by Anais Nin
When Pierre was twenty she discouraged all his friendships with women, even his visits to the whorehouse. The fact that he sought women who resembled her did not impress her. In the whorehouses he asked the women to dress up for him, deliberately and slowly, so that he could enjoy an obscure, undefinable joy – the same joy he had experienced in the presence of his mother. For this ceremony he demanded coquetry and particular clothes. The whores laughingly humored him. During these games his desires would suddenly run wild; he tore at the clothes, and his lovemaking resembled a rape.
Beyond this lay the mature regions of his experience which he did not confess to Elena that day. He gave her only the child, his own innocence, his own perversity.
There were days when certain fragments of his past, the most erotic, would rise to the surface, permeate his every movement, give to his eyes the disquieting stare Elena had first seen in him, to his mouth a laxness, an abandon, to his whole face an expression of one whom no experience had eluded. She could then see Pierre and one of his whores together, a willful seeker of poverty, dirt and decay as the only proper accompaniment to certain acts. The apache, the voyou appeared in him, the man of vice who could drink for three days and three nights, abandoning himself to every experience as if it were the ultimate one, spending all his desire on some monstrous woman, desiring her because she was unwashed, because so many men had taken her and because her language was charged with obscenities. It was a passion for self-destruction, for baseness, for the language of the street, women of the street, danger. He had been caught in opium raids and arrested for selling a woman.
It was his capacity for anarchy and corruption that gave him at times the expression of a man capable of anything, and that kept awake in Elena a mistrust of him. At the same time, he was fully aware of her own attraction to the demonic and the sordid, to the pleasure of falling, of desecrating and destroying the ideal self. But because of his love for her, he would not let her live out any of this with him. He was afraid to initiate her and lose her to one vice or another, to some sensation he could not give her. So this door upon the corrupt element of their natures was seldom opened. She did not want to know what his body had done, his mouth, his sex. He feared to uncover the possibilities in her.
‘I know,’ he said, that you are capable of many loves, that I will be the first one, that from now on nothing will stop you from expanding. You’re sensual, so sensual.’
‘You can’t love so many times,’ she answered. ‘I want my eroticism mixed with love. And deep love one does not often experience.’
He was jealous of her future, and she of his past. She became aware that she was twenty-five and he was forty, that he had experienced many things he was already tired of and she had not yet known.
When the silence grew long and Elena did not see on Pierre’s face an expression of innocence, but on the contrary, a hovering smile, a certain contempt in the outline of the lips, then she knew he was remembering the past. She lay at his side looking at his long eyelashes.
After a moment he said, ‘Until I knew you, I was a Don Juan, Elena. I never wanted to really know a woman. I never wanted to stay with one. My feeling was always that a woman used her charms not for the sake of a passionate relationship but to win from a man some durable relationship – marriage, for instance, or at least companionship – to win, finally, some kind of peace, possession. It was this that frightened me – the sense that behind the grande amoureuse lay concealed a little bourgeoise who wanted security in love. What attracts me to you is that you have remained the mistress. You maintain the fervor and the intensity. When you feel unequal to the great battle of love, you stay away. Another thing, it is not the pleasure I can give you which attaches you to me. You repudiate it when you are not emotionally satisfied. But you are capable of all things, of anything. I feel that. You are open to life. I opened you. For the first time I regret my power to open women to life, to love. How I love you when you refuse to communicate with the body, seeking other means to reach into the entire being. You did everything to break down my resistance to pleasure. Yes, at first, I could not bear this power you had to withdraw. It seemed to me that I was losing my power.’
This talk again inspired in Elena a sense of the unstable in Pierre. She never rang his bell without wondering if he might be gone. In an old closet he had discovered a pile of erotic books concealed under blankets by the former occupants of the place. Now he met her every day with a story to make her laugh. He saw that he had saddened her.
He did not know that when the erotic and the tender are mixed in a woman, they form a powerful bond, almost a fixation. She could think only of erotic images in connection with him, his body. If she saw a penny movie on the boulevards that stirred her, she brought her curiosity or a new experiment to their next meeting. She began to whisper certain wishes in his ear.
Pierre was always surprised when Elena was willing to give him pleasure without taking it herself. There were times after their excesses when he was tired, less potent, and yet wanted to repeat the sensation of annihilation. Then he would stir her with caresses, with an agility of the hands that approached masturbation. Meanwhile her own hands would circle around his penis like a delicate spider with knowing fingertips, which touched the most hidden nerves of response. Slowly, the fingers closed upon the penis, at first stroking its flesh shell; then feeling the inrush of dense blood stretching it; feeling the slight swell of the nerves, the sudden tautness of the muscles; feeling as if they were playing upon a stringed instrument. By the degree of tautness Elena knew when Pierre could not sustain sufficient hardness to penetrate her, she knew when he could only respond to her nervous fingers, when he wanted to be masturbated, and soon his own pleasure would slow down the activity of his hands on her. Then he would be drugged by her hands, close his eyes and abandon himself to her caresses. Once or twice he would try, as if in sleep, to continue the motion of his own hands, but then he lay passively, to feel better the knowing manipulations, the increasing tension. ‘Now, now,’ he would murmur. ‘Now.’ This meant that her hand must become swifter to keep pace with the fever pulsing within him. Her fingers ran in rhythm with the quickening blood beats, as his voice begged, ‘Now, now, now.’
Blind to all but his pleasure, she bent over him, her hair falling, her mouth near his penis, continuing the motion of her hands and at the same time licking the tip of the penis each time it passed within reach of her tongue – this, until his body began to tremble and raised itself to be consumed by her hands and mouth, to be annihilated, and the semen would come, like little waves breaking on the sand, one rolling upon another, little waves of salty foam unrolling on the beach of her hands. Then she enclosed the spent penis tenderly in her mouth, to cull the precious liquid of love.
His pleasure gave her such a joy that she was surprised when he began to kiss her with gratitude, as he said, ‘But you, you didn’t have any pleasure.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Elena, in a voice he could not doubt.
She marveled at the continuity of their exultation. She wondered when their love would enter a period of repose.
Pierre was gaining liberty. He was often out when she telephoned. Meanwhile she was advising an old friend, Kay, who was just back from Switzerland. On the train Kay had met a man who could be described as the younger brother of Pierre. Kay had always so identified with Elena, been so dominated by Elena’s personality, that the only thing which could satisfy her was an adventure which, at least in some superficial way, resembled Elena’s.
This man also had a mission. What the, he did not confess, but he used it as an excuse, perhaps an alibi, when he went away or when he had to spend a whole day without seeing Kay. Elena suspected that she gave Pierre’s double stronger colors than he actually possessed. To begin with, she endowed him with abnormal virility marred only by his habit of falling asleep before or immediately after the act, without waiting to thank her. He passed from the middle of a conversation to a sudden desire for rape. He hated
underwear. He taught her not to wear anything under her dress. His desire was imperative – and unexpected. He could not wait. With him, she learned hasty departures from restaurants, wild drives in curtained taxi cabs, séances behind the trees in the Bois, masturbation in cinemas – never in a bourgeois bed, in the warmth and comfort of a bedroom. His desire was distinctly ambulant and bohemian. He liked carpeted floors, even the cold floors of bathrooms, super-heated Turkish baths, opium dens, where he did not smoke but where he liked to lie with her on a narrow mat, and their bones would ache afterwards from falling asleep. Kay’s job was to keep alert enough to follow his caprices, and to try to catch her own elusive pleasure, in this wild race, which might have come easier with a little leisure surrounding it.
But no, he enjoyed these sudden tropical outbursts. She followed him like a somnambulist, giving Elena the feeling that she knocked against him in a reverie, as against a piece of furniture. Sometimes, when the scene had happened too swiftly for her to bloom voluptuously and completely under his rape, she lay at his side while he slept and invented a more thorough lover. She closed her eyes and thought: Now his hand is lifting my dress slowly, very slowly. He is looking at me first. One hand lies over my buttocks, and the other begins exploring, sliding, circling. Now he dips his finger there, where it is moist. He touches it like a woman feeling a piece of silk, to see its quality. Very slowly.
Pierre’s double would turn over on his side, and Kay would hold her breath. If he awakened, he would find her with her hands in a strange position. Then suddenly, as if he had guessed her wishes, he would place his hand between her legs and leave it there, so that she could not move. The presence of his hand aroused her more than ever. Then she would close her eyes again and try to imagine that his hand was moving. To create a sufficiently vivid image for herself, she would begin to contract and open her vagina, rhythmically, until she felt the orgasm.
*
Pierre had nothing to fear from the Elena he knew and had so delicately circumnavigated. But there was an Elena he did not know, the virile Elena. Although she did not wear short hair or a man’s suit, ride a horse, smoke cigars or frequent the bars where such women congregate, there was a spiritually masculine Elena, dormant in her for the moment.
In all but matters of love, Pierre was helpless. He could not nail a nail to a wall, hang up a picture, repair a book, discuss technical matters of any kind. He lived in terror of servants, concierges, plumbers. He could not make a decision, sign a contract of any sort; he did not know what he wanted.
Elena’s energies rushed into these lacunas. Her mind became the more fecund. She bought the books and newspapers, incited activity, made decisions. Pierre permitted this. It suited his nonchalance. She gained in audacity.
She felt protective toward him. As soon as the sexual aggression was over, he reclined like a pasha and let her rule. He did not observe another Elena emerging, affirming new contours, habits, a new personality. Elena had discovered that women were drawn to her.
She was invited by Kay to meet Leila, a well-known nightclub singer, a woman of dubious sex. They went to Leila’s house. She was lying in bed. The room was heavily charged with the perfume of narcissus, and Leila rested against the headboard in a languid, intoxicated way. Elena thought she was recovering from a night of drinking, but this was Leila’s natural pose. And from this languid body came a man’s voice. Then the violet eyes fixed themselves on Elena, appraising her with masculine deliberateness.
Leila’s lover, Mary, entered the room then, with a rushing sound of wide silk skirts inflated by her quick steps. She threw herself at the foot of the bed and took Leila’s hand. They looked at each other with so much desire that Elena lowered her eyes. Leila’s face was sharp, Mary’s vague; Leila’s, drawn in heavy charcoal around the eyes as in the Egyptian frescos, Mary’s, in pastels – pale eyes, sea-green eyelids and coral nails and lips; Leila’s eyebrows natural, Mary’s, a pencil line only. When they looked at each other, Leila’s features seemed to dissolve, and Mary’s to acquire some of Leila’s definiteness. But her voice remained unreal, and her phrases unfinished, floating. Mary was uneasy in Elena’s presence. Instead of expressing hostility or fear, she took the feminine attitude, as toward a man, and sought to charm her. She did not like the way Leila looked at Elena. She sat near Elena, folding her legs under her like a little girl, and turned her mouth up toward her as she talked, invitingly. But these childish mannerisms were the very ones Elena disliked in women. She turned toward Leila whose gestures were mature and simple.
Leila said, ‘Let’s go together to the studio. I’ll get dressed.’ As she leaped out of her bed she abandoned her languor. She was tall. She used apache French, like a boy, but with a royal audacity. No one could use it on her. She did not entertain at the nightclub; she ruled. She was a magnetic center for the world of women who considered themselves condemned by their vice. She whipped them into being proud of their deviations, not succumbing to bourgeois morality. She severely condemned suicides and disintegration. She wanted women who were proud of being Lesbians. She set the example. She wore men’s clothes despite police regulations. She was never molested. She did it with grace and nonchalance. She rode horseback at the Bois in men’s clothes. She was so elegant, so suave, so aristocratic, that people who did not know her bowed to her, almost unconsciously. She made other women hold up their heads. She was the one masculine woman men treated as a comrade. Whatever tragic spirit lay behind this polished surface went into her singing, with which she tore people’s serenity to shreds, spreading anxiety and regrets and nostalgia everywhere.
In the taxi, sitting next to her, Elena felt not her strength but her secret wound. She ventured a gesture of tenderness. She took the royal hand and kept it. Leila did not let it lie there, but responded to the pressure with a nervous power. Already Elena knew what this power failed to obtain for her: fulfillment. Surely, the whimpering voice of Mary and her obvious little ruses could not satisfy Leila. Women were not as tolerant as men toward women who made themselves small and weak by calculation, thinking to inspire an active love. Leila must suffer more than a man, because of her lucidity about women, her incapacity to be deceived.
When they reached the studio, Elena smelled a curious odor of burnt cacao, of fresh truffle. They entered what seemed to be a smoke-filled Arabian mosque. It was a huge room surrounded by a gallery of alcoves furnished only with mats and little lamps. Everybody was wearing kimonos. Elena was handed one. And then she understood. This was an opium den: the lights veiled; people lying down, indifferent to newcomers; a great peace; no sustained conversations, but a sigh now and then. A few for whom opium awakened desire lay in the darkest corners, spoon-fashion, as if asleep. But in the silence, the voice of a woman began what seemed at first to be a song, and then turned out to be another sort of vocalizing, the vocalizing of the exotic bird finally caught in the mating season. Two young men held each other, whispering.
Elena heard at times the fall of pillows on the floor, the crushing of silks and cottons. The woman’s vocalizing became clearer, firmer, rising in harmony with her pleasure, so even in its rhythm Elena accompanied it with a movement of her head, until it reached its height. Elena saw that this cadenza irritated Leila. She did not want to hear it. It was so explicit, so female, betraying women’s soft cushion of love pierced by the male, uttering with each thrust a little cry of the ecstatic wound. No matter what women did to each other, they could never bring forth this rising cadenza, this vaginal song; only a sequence of stabbings, man’s repeated assault, could produce this.
The three women fell on little mattresses, side by side. Mary wanted to lie close to Leila. Leila would not let her. The host offered them opium pipes. Elena refused one. She was sufficiently drugged by the veiled lamps, the smoky atmosphere, the exotic hangings, the doors, the muffled sounds of caresses. Her face was so entranced that Leila herself believed Elena was under the influence of some other drug. She did not realize that the pressure of Leila’s
hand in the taxi had plunged Elena into a state that was unlike anything Pierre had ever aroused in her.
Instead of reaching right to the center of her body, Leila’s voice and touch had enveloped her in a voluptuous mantle of new sensations, something in suspense that did not seek fulfillment but prolongation. It was like this room, affecting one by its mysterious lights, its rich odors, its shadowy niches, its half-seen forms, its mysterious enjoyments. A dream. Opium could not have enlarged or dilated her senses any more than they were, could not have given her a greater sense of joy.
Her hand reached out to Leila’s. Mary was smoking already with her eyes closed. Leila was lying back, with her eyes open, looking at Elena. She took Elena’s hand, held it for a while, and then she slipped it under her kimono. She placed it over her breasts. Elena began caressing her. Leila had opened her tailored suit. She wore no blouse. But the rest of her body was sheathed in a tight skirt. Then Elena felt Leila’s hand running delicately under her dress, seeking for an opening between the tops of her stockings and her underwear. Elena turned gently on her left side, so that she could place her head over Leila’s breast and kiss it.
She was afraid Mary might open her eyes and get angry. Now and then she looked at her. Leila smiled. Then she turned over to whisper to Elena: ‘We will meet sometime and be together. Do you want it? Will you come to my place tomorrow? Mary will not be there.’
Elena smiled, assented with a nod, stole one more kiss and lay back. But Leila did not withdraw her hand. She watched Mary and continued to caress Elena. Elena was dissolving under her fingers.
It seemed to Elena they had been lying there only a moment, but then she noticed the studio was growing colder and morning had come. She sprang up, surprised. The others seemed to be asleep. Even Leila had fallen back and slept now. Elena slipped on her coat and left. The early dawn revived her.