It was a rainy night, the streets like mirrors, reflecting everything. The Basque had thirty francs in his pocket and he was feeling rich. People were telling him that in his naive, crude way he was a great painter. They did not realize he copied form postcards. They had given him thirty francs for the last painting. He was in a euphoric mood and wanted to celebrate. He was looking for one of those little red lights that spelled pleasure.
A maternal woman opened the door, but a maternal woman whose cold eyes traveled almost immediately to the man’s shoes, for she judged from them how much he could afford to pay for his pleasure. Then for her own satisfaction, her eyes rested for a while on the trouser buttons. Faces did not interest her. Her life was spent exclusively in dealings with this region of man’s anatomy. Her big eyes, still bright, had a piercing way of looking into the trousers as if they could gauge the size and weight of the man’s possessions. It was a. professional look. She liked to pair people off with more acumen than other mothers of prostitution. She would suggest certain conjunctions. She was as expert as a glove fitter. Even through the trousers, she could measure the client, and set about getting him the perfect glove, a neat fit. It gave no pleasure if there was too much room, and no pleasure if the glove was too tight. Maman thought people today did not know enough about the importance of a fit. She would have liked to spread this knowledge she possessed, but men and women were growing more careless, they were less exacting then she. If a man today found himself floating in too large a glove, moving about as in an empty apartment, he made the best of it. He let his member flap around like a flag and come out without the real clutching embrace which warmed his entrails. Or he slipped it in with saliva, pushing as if he were trying to slip under a closed door, pinched in the narrow surroundings and shrinking even more just to stay there. And if the girl happened to laugh heartily with pleasure or with the pretense of pleasure, he was immediately ousted, for there was no expansion allowed for the swelling of laughter. People were losing their knowledge of good conjunctions.
It was only after Maman had stared at the Basque’s trousers that she recognized him and smiled. The Basque, it is true, shared this passion for nuances with Maman, and she knew he was not easily satisfied. He had a capricious member. Faced with a letter-box vagina, it rebelled. Faced with an astringent tube, it withdrew. He was a connoisseur, a gourmet, of women’s jewel boxes. He liked them velvet-lined and cozy, affectionate and clinging. Maman gave him a more lingering look than she gave other customers. She liked the Basque, and it was not for his short-nosed, classical profile, his almond-shaped eyes, his glossy black hair, his gliding smooth walk, his nonchalant gestures. It was not for his red scarf and his cap sitting at a roguish angle on his head. It was not for his seductive ways with women. It was for his royal pendentif, the noble bulk of it, the sensitive and untiring responsiveness of it, its friendliness, its cordiality, its expansiveness. She had never seen such a one. He would lay it on the table sometimes as if he were depositing a bag of money, rap with it as if calling for attention. He took it out naturally, as other men take off their coats when they are warm. He gave the impression that it was not at ease shut in, confined, that it was to be aired, to be admired.
Maman indulged herself continuously in her habit of looking at men’s possessions. When men came out of the urinoirs, finishing their buttoning, she had the luck to catch the last flash of some golden member, or some dark-brown one, or some fine-pointed one, which she preferred. On the boulevards she was often rewarded with the sight of carelessly buttoned trousers, and her eyes, which were gifted with keen vision, could penetrate the shaded opening. Better still if she caught a tramp unburdening himself against a tenement wall, holding his member pensively in his hand, as though it were his very last silver piece.
One might think that Maman was deprived of the more intimate possession of such pleasure, but it was not so. The clients of her house found her appetizing, and they knew her virtues and advantages over the other women. Maman could produce a truly delectable juice for the feasts of love, which most of the women had to manufacture artificially. Maman could give a man the full illusion of a tender meal, something very soft under the teeth and wet enough to satisfy anyone’s thirst.
Among themselves they often talked about the delicate sauces in which Maman knew how to wrap her shell-pink morsels, the drumlike tightness of her offerings. One could tap this round shell, once, twice, it was enough. Maman’s delectable flavoring would appear, something her girls could rarely produce, a honey that smelled of seashell and that made the passage into the female alcove between her thighs a delight to the male visitor.
The Basque liked it there. It was emollient, saturating, warm and grateful—a feast. For Maman it was a holiday, and she gave her maximum.
The Basque knew she did not need long preparation. All day Maman had nourished herself with the expeditions of her eyes, which never traveled above or below the middle of a man’s body. They were always on the level with the trouser opening. She appraised the wrinkled ones, too hastily closed after a quick séance. The finely pressed ones, not yet crushed. The stains, oh, the stains of love! Strange stains, which she could detect as if she carried a magnifying glass. There, where the trousers had not been pulled down sufficiently, or where, in its gesticulations a penis had returned to its natural place at the wrong moment, there lay a jeweled stain, for it had tiny glittering specks in it, like some mineral that had melted; and a sugary quality which stiffened the clothes. A beautiful stain, the stain of desire, either sprayed there like a perfume by the fountain of a man, or glued there by too fervent and clinging a woman. Maman would have liked to begin where an act had already taken place. She was sensitive to contagion. This little stain stirred her between the legs as she walked. A fallen button made her feel the man at her mercy. At times, in great crowds, she had the courage to reach out and touch. Her hand moved like a thief’s, with an incredible agility. She never fumbled or touched the wrong place, but went straight to the place below the belt where soft rolling prominences lay, and sometimes, unexpectedly, an insolent baton.
In subways, on dark rainy nights, on crowded boulevards or in dance halls, Maman delighted in appraising and calling to arms. How many times her call was answered and arms were extended to her passing hand! She would have liked an army standing aligned like this, presenting the only arms that could conquer her. In her daydreams she saw this army. She was the general, marching by, decorating the long ones, the beautiful ones, pausing before each man she admired. Oh, to be Catherine the Great and reward the spectacle with a kiss from her avid mouth, a kiss, just on the tip, merely to draw that first tear of pleasure!
Maman’s greatest adventure had been the parade of the Scots soldiers one spring morning. While drinking at a bar, she had heard a conversation about the Scotsmen.
A man said: “They take them young and train them to walk that way. It’s a special walk. Difficult, very difficult. There is a coup de fesse, a swing, which makes the hips and the sporran swing just right. If the sporran does not swing, it’s a failure. The step is more intricate than a ballet dancer’s.”
Maman was thinking: Each time the sporran swings, and the skirt swings, why, the other hangings must swing too. And her old heart was moved. Swing. Swing. All at the same time. There was an ideal army. She would have liked to follow such an army, in any capacity. One, two, three. She was already moved enough by the swing of the pendants when the man at the bar added: “And do you know, they wear nothing underneath.”
They wore nothing underneath! These sturdy men, such upright, lusty men! Heads high, strong naked legs and skirts—why, it made them as vulnerable as a woman. Big lusty men, tempting as a woman and naked underneath. Maman wanted to be turned into a cobblestone, to be stepped on, but to be allowed to look under the short skirt at the hidden “sporran” swinging with each step. Maman felt congested. The bar was too hot. She needed air.
She watched for the parade. Each step taken by the Scotsmen was like a step taken into her very own body, she vibrated so. One, two, three. A dance over her abdomen, savage and even, the fur sporran swinging like pubic hair. Maman was as warm as a day in July. She could think of nothing else but of elbowing her way to the front of the crowd and then slipping on her knees and simulating a faint. But all she saw were vanishing legs under pleated plaid skirts. Later, lying against the policeman’s knee, she rolled her eyes upwards as if she were going to have an attack. If the parade would only turn and walk over her!
Thus Maman’s sap never withered. It was properly nourished. At night her flesh was as tender as if it had been simmering slowly over a delicate fire all day.
Her eyes would pass from the clients to the women who worked for her. Their faces did not attract her attention either, but only their figures from the waist down. She made them turn before her, gave them a little slap to feel the firmness of the flesh, before they donned their chemises.
She knew Melie, who rolled herself around a man like a ribbon and gave him a feeling that several women were fondling him. She knew the lazy one, who pretended to be asleep and gave the timid men audacities no one else could, letting them touch her, manipulate her, explore her as if there were no danger in doing so. Her big body concealed her secrets well in rich folds, yet her laziness permitted them to be exposed by prying fingers.
Maman knew the slender, fiery one who attacked men and made them feel victims of circumstance. She was a great favorite among the guilty men. They permitted themselves to be raped. Their conscience was at ease. They could have said to their wives: She threw herself on me and forced herself on me, and the like. They would lie back and she would sit on them, as upon a horse, spurring them to inevitable gestures by her pressure and galloping over the rigid virility, or trotting softly, or taking long strides. She pressed powerful knees against the flanks of her subdued victims, and like a noble rider, raised herself elegantly and fell back, with all her weight concentrated on the middle of the body, while her hand occasionally slapped the man to increase his speed and his convulsions, so that she could feel a greater animal vigor between her legs. How she rode this animal under her, with spurring legs and great pushes from her raised body until the animal began to foam, and then she incited him more with cries and slaps, to gallop faster and faster.
Maman knew the smoldering charms of Viviane from the south. Her flesh was of hot embers, contagious, and even the coolest flesh would warm at her touch. She knew suspense, leisure. She like first of all to sit on the bidet for the ceremony of washing herself. Legs spread over the little seat, she had bulging buttocks, two enormous dimples at the base of her spine, two golden-brown hips, wide and firm like the back of a circus horse. As she sat, the curves were swollen. If the man tired of seeing her from the back, he could face her and watch her throw water over her pubic hair and between her legs, watch her carefully spread the lips as she soaped. White foam covered her now, then water again, and the lips emerged glistening pink. At times she examined the lips calmly. If too many men had passed by that day, she saw that they were slightly swollen. The Basque liked to watch her then. She dried herself more gently so as not to increase the irritation.
The Basque came on such a day and divined he could benefit from the irritation. Other days Viviane was lethargic, heavy and indifferent. She laid her body down as in some classical painting, in such a manner as to accentuate the tremendous rise and fall of her curves. She lay on her side with her head resting on her arm, her flesh, of copper-colored tones, distended at times as if it were laboring under the erotic swelling of a caress from some invisible hand. Thus she offered herself, sumptuous and almost impossible to arouse. Most men did not try. She turned her mouth away from them with contempt, offering her body all the more, but with detachment. They could stretch open her legs and stare as long as they wanted. They could not draw any sap from her. But once a man was inside of her, she behaved as if he were pouring hot lava into her, and her contortions were more violent than those of women taking pleasure because they were dramatized to simulate the real. She twisted herself like a python, jerked herself in all directions as if she were being burnt or beaten. Powerful muscles gave to her motions a strength which stirred the most bestial desires. Men fought to arrest the contortions, to calm the orgiastic dance she did around them, as if she were pinned to something that was torturing her. Then suddenly, at her own caprice, she would lie still. And this, perversely in the middle of their rising fury, cooled them so that the fulfillment was delayed. She became a mass of quiet flesh. She took to gentle sucking then, as if she were sucking a thumb before falling asleep. Then her lethargy irritated them. They sought to arouse her again, touching her everywhere, kissing her. She submitted, unmoved.
The Basque bided his time. He watched Viviane’s ceremonious ablutions. Today she was swollen from many assaults. No matter how small a sum was placed for her on the table, she had never been known to stop a man from satisfying himself.
The big, rich lips, too much rubbed, were slightly distended, and a slight fever burned her. The Basque was very gentle. He deposited his little gift on the table. He undressed. He promised her a balm, a cotton, a veritable padding. These delicacies put her off her guard. The Basque handled her as if he were a woman. Only a little touch there, to smooth, to quieten, the fever. Her skin was as dark as a gypsy’s, very smooth and clean, and even powdered. His fingers were sensitive. He touched her only by accident, brushing by, and laid his sex on her belly like a toy, merely for her to admire. It answered when spoken to. Her belly vibrated to its weight, heaving slightly to feel it there. As he showed no impatience to move it where it would be sheltered, enclosed, she permitted herself the luxury of expanding, abandoning herself.
The gluttony of other men, their egotism, their eagerness to satisfy themselves without appreciation of her, made her hostile. But the Basque was gallant. He compared her skin to satin, her hair to moss, her odor to the scent of precious woods. Then he placed his sex at the opening and said tenderly: “Does it hurt? I won’t push it in if it hurts.”
Such delicacy moved Viviane. She said, “It hurts just a little, but try.”
He advanced only half an inch at a time. “Does it hurt?” He offered to take it out. Then Viviane had to press him, “Just the tip. Try again.”
So the tip slipped in an inch or so, then rested. This gave Viviane plenty of time in which to feel its presence, time that other men did not give her. Between each tiny advance into her, she had leisure to feel how pleasant its presence was between the soft walls of flesh, how well it fitted, neither too tight nor too loose. Again he waited, then advanced a little more. Viviane had time to feel how good it was to be filled, how well suited the female crevice was to hold and to keep. The pleasure of having something to hold there, exchanging warmth, mingling the two moistures. He moved again. The suspense. The awareness of the emptiness when he withdrew—her flesh withered almost immediately. She closed her eyes. His gradual entrance threw radiations all around it, invisible currents warning the deeper regions of her womb that some explosion was coming, something made to fit in the soft-walled tunnel and to be devoured by its hungry depths, where restless nerves lay waiting. Her flesh yielded more and more. He entered further.
“Does it hurt?” He took it out. She was disappointed and did not want to confess how she withered inside without his expanding presence.
She was forced to beg, “Slip it in again.” It was sweet. Then he placed it halfway in, where she could feel and yet not clutch at it, where she could not truly hold it. He acted as if he would leave it halfway there for good. She wanted to move towards it and engulf it but she restrained herself. She wanted to scream. The flesh he did not touch was burning at his nearness. At the back of the womb there lay flesh that demanded to be penetrated. It curved inwards, opened to suck. The flesh walls moved like sea anemones, seeking by suction to draw his sex in, but it was only near enough to send currents of excruciating pleasure. He moved again, watching her face. Then he saw her mouth open. She wanted to raise her body now, to take his sex in wholly, but she waited. By this slow teasing he had her on the edge of hysteria. She opened her mouth as if to reveal the openness of her womb, its hunger, and only then did he plunge to the very bottom and felt her contractions.