Standing On Top

Chapter 11b

Paris, France

March 22, 1989

The limousine crawled along in the dense afternoon traffic as it headed from Charles de Gaulle International Airport to the luxury hotel on Champ de Mars. The weather was overcast with occasional drizzles — typical continental spring conditions. Inside the limo were the members of Intemperance, Helen, and Sharon. The band had finished their last Great Britain date the night before and were now embarking upon a two-day off period while their equipment was being shipped across the English Channel.

"Isn't Paris beautiful?" asked Sharon as she goggled at the sights outside.

"Yes," agreed Helen, who was goggling just as hard. "I never thought I'd ever get to see it. Now I'm arriving by limousine." She turned to Jake. "Can we go see the Eiffel Tower today? It's in walking distance from our hotel."

"Sure," said Jake with a shrug. Unlike Coop, Charlie, and Matt, he was well-rested and not hungover. "I don't see why we can't go check it out. What about you and Sharon, Nerdly?"

"I can't wait," Sharon said excitedly, clapping her hands together in excitement. "And after that, maybe we could..."

"Uh... actually," Nerdly interrupted, "I thought maybe we could hold off on the Eiffel Tower for a bit."

"Hold off?" Sharon said. "It's less than half a mile from our hotel. Why would you want to hold off?"

"I'm a little tired from the traveling," he said.

"Tired?" Jake asked, raising his eyebrows a little. "It was a two hour flight, Nerdly."

"And you went to bed at nine o'clock last night," Sharon said with a pout.

"It's also raining and windy," Nerdly said. "I'd rather wait for better weather."

Nerdly was acting decidedly strange but Jake shrugged it off. "Okay," he said. "Is it okay if Helen and I go check it out without you then?"

"Of course," Nerdly said. "Be our guest."

"Sure," Sharon said, obviously a little dejected. "Be sure to get pictures."

"What about you, Matt?" Jake asked the guitar player, who was sipping from a rum and coke he'd made. "What are you doing after we get checked in? Wanna check out the tower with us?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm gonna crash out for a couple of hours and then go find me some Parisian bitch with hairy armpits to fuck."

"I'm just gonna crash out," Coop said. "I shoulda never had those last four pints of beer last night."

Jake looked at Charlie for a moment but didn't bother asking him. With his germ phobia he would never go near a structure that was visited by six million people every year.

"It looks like it's just you and me," Jake told Helen.

She smiled, taking his arm. "All alone on the Eiffel Tower. How romantic."

"Romantic," Matt spat with a roll of his eyes and a jerk-off motion. "You people make me wanna puke."

They finally arrived at their hotel just past three o'clock. The check-in procedure went smoothly and by half past the hour, Jake and Helen had unpacked all of their clothes and put everything away. They spent a few minutes admiring the view from their window — it overlooked Champ de Mars and the Eiffel Tower itself — and then headed out for their excursion to France's most famous landmark.

Even though it was a drizzly weekday in the off-season, they still had to wait in line for more than an hour to board one of the elevators — or lifts as they were called here — to go up to the first level. They were squeezed in with fifteen other people into a rickety, dank, and frightening booth that jerked and groaned its way upward for almost two hundred feet before disgorging them on the broadest of the three platforms.

They spent twenty or thirty minutes exploring the shops and the post office on the first level, before deciding to take the stairs up to the second level of the tower to avoid the line and the terrifying elevator. This turned out to be quite a climb; almost fifteen stories worth of steps, but both of them were in good shape and were hardly winded when they came out on the second level. They explored up here for a little bit as well, spending most of their time utilizing the coin operated telescopes that lined the railing.

"I can't believe I'm looking at a boat on the River Seine," Helen said as she put her eye to the viewfinder.

"Don't tell Matt or Coop about these things," Jake said. "They'll be up here all day trying to look into hotel windows."

Tourists were not allowed to take the stairs from the second level to the top of the tower so they had to wait in another line for one of the lifts. This took the better part of twenty minutes but finally they were crammed in with another fifteen people and the jerking and groaning began once again.

The top platform was small and crowded but the panoramic view of the city was nothing short of spectacular. They snapped pictures of each other with the various views of the city in the background and then had an elderly Japanese couple snap pictures of them together. Once the photography was done they found a spot overlooking the River Seine and just stood there with their arms around each other, looking out at the view.

To this point, Jake's bulky jacket and baseball cap had kept anyone from recognizing him — or at least anyone who cared to make mention of the recognition. It was when he leaned in to kiss Helen that this suddenly changed.

"Excuse me," a voice said in English with a heavy southern accent. "Ain't you Jake Kingsley?"

Jake looked up to see an overweight man in his early twenties. He had a thick, unkempt mustache and a NASCAR cap upon his head. A skinny brown-haired woman with bad teeth was holding his hand. He debated denying that he was Jake Kingsley but past experience had taught him that such a ruse rarely worked. Instead, he put a smile on his face and acknowledged that, yes indeed, he was Jake Kingsley.

"Well, hole-ee shit!" the man exclaimed. "My name's Frank Peterson, Jake. Me and my wife here is visiting from Jackson, Mississippi. Fancy meetin' you here in Paris."

"It's very nice to meet you," Jake said, shaking hands with the man and nearly getting his fingers broken in the process.

"I tried to catch your show the last time you was in Jackson," Peterson told him. "But it was all sold out and them scalpers was asking for like three hundred bucks for a ticket. What you doin' here, Jake? You on tour? I heard you was doin' a tour in Europe."

"Yes," Jake said. "We've been on tour for the last few months. We're doing three shows here in Paris this week and then heading on to Marseille and then Zurich. Helen and I were just doing a little sightseeing."

"Well god-damn," Peterson told him, not acknowledging Jake's mention of Helen in any way. "I don't suppose you have any extra tickets to any of them Paris shows, do you? Me and Jessie is gonna be here another five days and we'd love to se y'all in concert."

"Unfortunately, no," Jake said apologetically. "They don't let us give out tickets. It's one of those contract things."

"Well that's too damn bad," Peterson said sadly. "Do you think that maybe you could give us your autograph though?"

"You bet," Jake said. "You got a pen and something to write on?"

He signed his standard autograph statement for both of them. Peterson then asked if he could get a picture taken with Jake. Helen, as she usually did in such circumstances, volunteered to snap the picture so Peterson and his wife could be in the shot together. In all, it was a fairly standard encounter with a fan. Unfortunately, while Jake was interacting with Peterson on the crowded platform, several other people had taken note of the conversation. Within seconds, word that Jake Kingsley (Yes, that Jake Kingsley) was standing up on top of the Eiffel Tower with them spread like wildfire. People began pushing toward him from all directions, asking for autographs, asking for concert tickets, asking to have their picture taken with him. It wasn't long before a few of the Intemperance-haters — there were always a few in any crowd — started to make their views known.

"What are you doing with him, hon?" asked one woman in her twenties of Helen. "Why would you be with a man who beats you?"

"He worships the devil!" yelled another man — this one in his mid-thirties. "I'd hate to be you come Judgment Day, sinner!"

This, of course, led to the inevitable exchange of words between the fans and the haters. The words quickly became heated and it only seemed a matter of moments before the physical violence began. And they were standing atop a tower more than a thousand feet in the air.

Jake tried to get them out of there at that point but the line to go down on the lift was just as long as the line to go up. So for twenty minutes they were crowded and pushed, taunted and yelled at, and forced to watch as two fistfights broke out on their behalf. And still people kept coming up and wanting to take pictures with him or have him sign an autograph. Even when they did get into the elevator, fifteen other people came in with them. Three of the fifteen were Intemperance-haters who continued to badmouth Jake's satanic ways and tell Helen what a dumb, hopeless slut she was for being with a man who beat her. Two were fans who carried on the tradition of getting in the faces of the haters. The rest were simple tourists who were getting much more than they bargained for when they bought their tickets to the Eiffel Tower.

Finally they made it back to street level and they practically ran away from the base of the tower, weaving and turning through the crowds until they were once more anonymous.

"Well," Jake said lightly once they were free. "That was fun, wasn't it?"

"Loads," Helen said sourly. "Let's do it again sometime."

Helen's irritation at having her trip to the Eiffel Tower disrupted by a melee of Intemperance fans and Intemperance haters lasted only until they arrived at their dinner destination that night. Jake used his celebrity status and the assistance of the hotel's concierge to secure them a 7:30 reservation at the Grand Vefour Restaurant, which was reputed to be the finest eatery in Paris. Located under the Palais Royal, the dining room was done up in opulent eighteenth century European décor. Large, gold chandeliers provided lighting to walls decorated with polished brass and large mirrors. The tables were of mahogany and covered with spotless white linens.

"This is definitely not Denny's," Helen said as they were led to their table near the center of the room by an actual snooty French maitre d.

"Nope," Jake confirmed. "This is at least up there with Black Angus."

Jake had tried to call Nerdly and Sharon to see if they wanted to come along for the experience, but they had neither answered their room phone nor responded to knocks on the door that connected Jake and Helen's suite with theirs. Figuring they must be engaged in the kind of activity that one did not like to be interrupted during, he had stopped knocking and now Jake and Helen were alone. They didn't mind. Grand Vefour was somewhat of a romantic restaurant anyway.

In all, dinner took the better part of two hours. The food was nothing short of spectacular, the service among the best Jake had ever experienced. They were served a six course meal heavy on fish and cream sauces and drank two bottles of Bordeaux chardonnay. With the dessert portion of the meal they each had a snifter of Napoleon Cognac (which Helen was starting to really develop a taste for). The bill for the meal was in Francs, of course, but if converted to American dollars it would have been $336.17. Jake paid it gladly and left a twenty-five percent tip.

They had planned to walk the district for a bit when they were done but the rain had started again and stifled that plan. Instead, they hailed a taxi and rode back to their hotel. Jake ordered two more bottles of expensive French chardonnay from room service and, while waiting for it to arrive, took off his suit and put on one of the hotel's robes. Once the wine was delivered he and Helen took off their robes and climbed into the hot tub in the middle of their suite. They sat there for almost an hour, drinking and talking, occasionally caressing each other or kissing.

About halfway through the second bottle of wine they couldn't take it anymore. Helen climbed on Jake's lap and inserted him into her body. They moved together slowly and passionately, enjoying the slippery sensation of the hot water and the oil that had been poured in it. Just as they were starting to really push toward the sizzling, raunchy part of the encounter, they heard frantic pounding on the connecting door.

"Jake!" Nerdly's voice yelled, sounding quite excited. "Helen! Are you in there? Open the door!"

"Shit," Jake said from around a mouthful of Helen's right nipple. "What the fuck does he want now?"

"Who cares?" Helen hissed. "Keep fucking me! We'll find out later."

"Right," Jake said, sucking more of the nipple into his mouth and increasing the rate of his upward thrusts.

Nerdly pounded on the door again and yelled out their names again. They continued to ignore him. Since they didn't hear any more knocks, they assumed he'd concluded they were either not there or busy and had given up. They were wrong. Just as Jake yanked Helen's head back by the hair and attached his teeth to her neck, just as Helen gasped out, "Oh... yes, fuckin' bite me! I love it!" they heard a gasp coming from the doorway to their sitting room.

They looked up and saw Nerdly and Sharon standing there, shocked and embarrassed expressions on their faces.

"Oh... oooh, uh sorry, Jake," Nerdly stammered. "You left the adjoining door unlocked so we..." He trailed off, his eyes riveted to Helen's tremendous breasts, which were dangling in clear sight.

Helen gave a little squeal and tried to slide under the water to cover herself. Unfortunately for Jake, his turgid manhood was still sheathed in her clenching womanhood. When she attempted this reflexive maneuver she didn't try to disengage from him first. This pulled the shaft of Jake's penis downward toward his feet, a direction it was not designed to be pulled in while in a state of tuminescence. A sharp, intense bolt of pain went shooting through his most sensitive part.

"Owwww, fuck... shit! Stop!" he yelled, physically grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her back upward.

"What? Jake! My boobs are showing!" she yelled back, trying to push herself back down.

"You're breaking my fuckin' dick!" he screamed, grabbing her under the armpits this time and physically lifting her free of him. She launched high enough out of the water that the top of her pubis came momentarily into view before she splashed back down.

"Ohhh, god that hurt," Jake moaned, grabbing his rapidly wilting member to make sure it was still intact.

Helen quickly submerged her breasts and looked at him with concern. "What did I do, Jake?" she asked. "Did I hurt you?"

"You can't pull a dick in that direction, hon!" he said with a wince.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Are you all right?"

Nerdly and Sharon had watched this entire scene with wide eyes and rapidly flushing faces.

"Uh..." Sharon said slowly, "maybe this is a bad time. Why don't we tell them later?"

"Right," Nerdly said, nodding rapidly. "Sorry Jake. Sorry Helen. We didn't mean to... I mean, we didn't know that... I mean..." He shook his head and turned back toward the door, grabbing Sharon's hand and pulling her to the exit.

"Wait a minute," Jake said before they could get away. "What's going on?"

"Yeah," said Helen, who was keeping all but her face under the water. "What was so important that you had to come in here while we were... uh... enjoying ourselves?"

Nerdly didn't look back at them. "It can wait until morning," he said. "We'll leave you guys alone for now."

"Yes," Sharon agreed. "Sorry about the... uh... the intrusion."

"Goddammit!" Jake yelled. "You can't break in on people like that and not tell them what's going on! So what's going on?"

"Honestly," Nerdly said, "we didn't mean to... I mean... it can wait until..."

"Oh my God!" Helen suddenly yelled. "He asked you to marry him, didn't he?"

"What?" Jake asked.

Helen stood up in the water, exposing her breasts and her pubic region this time. "Look at her finger, Jake!" she squealed. "She has a ring on it!"

Sharon turned around and giggled. "Isn't it beautiful?" she asked. "He asked me on the top of the Eiffel Tower!"

"Oh..." Helen said, melting, now seemingly unaware that her body, which she had nearly fractured Jake's penis in order to avoid exposing, was openly on display. "That's sooooo romantic! Did he drop to one knee?"

"Yes!" Sharon said, jumping up and down. "It was the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me!"

"Let me see it!" Helen said, gesturing her to come over. "It looks huge from here."

Sharon rushed over and started showing off her new ring — which was indeed of impressive size. Nerdly turned around to join in the festivities but then blanched again as he was confronted with Helen's dripping nakedness.

"Ohhh... uh..." he stammered, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Jake muttered. He stood up, not caring if Sharon saw his now flaccid penis or not, and picked up Helen's robe. He put it over her shoulders, which was enough to remind her that she was naked in front of Nerdly.

"Oh... Jesus," she said, quickly putting her arms through the holes and pulling it closed around her. The bottom of it was sitting in the water and quickly soaking it up. "I guess I got a little carried away."

"Right," Jake said, stepping out of the tub and grabbing his own robe. He put it on and tightened it around him. "Look, I can see that congratulations are in order, but why don't we put that on hold for just a few minutes until Helen and I get dressed?"

"Oh... sure, okay," Nerdly said. "We'll uh... go wait in the sitting room."

"Right," Sharon said, still beaming. "We'll be in there. And sorry again for the uh... you know?"

"Nothing to worry about," Helen said, unable to resist giving Sharon a big hug, which served to wet the front of her baggy Notre Dame sweater.

The two of them disappeared through the door, shutting it behind them. Helen looked at Jake and smiled. "Isn't it amazing?" she asked him. "And did you see the size of the diamond on that ring? I don't think I've seen one that big before."

"Yeah," Jake said, his mind spinning a mile a minute, his penis still throbbing distantly in displeasure. "It's amazing all right."

"Did you know about this?" Helen asked him.

"I had no clue," Jake said.

"That's why he was so weird about going to the Eiffel Tower with us today," she said. "He wanted to take her there at night, alone."

"It does seem to all make sense now," Jake said. "Come on. Let's go get dressed."

"You don't seem all that happy about this, Jake," Helen observed. "Is there something wrong? He's your best friend and he just told you he's getting married and you're just moping around."

"I guess I'm still trying to absorb it," he said.

They dressed in their sweats and t-shirts and then padded barefoot out into the sitting room. Sharon and Nerdly both apologized again for walking in on them while they were in the middle of something but Helen told them not to worry about it, that it was perfectly understandable considering the circumstances.

"Tell me the story," Helen squealed at Sharon. "And don't leave anything out! But first... we need to celebrate. Jake, do you think maybe we could have some champagne sent up?"

"Of course," Jake said, leaning over and picking up the nearest phone. Two minutes later he had three bottles of Dom Perignon on their way to the suite.

Sharon then narrated the story of her proposal. She had thought something was strange about Bill ever since he bowed out of visiting the Eiffel Tower with Jake and Helen on the grounds that he was too tired. Things got stranger still when he elected not to take a nap upon arriving in their suite but had instead insisted that they watch French television for a few hours. And then, just before sunset, he suggested that they go out and visit the Eiffel Tower after all since he had managed to get reservations for the café on the first level.

"I asked him why he didn't want to go with you and Jake," Sharon said, "and he told me that he could only get reservations for two. I believed him. I mean, it sounded reasonable to me."

"And Nerdly never lies," Jake said. "Do you, Nerdly?"

"Not usually," Nerdly agreed. "But it seemed the truth would not behoove my intentions for the evening, would it?"

"Nope," Helen said. "What happened next?"

"Well, after we ate and he paid the bill, we went to the elevator to go up to the top. There was a long line, but when you eat in the café they let you cut to the front of it so it only took about five minutes for us to get up there.

"The view was just beautiful, even though it was kind of crowded with people. And then, just as we're looking out at the River Seine and all the lights of the city, he says that his shoe is untied and he kneels down to tie it. I kind of ignored this at first because I thought he was really tying his shoe and I wanted to keep looking at the view. And then..." She sighed. "He took my hand in his and looked up at me. I looked down and was wondering what this was all about. And then he pulled out this little white box and opened it up and said, 'Sharon, my feelings for you are more than just passing infatuation and I would like you to join me in the lifelong commitment of legally sanctioned cohabitation'."

Helen licked her lips a little. "Wow," she said slowly. "That's uh... deep."

"I know," Sharon said, squealing a little. "Isn't it the most romantic thing you've ever heard?"

"It's in the uh... the top ten," she said.

"So you said yes?" Jake asked.

"Of course I said yes," she said. "I stood up and I kissed him so hard he almost dropped the ring."

"Let me see it again," Helen said, grabbing her hand. "Jeez. Will you look at the size of it? It must be close to four carats."

"Four point three in the main stone," Nerdly said proudly, "and an additional one point six in the stones on the band."

"Have you been carrying that thing around with you all this time?" Jake asked.

"Yes," Nerdly said. "I formulated my proposal plan back around the time I decided to ask her to go on tour with us. I purchased the ring at Tiffany's shortly before our departure."

"It fits perfectly!" Sharon said. "He measured my finger one night while I was asleep!"

Helen beamed at him again. "Did you really do that?" she asked.

"Indeed," he said. "It would not be proper to give an ill-fitting piece of jewelry that is supposed to be a symbol of my commitment to my future spouse."

There was a knock on the door. Jake answered it and found the room service steward with the champagne, the ice buckets, and four long-stemmed glasses. He let him in and soon the congratulatory beverage was ready to be consumed. Jake tipped the steward and then ushered him out. He then popped the top on the first bottle and poured them each a glassful.

"Why don't you make a toast, Jake?" Helen suggested.

"Why not?" Jake agreed, lifting his glass. He thought for a second and then decided to go with what was simple. "To legally sanctioned co-habitation and all of the tax exempt benefits that it represents."

Helen looked at him in alarm for a moment, about to bark at him. But then she looked at the happy couple. Their faces were filled with emotion.

"That was beautiful, Jake," Sharon said. "Thank you."

"You've always had a way with words, Jake," Nerdly agreed, rubbing a tear from his eye.

They clinked their glasses together and drank.