Delta of Venus

by Anais Nin

  Bijou had heard of a clairvoyant and went to consult him. He was a big colored man from West Africa. All the women of her quarter went to him. The waiting room was full. In front of her hung a huge black silk Chinese curtain embroidered with gold. The man appeared from behind it. Except for his everyday suit, he looked like some magician. He gave Bijou a heavy stare with his lustrous eyes, then vanished behind the curtain with the last of the women who had arrived before her. The séance lasted half an hour. Then the man lifted the black curtain and politely accompanied the woman to the front door.

  It was Bijou’s turn. He let her pass under the curtain and she found herself in an almost dark room, very small, hung with Chinese curtains and illuminated only by a crystal ball with a light under it. This shone on the clairvoyant’s face and hands and left everything else in darkness. His eyes were hypnotic.

  Bijou decided to resist being hypnotized and to remain fully aware of what was taking place. He told her to lie on the couch, and to be very quiet for a moment while he, sitting at her side, concentrated his attention on her. He closed his own eyes, so Bijou decided to close hers. For fully one minute he remained in this abstracted state, and then he laid his hand on her forehead. It was a warm, dry hand, heavy and electric.

  Then his voice said, as in a dream, ‘You are married to a man who makes you suffer.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bijou, thinking of the Basque who exposed her to his friends.

  ‘He has peculiar habits.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bijou, amazed. Her eyes closed, she envisioned the scenes so clearly. It seemed that the clairvoyant could see them too.

  He added, ‘You are unhappy, and you compensate by being very unfaithful.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bijou again.

  Then she opened her eyes and she saw the Negro looking at her intently, and she closed them again.

  He rested his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ he said.

  She was calmed by his words, in which she detected a shade of pity. But she could not sleep. Her body was keyed up. She knew how the breath changed in sleep, and the movements of the breasts. So she pretended to fall asleep. All the time she felt the hand on her shoulder, and its warmth penetrated right through her clothes. He began to caress her shoulder. He did this so quietly that she was afraid she would fall asleep, but she did not want to lose the pleasant sensation that was running down her spine at the round touch of his hand. She relaxed completely.

  He touched her throat and waited. He wanted to be sure that she was asleep. He touched her breasts. Bijou did not stir.

  Cautiously, deftly, he caressed her belly, and with a pressure of the finger pushed the black silk of her dress so as to outline the shape of her legs and the space between the legs. When he made this valley clear, he continued to caress the legs. He had not yet touched her legs beyond the dress. Then he noiselessly left his chair, went to the foot of the couch and kneeled down. In this position, Bijou knew, he could look up her dress and see that she wore nothing underneath. He looked for a long while.

  Then she felt him lifting the hem of the skirt slightly to be able to see more. Bijou had stretched herself out with her legs slightly parted. She was melting under his touch and his eyes. How wonderful it was to be looked at while apparently asleep, to feel that the man was entirely free. She felt the silk being lifted, felt her legs exposed to the air. He was staring at them.

  With one hand he caressed them softly, slowly, enjoying them to the full, feeling the smooth lines, the long silk passage leading up under the dress. Bijou found it difficult to lie absolutely still. She wanted to part her legs a little more. How slowly his hand traveled. She could feel how he followed the contours of the legs, lingering over the curves, how his hand stopped at the knee, then continued. He stopped just before touching the sex. He must have been watching her face to see if she was deeply hypnotized. With two fingers he began to feel her sex, knead it.

  When he felt the honey that had been quietly flowing, he slipped his head under the skirt, hid himself between her legs and began to kiss her. His tongue was long and agile, penetrating. She had to restrain herself from moving toward his voracious mouth.

  The little lamp gave so dim a light that she risked opening her eyes halfway. He had withdrawn his head from her skirt and was slowly taking off his clothes. He stood near her, magnificent, tall, like some African king, his eyes glowing, his teeth bared, his mouth wet.

  Not to move, not to move, so as to permit him to do all he wanted. What would a man do with a hypnotized woman whom he did not need to fear or please in any way?

  Naked, he towered over her, and then surrounding her with his two arms, he carefully turned her over. Now Bijou lay offering her sumptuous buttocks. He raised her dress and spread the two mounts. He paused, so as to feast his eyes. His fingers were firm and warm, as they parted her flesh. He leaned over and began to kiss the fissure. Then he slipped his hands around her body and raised her toward him, so that he could penetrate her from behind. At first he found only the opening of the ass, which was too small and tight to enter, then he found the larger opening. He swung in and out of her for a moment and then stopped.

  Once again he turned her over, so he could watch himself taking her from the front. His hands sought her breasts under the dress and crushed them with violent caresses. His sex was large and filled her completely. He introduced it with such violence that Bijou thought she would have an orgasm and betray herself. She wanted to take her pleasure without his knowing it. He stirred her so much by his beating sexual rhythm that once, as he slipped out to fondle her, she felt the orgasm coming.

  Her whole desire was bent on feeling it again. He now tried to push his sex into her half-opened mouth. She refrained from responding and only opened her mouth a little more. To keep her hands from touching him, to keep herself from moving, was a great effort. But she wanted to feel again that strange pleasure of a stolen orgasm, as he was feeling the pleasure of these stolen caresses.

  Her passivity was driving him into a frenzy. He had touched her body everywhere, had penetrated her in every way he could. Now he sat over her belly and pushed his sex between her two breasts, tightening them around himself, and moving. She could feel his hairs brushing against her.

  Then Bijou lost control. She opened her mouth and her eyes at the same time. The man grunted with delight, pressed her mouth with his, and rubbed his whole body against her. Bijou’s tongue was beating against his mouth, while he bit her lips.

  He suddenly stopped and said, ‘Will you do something for me?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I will lie on the floor and you come and crouch over me, and let me look under your dress.’

  He stretched himself on the floor. She crouched over his face and held her dress so that it fell and covered his head. With his two hands he held her buttocks like a fruit and passed his tongue between the mounts over and over again. Now he also stroked her clitoris, which made Bijou move forward and backward. His tongue felt every response, every contraction. As she crouched over him, she saw his erect penis vibrate with each gasp of pleasure he uttered.

  There was a knock on the door. Bijou rose quickly, startled, with her lips still wet from the kisses and her hair undone.

  The clairvoyant answered quietly however, ‘I am not ready yet.’ And then turned and smiled at her.

  She smiled back. He dressed himself quickly. Soon everything was outwardly in order. They agreed to meet again. Bijou wanted to bring her friends Leila and Elena. Would he like it? He begged her to do this. He said, ‘Most of the women who come here do not tempt me. They are not beautiful. But you – come whenever you want to. I’ll dance for you.’

  His dance for the three women took place one evening when all the clients were gone. He stripped himself, showing his gleaming golden-brown body. To his waist he tied a fake penis modeled like his own and the same color.

  He said, ‘This is a dance from my own country. We do this for the women on feast day
s.’ In the dimly lit room, where the light shone like a small fire over his skin, he began to move his belly, making the penis wave in a most suggestive way. He jerked his body as if he were entering a woman and simulated the spasms of a man caught in the varied tonalities of an orgasm. One, two, three. The final spasm was wild, like that of a man giving up his life in the act of sex.

  The three women watched. At first only the fake penis dominated, but then the real one, in the heat of the dance, began to compete in length and weight. Now they both moved in rhythm with his gestures. He closed his eyes as though he had no need of the women. The effect on Bijou was powerful. She took her dress off. She began to dance around him temptingly. But he merely touched her now and then with the tip of his sex, wherever he encountered her, and continued to turn and jerk his body in space like a savage dancing against an invisible body.

  The teasing affected Elena, too, and she slipped her dress off and kneeled near them, just to be in the orbit of their sexual dance. She suddenly wanted to be taken until she bled, by this big, strong, firm penis dangled in front of her, as he performed a male danse du ventre, with its tantalizing motions.

  Now Leila, who did not desire men, became caught up by the moods of the two women and tried to embrace Bijou, but Bijou would not have it. She was fascinated with the two penises.

  Leila tried to kiss Elena also. Then she rubbed her nipples against both women, trying to entice them. She pressed herself against Bijou to profit from her excitement, but Bijou continued to concentrate on the male organs dangled before her. Her mouth was open, and she, too, was dreaming of being taken by a double-sexed monster who could satisfy her two centers of response at once.

  When the African dropped, exhausted from the dance, Elena and Bijou leaped on him simultaneously. Bijou quickly inserted one penis in her vagina and one in her rectum and then she twisted over his belly wildly and continuously until she fell satisfied, with a long cry of pleasure. Elena pushed her away, and assumed the same position. But seeing the African was tired, she did not move, waiting for him to recuperate his strength.

  His penis remained erect inside her, and while she waited she began to contract herself, very slowly and gently, fearing to have the orgasm too quickly and bring her pleasure to an end. After a moment he gripped her buttocks and raised her so that she could follow the rapid pulse of his blood. He bent and molded and pushed and pulled her to suit his rhythm until he cried out, and then she moved in a circle around the swollen penis until he came.

  Next he made Leila crouch over his face as he had done earlier with Bijou and hid his face between her legs.

  Although Leila had never desired a man, she became aware of a sensation never experienced before as the African’s tongue caressed her. She wanted to be taken from behind. She moved from her position and asked him to introduce the fake penis. She was on her hands and knees now, and he did as she asked.

  Elena and Bijou watched her with amazement, exposing her buttocks with evident excitement, and the African scratched and bit as he moved the fake penis inside of her. Pain and pleasure mixed in her, for the penis was large, but she remained on her hands and knees, with the African soldered to her, and she moved convulsively until she found her pleasure.

  Bijou went often to see the African. One day they lay together on his couch and he buried his face under her arms; he inhaled her odor, then instead of kissing her, he began to smell her all over like an animal – first under her arms, then in her hair, then between her legs. As he did this he became excited, but he would not take her.

  He said, ‘You know, Bijou, I would love you more if you did not bathe so often. I love the smell of your body, but it is faint. It vanishes with so much washing. That is why I rarely desire white women. I like the strong female smell. Please wash a little less.’

  To please him, Bijou washed herself less often; he especially loved the odor between her legs when she had not washed, the wonderful seashell odor of sperm and semen. Then he asked her to keep her underwear for him. To wear it a few days and then to bring it to him.

  First she brought him a nightgown she had worn often, a fine black one with lace edges. With Bijou lying beside him, the African covered his face with the nightgown and inhaled its odors; he lay back ecstatic and silent. Bijou saw that under his trousers his desire was bulging. She gently leaned over and began to open one button, then another, then the third. She spread open the trousers and searched for his sex, which was pointing downward, caught beneath his tight underwear. Again she had to unfasten buttons.

  At last she saw the flash of the penis, so brown and smooth. She inserted her hand softly, as if she were about to steal it. The African, with his head covered by the nightgown, did not look at her. She pulled the penis slowly upward, unbending it from its cramped position, and freed it. Up it went, straight and smooth and hard. But she had barely touched it with her mouth when the African pulled it away from her. Now he took the nightgown, all crumpled and frothy, laid it on the bed, and threw himself over it full length, burying his sex into it, and began to move up and down against it, as if it were Bijou lying there.

  She watched, fascinated by the way he pushed himself over the nightgown and ignored her. His motions excited her. He was in such a frenzy that he was perspiring, and an intoxicating animal smell came from his whole body. She fell over him. He carried her weight on his back, unheeding, and continued to move against the nightgown.

  She saw him hastening his movements. Then he stopped himself. He turned and began undressing her very gently. Bijou thought that now he had lost interest in the nightgown and would make love to her. He took her stockings off, leaving her garters on her naked flesh. Next he lifted off the dress, which was still warm from the contact with her body. To please him Bijou was wearing black panties. These he slowly pulled down, and stopped halfway to look at the emerging ivory flesh, part of her ass, the beginning of the dimpled valley. There, he kissed her, slipping his tongue along the delicious crevice, as he continued to pull off the panties. He left no part unkissed as he drew them along her thighs, and the silk felt like another hand on her flesh.

  As she raised one leg to free herself from the panties, he could see fully into her sex. He kissed her there, and then she raised her other leg and rested them both on his shoulders.

  He held the panties in his hand and continued to kiss her, leaving her moist and panting. Then he turned away and buried his face in the panties, in the nightgown, wrapped the stockings around his penis, laid the black silk dress over his belly. The clothes seemed to have on him the same effect as a hand. He was convulsed with excitement.

  Bijou again tried to touch his penis with her mouth, her hands, but he repulsed her. She lay naked and hungry at his side, watching his pleasure. It was tantalizing and cruel. She tried to kiss the rest of his body, but he did not respond.

  He continued to caress and kiss and smell the clothes until his body began to tremble. He lay back, his penis shaking in the air, with nothing to encircle it, hold it. He shook with pleasure from head to foot, biting into the panties, chewing on them, all the time his erect penis near Bijou’s mouth, yet inaccessible to her. Finally the penis shuddered violently, and as the white foam appeared at the tip of it, Bijou threw herself on it to gather the last spurts.

  One afternoon when Bijou and the African were together, and Bijou had found it impossible to attract his desire to her own body, she said in exasperation, ‘Look, I am getting an over-developed vulva from your constant kissing and biting there: you pull at the lips as if they were nipples. They are growing longer.’

  He took the lips between his thumb and forefinger, and examined them. He spread them open like the petals of a flower, and said, ‘One could pierce them and hang an earring on them, as we do in Africa. I want to do that to you.’

  He continued to play with the vulva. It grew stiff under his touch, and he saw white moisture appear at the edge of it, like the delicate foam of some small wave. He was aroused. He touched it with the tip
of his penis. But he did not enter. He was obsessed. with the idea of piercing the lips as if they were ear lobes and hanging on them a small gold earring, as he had seen done to the women of his country.

  Bijou did not believe he was in earnest. She was enjoying his attentiveness. But then he rose and went to fetch a needle. Bijou fought him off and fled.

  Now she was without a lover. The Basque continued to tease her, arousing great desires for revenge. She was only happy when she was deceiving him.

  She walked the streets and frequented the cafés with a feeling of hunger and curiosity; she wanted something new, something she had not yet experienced. She sat at cafés and refused invitations.

  One evening she walked down the stairway to the quays and the river. This part of the city was lighted only dimly by the street lamps overhead. The noise of the traffic barely reached it.

  The moored barges were without lights, their occupants asleep at this time of the night. She came to a very low stone wall and stopped to watch the river. She leaned over, fascinated by the lights reflected on the water. Then she heard the most extraordinary voice speaking in her ear, a voice that immediately enchanted her.

  It said, ‘I beg you not to move. I will not hurt you. But stay where you are.’

  The voice was so deep, rich, refined, that she obeyed and merely turned her head. She found a tall, handsome, well-dressed man standing behind her. He was smiling in the dim light, with a friendly, disarming, gallant expression.

  Then, he too leaned over the wall and said, ‘Finding you here, this way, has been one of the obsessions of my life. You don’t know how beautiful you look, with your breasts crushed against the wall, your dress so short behind you. What beautiful legs you have.’

  ‘But you must have a lot of friends,’ said Bijou, smiling.

  ‘None that I have ever wanted as much as I want you. Only I beg you, don’t move.’

  Bijou was intrigued. The stranger’s voice fascinated her and kept her in a trance at his side. She felt his hand gently passing over her leg, and under her dress.