Vivienne Michel

**Vivienne "Viv" Michel** is a young Canadian woman who was saved from certain death by a spy; James Bond.

## History

Vivienne "Viv" Michel, a young Canadian woman narrates her own story, detailing her past. First of her early childhood when she was orphaned at age 8 when her parents were both died in an airplane crash in 1944 in Montreal causing her widowed aunt moves into her home to raise her and the snobbery contained in the French Canadian community. At first send to be educated at the Ursuline Convent in Quebec City, she is then sent by her aunt to a boarding school in England to learn ho to be a "Lady". She tells of her first love affair with Derek Mallaby, who took her virginity in a field after being thrown out of a cinema in Windsor for indecent exposure. Their physical relationship ended that night and Viv was subsequently rejected when Mallaby sent her a letter from Oxford University saying he was forcibly engaged to someone else by his parents.

Viv was scarred by her experience and became more introverted thereafter. She finished her schooling and attained a job at a local newspaper. She made a name there by gaining good commissions from advertising and was quickly promoted. There, she began her second love affair with her German boss, Kurt Rainer, by whom she would eventually become pregnant. She informed Rainer and he paid for her to go to Switzerland to have an abortion, telling her that their affair was over.

After the procedure, Viv left her life in London and returned to her native Canada. She visited her Aunt. and then, using a large sum given to her by Rainer, purchased a motor scooter and started a road journey through North America headed for Florida, stopping to work at the Dreamy Pines Motor Court in the Adirondack Mountains for managers Jed and Mildred Phancey.

At the end of the vacation season, the Phanceys entrust Viv with looking after the motel for the night before the owner, Mr. Sanguinetti, can arrive to take inventory and close it up for the winter. Two mobsters, "Sluggsy" Morant and Sol "Horror" Horowitz, both of whom work for Mr. Sanguinetti, arrive and say they are there to look over the motel for insurance purposes. The two have been hired by Mr. Sanguinetti to burn down the motel so that Mr. Sanguinetti can make a profit on the insurance. The blame for the fire would fall on Viv, who was to perish in the incident.

The mobsters are cruel to Viv and while after making them some food she dashes through the back door to escape in the cold night. The pair pursue her and she is found by Slugsy, a proficient tracker, and is brought back to the motel. Horror is furious and they both set upon her. Viv awakes and the pair are equally hostile. When she says she does not want to dance with them, they attack her, holding her down and starting to remove her top. They are about to continue the attack with rape when the sound of the door bell stops them.

British secret service agent James Bond appears at the door asking for a room, having had a punctured tire while passing. Bond quickly realises that Horror and Sluggsy are mobsters and that Viv is in danger. Pressuring the two men, he eventually gets the gangsters to agree to provide him a room.

Bond tells Michel that he is in America in the wake of Operation Thunderball and was detailed to protect a Russian nuclear expert who defected to the British and who now lives in Toronto, as part of his quest to ferret out SPECTRE. That night Sluggsy and Horror set fire to the motel and attempt to kill Bond and Michel.

Bond was awake and saved Viv. The pair then see the two carrying television sets to their car, salvageable goods which they can make further profits on. Bond gives Viv a spare gun and they catch the pair with their hands full. The two run for it and make it to their car and drive off. Bon fires shots at them, one hitting Horror in the head. His body slumps on the gas pedal and the car goes into a lake.

Bond and Viv retire to an un burnt cabin. They shower and then make love. Viv describes it as being a different experience with Bond compared to that of Derek and Kurt. They then fall asleep in each others embrace. However, they are awoken by Sluggsy, who is still alive and makes a further attempt to kill them, before Bond shoots him. The pair once again go to sleep together.

Viv wakes to find Bond gone, leaving a note in which he promises to send her police assistance and which he concludes by telling her not to dwell too much on the ugly events through which she has just lived. As Viv finishes reading the note, a large police detachment arrives. After taking her statement, the officer in charge of the detail reiterates Bond's advice, but also warns Viv that *all* men involved in violent crime and espionage, regardless of which side they are on, including Bond himself, are dangerous and that Viv should avoid them.

Viv reflects on this as she motors off at the end of the book, continuing her tour of America, but despite the officer's warning still devoted to the mere memory of the "spy" who loved her.

## Behind the scenes

As with much of Fleming's work, the author took incidents from his own life and used them in the novel *The Spy Who Loved Me*. Vivienne Michel's seduction in a box in the Royalty Cinema, Windsor, mirrors Fleming's loss of virginity in the same establishment. One of Fleming's neighbours in Jamaica was Vivienne Stuart, whose first name Fleming purloined for the novel's heroine.