* * *
It was cool in this studio, almost cold. I changed the disk for another and searched through the cupboards for something to eat. There wasn’t much, but I was able to throw together a refreshing meal of sardines in oil, raw onions, black bread, and rosé. As I was finishing it my body shivered with cold; I quickly cleared the dishes and went to run the shower, waiting for the water to get hot before undressing and plunging myself underneath it. In the water I stretched my muscles, enjoying the sensations provoked by this long, wiry body. In the bedroom, I dried myself in front of a large round mirror placed at the foot of the bed, a simple mattress resting on the ground covered with a thick embroidered bedspread, long green grass on a golden background. The mirror showed only the lower part of my body, which, despite the little member shrunken against the balls, seemed almost like a womanish body to me, an image that caused me no anxiety but rather a diffuse, caressing feeling of pleasure. I turned around to contemplate from the side the curve of the thigh, the arch of the hips, the delicate oval of the buttock. I knelt down on the bed, my back to the mirror, and turned my head. The ass, hiding the top of the body, was now facing the circle of the mirror, and I spread it slightly with one hand, revealing the yellowish flower of the anus that blinked quietly, as if it were gazing at itself, a tiny opening but bottomless, dazzling. I found that very beautiful and I contemplated it for a long time before finally relaxing and stretching out full-length on the bedspread. I was no longer cold and I fell asleep that way, as if I were lying on a field of grass, rocked by the lighthearted, mocking, playful cadences of a last concerto. When I woke up it was dark, everything was quiet, goosebumps covered my skin and I slipped beneath the bedspread and sheets, pulling them around me to get warm. But I couldn’t fall back asleep and finally I got up, the bedspread still draped around my shoulders, to go drink a glass of water in the kitchenette. Through the bay window, down below, I could see in the darkness a lozenge of light, the window of a neighboring apartment forming a section crossed lengthwise by a long sofa upholstered in white upon which had sunk a young woman in delicate underclothes. A small round mirror was hanging above the sofa and she was putting on makeup, kneeling before it, her back arched a little to keep her balance. From time to time, she raised her arm to adjust the angle of the mirror, which was attached to a mobile support, or else to bring it closer to her face, and this gesture stretched her breast nestled in an underwire bra and made the edge of her pectoral muscle bulge, like a milky white cable attached to her shoulder. She carried out these gestures with swift precision, absorbed in the unconscious happiness of this routine so familiar to her body. I watched her for a while and then went back to bed. Sleep quickly brought me to the entrance of a house, a house that must have been my own, locked after a long absence. A series of doors led to the kitchen, out of which rushed a black cat as soon as I opened the door. The room stank of shit and trash, the cat must have been locked up in it during my entire absence and had soiled everything: No matter, I said to myself, shrugging my shoulders, my wife will clean it. I opened the door that led to the small back garden to air it out, then went down to the cellar; there I crossed a long hallway that led to a kind of grotto, opening onto the large front garden. My workers were waiting there. “So, Emilio,” I said, “how’s the work going?” The man I had spoken to came forward, hat in hand, and gestured for me to follow him outside. The view that greeted me filled me with horror: the garden, which had previously formed beautiful undulating curves protected from the neighbors’ sight, was now completely filled in, forming a flat surface at the same level as the next house. Distraught, I looked around me: the old ruined barn adjoining the house had disappeared; Emilio, in an excess of zeal, must have had it torn down to fill in the garden. Beside myself, I yelled at him violently: “But Emilio! This is not at all what I asked you to do!” Emilio timidly tried to defend himself as I ran back and forth, noting the extent of the damage. The garden thus renovated ended up at the windows of the neighboring house, barely hidden by a few shrubs, and now extended a small byroad that used to end at the outskirts of my property. In fact, a car was coming down and crossing my garden, cheerfully honking as it passed. “Come on, Emilio!” I shouted. “Just look at this! And what about my barn? Who gave you the order to demolish it?” In vain, I thought about how all this could be repaired, but the damages were too great, it seemed an impossible task. The car emerged from the garden by an open gate next to the neighbors’ house, and I followed it, still foaming. “Well now, first of all, close all this up!” I barked, pointing at the road. “This is a private property here, good God, not a highway!” I went out and contemplated the street. Another car was now coming slowly toward me, driven by a blond woman. Emilio had come out as well and was standing next to me, a little behind me. The car slowed down, as if to park, but didn’t stop and slowly crashed with a great crunch of sheet metal against the stone pillar that supported the gate. I rushed forward but the driver, who was still holding onto the driving wheel with both hands, wasn’t hurt. I thought I recognized my neighbor, who, what’s more curious, resembled my wife as well as my mother—two women who also didn’t know how to drive—and I went over to talk with her about our new problem of proximity; but she didn’t even let me open my mouth before pouring out a litany of complaints through the lowered window: “Oh, you! Do you know that your electric circuit is completely out of whack? There are surges all the time, they’re causing outages in the neighborhood.” These words filled me with fury and I began shouting as well: “Madam, you’re exaggerating! I’ve had that circuit completely overhauled by a professional electrician, twice in a row. That’s enough, now!” When I woke up a cold light was falling in the room, making the golden field of the bedspread sparkle, but warming nothing. I got up and quickly got dressed, swallowed a glass of juice, and went out. In the hallway I resumed my running without hesitation; the effort warmed me up and helped me shed the last scraps of sleep. In my distraction, however, I bumped several times against the walls, the indistinct light blurred all details and I couldn’t always place them with precision; sometimes darker zones appeared, junctions perhaps or else some nook, I avoided them and tried to stay in the center of the hallway, moving with short regular strides, my sneakers falling with a muted sound on a ground as smooth as the walls. I breathed evenly, in short quick puffs; I didn’t get tired, I knew I could run a long time this way. At one moment, I noticed that my shoelace had come untied, and I interrupted my running to kneel down and re-tie it; when I raised my head, I noticed that I was in front of a door handle, I leaned on it without hesitating and a door opened, which I went through as I straightened up. A few steps further in, there waited a proud, beautiful, rather curvaceous woman. She was standing with one hand on her hip; the other was bringing a long cigarette holder to her lips, painted blood-red: “You’re late, darling,” she murmured, exhaling a puff of smoke and taking me by the hand. “Good Lord, you’re sweating. And you’re not even dressed.” Golden bracelets jingled on her wrist; I leaned over and brushed my lips against her bare shoulder, my nose buried in her long reddish curls, inhaling their rich, almost musky smell of amber.“Forgive me. I had to run.”—“That’s all right. Come.” I followed her through a large room, at the back of which a sliding glass door, open, led outside. A brilliant green lawn, over which two yapping Dalmatians were chasing each other, stretched out to copses of palm trees, ficus, and bougainvillea; a group of girls in tight-fitting shorts and tank tops or bras were playing volleyball. “Almost everyone is here already,” my friend said in a slight tone of reproach as she climbed a stone staircase that ran alongside the façade of the house. Her stiletto heels clicked on the stone and her hips swayed in front of me. The staircase led to a vast, tiled terrace the color of terra cotta, in the center of which shone the emerald-green water of a long rectangular pool. A tall girl with black hair cut short, topless, was doing laps; near the edge, another young woman with an artfully disheveled Venetian blond bun, stretched out on he
r belly and leaning on her elbows, was following my movements with a mocking gaze; her pretty little feet, with bright red nails, swayed above her well-rounded buttocks, enclosed in a white swimsuit with blue stripes that left her slim back bare. I contemplated this magnificent body with a pang of envy; but already my friend was leading me through another sliding glass door into a vast living room, its carpet and walls a pale grey, with burnt orange and lemon yellow drapes, arranged on several different levels and furnished with elegance and restraint in green tones that went with the lawn. In the center rose a sort of bed or sofa without a back, of imposing dimensions, covered with a thick golden cloth embroidered with long green grass. We skirted around the piece of furniture and followed a long hallway that led to a bedroom. The adjoining bathroom, tiled in white with a polished slate floor, seemed immense. “Shower there,” my friend ordered. “I’ll find something for you to wear. Something classic, no?” She ran her painted nails over my chin: “And shave. You’re stubbly.” I quickly undressed and did what she had ordered. I had just finished shaving when she returned with a pile of clothes that she placed on a chair. It took some time to try them on, the sizes weren’t always right; she handed me a grey lace bra whose underwire rounded my form a little, a skintight pair of panties in embroidered tulle, and some silk stockings surmounted with a wide band of lace, also grey but of a darker shade, almost metallic. Perched on high pumps into which I had slipped my feet, I admired in the mirror the curve of my buttocks and thighs set off by the lace, delaying putting on the dress. It was sublime, a long body-skimming sheath made of pearl grey linen and rayon knit to form a fine silky jersey, without the slightest seam, and lined inside with a pale pink silk that flowed delicately on my skin as I slipped it over my head. The shoulder straps left my angular shoulders bare; in front, the cloth, molded by the bra, gave me a tiny but charming chest. My friend smoothed the cloth over my hips, without taking her eyes off our reflection in the mirror. Then she made me up, blue-grey for my eyelids, a pinkish shade for my lips, and a darker pink tint for my nails; she also put some jewelry on me, pearl earrings, a woven choker, a few tastefully wrought silver rings and bracelets. For my hair, it was simple: she smoothed it with gel, then separated it into a long side part, with a lock lying flat across my forehead and the sides held back with hairpins. I balanced on my heels and made a few movements. “You are superb,” my friend whispered hoarsely at the tall woman with a regal bearing whose gaze was devouring me from the mirror, her eyes enlarged by eyeliner and mascara, blazing with excitation. “I might not be the greatest beauty of the evening,” I murmured, pivoting on my heels and gazing over my shoulder at the back and hips of the figure in the mirror, “but my ass will make more than a few of the girls hard.”
* * *
The party was in full swing. The whirlwind of women all around me gave me a slight vertigo; noise echoed in my ears, music, laughter, shouts, clinking of glasses and jewelry; I found myself in the middle of a slow ballet of winks, pouts, smiles, light touches, caressing gestures, fragments of movements multiplied in the long mirrors framing the living room. The narrow dress forced me to take tiny steps, and I was still ill at ease on my high heels; but little by little I found my balance, and with it I gained more self-confidence and began to laugh, talk, gesticulate, as freely as my companions. My friend handed me a cocktail, a gin and tonic, cool, sparkling, almost bitter, and leaned over to breathe a few words into my ear: “Everything is perfect here, isn’t it? We’re amongst ourselves.” There was too much noise to make myself heard, so I nodded. On a slightly elevated part of the room, three girls were dancing, swaying their hips, their pretty behinds shapely in miniskirts or shorts, their legs long and bare and smooth. Quite close to me, a haughty woman with a sculptural, exaggerated body, almost a head taller than me, was staring fixedly at herself in a mirror, her hands running up her hips and belly to gravely weigh her bulging breasts. The young woman with the blond hair in a bun whom I had seen earlier by the pool in a striped swimsuit had joined us, dressed now in a short embroidered dress with a violet stole draped over her narrow shoulders. Her hand rested familiarly on the hollow of my back and she brushed my neck with her lips: “What a beautiful dress! It suits you.” I blushed with pleasure and, pulling her neck toward me, pressed my mouth against hers. Near us, my friend was laughing; in the mirror in front of me, I could see the young woman’s back and hips, our intertwined bodies, my own gaze filtered through her loose strands of hair which smelled of heather, moss, and almond. Finally she broke away and contemplated me with a brief, joyful smile; then, stroking my face with the tips of her fingers, she moved away: “See you soon.” I sipped my drink as I watched her disappear into the crowd. My friend was still laughing and handed me a lipstick: poised in front of the mirror, I carefully retouched the outline of my lips; rolling one against the other in that so intimately feminine gesture, spreading a sensual joy through my entire body. Near me several girls were kissing now, standing against the walls or on the sofas, I could see hands with colorful nails wandering over thighs and buttocks and disappearing beneath dresses or skirts; breasts began appearing, well-rounded, the nipples erect and calling for lips; the girl with the short hair who had been doing laps in the pool was kneeling now between the thighs of the tall sculptural woman; and she, above the head pressing in on her, was still staring at herself in the mirror. I turned toward her reflection and tried to meet her gaze but it remained riveted on itself, impenetrable, and thus I could contemplate her at my leisure, without her noticing; seen from this angle her face took on a hard, angular, almost masculine aspect, her gaze, as the head with the thick close-cropped black hair moved down the length of her body, darkened, took on a fierce, wild look; and when finally the girl, with both hands, parted her thighs to place her beautiful painted mouth on her sex, her eyes came alive with a furious, devouring, superb joy. I kept sipping my drink without taking my eyes off the spectacle in the mirror; my friend was watching the couple itself over my shoulder and I could also see, in front of my own, the reflection of her ample curves and curly hair. A little silver tray that had been circulating among the guests reached us; I leaned over, delicately grasped the glass straw, and inhaled a line of white powder, followed by another; a shiver traveled through my body, I straightened up, arched nervously on my legs perched on the high heels, and with one hand smoothed the knit cloth over my hip and buttock. My friend took some cocaine as well and I helped her hold the tray. Then I passed it on to another woman and took my friend by the hand to lead her outside. As I crossed the threshold of the sliding glass door I shivered, it was cold outside the house, humid too, the grass, beneath the light of lamps placed all over, shone with dew. “There’s a lot of light,” I said to my friend. “Are you sure the fuses won’t blow?”—“Don’t worry about it. We had the entire circuit overhauled twice, by a professional electrician.” Here too there were dozens of guests, talking or kissing while drinking, laughing, smoking. Several girls, naked except for thongs or bathing suits, were swimming in the illuminated water of the pool, their beautiful, slim bodies deformed by the waves of green water. On the edge, kneeling, naked too, apart from a thin pair of black and purple lace panties, the young woman with the half undone bun whom I had kissed was scrutinizing her image in the lapping water. From where I stood, I could see her profile: her long neck freed by the bun, her sharp shoulder, the gracious curve of her back were almost those of a boy; but the round shape of her hips, when she straightened up in a fluid motion, the long firm buttocks that stretched the translucent cloth of the panties, were indeed those of a woman, a real woman. I was still drinking, my friend had handed me another gin and tonic and my lipstick stained the rim of the glass, I could feel my skin bristling in its underclothes, seeking with delight, in the places where it remained bare, silky contact with the pink lining of the dress. The young blond woman, hands on her knees and buttocks arched behind her like a little girl, was still contemplating herself in the pool water, and this spectacle filled me wit
h joy. Then all of a sudden she stood up, arms raised and tiny breasts jutting out, took a deep breath, and dove in, erasing her reflection. I watched the long white body flow underwater, arms down by its sides, propelled by the feet. My friend was stroking my hips and my buttocks, making the almost liquid jersey of the dress slide over the rougher cloth of the lining, but I barely noticed. “You like her,” her voice spoke in my ear. “More than me.”—“It’s not that,” I said sadly. “I’m jealous of her body. Mine will never be like that.”—“You are very beautiful, too. Your body excites me.”—“Maybe. But it’s not the same thing.” I pressed against her, my heart beating. The girl was hauling herself out of the water, streaming, her hair undone and soaked, her wet panties taut over her delicate little parts. Another woman handed her a towel and she covered her shoulders with it before pattering toward us: “Give me something to drink!” she cried out, breaking into joyful laughter. Still leaning against my friend, who was now gently stroking my belly, I handed her my glass with an affectionate smile. I felt happy and light, my mind expanding from the alcohol and the cocaine, overwhelmed by the fullness of the ambiguous body that the beautiful clothes my friend had lent me shaped for me. “You’ll catch cold,” I said to the blond girl who was shivering, reaching out my fingers to wipe away the water beading on the bristling skin of her arm. “Come dry off.”
The Fata Morgana Books Page 10