blazing bonfires, his mouth stained red. Peter found himself grabbed by strong hands and kissed very soundly. Peter sputtered and staggered backwards.

“Must you do that, my lord?! You know my preference!” Still, protest was absurd, for Bacchus could appear in any form and if taken by the god’s wine madness, Peter could as easily be blinded to it.

“You spurn my Maenads and now me as well? You are too difficult to please, High King.” The god laughed, but Peter caught the hard edge that turned his blood cold.

“No, my lord,” Peter corrected hurriedly. “But, such joys will surely make my farewell harder still.”

The god wrapped an arm about his shoulders and Peter had the sensations of vines curling about him. “I do not know the Lion’s purposes, High King. But once a King, always a King, and the land from which you come needs those of Kingly manner and ways even more than Narnia.”

Bacchus raised his bowl and toasted his wild girls, swaying and writhing to the beating of Dwarf drums and fluting Faun pipes. “The Maenads wish to honor you, High King, for your great service to them and to Narnia. A day will come when you may honor their lonely sister in turn.”

“And how can that be when I shall never return here?” Peter asked.

“High King,” the wine god chided. “The Lion is in your world. Do you think I am not?”

And so chastened for acting as a sullen child when all were celebrating, and hearing the request of a god and the threat beneath, the next time the Maenad danced around the fire, Peter let her draw him away, deep into the wood and into her eager, grateful arms and those of her sisters.

He woke with a start to fading cries of Maenad passion and aching from the touch of the wild ones who were not there. From this painful awakening, Peter cast an irritated look in the direction of the god’s altar.

“Thank you ever so much,” he told the god. “Consider your message delivered.”

The stone floor was very cool on his feet. It took him only a few moments to explore the space he had been too tired to even see earlier. From his watch, he knew it was near eighteen hundred, and he’d been sleeping for at least twelve hours.

Peter found the records – all jazz and band titles, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald. He also found wine and poured himself a generous glass and for good measure, sprinkled drops on the god’s altar.

The wine made the half of a hard biscuit ration he ate slightly more palatable, but really, he was coming to see that he was cheapening very good drink with very bad food. He was just going to try to crank up the gramophone when he heard Marie on the other side of the pressoir.

“How are you? Feeling better?” She bustled in and set a basket and a pitcher of water on the table.

“Yes, thank you.”

With her so close, and as was surely the god’s intent, Peter was reminded strongly of his dream. Marie smelled of the outdoors. She was still barefoot and leaves were tangled in her unkempt hair. As he had with Bacchus’ wild girls, he wanted to ease the strap over her slim, browned shoulder, and watch the light frock slide off her body to the ground, a puddle at their feet. There was nothing but her honeyed skin beneath that over-laundered, flimsy dress; it was as translucent as a butterfly wing with the light behind her. The bedsheets of the Paris Ritz were not the green grass of Narnia, but in the cave would feel nearly as cool to their joined heat.

But, she was a Maenad and it was for her to make such desires known. Instead, Peter asked, “If you would permit me?” She smiled her assent and so he plucked the leaves from her hair and placed them at the wine god’s feet.

“If you will leave my dreams now, my lord, it would be more restful.”

Marie laughed. “His revenge for no offering?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“So perhaps you do not know him so well?” she taunted.

“Oh, I know the wine god,” Peter assured her. “But he and his Maenads will do what they will.”

She looked at him thoughtfully and Peter had the sense of a test, the parameters of which became clearer when she suddenly blurted, “Lie down on the bed!” He very willingly complied with her specific and emphatic order, quite cheered at the direction.

He stretched out, propped on his elbows, and watched as Marie set a few berries at the god’s feet and again lit the candle. Then, she busied herself at the side table, removing from her basket a towel, a tube of brushless shaving cream and a safety razor.

She studied him again with her appraising stare. “You take orders well, Peter.”

“You asked and I certainly am glad to oblige you however I might.”

She grinned and from her pocket removed one of the condom packages and set it on the table.

He was very amenable to the invitation, though felt he needed to clarify that this was not a requisite of his stay, even if he felt the utter hypocrite in saying so. Peter did not wish to deny his own warming desire, nor offend the wine god and his Maenad. However, he was also a common English soldier under the protection of the Maquis and simple politeness played a role too.

“Marie,” he began.

He should not have worried for a Maenad was bold and she knew her own mind. With no preliminaries or by your leaves, just as her sisters before, Marie pushed him back on to the bed with a protesting squeak of springs. “I shall shave you first, Peter.”

“Shave?” he repeated. Rubbing his face, he supposed it was getting wooly there, but shaving was not the prelude he had in mind.

“Yes,” Marie affirmed and, to his delight but not surprise, she climbed on to the bed, straddling him at the waist, her strong legs neatly trapping him on either side. It was a preferred position of the Maenad.

“You are too rough. After the shave, I shall decide if you are worthy of a rare condom.”

“I see,” Peter replied. “I am not sure how I feel about you with a razor at my throat.” He did not like the sound of proving his worth either but seeing to the Maenad first was always the more prudent policy. If he did right by her, the rest would follow perforce. Her Narnian sisters had seen to his thorough instruction in that regard and Peter could well imagine the wine god’s contempt if he failed the task now.

“So dramatic! I have done this before!”

With a grousing complaint, Marie tugged at the hem of his undershirt. Peter obliged and let her peel it off.

For a few luscious moments, he thought maybe they would skip the shave. Marie became distracted, running her hands over his chest and murmuring soft compliments. The tight grip of her legs at his sides slackened as his hands moved over her body to discover the places and pressures that made her sigh and gasp. Peter lifted the strap of her frock to relive that fantastical memory as the dress fell off her shoulder.

“You are so beautiful.” Like the wine they drank, mere words could not describe her body arcing over him, as glorious as any god-maddened vision. Grasping her wrist, Peter mouthed her arm. She tasted of wine and summer and smelled of grass and rich turned earth. His mistake was trying to pull her down to press her skin to his and a first kiss.

“Non et non!” Marie exclaimed, pulling back . “Oh non! Shave first!” She pulled her frock back up over her shoulders. That was very disappointing.

“Oh, very well,” Peter grumbled, though his protest was half-hearted. This was her whim and he could be patient. He should accept her ministrations as her god would wish him to and so he submitted to the softness of the cream and the burn of the blade in her hands.

As she leaned forward to carefully scrape the razor up his face, his hands, still anxious to participate and move things along, slid up her bare legs to steady her.

The blade paused at his throat. “Go higher,” Marie said, shifting to try and edge his waiting hands up between her legs.

“Not with a razor on my neck.”

She pouted and tossed her hair. “It is a safety razor.”

“But it is my neck.” Still, to oblige, his thumbs pressed lightly into the soft skin of her inner thigh. They did not, to her increasing aggravation, move upward.

Marie steadied herself, one hand pushing his shoulder back into the mattress. Hard. “You are teasing,” she said, suddenly sounding very angry.

“Never,” Peter said fervently. “I would never be such a fool.”

She held the razor before his eyes, waving it.

“You know what happens to those who mock the wine god and his Maenads?”

“Torn apart. Driven mad. Murdered their families.” Peter slid a hand under her dress, over her back, the long quieting stroke to settle a restless cat. It was neither where she wished such stroking, nor what he desired, but it showed his intent to make good on the promise. “I shall never tease unless you ask. But if you could finish as quickly as possible…”

In her haste to complete his shave, there were some nicks and cuts though with cause due to her increasing distraction with his ever firmer caresses.

She did not last much longer. With a snarl of frustration, Marie capitulated, threw the razor away, and grabbed his hand to demand a first time rough plundering of her body. A single, gentle tug and, at last, her dress fell from her shoulders, tangling her arms to bunch carelessly at her waist; the skirt was shoved high over her hips. Perched above him, head thrown back, lips between her teeth, she was an utterly wanton, perfect likeness of her Maenad sisters, though it was the light of a bulb that reflected off her skin, not the glow of bonfires. He held her tight, one hand at her waist, the other doing what she willed. With a sudden, shuddering gasp, Marie collapsed against him, murmuring incoherent French. Peter kissed her throat.

For the Maenads he had known, this quick, hard satisfaction would never have sufficed and Peter was wary of the wine god’s critique as well. Though it seriously pained him, figuratively and literally, he had not earned the condom yet when there was so much that could still be done for one who had had so much taken from her. He gently turned her, rolling so their positions were reversed. Marie’s hair spread out, black on white, her skin golden against the mussed, stolen bedsheets. She was a splendid, sensuous mess.

Grasping her leg, he slowly raised her knee to his waiting lips and planted a kiss there. “Surely that was not enough?”

“Ouah!” she mumbled. “Mhhmm?”

Peter added a little nip to the kiss, seeking her attention. “That could not have been sufficient to earn the condom.”

Her eyes flew open, mouthing forming a perfect Oh. “Eh bien, alors!”

Leaning down, he kissed the surprise away from her lips then ran his fingers along her lines, mapping the terrain. His mouth followed his fingers to explore the peaks and valleys that made a Maenad moan. Between the kisses, he observed, “Anything hands might do, the mouth does better.” He wished he could take credit for the line, but it had been a Maenad who had demonstrated the principle.

“Ô! Oui!” She giggled and squirmed.

Now there were two methods of going about this, top down and bottom up. The Maenads had been very clear on their preference. As fitting and as her sisters had desired, Peter began at Marie’s feet, for where Maenads danced, bounty flowed.

“It is like this,” Peter told her, speaking between the lingering kisses he deliberately placed on her legs. “When Bacchus and Silenus and the Maenads meet in the wood, they dance. You know this?”

“Oui,” she said breathlessly.

“Their wild dance is not merely for pleasure and beauty.”

“No?” Marie whispered. She twisted under his mouth as he traveled higher along the inside of her legs. “For what is their dance then?”

“Where Maenads and the wine god dance, it is a magic dance of plenty. Where their hands touch and where their feet fall, there is a feast.”

Her groan traveled down through her body and arced into his own. “Tell me of the feast,” she demanded.

And so, in-between the kisses and caresses his roving mouth gifted her, Peter told the Maenad of the feast her sisters had conjured for him so long ago. He whispered of the roasted meats, cakes, and breads, beautiful cheeses and butters, honey and many-coloured sugars and cream as thick as porridge and as smooth as still water, peaches, nectarines, pomegranates, pears, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, pyramids and cataracts of fruit.

Marie’s cries were like those of sisters, fierce and frantic. When he had coaxed the last from her and she shuddered a final, exhausted time, the Maenad was softened, so hot to the touch, even the sheets could not cool, and he was beyond desperate for her.

As a supplicant, he cradled her supple, pliant body in his arms and asked.

And that was how they came to use the first condom.



00oo00oo

Part 2

They drank a bottle of 1934 Chateau Haut-Brion in the farmhouse kitchen and shared the tian de legumes. Peter did not eat the cornbread she offered for he had seen in Charentes the long effort it took to make the grainy yellow bread. Marie spread a shaving of the precious butter on a tiny piece of the cornbread and he might have taken as a personal affront her moans of pleasure over simple bread and butter. But, having witnessed the deprivations of the War and its effect upon the French, he felt pity and anger rather than offense. He kissed the tears of joy away and suppressed, for the moment, the powerful reactions her sighs provoked.

As happened when in the company of a Maenad, Peter found it increasingly difficult to concentrate upon anything other than when they might use the next condom, or, should Marie wish to conserve the precious commodity, some variation of Make Do, just as the War Office exhorted.

After sharing a plum and licking the juices away they huddled together in the sitting room over the wireless with the blackout shades pulled down. Marie had to reinsert the lead into the electric meter for the radio to work. Otherwise, it would broadcast nothing but static. Should anyone come looking for a member of the Resistance in the tiny farmhouse, they would find bad wine, a non-functioning radio, and a lot of records. She fiddled with the dials, looking for the Radio London broadcast.

“What is your call signal?” Marie asked.

“It depends,” Peter told her. “If my sister is sending a message, it will probably be ‘sword.’ If it is someone from command, it would be ‘green hat.” My other crew mate is ‘blue hat.’”

There were bursts of static and then the voice of the BBC surged out. The news, “real news,” Marie whispered, was all about the Allied invasion of Sicily, il Duce’s removal, and Operation Husky.

After the news, the string of cryptic action messages began. These were the coded instructions from the War Office and SOE to Resistance fighters and spies all over occupied Europe.

“We will have eggs for breakfast.”

“Cut the roses today.”

“Go to the store and buy a chair.”

The bizarre messages, critically important to him, to Marie, and to the thousands of others just like them secretly bunched around radios listening to the BBC, went on for some minutes. Then, Peter heard, “The blue hat is in the basket.” He exhaled his relief. Fenwick had made it out of France and was on his way back to England.

The message he was waiting for came a few lines later, from Susan. “Rat wants the sword to stay sharp at the How.” Susan’s message to him was then followed by one for Edmund and Lucy who surely had heard he had been downed in occupied France, “Rat says to Crow and Heart that the Sword will return to Narnia.”

Peter opened his mouth to speak and Marie, seeming very shocked, swiped down her hand and cut him off. “Chut!”

The broadcast switched to French and her look sharpened further still. Peter heard the word “rat” – the word was the same in French and English – and something about a dance next month.

The programme, still in French, continued, and Marie lowered the volume. “Now it is all patati patata, talk talk talk, we heard before in English.”

“Was there a message about me?” Peter asked. “About the plans? My instructions are to stay here and follow your instructions.” Peter had to credit Susan – she obviously knew of the purpose to which the wine caves were being put and where he was. She had drawn upon the Narnia experience to compare the wine cave to Aslan’s How. Her message to Edmund and Lucy was equally obscure to anyone but a Friend of Narnia – he would be returning to England soon.

Marie’s eyes were very large with surprise. “Mon Dieu!” She let out a breath. “The message about you was from Rat! How is it that Rat takes an interest in you?”

“Rat is one of my sister’s code names,” Peter said. It referred back to the time when she and Edmund had operated the Narnian Intelligence Service.

“Oh là là! Rat is your sister!? And Rat is the code name of Louise in the Maquis! So, your sister is Rat, is Louise?”

“She is,” Peter said. He had not thought Susan’s activities would have reached to an individual Maquis and her safe house in Bordeaux. But, really, how could he know anything? He only knew of the SOE’s activities in planting women agents in France because his sister was one of them, code name, Louise.

Marie slid like a cat from her chair onto his, wrapping her thin arms around his neck. The Maenad bite to his ear was jolting, the caressing tongue that followed, soothing. “I must take very good care of you or Louise will send me to Alsace!”

“She would not do that and you are taking very good care of me,” he said running his hands along her sides. “And the plans?”

“As before. You will be smuggled out through Canfranc. Morning, day after next,” she said.

“Morning? Not the night?”

“For this, morning. It will be well. We have done this many times before and with Louise watching, it must be well.”

Peter pulled her sleeve down from one shoulder, reveling in the brazen Maenad in his lap. He pushed her billowing hair away to taste her skin; Marie arched over his hands splayed against her bare back. They were secreted behind the blackout shades and their only light came from the glow of the radio illicitly broadcasting to occupied France of the Italian campaign. Marie’s feral, heedless passion inspired in him something very like the madness of the wine god. Her bedroom was only steps away, the floor even closer, he was not going to shave again, and when he had impatiently shoved the skirt up to caress her slim, bare hips, he had felt the condom package in her pocket. Soldiers and Maquis were prepared for any eventuality.



Marie, however, began untangling her limbs and slipped away. She stood and really it took enormous restraint to not pull her back into his lap.

“Allons-y! Come!” the Maenad said, holding out her hand. “I wish to show you my vineyard.”

0o0o0o0



Part Three

Original Prompt:
What I want: Peter/OC
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: Wartime, American jazz, French wine, mussed bedsheets
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Slash, incest