Delta of Venus

by Anais Nin

  After a moment John rushed off without being heard. He had seen the very worst of the infernal vices, confirming his fear that it was Martha who was the erotic one, and he believed that his adopted father was merely yielding to her passion. The more he sought to erase this scene from his mind, the more it penetrated into his whole being, stark, indelible, haunting.

  When they returned he looked at their faces and was amazed at how different people could look in daily life from the way they looked while they made love. The changes were obscene. Martha’s face now seemed closed, whereas before it was crying out her enjoyment, through her eyes, hair, mouth, tongue. And Pierre, the serious Pierre, a short time ago was not a father but a rather youthful body stretched on a bed, abandoned to the furious lust of an unleashed woman.

  John felt he could no longer stay at home without betraying his discovery to his sick mother, to everyone. When he declared his intention of leaving to join the army, Martha gave him a quick stabbing glance of surprise. Until now she thought John was merely puritanical. But she also believed that he loved her and that sooner or later he would succumb to her. She wanted them both. Pierre was a lover such as women dream of. John, she could have educated, even against his nature. And now he was going. Something remained unfinished between them, as if the warmth created during their games together had been interrupted and had been intended to continue into their adult lives.

  That night she tried to reach through to him again. She went to his room. He received her with such revulsion that she demanded an explanation, drove him to confess, and then he blurted out the scene he had witnessed. He could not believe that she loved Pierre. He believed it was the animal in her. And when she saw his reaction, she sensed she would never be able to possess him now.

  She stopped herself at the door and said to him, ‘John, you are convinced that I am animal. Well, I can easily prove to you that I am not. I have told you that I love you. I will prove it to you. I will not only break with Pierre, but I will come every night to you and stay with you and we will sleep like children, together, and I will prove to you how chaste I can be, how free of desire.’

  John’s eyes opened wide. He was deeply tempted. The thought of Martha and his father making love was intolerable to him. He explained it on moral grounds. He did not recognize that he was jealous. He did not see how much he would have liked to be in Pierre’s place, with all of Pierre’s experience of women. He did not ask himself why he repudiated Martha’s love. But why was he so removed from the natural hungers of other men and women?

  He assented to Martha’s offer. With cunning, Martha did not break with Pierre in such a way as to alarm him, but merely told him she thought John was suspicious and she wanted to calm all his doubts before he left for the army.

  As John waited for Martha’s visit the next night, he tried to remember all he could of his sexual feelings. His first impressions were linked with Martha – he and Martha in the orphan age, protecting each other, inseparable. His love for her then was ardent and spontaneous. He delighted in touching her. Then one day when Martha was eleven, a woman came to see her. John caught a glimpse of her waiting in the parlor. He had never seen anyone like her. She wore tight clothes that outlined her full, voluptuous figure. Her hair was red-gold, waved, her lips so thickly painted that they fascinated the boy. He stared at her. Then he saw her receiving Martha and embracing her. It was then he was told this was Martha’s mother, who had abandoned her as a child, and then later acknowledged her but was not able to keep her because she was the favorite prostitute of the town.

  After that, if Martha’s face glowed with excitement or became flushed, if her hair shone, if she wore a tight dress, if she made the slightest coquettish gesture, then John would feel a great disturbance, anger. It seemed to him that he could see her mother in her, that her body was provocative, that she was lustful. He would question her. He wanted to know what she thought, what she dreamed, her most secret desires. She answered him naïvely. What she liked best in the world was John. What gave her the greatest pleasure was to be touched by him.

  ‘What do you feel then?’ asked John.

  ‘Contentment, a pleasure I cannot explain.’

  John was convinced it was not from him she derived these half-innocent pleasures, but from any man. He imagined that Martha’s mother felt the same with all the men who touched her.

  Because he turned away from Martha and starved her of the affection she needed, he had lost her. But this he could not see. Now he felt a great pleasure in dominating her. He would show her what chastity was, what love, love without sensuality, could be between human beings.

  Martha came at midnight, noiselessly. She wore a long white nightgown, and over this her kimono. Her long thick black hair fell over her shoulders. Her eyes shone unnaturally. She was quiet and gentle, as if she were a sister. Her usual vivaciousness was controlled and subdued. In this mood she did not frighten John. She seemed like another Martha.

  The bed was very wide and low. John turned out the light. Martha slipped into it and rested her body without touching John. He was trembling. This reminded him of the orphanage where, in order to be able to talk to her a little longer, he escaped from the boys’ dormitory and went and talked with her through her window. She wore a white nightgown then and her hair was braided. He said this to her and asked her if she would let him braid her hair again. He wanted to see her as a little girl again. She let him. In the dark his hands touched her rich hair and braided it. Then they both pretended to fall asleep.

  But John was tormented by images. He saw Martha naked, and then he saw her mother in the tight dress that revealed every curve, and then again he saw Martha crouching like an animal over Pierre’s face. The blood beat in his temples, and he wanted to stretch out his hand. He did. Martha took hold of it and laid it over her heart, over her left breast. Through the clothes he could feel her heart beating. And in this way they finally slept. In the morning they awakened together. John found he had come near to Martha and slept with his body against hers, spoon-fashion. He awakened wanting her, feeling her warmth. In anger he leaped out of bed and pretended he had to dress quickly.

  And so passed the first night. Martha kept herself gentle and subdued. John was tormented with desire. But his pride and fear were greater.

  He now knew what it was he feared. He was afraid he might be impotent. He was afraid that his father, known as a Don Juan, was more potent and more knowing. He was afraid to be awkward. He was afraid that once he aroused the volcanic fires in Martha, he could not satisfy them. A less fiery woman might not have frightened him as much. He had been so eager to control his own nature and sexual flow. He had succeeded perhaps too well. He was doubtful of his power now.

  With feminine intuition, Martha must have guessed all this. Every night she came more quietly, she was more gentle, more humble. They fell asleep together innocently. She did not betray the heat she felt between her legs as he lay near her. She actually slept. He remained awake sometimes, with the haunting sexual images of her naked body.

  Once or twice in the middle of the night he awakened, and he drew his body close and breathlessly fondled her. Her body was limp and warm in sleep. He dared to lift her nightgown by the hem, to raise it high over her breasts and pass his hand over her body to feel the outline of it. She did not awaken. This gave him courage. He did nothing more than stroke her, softly feeling the curves of her body with care, every line of it, until he knew just where the skin grew softer, where the fullest flesh lay, where the valleys were, where the pubic hair began.

  What he did not know was that Martha was half awake and enjoying his caresses, but never moving for fear of frightening him. Once she was so warmed with the searching of his hands that she almost reached an orgasm. And once he dared to place his erect desire against her buttocks, but no more.

  Each night he dared a little more, surprised that he did not waken her. His desire was constant, and Martha was kept in such a state of erotic fever that she ma
rveled at her own power of deception. John became bolder. He had learned to slip his sex between her legs and to rub very gently without penetrating her. The pleasure was so great he then began to understand all the lovers of the world.

  Tantalized by so many nights of repression, John one night forgot his precautions and took the half-sleeping Martha like a thief, and was amazed to hear little sounds of pleasure coming from her throat at his thrusts.

  He did not go into the army. And Martha kept her two lovers satisfied, Pierre during the day and John at night.

  Manuel

  Manuel had developed a peculiar form of enjoyment that caused his family to repudiate him, and he lived like a Bohemian in Montparnasse. When not obsessed with his erotic exigencies, he was an astrologer, an extraordinary cook, a great conversationalist and an excellent café companion. But not one of these occupations could divert his mind from his obsession. Sooner or later Manuel had to open his pants and exhibit his rather formidable member.

  The more people there were, the better. The more refined the party, the better. If he got among the painters and models, he waited until everybody was a little drunk and gay, and then he undressed himself completely. His ascetic face, dreamy and poetic eyes and lean monklike body were so much in dissonance with his behavior that it startled everyone. If they turned away from him, he had no pleasure. If they looked at him for any time at all, then he would fall into a trance, his face would become ecstatic, and soon he would be rolling on the floor in a crisis of orgasm.

  Women tended to run away from him. He had to beg them to stay and resorted to all kinds of tricks. He would pose as a model and look for work in women’s studios. But the condition he got into as he stood there under the eyes of the female students made the men throw him out into the street.

  If he were invited to a party, he would first try to get one of the women alone somewhere in an empty room or on a balcony. Then he would take down his pants. If the woman was interested he would fall into ecstasy. If not, he would run after her, with his erection, and come back to the party and stand there, hoping to create curiosity. He was not a beautiful sight but a highly incongruous one. Since the penis did not seem to belong to the austere religious face and body, it acquired a greater prominence – as it were, an apartness.

  He finally found the wife of a poor literary agent who was dying of starvation and overwork, with whom he reached the following arrangement. He would come in the morning and do all her housework for her, wash her dishes, sweep her studio, run errands, on condition that when all this was over he could exhibit himself. In this case he demanded all her attention. He wanted her to watch him unfasten his belt, unbutton his pants, pull them down. He wore no underwear. He would take out his penis and shake it like a person weighing a thing of value. She had to stand near him and watch every gesture. She had to look at his penis as she would look at food she liked.

  This woman developed the art of satisfying him completely. She would become absorbed in the penis, saying, ‘It’s a beautiful penis you have there, the biggest I have seen in Montparnasse. It’s so smooth and hard. It’s beautiful.’

  As she said these words, Manuel continued to shake his penis like a pot of gold under her eyes, and saliva came to his mouth. He admired it himself. As they both bent over it to admire it his pleasure would become so keen that he would close his eyes and be taken with a bodily trembling from head to foot, still holding his penis and shaking it under her face. Then the trembling would turn into undulation and he would fall on the floor and roll himself into a ball as he came, sometimes all over his own face.

  Often he stood at dark corners of the streets, naked under an overcoat, and if a woman passed he opened his coat and shook his penis at her. But this was dangerous and the police punished such behavior rather severely. Oftener still he liked to get into an empty compartment of a train, unbutton two of the buttons, and sit back as if he were drunk or asleep, his penis showing a little through the opening. People would come in at other stations. If he were in luck it might be a woman who would sit across from him and stare at him. As he looked drunk, usually no one tried to wake him. Sometimes one of the men would rouse him angrily and tell him to button himself. Women did not protest. If a woman came in with little schoolgirls, then he was in paradise. He would have an erection, and finally the situation would become so intolerable, the woman and her little girls would leave the compartment.

  One day Manuel found his twin in this form of enjoyment. He had taken his seat in a compartment, alone, and was pretending to fall asleep when a woman came in and sat opposite him. She was a rather mature prostitute as he could see from the heavily painted eyes, the thickly powdered face, the rings under her eyes, the over-curled hair, the worn-down shoes, the coquettish dress and hat.

  Through half-closed eyes he observed her. She took a glance at his partly opened pants and then looked again. She too sat back and appeared to fall asleep, with her legs wide apart. When the train started she raised her skirt completely. She was naked underneath. She stretched open her legs and exposed herself while looking at Manuel’s penis, which was hardening and showing through the pants and which finally protruded completely. They sat in front of each other, staring. Manuel was afraid the woman would move and try to get hold of his penis, which was not what he wanted at all. But no, she was addicted to the same passive pleasures. She knew he was looking at her sex, under the very black and bushy hair, and finally they opened their eyes and smiled at each other. He was entering his ecstatic state, but he had time to notice that she was in a state of pleasure herself. He could see the shining moisture appearing at the mouth of the sex. She moved almost imperceptibly to and fro, as if rocking herself to sleep. His body began to tremble with voluptuous pleasure. She then masturbated in front of him, smiling all the time.

  Manuel married this woman, who never tried to possess him in the way of other women.

  Linda

  Linda stood in front of her mirror examining herself critically in full daylight. Now past thirty, she was becoming concerned with her age, although nothing about her betrayed any lessening of her beauty. She was slender, youthful in appearance. She could well deceive everyone but herself. In her own eyes her flesh was losing some of its firmness, some of that marble smoothness that she had admired so often in her own mirror.

  She was no less loved. If anything she was more loved than ever, because now she attracted all the young men who sense that it is from such a woman that they will really learn the secrets of lovemaking, and who feel no attraction to the young girls of their age who are backward, innocent, inexperienced, and still possessed by their families.

  Linda’s husband, a handsome man of forty, had loved her with the fervor of a lover for many years. He closed his eyes to her young admirers. He believed that she did not take them seriously, that her interest was due to her childlessness and the need to pour her protective feelings over people who were beginning to live. He himself was reputed to be a seducer of women of all classes and character.

  She remembered that on her wedding night André had been an adoring lover, worshiping each part of her body separately, as if she were a work of art, touching her and marveling, commenting on her ears, her feet, her neck, her hair, her nose, her cheeks, and her thighs, as he fondled them. His words and voice, his touch, opened her flesh like a flower to the heat and light.

  He trained her to be a sexually perfect instrument, to vibrate to every form of caress. One time he taught her to put the rest of her body to sleep, as it were, and to concentrate all her erotic feelings in her mouth. Then she was like a woman half-drugged, lying there, her body quiet and languid, and her mouth, her lips, became another sex organ.

  André had a particular passion for her mouth. In the street he looked at women’s mouths. To him the mouth was indicative of the sex. A tightness of a lip, thinness, augured nothing rich or voluptuous. A full mouth promised an open, generous sex. A moist mouth tantalized him. A mouth that opened out, a mouth that wa
s parted as if ready for a kiss, he would follow doggedly in the street until he could possess the woman and prove again his conviction of the revelatory powers of the mouth.

  Linda’s mouth had seduced him from the first. It had a perverse, half-dolorous expression. There was something about the way she moved it, a passionate unfolding of the lips, promising a person who would lash around the beloved like a storm. When he first saw Linda, he was taken into her through this mouth, as if he were already making love to her. And so it was on their wedding night. He was obsessed with her mouth. It was on her mouth that he threw himself, kissing it until it burned, until the tongue was worn out, until the lips were swollen; and then, when he had fully aroused her mouth, it was thus that he took her, crouching over her, his strong lips pressed against her breasts.

  He never treated her as a wife. He wooed her over and over again, with presents, flowers, new pleasures. He took her to dinner at the cabinets particuliers of Paris, to the big restaurants, where all the waiters thought she was his mistress.

  He chose the most exciting food and wine for her. He made her drunk with his caressing words. He made love to her mouth. He made her say that she wanted him. Then he would ask: ‘And how do you want me? What part of you wants me tonight?’

  Sometimes she answered, ‘My mouth wants you, I want to feel you in my mouth, way down in my mouth.’ Other times she answered, ‘I am moist between the legs.’

  This is how they talked across restaurant tables, in the small private dining rooms created especially for lovers. How discreet the waiters, knowing when not to return. Music would come from an invisible source. There would be a divan. When the meal was served, and André had pressed Linda’s knees between his and stolen kisses, he would take her on the divan, with her clothes on, like lovers who do not have time to undress.