Lithe and graceful, Vinca Rockwell bounded over the rocks. The wind was gusting more fiercely. But Vinca reveled in it, the swell, the danger, the heady sea air, the steep crags. Nothing in her life had ever been as intoxicating as meeting Alexis. A profound, all-consuming magnetism, a joining of minds and bodies. If she lived to be a hundred, nothing would ever compare to that memory. The prospect of seeing Alexis secretly, of making love in some rocky crevice, was exhilarating.

She could feel the warm wind envelop her; it whipped around her legs, lifted her skirt like a prologue to the long-awaited embrace. Her heart was beginning to race, the wave of heat coursing through her, the pulse of blood, a throbbing that made every inch of her body quiver.

Alexis was this thunderstorm, this night, this moment. Deep down, Vinca knew she was making a mistake, knew that things would end badly. But she would not have traded the thrill of this moment for anything in the world. The anticipation, the wild madness of love, the painful pleasure of being engulfed by the night.

“Vinca!”

Suddenly, the figure of Alexis was silhouetted against the clear moonlit sky. Vinca stepped forward to greet the shadow. In the blink of an eye, Vinca could almost feel the pleasures that were to come. Intense, burning, overpowering. Bodies melding and dissolving until they became one with the wind, the waves. Cries mingling with those of the gulls. The tremor, the overwhelming blast, the blinding flash that trills through the body and makes it feel as though one’s whole being has shattered into a thousand pieces.

“Alexis!”

As Vinca finally embraced her lover, she heard the inner voice again, whispering that this would not end well. But the girl cared nothing for the future. Love is everything, or it is nothing.

All that mattered was now.

The blazing, baleful beauty of the night.

Yesterday and Today

50th Anniversary of the Lycée International Saint-Exupéry

(NICE-MATIN—Monday, May 8, 2017)

by Stéphane Pianelli

The flagship school of the Sophia Antipolis technology park will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary next weekend.

Founded in 1967 by the Secular Mission to Provide Schooling for the Children of Expatriates, the international lycée is an exceptional institution on the Côte d’Azur. Renowned for its academic excellence, it is modeled around the teaching of foreign languages. Its bilingual departments allow students to study for international qualifications, and today it welcomes more than a thousand French and foreign students. The celebrations will begin on Friday, May 12, with an open day where students and teaching staff will demonstrate their artistic talents in a series of photography exhibitions, films, and theater projects conceived to mark the occasion.